Yep, Mr Jepps is kick starting the carnival back to life and I have volunteered to do one this weekend .
Its been dormant for a while, but the aim is that lefty bloggers take turns in doing a Carnival .Basically pulling together posts of interest across the left blogosphere . It can be themed or general . In the past I have done both.
I enjoy it as it focuses me on looking wider than my usual blogs and hopefully introduces them to new readers .
Do please leave suggestions for posts in the comment box, it will be a general one this time, and if you are interested in doing one contact Jim over on the Carnival website . There are also links to past ones, that will give you a flavour of what they are like.
Been busy this week; trying to find work, not getting work and protesting . Feel a mix of anxiety, anger and general depression . But hey, gotta a blog to attend to .
Tomorrow I plan to do a round up of posts , and my thoughts on the CSR. I'll have a potter round the blogs and papers , but if anyone wants to highlight anything they have seen, let me know in the comments box.
With the Comprehensive Spending Review, just days away – see our October 2010 events calendarfor details of events against the cuts around the country. There is an LRC public meeting in Parliament on the night of the CSR statement, and another event a week later in Manchester:
Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House, House of Commons, Westminster
Speakers include: Manuel Cortes (TSSA), Bob Crow (RMT), Jeremy Dear (NUJ), Dot Gibson (National Pensioners Convention), Steve Gillan (POA), Jonathan Ledger (NAPO), John McDonnell MP (LRC Chair), Mick Shaw (FBU), Simon Weller (ASLEF)
Speakers include: Cllr Matthew Brown (Preston), Jeremy Dear (NUJ), Steve Gillan (POA), Peter Keenlyside (CWU), Alice Mahon, Joe Marino (BFAWU), John McDonnell MP, Mick Shaw (FBU)
Many think LGBT rights have been won, I mean look the poofs can have a civil partnership. There is the pink pound, now stop your griping and get back in the club rather than the closet .ON an aside that ignores the point that LGBT includes Trans people and bi-sexuals, often forgotten in the debates. One need only look at Stonewall to see how even Gay organisations happily ignore the issues of trans people by nominating candidates for awards with less than enlightened views . Then there is the attitude of some feminists to trans women, ignoring the very real violence that they face and excluding them from events , by omission or explicitly. I'll say more about trans issues and bisexuality as well , another time .
Back to the main point, people are still prejudiced against lesbian and gay people, and the battle is far from won . Sadly no one should sigh with relief and believe its all sorted , rights and acceptance can slip away . Even in very Gay friendly Brighton there is still violence and abuse . I want though to focus on worrying reports from the US . The Observer reports on this :
Liberal America has looked on aghast as virulent homophobic prejudice seems to have returned to its streets and cities. Most remarkable of all, much of it seems to be centred on the New York region, usually tolerant in its politics and not seen as hostile to homosexuals living openly. But it was just a few miles away from Bounville's protest in the Bronx that a group of suspected gang members brutally beat and tortured a 30-year-old gay man and several other youths who had been associated with him. The details of the assault, for which 10 people have been arrested, horrified New Yorkers. The gay victim was kidnapped, beaten, whipped and burned.
The shocking crime was just one of a series of incidents that have hit the city. Others have even occurred in the heart of New York's vibrant gay scene. In the Chelsea neighbourhood, which has a large gay population, a group of men hugging each other goodbye after a night out were punched and had a rubbish bin thrown at them. Meanwhile in the famous Stonewall Inn, where the modern gay rights movement was founded after a police raid in 1969, a customer was beaten and robbed by men who hurled homophobic insults at him.
For many observers the violence has been especially worrying as it has come at the same time as several leading Republicans have made anti-gay statements. South Carolina's Senator Jim DeMint, one of America's most powerful Republican politicians, has publicly said that gay people should not be allowed to become teachers.
Those sentiments were echoed by the Republican candidate in the New York governor race, Carl Paladino. In an astonishing piece of political theatre at a meeting of conservative Orthodox Jews, Paladino condemned gay pride parades and said gay people should not teach in schools. When the comments stirred outrage in the media, Paladino went on the talk show circuit in New York to complain about men "grinding" against each other at marches while wearing Speedos. "Is that normal?" he asked one TV interviewer.
