Category Archives: Judeo-Christian heritage

The importance of and assault on the Western Judeo-Christian heritage

Immigration

The recent furore over Gary Lineker’s comments about Conservative government migrant policy on the small boats has exposed clearly the hard left mentality that dominates political discourse in the UK. All the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork against the prospective policies of Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman: the Labour party, celebrities like Lineker, charities, open borders activists and of course the United Nations and so on.

At the risk of annoying all those who have already followed this story, Lineker’s contribution to the debate is not really a free speech issue. He is free to say what he likes as an independent person. However, as a very high profile BBC personality he should be aware of impartiality guidelines in view of the effect his words have on BBC viewers and people generally and realise that his take on government migration policy was outrageous considering the comparison with Germany in the Thirties.

The government has an enormous fight on its hands now as it finds itself in an epic battle between open borders supporters and those who believe in the nation state and protection of borders. It was once said that liberals tear down fences that already exist whilst conservatives try and conserve fences as they are there for a reason, and this is reflected by the migration issue.

Back in the day, when I was growing up in the UK, it was just taken as given that the world was composed of 195 odd countries which all had their own culture and history, and that you needed a passport or visa to cross a border from one country to another. Otherwise you were transgressing a basic, fundamental boundary that was criminal to sever. Most if not all people would have adhered to that outlook.

The world is much changed, and now legal and illegal immigration is running at historic and unprecedented levels. There are those that say it’s too late, the demography is irreversible, but you don’t keep digging if you’re in a hole. Demography is literally everything and we must have a discussion about nationhood, patriotism, history, heritage and what sort of future we want. A fundamental difference has to be acknowledged at the basis of any discussion, that there are those that believe in open borders and others, probably the majority, who believe in borders.

Those arguing for proper border controls must first of all be utterly confident in their position and have an unassailable arsenal of arguments to support their view, and they must be fearless in their stance, because the nature of the battle is that they are facing a very powerful bullying and intimidating spirit that shamefully resorts to name calling and cries of ‘bigot’ or ‘racist’ to get its way. A calm reasoned approach may not be popular against such opposition but it will chime strongly with the vast majority of thinking people.

Culture, history and nationhood are important because they run deep in our consciousness of who we are, and represent a very strong part of our identity. When we say we are British there are deep connections with a long island history, much of which has been positive and has benefited the world, with historic institutions such as the monarchy and Parliament, the judiciary, the army, universities, the country itself which is full of beauty, customs and mores which are seen as uniquely British, and so on. Although some of these institutions have lost some credibility for one reason or another, people are proud of the things these institutions represent, and you cannot just sweep them under the carpet.

Religion also historically plays an important role, although it is less understood by the intellectual and governing classes, Christianity has left its mark both on the physical nature of the landscape with its network of cathedrals, churches and chapels but also on the character of the people. Although the majority would not claim to be Christian, the teachings and commands of the Bible have left their mark on generations of inhabitants, and influence the temperament and character of the people today even if they are not specifically followers of Christ. Waves of immigration have brought other religions to these shores, and many of their adherents have assimilated admirably into our culture, such as the Jews, Sikhs and Hindus, but there have been and are strains on the body politic, and we have seen this particularly with Islam. Political Islam is a very strong strain of Islam which does not fit well with UK history and culture, and this must be recognised with immigration policymakers. There have been too many incidents in the last two decades of fundamental clashes. As Norman Tebbitt said, you cannot have two dominant cultures, Christianity and Islam.

This leads to another point. Militant Islam thinks strategically, British governments don’t. It is the price of having a democracy that governments don’t think much beyond the five year election cycle. British governments need to think more strategically about demography, culture and nationhood and how exactly it represents the average patriotic voter making up the ‘somewheres’ in the country as opposed to the ‘anywheres.’ We need statesmen who can see at least fifty years ahead.

Continuing to allow huge numbers of legal, and illegal immigrants from alien cultures will simply continue the present trajectory of bigger and bigger percentages of the population being foreign born and smaller percentages being indigenous Brits or indeed settled immigrants who have been happy to make Britain their home. Thus any existing historical culture and traditions will come under increasing strain especially with the discrimination and equality strands so strong in western culture.

If governments genuinely want to preserve their nation and culture they have to think of policies which encourage marriage, family and having children, as you only perpetuate your culture through producing the next generation. The former Chief Rabbi maybe made a salient point here when he said that Europeans are no longer prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to raise a family. This will involve ‘discrimination,’ but making judgements for the welfare of society is nothing less than eminently sensible. This might involve tax breaks, tax allowances e.g. interchangeable allowances between couples with children, subsidies or vouchers to encourage father and motherhood.

