Our bishops supported Labour for so long that no one will listen if they...
This Government has now been in power for two months, and there are enough straws in the wind for the beginnings of an assessment as to how well, from a Catholic perspective, the coalition is doing....
View ArticleCameron has left the Church floundering
There are certain similarities between the Conservative Party and the Catholic Church. One is that Conservatives and Catholics are both traditionally respectful of authority. Another is that both...
View ArticleMargaret Thatcher was my political opponent, but it would be disingenuous to...
My first encounter with Margaret Thatcher was just a few days before she won the 1979 vote of no confidence – the vote which brought down Jim Callaghan’s government and precipitated the 1979 General...
View ArticleTory party leaders have forgotten what a conservative outlook is all about
Reading the headlines in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday – “Swivel-eyed loons” hit back at PM – as well as all the articles in the newspaper relating to the well-publicised gulf between the Tory part of...
View ArticleWe need a thinker in the mould of Edmund Burke to present the case for a...
Ed West’s review of Jesse Norman’s biography of Edmund Burke in the Herald of August 2 gives tantalising glimpses of the great conservative thinker and makes me want to know Burke better, not just his...
View ArticleBaroness Warsi to give Benedict XVI Lecture
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the Government’s minister for faith and communities, will give the second Benedict XVI Lecture in London on December 2. Lady, who met with Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the...
View ArticleWithout a conservative mentality in the pews, churches would be emptier than...
Easter is a time when politicians frequently “do God”. In an article in the Church Times, David Cameron urged Christians to be more “evangelical” about their faith and spoke warmly, if ambiguously, of...
View ArticleCatholics had a true friend in Michael Gove
When Michael Gove left the Department for Education in this week’s Cabinet reshuffle, England’s Catholic community lost a true friend in a key office of state. Gove was a staunch defender of the...
View ArticleWestminster’s foolish bribe will push Scotland closer to independence
In some ways, the Scottish referendum is already lost – in spirit if not in letter – for the Unionist cause. Whatever the result on September 18, the wind is in the sails of nationalism. From a...
View ArticleUkip is strongest in England’s Puritan heartlands, but it is growing among...
Will the bishops advise Catholics in England and Wales not to vote Ukip in their election guidance? The text was drawn up at this month’s plenary meeting, and although the advice will be “in no way...
View ArticlePro-lifers, check your MP’s record on assisted suicide. A major battle lies...
During my 10 years as a voter I never imagined that I could bring myself to support Labour – the party that, I believe, irrevocably damaged the social fabric of our country after coming to power in...
View ArticleIf you fail to get elected, it will not be in vain
Some politicians will wake up on May 8 and not know what to do. For the past five years, their attempts to ascend the greasy pole at Westminster have dominated their every waking minute. Now many will...
View ArticleCardinal Nichols congratulates Cameron on election victory
Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster has congratulated David Cameron on his election victory and said the Church “looks forward” to working with the new Parliament. The cardinal added that among the...
View ArticleVirtue now means thinking the right thing, rather than doing it
Ed West, in his ruminations about the recent Conservative victory in the general election, points to a moral phenomenon of our times: virtue signalling. Please do read the Spectator article which is a...
View ArticleOnly God can save the Labour Party
It is said, of the 20th century, that the Left won the culture war, the Right won the economics war and the Centre won the politics war. That thought nicely encapsulates the post-Cold War ideological...
View ArticleScotland’s Catholic pariah
The Catholic politician Jim Murphy, who last weekend resigned as leader of the Scottish Labour Party, was one of the biggest casualties of the Scottish National Party’s electoral surge. The nationalist...
View ArticleDavid Cameron’s ‘British values’ agenda is anti-Christian
With ISIS in the news, and with young people leaving this country to join them, ‘‘extremist disruption orders’’ (EDOs), designed to prevent the spread of extremism, appear both sensible and popular....
View ArticleBishops’ agency ‘disappointed’ by faith cap for free schools
The Catholic bishops’ education agency has expressed disappointment that the Catholic Church is effectively blocked from opening any free schools despite a Conservative promise to create hundreds more....
View ArticleBishop backs Conservatives over reform of prisons
Bishop Richard Moth of Arundel and Brighton has said he is “extremely encouraged” by the emphasis that Conservatives are placing on the reform of prisons. In his conference speech this week David...
View ArticleCardinal Nichols congratulates Theresa May on her imminent appointment as...
Cardinal Vincent Nichols has congratulated Theresa May on her imminent appointment as Prime Minister. In a letter, the Archbishop of Westminster said he was “only too aware of the magnitude of the...
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