The remarks were so bizarre some observers dismissed them as just another gaffe from a candidate dogged by allegations of infidelity and sending pornographic images by email. But gay rights activists say that is a mistake. There is a direct link, they say, between such public statements of homophobia and attacks. "These comments give licence to those who use violence. It is dangerous. It is tragic to think these hateful kinds of words have consequences," said Michael Cole, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, which campaigns for gay rights in America.
Such sentiments do not just encourage violent attacks; they can also spur people to suicide. Recently a student at Rutgers University committed suicide after his room-mate broadcast one of his gay sexual encounters over the internet. In Oklahoma recently a 19-year-old man killed himself after attending a local council meeting where members of the public had spoken out against celebrating the local gay community. The family of Zach Harrington, who committed suicide at home, told their local newspaper in the small town of Norman that they believed the "toxic" environment of the meeting had pushed him over the edge.
I remember friends who struggled at school , teased and bullied for being gay . Its depressing to read reports of this still happening , but it does. "Gay ' is an insult in the playground , kids are still bullied in the US and over here . Talk of gay people as unsuitable to be teachers sends a very clear message ; being lesbian or gay is not normal, don't tell anyone if you are and of course that most despicable of mud slinging, poofs are paedophiles after your children. Sickening . Add in faith schools teaching its a sin and its hardly a positive environment .
Playground bullying extends into adult violence , as Johann Hari points out :
In London, recorded homophobic attacks are up by 20 per cent. In Glasgow it's 32 per cent; in Liverpool it's 40 per cent; in Greater Manchester it's 63 per cent. James Parks is only the latest face to be kicked in by this trend: last week, the off-duty police officer left a club in Liverpool with his boyfriend and was lynched by a group of 20 teenagers who smashed his skull and left him close to death.
In a recession, violence always rises, and violence against minorities rises more. Attacks on Muslims, Jews, and black people are also spiking across Britain. But recorded violence against gay people has shown the most extreme rise. Last year, an 18 year-old hairdresser in Liverpool called Michael Causer was sleeping on a friend's sofa after a party when he was woken up. A witness testified that a group of teenagers yelled, "You little queer faggot!" They said they were going to cut out his body-piercings with a knife, and started burning his legs with a lighter. He was found bleeding to death later, dumped in the road outside, after having his head smashed in with a hardback book.
At the trial, one of the 19-year-olds tried for the murder said he was acting "in self-defence" – against a smaller, seven-and-a-half stone boy with no history of violent behaviour. A witness said that during the attack, he had yelled: "He's a little queer, he deserves it!" Yet the jury found him not guilty
Hari points out the culture in schools :
Almost all the new homophobic attacks have been carried out by teenagers who are in – or just out of – the education system. It is not a coincidence that our schools are the one place where homophobic violence is still absolutely mainstream. The official schools inspectorate, Ofsted, says that homophobia is "endemic" in our playgrounds and our classrooms. A study by Stonewall found 41 per cent of gay children are beaten up, and 17 per cent have been told they're going to be killed (it's 10 per cent higher still in faith schools). The young people who attacked PC James Parks were simply taking that culture out of the playground and onto the streets.
This doesn't have to happen. Michael Causer's mother, Marie, says: "This generation of infants needs to be educated. You hear youngsters as young as four and five saying 'Go away, you're gay.' It might be a word to them, but their parents need to pull them up and tell them that it's wrong. They need better education to let them know that gay people are no different."
When this is tried, it works. The Stonewall study found that in schools with a consistent policy of punishing homophobic language, gay children were 60 per cent less likely to be attacked. That fall in violence could ripple out from the school gates - but today, only 6 per cent of schools adopt this policy. The Government should immediately make it mandatory.
So my point is ? Well its that there is no room for complacency .It IS still an issue. Kids are still bullied, its still seen as an insult . People die, others still pretend or struggle . The left as well need to keep this in mind, many seem to minimise it when it happens in 'anti imperialist' countries, well it happens here as well . Wherever it happens , its bloody awful.
This still needs to be on our agenda , even if it doesn't build the party.
So if that has fired up anger at such horrific examples of violence, the only 'reason' for it being that someone loves or has sex with another of the same gender, then get along to this on the 23rd . It is the 2nd Vigil against hate crime.
Now to end on a more positive note, a very moving personal account alongside the stories and pictures of children who killed themselves due to homophobic bullying :
A very brave man, especially in Texas I suspect. Give that man a hug.