The fundamental problem with the open borders apologists is a failure to understand the nuances and discernment needed to have successful border protection. Protecting your own borders is a completely separate issue from racism and is a viewpoint that understands the argument that all human beings are of equal value and are entitled to be treated accordingly with dignity and respect, but nevertheless we all carry the values, lifestyle, religion and culture of the nation in which were born. Because these issues are so diverse and different across the world there will be significant conflict between them as has always been the case, and allowing huge numbers from alien cultures into your nation will inevitably lead to problems.

The UK is a tiny state physically. I have just looked at the World Population Review for 2023 and the UK is the one of the most densely populated relatively large advanced economies in the world after South Korea, India and Japan, in other words it is the most densely populated significant advanced western nation period, with 725 people/square mile, over twice the density of France with 306 people per square mile. Germany is the next most densely populated big western country with 617/square mile. If you drill down deeper, the population density of England as opposed to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is even greater. This alone should make policy makers think very carefully about openness to high numbers of immigrants because of the strain on infrastructure that mass immigration inevitably will bring. It’s such an obvious point that it is difficult to take seriously any arguments of mass immigration activists. There is limited road space, railway infrastructure, hospital capacity, housing space, water resources, etc. and unless you accordingly increase such infrastructure continuing mass immigration is simply foolish. I myself have faced this problem as a local Councillor attending a Southern Water workshop where forecasts of water shortages in the future were shared with delegates.

If you believe in the validity of the nation state you must always put your own people first, every time. In other words their welfare is more important than looking after any immigrant. Obviously there are genuine refugees and asylum seekers fleeing from catastrophic circumstances and the UK has a responsibility to help such people, but the British government must ensure the safety and security of its own people as priority.

Whatever the pros and cons of immigration it is time for the UK to pause and take stock of the implications of its immigration policy over the last forty years. It seems that arguments for mass immigration have centred around the needs of the economy, the need to keep wages low, the need to fill many low skilled jobs that many British people do not want to do, but surely we should be aiming to get our own people back into work before thinking about importing a workforce, and also we should be having a discussion about nationhood, culture and cohesion at this important time in our history.

Letter sent to BBC in middle of Covid

7.2.21

Dear Sir/Madam

I write with regard to the Covid crisis. Please understand that I am not denying that Covid exists nor the tragic circumstances for many families who have lost loved ones. Nor am I denying the sensitive coverage by the BBC of many who have suffered either directly or indirectly in this crisis. However I do believe the presponse of the authorities and media has been grossly disproportionate.

It is evident to me that the BBC is far too complicit in pushing the narrative that lockdowns are the only way of dealing with the pandemic, followed by the vaccination roll out of course, and in effect you have been operating as the propaganda arm of the government for the last ten months. I have listened to you consistently and there has been no deviation from the official line. I would have thought it more serving of the general public for the main news channel in the country to have a far more circumspect approach, wondering at the very least if there might be a better way of dealing with Covid, and yet there appears to be a frightening level of group think which is unwilling to debate or air sufficiently any other viewpoint.

The government could be forgiven at the beginning of the pandemic for taking a full lockdown approach given the fact that we had not experienced a serious plague for 100 years and what was happening across the world in countries like Italy and the US. However it was evident pretty quickly that the vast majority of deaths were of those over 65 with comorbidities. We had the opportunity then to reevaluate the lockdown policy and debate whether there was a better way. It surely would have been a far more common sense approach to have concentrated on protecting the vulnerable and get the rest of society back to normal as quickly as possible. Instead despite some easing of restrictions in the summer the government imposed mask wearing and doubled down on the lockdown approach with the tier system and further lockdowns in the autumn and into 2021. The BBC just went along with this as if it was the undisputedly correct approach.

It is obvious to anyone with an ounce of discernment that shutting down society to deal with Covid is an incredibly blunt and brutal instrument whose negative effects are incalculable – separating people from one another, splitting families, isolating an enormous number of single households in this country, putting on hold treatment for other health issues, excess deaths from those who had heart, cancer or other issues that were never dealt with, destroyed businesses and consequently broken lives, disrupted education for millions of children (I am a teacher and strongly oppose the union policy of keeping children put of school). The list goes on. Despite any government intentions it could be argued that this was an anti-human and some would say even wicked thing to do in the name of a public health crisis.

