In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: Europe

  • Democracy & the Lie: do they go hand in hand ?

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    During July, two articles by Andreas Whittam Smith appeared in The Independent newspaper on successive days.  Here are the links to them: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/broken-democracy-spin-doctors-destroyed-uk-politics-theresa-may-repair-it-a7135146.html ; http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/fix-broken-democracy-smash-political-class-two-simple-things-a7137131.html Whittam Smith co-founded The Independent and his two pieces are worth reading. They explore the Brexit campaign’s “victory” and contain proposals for starting a process of renewal of the UK’s…

  • Report

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    I wish to report a strange man of average height, indeterminate skin colour but a knowing look who sidled into town today wearing an immaculate top hat and shoddy trainers. He said he was searching for a convenient park popular with the townspeople where he could set himself up to sell his famous elixir.  …

  • Six Truth Works Three Tattoos

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    Here in the UK, recent elections and this Summer’s cataclysmic EU referendum have been opportunities for liars, demagogues and PR specialists to practice their skills on the population, in order to sway it to their will. The phenomenon is not unique to the UK, nor of course is it unprecedented. But the pervasive dishonesty, recklessness…

  • “The People” is Sovereign. To defraud the sovereign is a capital offence.

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    In the UK following its EU referendum, “the People’s Will” is a phrase now often being quoted with reverence as something unarguable, final, almost sacred, however uncomfortable. The phrase is being quoted most often and with greatest reverence by the public figures who helped to secure the Brexit vote by whatever means they could –…

  • Three Poems post-Brexit

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      Last Stand   The hyphen between I and Thou is our last stand and foothold. There’s nowhere else to retreat to. No set answer no fixed place. Centuries back the desert fathers came here and left strange word behind among skull and thigh bone and the odd green shoot forced into life through ardent…

  • Where to Look for Answers ?

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    Post Brexit, despair floods in, layer by layer ; the lamentable result itself, how it was arrived at, and the background from which the mayhem welled up, now cascading all over us. Any space anywhere for hope ? In search of hope, where might we expect to look ? To the steppe from whence the…

  • Post-Referendum First Thoughts

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    At the time of writing, Britain is faced with what the experienced commentator Michael White has described as the worst political crisis of his lifetime. Not just our political parties, but much of our democratic process seem to be imploding. It seems that, having voted to break away from the EU, our nation itself feels…

  • The Inn this Advent

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    Photograph by Robert Atanasoski/AFP/Getty Images. Expulsion I heard this song tonight from the desert the shelters below ground there and the wrecked homes and I heard it from the grey waters just south of Europe, with winter coming on and the boat leaking and from the guard posts and barbed frontiers that now cover a…