I am sure she had her faults , but she was a strong woman who stood up for the NHS and spoke out about safe sex when it was not the done thing. A humanist, rationalist and defender of the rights of patients . She came from a generation that didn't talk about sex, but her approach as an agony aunt was non judgemental and open :
Her husband, who was also her agent and manager, paid tribute to her, saying: "Through her work she helped hundreds of thousands of people and doubtless, by talking frankly about the importance of safe sex in the 80s when almost nobody else would discuss it, helped to save thousands of lives.
"Through her own approach to life she enabled people to talk about their problems in a way that was unique.
I always remember the horror stories my mother, a similar age, told me about girls in particular not being told about sex , about the ignorance . It was good to have someone no nonsense, like Claire, talk about that openly to break down the embarrassment . Sadly many want to go back to the days of no sex education in schools, or pull their children out of it.
New Humanist reprint an interview, that gives a flavour of her forthright style .
John McDonnell MP is sponsoring the Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill as his private members Bill in Parliament. The Bill would tackle the increasing practice by employers of using minor technical errors in the balloting process - which have no material effect on the outcome - to take unions to court in order to prevent them from taking industrial action.
The Bill is being debated in Parliament on Friday 22 October, and requires 100 MPs to attend the debate and to vote for it. If you have a Labour MP, please lobby them to attend and vote for the Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill. Come to the Lobby of Parliament and Rally on 13 October to tell your MP to back the Bill.
“We have seen in the current BA Cabin Crew dispute and many other recent disputes, employers have been able to exploit loopholes in the existing law by using minor technical errors in a trade union ballot to thwart trade unionists from taking strike action.
“This resort to the courts by some ruthless employers is bringing current employment law into disrepute and undermining industrial relations in this country. This cannot be right and in the interests of good industrial relations needs to be addressed.”
Is George Osborne squeezing the rich to help poor families? No!
I posted earlier this year in defence of universal Child Benefit, when gossip was spreading that it could come under attack. I won't repeat here the arguments I made there in defence of universality, but I do want to make a few points about the specific policy that the Tories have just announced - to remove Child Benefit from families where one person earns more than £44k.
In doing so, I want to tackle the aspect that I find particularly annoying - the Tories' pretence that this is a pro-working-class policy, which will no doubt find cheerleaders in the tabloids and may even impair the ability of some on the 'left' to defend universal Child Benefit against this attack.
Despite its pretensions at squeezing the rich, George Osborne's announcement leaves rich people without kids well alone while those with kids have money taken from them. No-one is losing money for being rich, but for having kids.
There is a serious ideological point here about society's attitude to, and responsibility for, children. The attack on Child Benefit is based on an assumption that children are the private indulgence of their parents rather than the responsibility of society in general. Sometimes, it feels like people think that "the taxpayer" is being asked to pay towards people's cars or butlers, not towards their children.
Moreover, earning £44k and bit most definitely does NOT make you "rich". It may be well above the average wage, but it is the wage of, for example, some skilled manual workers. If you are one of these and, say, you live in London bringing up three kids on your own or with a partner on much lower earnings, then you may get by, but you hardly live the life of Riley.
The rich-poor divide is not between people on £25k and people on £45k, but between people on £25k and people on £100k+ and a stash of wealth. Let's target our anger against the genuine rich, not on working families who might earn more than other working families, but who certainly do not share in the full fruits of their labour, and are definitely not "rich".
Even so, the way to deal with the genuinely rich is not to take away their child benefit, but to tax them til the pips squeak, or better still, to legislate a maximum wage.
Pink stinks , or why not all little girls want to be princesses
Now I don't have kids and until recently didn't really know any . I was more likely to be found camping it up with gay men or sitting with a load of old Trots at a meeting . Over the last few years though, I have spent time with Dave's girls, Rachel and Hannah. They are 10 and 7 respectively.
This has meant delving into the world of little girls, whether that be toys, books or clothes. Now when I was a kid I got mucky outdoors, rode a bike, played with 'boys' toys and I can't ever remember wanting to be a princess or wear pink. As I wandered through Hamleys looking for pressies a while back, argh a hell only equaled by a trip to Ikea, I found my self confronted by what looked like quite clearly stereotypes boys and girls toys. Now of course there is nothing to stop a girl having any of the toys, and in fact Hannah is partial to bug related books and games, but the shop does not so gently demarcate specific gender toys . It is not the only store that does this. Go in most toy shops and you'll be surrounded by barbies and bratz, all pink and princessy or wag wannabes. Toys are pink packaged. This must be what its like in Katie Price's world, an explosion of candyfloss.