This is especially galling in view of the fact that although hospitals have been under pressure the numbers of deaths in historical terms have not been that great, although each death is obviously awful for many families. But be honest, how many deaths have been of fit and healthy people who are not overweight and do not have secondary conditions? Very few. This is where the media have blown the crisis out of all proportion and together with government have projected an unhealthy level of fear over society which in turn has led to an unhealthy level of control which we are now struggling to get out of. This would be considered by many people to be unforgivable.

In the late summer of 2020 an opportunity was given through the Great Barrington Declaration which was supported by over 50000 medical practitioners to change course by concentrating on protecting the vulnerable and releasing the rest of society to get back to normal, a perfectly common sense approach which would have avoided the continuing collateral damage to the economy and society. But it was cast aside by the powers that be who continued with arguably their ruinous lockdown approach. Can you please explain to me why we as a society cannot concentrate on protecting the vulnerable if we can produce reams of directives to regulate every other possible area of society? The proposal could have received at least considerably more debate.

On top of this are the problems with the data. The BBC feeds us with a daily figure of the number of deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test. Yet neither you nor the government nor anyone else, even medical experts can tell us how many of these people actually died of Covid and how many with Covid. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to surmise that the majority of those people died mainly of other causes given that they were old, such as heart problems, cancer, pneumonia, kidney failure, so on and so forth, and Covid was simply another condition whose extra weight and burden especially to those of great age overcame the patient. In addition is the problem of the high rate of testing with false positives with the popular Covid PCR test, which muddies the waters even further.

Given that what we know about the virus most people under 65 are under little threat from the virus, we then have the issue of social distancing. This whole idea of people being asymptomatic is fraught with difficulty. The idea that we have to socially distance because we might or might not have a virus is a rather tenuous basis for a major public policy. Even if someone had the virus what sort of virus load would they carry especially if they were asymptomatic, and honestly how much threat would they really be to most people they come into contact with, bearing in mind that they might be much more careful with older relatives? The human body is an incredible and wonderful creation and has the ability to develop immunity to viruses through natural means. Surely allowing healthy and younger people to mix normally could go some way to building up a natural immunity to this virus.

There are also disturbing conflicts of interest in this whole affair. We are told for instance that Professor Patrick Vallance has a shareholding of £600000 in GSK which was contracted to develop vaccines. The BMJ put out an article in December concerning the interests of doctors, scientists and academics advising the government on how to manage the pandemic. The article made the point that Downing St has shown little concern that advisors to the coronavirus vaccine task force have financial interests in pharmaceutical companies receiving government contracts. We should be mindful that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’ and that these issues are worth questioning. Chris Whitty is on the Interim Board of CEPI (coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) which evidently unites players in biotechnology, Big Pharma and health charities, government agencies, etc to push global immunisation which fits in nicely with a lockdown strategy. These issues are worth querying by both governments and journalists?

Historically my understanding is that national lockdowns have never been used before as a tool of public policy. I am sure that public health policy up to recently would never have entertained such an extreme method to deal with a virus, especially given that we have had very serious flu outbreaks within our lifetime and also potential scares with new viruses which never caused many deaths and certainly didn’t move the authorities to lock down a whole society, and especially as this virus is little threat to anyone apart from the old. The way the government is micromanaging people’s lives is serious government overreach into areas it should have nothing to do with, especially as they are illegitimately taking over the management of risk from private individuals and families into the realms of the State, again something unprecedented in human history. The only type of governmental system that would take such drastic action would be an extreme communist or socialist regime, as we saw with China leading the way.

We now have an impressive rollout of the vaccination programme and the medical and scientific community must be congratulated for all their superb work in producing a way out of the grip of this situation. For many people this has been the holy grail. However we have again been fed a narrative that this is the only realistic way out with an underplaying of alternatives. What about an emphasis on development of other treatments that could be another pathway for people, as has happened with HIV for which there is no vaccine but nevertheless the development of amazing new treatments?

There is also evidence that this is a man made virus which adds another level of intrigue to the plot. It is not beyond the realms of imagination that there is another agenda at work in all this and that unscrupulous people would like to use this virus to bring down nations for their own very suspect purposes. It is little wonder that there are so many doubters over this whole affair as both the government and media have left themselves with too many own goals. People are discerning, you can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time. It is no surprise that people turn to conspiracy theories or ideas that players behind the scenes are engineering this crisis for their own ends, whether for love of money, desire for global government or whatever. You cannot blame people for asking hard questions.

I would like to see a far more open debate in the mainstream media over these issues and a much more critical approach to the efficacy and suitability of lockdown, given that this crisis could go on somewhat longer than people would hope. This would give you more credibility with many who question what is going on at the moment and undermine any accusations that it is in your interests to push this agenda.

