A Thinking Man

What would you do with £1.5 million?
I suppose if I were given it to spend just on myself and not feel bound to give it away, I could quite happily think of things. In order of priority - a new phone with all the latest gizmos (yes, I really am that shallow), a visit [...]

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Spain is courageously seeking to follow a difficult path of modernization.
The Spanish government has announced plans to secularize the constitution and remove privileges that have been granted uniquely to the Roman Catholic Church.
When the Spanish government was sworn in last April, the Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero decided to take his oath [...]

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There were some events that I just never expected to happen during my lifetime - the ending of Apartheid in South Africa and the decline of Communism in Europe and the fall of the Berlin Wall, for example. Thankfully, sometimes seemingly impossible things do happen, though I never thought the ‘Irish Question’ would ever [...]

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I have reprinted below an appeal by Amnesty International on behalf of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Democratic Republic of Congo: Abuse and arbitrary detention of women political activists
Politically motivated arrests in the country have been particularly high since the first democratic elections in 2006. There have been widespread reports of supporters from opposition [...]

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I have written before about how churches sometimes want to use tax laws to their unreasonable advantage, and how in Italy at least, this is costing the state millions.
A recent case has occurred in America, where one rich Televangelist is being asked by the state to account for his expenditure. Instead of opening the [...]

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Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, has been criticised by the British Medical Association (BMA) after he dramatically increased pressure on the private Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, in St John’s Wood, North London, to implement a new code of Roman Catholic ethics. Members of [...]

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There are press reports in the UK that the government is seriously considering legislation to force Internet service providers (ISPs) to take concrete steps to curb illegal downloads. It is estimated that 6 million broadband users illegally download files each year.
I don’t, for a minute, doubt that piracy is responsible for a slump in the [...]

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There has been mild to mad outrage in the UK press over the past couple of days about the primary school pupil from London whose parents wanted him to go to Stonehenge. Nothing outrageous about that, you might think. However, it was during term time, so there is at least a prima facie [...]

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Senior clerics within the Church of England are protesting that trainee priests will be brought to their knees because of UK government plans to reform university funding and raise tuition fees for second degrees.
Three quarters of the 1,500 students training to become Church of England clergy at any one time are taking second university [...]

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Several years ago (at my age, I now find that precise historical details are a bit vague) I was fairly active politically. I was a signed up party member, I stood for election to the local council (failed to get elected), and beat the streets delivering leaflets and knocking on doors. During one [...]

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