Many of the games are quite domestic, others aimed at quite young girls include make up, glitter and kits to make jewellery.Head to the boys and it is all much more manly, with science kits,trucks and sport.
Clothes shopping is no better , ranging from the cheap Primark to the more yummy mummy approved Gap . I have been looking around for some pyjamas for Rachel and they are all pink or if not very very cutesy . Rachel does not like pink ! Over the summer she needed some t-shirts. All she wanted was plain and not pink, with long sleeves. Bloody nightmare to find . Rows of pink, cute or princess t-shirts , or if not some bordering on a bit too Wag and grown up.
I popped into a shop selling rock t-shirts as she likes these and has a few. The assistant was helpful , but assumed the ten year old was a boy. I said a girl, yes they do like rock music !, and was directed to some pink Blondie ones . I said she doesn't like pink . The assistant looked bemused .
Now I know there are good educational toy and clothes shops with more of a range . I know that no one needs to buy along gender lines. But a quick tour of the high street will show an assumption that little girls love love love pink, want to be princesses (so many books about that) or else want to be Wags or on X Factor . It is not choice when all pyjamas on the high street come in a range of pink . The boys had action figures, combat pant PJs and dark manly colours .I gave up and will get her black leggings and a t-shirt instead.
To avoid this, to try to push past the stereotypes and marketing, takes times and effort and often is the more expensive shop that caters . Many parents will not have time or will grab cheap clothes as kids grow fast. They may not have the cash for the more expensive shops catering for the educational toys , with less pink in them.
Girls are being offered little choice and to move away from that means them pushing the boundaries and going to the boys section, thus perhaps then not fitting in with their peers . It takes a strong minded girl to reject the overwhelming pink pressure . This also affects boys , yep they are being pushed towards manly pursuits from an early age. Brave is the boy who wears pink and buys a doll.
I am not talking about pushing Hannah and Rachel into politically correct gender neutral toys and clothes. They are saying what they want themselves. Hannah likes her bugs and Rachel hates pink and dresses . Luckily they are both pretty strong minded little girls and say what they want. It just means a lot more effort to get the stuff.
I'm not alone in my frustration, there is a website called Pink Stinks. Check it out !
Pic, one of the T-shirts for sale on the Pink Stinks website.
Last week, everyone had gone gooey for Diane Abbott. On Saturday, when it emerged that Abbott had failed to electrify trades union voters, the left placed its hope and aspirations on someone else’s shoulders. “Ed Miliband’s victory can open a gap”, said Socialist Worker, without elaborating further. “This is a change in the situation socialists can capitalise on,” argued Workers Power, after making noises about a return to old Labour. The Communist Party of Britain went even further, helpfully produced a “ten-point programme for Ed Miliband’s Shadow Cabinet” that bears a remarkable resemblance to their beloved People’s Charter.
The centre ground has certainly shifted- but not to the left, like half of the press would have you think. There’s no greater evidence of this shift than the reaction to the election of Ed Miliband, Red Ed.
The only thing about the nickname that works is the rhyme.
Post-victory Ed Miliband himself could barely contain himself as he rushed to declare that there would be no “lurch to the left”. Well, of course not. A man on a leftward trajectory would not have received juicy campaign donations from Lawrence Staden, a multimillionaire hedge fund owner, who made millions in profit from the recession.
In his first article as Labour Leader – published in The Torygraph - Ed declares that his “aim is to show that our party is on the side of the squeezed middle in our country and everyone who has worked hard and wants to get on.” The squeezed middle? Try being part of that rather more squeezed socio-economic group right at the bottom of the ladder.
Ed Miliband is not left-wing. He’s the continuity candidate. Not a Blairite, certainly, but he did write the last Labour manifesto. Radical document it wasn’t. On Question Time, Miliband told a London fire fighter that she didn’t have the right to strike, despite being threatened with the sack if she didn’t back a contract change that will knock hours off the night shift, leaving the capital city vulnerable.