I would suggest respectfully that we are being ‘played’ in this Covid crisis by a very powerful spirit of manipulation and control, and both the government and mainstream media are party to this and to a degree are under that spirit. It would be in the interests of everybody to have a far more open debate about the whole issue which would go some way to allay the fears and questions of many.

CS Lewis, one of our greatest thinkers said something very prescient many years ago: ‘Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.’

I humbly suggest that you have to govern for the welfare of 65m people and that we have lost sight of that in this crisis, allowing coronavirus to rule us rather than keeping it in a more realistic perspective.

Thank you for reading this letter, and I look forward to more balance in the lockdown debate,

Yours faithfully

Dunkirk

I have just been to see the film Dunkirk which is well worth a viewing. It tells the story through a series of interlinking personal stories of the miraculous deliverance of the British Expeditionary Force out of France in 1940 when it was about to be annihilated or captured by the Nazi war machine. It is an admirable effort in every way, tracing the stories of airmen, soldiers, a Royal Navy Commander, and a little fishing boat roped in to save the men on the beaches and return them to Blighty. It is full of dramatic footage of men being strafed and bombed by Stukas on the seashore, Spitfires engaging the enemy, holed warships going down, men struggling to survive in a sea molten with burning oil and trapped soldiers in a ship’s hull. No one can disagree that it is a triumph of modern cinematic technique and a tribute to its director Christopher Nolan and a fine cast.

An armada of small boats set out from English shores to rescue these men (338,226) from French beaches. These were just ordinary folk caught up in a scenario much bigger than themselves, and one has to admire their fortitude given the power of the Luftwaffe to cause mayhem in the English Channel and the strong possibility that German armies would just circle the allies and take them prisoner. How would you feel about to land in France possibly in a riverboat faced by German guns from land and air?

The one thing I noticed watching this movie was an absence of portrayal of the sheer scale of the evacuation, an operation involving a third of a million men. The film fails to reflect that reality, instead trying to recreate the picture by filming long lines of men waiting at the beach front or on assembled wooden piers jutting out into the ocean. This is understandable, short of using real life footage of Dunkirk the bill for so many extras would be prohibitive. No doubt there are techniques for recreating scale of numbers but it would be churlish to make too much of that point.

The fact that this historical event was a miracle of deliverance for the British army also comes through, both at the beginning of the film when the sheer desperate situation is laid out to the viewer, and at the end when a couple of the rescued lads slump in the train home after reaching England courtesy of a small boat and get hold of a newspaper making clear the wondrous nature of the deliverance.

What was missing from the film was perhaps the most important factor in this victory, and one which again would be missed by today’s politically correct media. Namely that King George VI and Parliament called a national day of prayer before Dunkirk and people streamed into churches across the nation to ask for Gods help, including Westminster Abbey. Incidentally this history is not always forgotten, one such prayer day was dutifully included in an episode of Foyles War, that excellent, quintessentially British detective series tracing the exploits of the quiet, understated but very effective fictional detective chief superintendent Christopher Foyle. As it happens, there were seven national days of prayer called by King and Parliament during the war, a fact I am sure most schoolchildren are never told when studying this era of history.

I wonder whether the Almighty really did answer the prayers of the British people at that time. No doubt there were quite a few even then that would have made references to ‘God botherers’ and sky fairies, but let’s look at what actually happened. Event 1 – Hitler gave the command for his armies to halt the advance to the west coast of France for no explicable reason before Dunkirk, giving the British extra time. Why would he have done this when he had the heart and brain of the British army at his mercy on the French coast? Event 2 – a terrible storm whipped up which grounded the Luftwaffe on the 28th May at a time when they could have caused maximum damage. Event 3 – the English Channel was like a millpond for several days at the time of ferrying the troops back on that armada of tiny boats. Glorious coincidence or divine intervention?

Hmm, that’s a difficult one. Great Britain used to be a Christian nation with a much more culturally homogenous population who were familiar with the stories from the Bible and were comfortable with David and Goliath, Joseph and his coat of many colours and Daniel in the lions den, as well as the message of the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus. This was par for the course in the Second World War. They would have been schooled in British history and other times when we perhaps knew the intervention of the Almighty such as the Spanish Armada and Napoleon.

If you doubt what I am saying just read what a British naval officer cabled to London when the allied soldiers were on the beaches facing disaster: ‘But if not.’ I hasten to say not even a tiny percentage of today’s population would have a clue of the significance of those three words. They come from Daniel ch 3 v 17 – 18 in the Old Testament and refer to the time when Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego faced the fiery furnace for daring to disobey King Nebuchadnezzar and refusing to bow down and worship his idol.

Here is the full passage: “Our God whom we serve,” they told him, “is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, let it be known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”

That naval officer fully expected his superior to understand those three words which tells you everything about British culture at that time. He saw the possibility of deliverance from the Nazis but if not they would still resist the enemy.

Now Great Britain is no longer great, trapped between the forces of secular humanism, a bullying EU making it difficult for us to leave said construct, and militant Islam, with Christianity being choked by more aggressive forces from within and a generation that has been ruthlessly severed from its past by a gigantic onslaught from evil forces. For many this is not a pleasant outlook, but Britain needs to reach back into its history and rediscover some of the things that have exalted this land in the past. Perhaps it’s time for another national day of prayer!

Link

The world is in a bit of a quandary over the American elections. I said earlier this year that Brexit and a Trump victory in the US will be better for the world if they happen, and I stand by this. Just a few thoughts however from an Englishman who has been through Brexit.

I in no way condone Trump’s past behaviour or attitude to women, his outrageous statements on various groups Iike Mexicans, or his intemperate remarks on a range of issues. There are all sorts of reasons why people would not want to vote for him, and these are just some of them, just as there are many reasons why people will not vote for Hilary Clinton. The highest level of character and integrity are what you look for in a national leader, yet here we have two candidates with serious flaws, they do not measure up to want you want to see in a national leader. Many people will not vote for them because they refuse to give their vote to people they see as morally or spiritually bankrupt. That is their right, although I believe the stakes are so high that those people should still vote, including the significant bloc of evangelical Christians some of whom particularly disapprove of both candidates. You could say that Trump and Clinton are a symptom of the state of the nation rather than a cause. American society has produced two such candidates and they are merely a reflection of what America now represents. Just as in the U.K. we say we get the government we deserve.

l still say that there is a bigger picture at work, things will be difficult for America with either Trump or Clinton, but Trump I believe is the lesser of two evils. Again I see Trump as a Cyrus figure, a wrecking ball or bulldozer meant to smash the establishment and expose corruption, including the powerful hold of political correctness on the American authorities and especially the Democratic party. At least he stands for some conservative values, control of borders, slashing tax rates to encourage business, protection of the American Constitution and a realistic attitude to militant Islam. On the other hand Hilary Clinton is a hard left candidate who represents open borders, a hemispheric common market, continuance of the entitlement mentality, destruction of the Constitution and a dangerous appeasement towards militant Islam, as well as social transformation with the further pushing of dangerous agendas like partial-birth abortion and the transgender movement. Then we have the email debacle, the evidence of corruption in the Clinton foundation which has taken money from regimes like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In essence Hilary represents a party that is totally on board with the agenda that is speeding the destruction of western civilisation and destroying anything left of our Judeo Christian heritage.

Supreme Court nominations is another issue. Presidents get to nominate new Supreme Court justices and once they are in they are in for life. Hilary Clinton will ensure hard left candidates for those roles. At least Trump is more likely to appoint conservative judges. Presidents only get eight years maximum, Supreme Court justices are there for life unless they choose to retire or resign. This means they have the ability to remake massively the social and political landscape of America over the long term that a president would never achieve. If Clinton wins, expect judicial activism and a liberal totalitarian social agenda on a grand scale.

Trump has already referred to this as a Brexit election and to some extent he is right. The same forces are at work to a degree. People are fed up with the downgrading of any cultural or historical sense of nationhood, they are tired of the mass migration that is fast changing the nature of our societies, and they are very wary of the policy of allowing so many Moslems to migrate to the west. If Trump gets in, just as with Brexit, it is a sign of the revival of the nation state which has been so inaccurately caricatured in recent decades. People want their own country with a sense of pride in its nature and traditions, and there is nothing wrong with that. They don’t want a globalist agenda imposed upon them. It was inevitable that a pushback would take place, a sign that there is still some backbone left in the west.

One characteristic that defines Trump whatever you say about him is that he has courage. Courage is perhaps the most essential and the most rare commodity in western society today, courage to speak the truth without fear or favour. Too many in the west have been intimidated by a spirit of fear, which stops them from saying what they think. We need leaders who will tell it like it is, before it is too late. Unfortunately too many leaders fit the mould of what is an ‘acceptable’ politician these days. Trump has broken that mould.