Today, Ed Miliband once again came out against the Unions, announcing that “The public won’t support [strikes]. I won’t support them and you shouldn’t support them either.”
Miliband voted for the anti-terrorism laws that undermine the civil liberties of us all. He voted for ID cards. He didn’t oppose the Iraq war at the time but he did oppose an investigation into its legality.
Even worse, Miliband’s sense of “justice” keeps being attributed to Marxist parent, Ralph Miliband. Really, stop blaming poor Ralph for his son.
Sorry not been posting of late. I have been trying to get a job. Unlike the tales of the Mail, I do not spend my time watching Jeremy Kyle on a plasma TV, whilst wearing a tracksuit. I get £64 a week, which hardly covers anything, certainly not a mortgage . I am using up my redundancy pay and when it is gone, well without a job then so is my home .
I keep looking and applying for jobs and getting nowhere fast. Jobs on much less than I earned, yet still can't get one. I can't even go back to unqualified support work , let alone social work, as they want people who have recently worked in that area. I haven't for a while .
So I am not really taking much notice of the Labour Leadership or the latest spats on the blogs. I'm sure I will eventually, but am generally too stressed and worried to give a toss at the moment.
ON THE one hand, sections of a jubilant Labour left are turning cartwheels across the floor. On the other, the rightwing press is rehashing the kind of low level McCarthyite headlines not seen in this country since the early 1980s.
Both immediate reactions to the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader highlight the lack of balance or historical rigour that prevails in political commentary in Britain today.
To the extent that Ed is not his brother – who of course stood in apostolic succession to Blair – then those who do not favour the continuation of New Labourism in its most anachronistic variant will regard his success as the least bad possible outcome of an unnecessarily protracted contest .
But there is little point in coming to firm judgement until we see what Miliband does in his new capacity. While it is good to hear him declare that ‘the era of New Labour has passed’, he has yet to specify with what it will be replaced. If there is to be a Milibandism, we so far have no real indication of what the parameters will encompass.
Ed’s parliamentary career has so far been short, and he was not around for the crunch votes of the first and second term. But it is fair to observe that nothing he has done since 2005 marked him out as a natural born boat rocker.
Perhaps he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he has been hiding his social democratic light under a bushel, thus accounting for the accusation that he is some kind of crypto-Bennite.
But look under his bed, and the reds are strikingly hard to find. An examination of his concrete track record suggests that little stronger than reheated Hattersleyism is set to feature on the Miliband menu.
Opinions will vary as to how far that can viable be described as a good thing, but it certainly does not constitute a ‘lurch to the left’ in any meaningful employment of the left-right continuum as a working analytical tool.
A minimal grasp of twentieth century British political history should represent some kind of prerequisite for punditry. Yet how many columnists would be able to fit Miliband into the spectrum of Labour leaders of the past? Ironically, one of the best places to glean that information the book ‘Parliamentary Socialism’, penned by Ed’s late father Ralph.
In short, Ed Miliband does not want to be either a Blair or a Brown, which is to his credit. Neither is he likely to transmogrify into a Foot or an Attlee or a Lansbury. Callaghan? Kinnock? Let’s not go there. The question is how inspiring the public are going to find a Gaitskell or a Smith in the crucial years ahead.
This is from Thompson's Solicitors' e-bulletin ...
The TUC has published a report showing that more than 20,000 people in the UK are killed by injuries and health conditions contracted at work every year.
“The Case for Health and Safety” smashes the myth that Britain is one of the safest places to work and shows that health and safety is as relevant an issue today for workers and employees as it has ever been.
An analysis by the TUC of the most conservative official safety figures shows that at least 20,000 people - the equivalent of the entire population of the Orkney Islands - die every year as a result of conditions such as occupational cancers and lung diseases, exposure to fumes and chemicals, and fatal work-related traffic accidents.
The report finds that thousands of workplace injuries go unreported. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that almost 250,000 workplace injuries happened last year but many were unreported or not reported correctly.
“The Case for Health and Safety” also reveals that 1.2 million working people in the UK believe they are suffering from a work-related illness. These include heart disease, stress, musculoskeletal disorders such as back, shoulder and neck pain, and mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.
And the report disputes claims, which have fed calls from business for health and safety deregulation, that the workplace is now much safer than it has ever been.
The TUC is calling on the Government to:
• ignore calls from the business lobby to reduce regulation and enforcement • champion the issue and appoint a Government 'tsar' for health and safety • use the UK network of 150,000 trained union health and safety reps to even greater effect • support the work of the HSE and local authorities in protecting people at work.
You can download the report at: http://www.tuc.org.uk
Janine Booth (c'est moi), author of 'Guilty and Proud of it', will be giving an illustrated talk on the Poplar Council rates rebellion of 1921, when socialist councillors went to prison in a successful fight against cuts imposed by a Tory-Liberal coalition government. Jon Rogers, Lambeth Unison, will also be speaking about the prospects for fighting local government cuts today.
This Saturday, 25 September, 5pm, Housman's bookshop, King's Cross.
Forty years ago today, Jimi Hendrix died of an overdoes in a Notting Hill Hotel . One of what is often called the 27 club , a great musician who died much too young .
Cross post - Benedict XVI: Antichrist, or just a bit confused?
Cross post from Dave:
THE DESIGNATION Whore of Babylon does not refer to some mythical top notch super-dirty-in- bed Iraqi chick, but to a serious theological debate over the identity to the scarlet-clad woman described in chapter 17 of the Book of Revelation.
In the faith community in which I was raised, my poor old mum was always considered a hopeless cringing moderate because she did not automatically identify this figure with the Roman Catholic church, being alive to the exegetical possibility that the term could better be applied to the European Union instead.
I am put in mind of my upbringing after reading the remarks delivered by Benedict XVI before 125,000 admirers in Edinburgh yesterday, during which he launched into a tirade against the intolerance of something called ‘aggressive secularism’. Hello, your Holiness?
In the first place, it is a bit rich hearing homilies about the need for liberalism from a bloke who accuses gay people of possessing a ‘more or less strong tendency ordered towards an inherent moral evil’ and welcomes Holocaust deniers into the bosom of the mother Church. But let that pass.
I’m not even quite sure what ‘aggressive secularism’ is when it is at home, anyway. Does it differ from, say, passive-aggressive secularism, being one notch up on mere stridently assertive secularism but not quite such a bad thing as violent secularism? But let that pass, too. The whole line of reasoning at work here is just wrong, wrong, wrong.
The overwhelming majority of us secularists are actually laid back, live and let live-type dudes. We actively believe in, and argue for, freedom to propagate all religions and none. So if anybody freely chooses to go to mass on a Sunday morning, that’s fine with us. We’ll just stay in bed and nurse the hangover. Now sod off and leave us to suffer.
So it was that I found myself sticking up for a Christian guy handing out ‘turn or burn’ leaflets at the Brighton gay pride march, which could quite easily have seen him severely beaten had the assembled Muscle Marys taken umbrage at their content.
Precisely because I am a secularist, I am in favour of his right to tell people what they do not want to hear. Equally, I am in favour of the right of the Protest the Pope brigade to hit the streets on Saturday, even though I can’t be arsed to go along myself.
The very obvious historical truth is that the people most likely to be at the throats of members of any given religious group are members of other religious groups. They are, to paraphrase his Holiness, aggressive religionists.
In the playgrounds of western Scotland, competing gangs of kids slug it out under the banner of Papes and Prods. Well, they do in the unlikely event that they go to an integrated school in the first place, anyway
I presume that atheist and agnostic children consider themselves far above that sort of thing, and sensibly slope off behind the bikesheds for a quiet lunchtime fag instead.
And there’s more. In the afternoon, His Holiness was off to Glasgow, where a crowd of 65,000 were told: ‘Religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect, leading us to look upon every person as a brother or a sister.’
No it isn’t, and no it doesn’t. This stupid assertion is so readily refuted that I shall refrain from rehearsing the long, long list of repressive theocracies ideologically legitimated by Catholicism and sundry other creeds, both in history and in the present day.
In sum, Benedict XIV’s strange belief that religious viewpoints are in Britain systematically excluded from consideration in the market place for ideas is scarcely tenable. Indeed, they get a head start in the form of the compulsory ‘God slots’ on many broadcast outlets and a guaranteed place on the curriculum, when they should be slugging it out on the same terms as everybody else.
But if those viewpoints are to be taken seriously, it would help to come up with some arguments that are not quite so ludicrous as those the Pope has advanced so far on this trip.