The other thing that could be in Trump’s favour is that if he gets a good team around him this will mitigate some of the potential disasters that people anticipate. It won’t be a one man band. Cool heads planted around him can provide a healthy siphon for any excess. The outlook is positive on this front as you see men like Mike Pence, his running mate, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, trusted generals, some decent conservative leaders around him. Trump can’t do it on his own, a strong team around him will bring stability. He would be wise to recruit those who can get the job done.

Also don’t believe the polls! We have learnt this in the UK both with last year’s General Election and this year’s Brexit vote. Both results were unexpected and leave some faith in democracy against those who argue that elections are rigged. I was up all night at the Brexit vote witnessing the vote count and it is heartening to see the order and level of professionalism displayed in running the count, although it was an area of the country not likely to see much voter fraud! Whether you hold your nose and vote for him or you are a die hard Trump supporter, I still predict that he will win. The alternative in my opinion is frightening, it could spell the end of America as we know it. Just look at this video to sum up Trump’s role as a wrecking ball:

The gutting and filleting of the UK

If you do not understand that the level of deception, delusion, lying, dissimulation and level of craftiness is probably at an all time high in the world today, you should not be in a position of national leadership if you want your nation and culture to survive. Otherwise you will be swept along with the tide like everyone else. But perhaps on the other hand we get the leaders we deserve.

The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public life has been in the headlines recently. This august body has just announced its recommendations for the place of Christianity in our nation, basically a serious downgrade since we are now a multicultural society that needs to go worship at the altar of ‘all religions and lifestyles are equal.’ Is this the last gasp of the politically correct ‘fun monster’ that has been consuming all in its path for the last few decades before a possible miraculous renaissance of our nation, or is it that same monster determined to crush under its steam roller any last vestiges of robust tradition left in these islands?

The document suffers from the normal typically English desire not to offend anyone and to be nice to everyone. It talks of ‘faith communities’ and everyone learning more about everyone else’s faith, more dialogue between the religious and non religious, more understanding between the media and the religious, and so on. There are some reasonable points made to be fair to the report. It does say that there should be more education about religion in the media, which is fair enough. There is a need for more understanding between different groups in society. In fact this applies for politicians as well who perhaps thought the age of religion was over and we were ushering in the age of ‘reason. How wrong could you be? Politicians are perhaps the most important group of people who should develop their education on religion. It is their lack of discernment on this issue that has helped to bring us to our present peril. Likewise the report pushes the line that interfaith dialogue should be developed especially between abrahamic and dharmic faiths, which of course has its place, bearing in mind however the potential for dangerous compromise of one’s own beliefs.

Don’t you ever wonder sometimes that all the wrong people are in positions of power and influence and all the right people are down in the valley of the shadow of the humdrum just getting on with their lives and bemoaning the delusions that afflict some of the ruling classes in the western world. Would that we could swop the roles of some of these people at the wave of a wand to begin to stop the rot.

And just who are these people on the Commission? Well we have the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, a nice enough guy but more suited to the rarefied atmosphere of academia than a scrap with the fascist ‘liberals’ and politically correct apparatchiks that infest the west like rats in a sinking ship. One of his most enlightened moments as Archbishop was to ponder the possibility as I understand it of the prospect of aspects of sharia law being grafted into the UK legal system, a bit like taking a nest of cobras to your bosom but who am I to disagree with such an eminent intellect?

Then we have Baroness Butler-Sloss who was recently taken off an inquiry into sexual abuse of minors in Britain as she was deemed to be potentially compromised i.e. her brother was the Attorney General at the time of some of the abuse. She is a church going Anglican we are told. Followed by Sir Iqbal Sacranie, Islamic apologist who was in charge of the MCB (Moslem Council of Britain) when they boycotted the Holocaust Memorial Day. Anyone with any sort of robust Christian faith could be forgiven for not having the greatest confidence in their findings.

What is on the Commission’s Christmas/New Year list 2015/16? What are some of the gifts they are giving us in this season of good cheer? We can’t pick up on all their findings but firstly they propose that the next coronation which will presumably be of Prince Charles bar a miracle, take account of the ‘plurality’ of our nation, yes it’ll be a multi-faith one of course (nothing new there), treating all religions as equal therefore having your token imams, Hindu priests, Sikh holy men and perhaps one or two non conformists. And how about a couple of Jedi knights, and a satanist or two present at the multi-faith jamboree to make it really ‘diverse?’

Clifford Longley wrote a book years ago about the English constitutional settlement, that we have a coronation, not a constitution, where the new monarch promises to rule his/her people according to the precepts of the Holy Bible, invoking the relationship between the Old Testament priest, Zadok, God’s representative, and the children of Israel. A mere anachronism some might say in these days of godlessness. However, it has a history, and is at the heart of our government. It also gives England a claim to a unique exceptionalism little understood by most of the Queen’s subjects. I mean how many other countries in the world have a governmental system where the monarch pledges allegiance to the God of the Bible?

You either scrap it completely, or do the whole show, for Christianity is totally incompatible with any other religion because they have such fundamental differences. Anything else will be based on deception and will be a willing partner of the drive to build a flaky one world religion not based on truth but an unholy mishmash of different religions, that will just about suit the globalist agenda. In that regard it might be worth watching the present Pope, who seems to be building his social justice credentials rather than just preaching the uncompromising Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Their eminences and associated commission members don’t appear to believe in anything in particular apart from a mishmash of different faiths and non faiths, so why not scrap the whole thing? If you believe that Christianity provides the bedrock for our society and has done for hundreds of years then you will know that it is utterly and completely incompatible with Islam for a start, and would have issues with any other religion that claims any competitive position. The right stance as the Daily Telegraph said in quite a good article some years ago is to affirm Christianity as the historic religion of this country under which all other religions have an umbrella of protection, very wise and timely advice. But don’t legitimise all other religions in the eyes of the law which directly contradict Christianity. Why do you think so many people have come here from abroad in the past? They presumably didn’t have a problem with Britain being a ‘Christian country.’

How about this one, let’s have some representatives of other religions and worldviews in the House of Lords? ‘Who the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.’ How about some eminent imams? Let’s see, I wonder how many of those imams believe in their heart of hearts, although they would not say it on BBC Newsnight being interviewed by Evan Davies, that they have an agenda to turn the UK into an Islamic state with fully fledged sharia law, that all male apostates from Islam should be killed, that the whole world is a mosque and it is the duty of said imams to make sure every last one of us submits? Hmm, don’t think that will go down too well with the audience.

Third on the list of presents is ‘Let’s water down the distinctiveness of faith schools’ as they are ‘socially divisive and exclusive.’ So most religious school don’t need to select on grounds of religion anymore in their admissions and employment practices. Also in general the requirement to have an act of collective worship or religious observance should be repealed, let’s go for those inclusive assemblies and times for reflection! Surely their eminences know that education was started by churches in this country, and then the state took up the mantle of education for all. Shock horror, I thought Christianity was a medieval cult, you mean they actually encouraged education of young people!

Again ideology trumps reality. Faith schools, particularly Christian schools of a Roman Catholic or Anglican bent as they are the vast majority, tend to get some of the best results and reputations, and parents are desperate to get their brood into them. I wonder why? They are by no means perfect, but what school is? Christian schools still have an ethos that parents like, whether or not they are committed Christians. But Butler-Sloss, Williams and Sacranie are prepared to sacrifice them on the altar of multiculturalism, making an offering to the God of deception and delusion who has waved his wicked magic wand over the whole of the western world. Whatever replaces those schools will still have another set of values based on an ‘ity’ or ‘ism,’ and I suspect it won’t be superior to the Christian ethos.

I’d say it’s time to sacrifice the Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life on the altar of common sense and historical perspective. However that will need an astounding recovery of nerve. In effect there is a profound crisis of confidence in the UK in its historic role and identity, particularly an uncomfortable relationship with its ‘anachronistic’ Christian past. There is such a powerful deception at work now that states that all religions should have equal standing and should thus be be treated equally, therefore you can’t treat Christianity as the gold standard anymore because that would be ‘unfair.’ The buzzwords of this delusion are ‘faith communities,’ ‘equality,’ ‘anti discrimination,’ ‘human rights’ and ‘diversity.’ The only answer to this situation is a wholesale rediscovery of the Christian faith which could bring renewal and revival to society just as it has in the past, potentially bringing life and resurrection to every sphere.

Viktor Orban – a hero for our time

The political class in Europe and their acolytes are now an extreme danger to their own people. The papers are full of it. Under Angela Merkel Germany has agreed to take in 800,000 migrants this year. This is a country I have grown quite fond of having visited it over the last few years. Yet I feel that they are building their own funeral pyre.

In the present migrant crisis that is facing Europe you have to be hard headed and realistic, and ask some very pertinent questions. Yes there are genuine refugees who are entitled to help, such as Syrian Christians who are being wiped out by jihadists, but to treat all migrants making their way to Europe as such would be unbelievably naive. That is why it is wise to step back from some of the hype over this issue, especially when 400,000, plus people sign a UK petition to help migrants.

I find it highly disturbing the behaviour of some of the migrants pouring into Europe. One would expect genuine refugees to have a somewhat docile demeanour and to cooperate fully with the authorities in whose country they find themselves, rather unsure of the largesse they might enjoy from their hosts. However we have had stories of migrants refusing to disembark off a ferry from Germany to Denmark unless they are allowed to go on to Sweden, throwing away provision such as water given to them, and failing to cooperate with the lawful authority in the territory they find themselves in. A Head of a UNHCR camp called Syrian refugees ‘the most difficult refugees I’ve ever seen.’ Refugees in Italy were throwing rocks at police whilst demanding free wifi. It reminds me of the attitude of some of the migrants in Calais trying to illegally enter the UK. You say they are desperate. Hmm… Desperation is no excuse for lawlessness. If so called refugees are willing to behave like that in a supposedly desperate situation, what regard will they have for the law when they come to your country?

Viktor Orban, president of Hungary speaks the truth amongst European leaders and makes the rest of Europe’s leaders look like political pygmies. He has stated the foolishness of opening European borders to the mass migration that is now taking place across Europe from the Middle East and Africa, especially the Moslem immigration. He points out that Europe is historically at least a Christian continent, although now it is busy attacking its own Christian values, and that letting Moslems in who do not integrate and may have an agenda is deeply unwise. I suggest there is a connection between Europe losing its spiritual soul and the mass immigration of Moslems of recent years. Any leader worth his salt needs one quality amongst many, and that is discernment. You always and every time have to protect your own people, so what possesses European leaders to let in so many from a totally alien culture and civilisation within the European borders?

Victor is showing qualities which are sadly lacking in European politics. Not least the quality of courage. He is prepared to say what so many politicians in Europe are not prepared to say because they do not wish to offend. Political correctness is rooted in fear. But that is not showing leadership. Viktor is demonstrating leadership by telling the truth, that Islam is incompatible with western values and will only bring trouble and strife to western lands, just as it already has. In doing so he is putting himself in the firing line against the forces arrayed against him that have built an iron stronghold of multiculturalism and political correctness in Europe. They will no doubt try to bully him into backtracking but he must stick to his guns.

Also, Viktor probably has a pretty good sense of history. In the year 1000 King Stephen 1 founded the State of Hungary as a Catholic country. Hundreds of years later in 1526 the Turkish army defeated the Hungarian royal army at Mohacs, and the country split into three parts in about 1541. It was 150 years before the Hungarians reunited and drove out the Turks. The Turkish baths in Budapest are a legacy of this period. Countries have long memories. Eastern Europe faced the hordes of the Ottoman Empire in their history and know far more about the Islamic mentality than most armchair critics in the west who have never witnessed the iron grip of militant Islam when it gains control of your territory. They have had to fight for their survival and now see the Islamic enclaves that have been established in so many western cities where there is just a failure to integrate, and they have witnessed the growth of jihad in the west aided and abetted by clueless western politicians. They do not want the same problems.

No doubt Viktor is aware that amongst the migrant hordes trying to enter Western Europe are highly dangerous jihadists who have had specific instructions from ISIS to cause murder and mayhem in Europe. And they will lie according to the Islamic doctrine of takiyya and claim to be refugees of course, taking naive westerners who think everyone else in the world thinks like they do for fools. And so the western reporter believes them when they say they are refugees from Syria. Some may be, but all of them? A great cover to dupe trusting westerners, especially. when you can easily get a fake Syrian passport.

There is one big question here that has not been satisfactorily answered. Why on earth are the other Moslem nations neither helping nor expected to help to look after their own for the Islamic ummah? Rich Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Surely they should be looking after their own brethren rather than letting them flow to Europe. Won’t they be happier in an Islamic country rather than coming to traditionally Christian lands? Well maybe, just maybe they are committing Hijrah, Islamic migration to establish a bridgehead for the burgeoning caliphate. Surely not? Far too much of a conspiracy theory! And then you have western nations loath to take Christian refugees from nations where they are being wiped out by Islamic jihad. They now put anti discrimination legislation before doing what is right.

Of course there is another possible explanation for this, and that is that pompous and arrogant elites that are trying to build a new world order are engineering this migration as it is in their interests. This may even be beyond the dangers of islamisation that those such as Geert Wilders foresee. These so called elites are directing the politically correct left who rule in Europe. They know that it will destroy what is left of European Christian civilisation, and of course it is Christianity they must destroy to bring In their socialist/communist world utopia. The EU is just a building block. It will also help usher in their phoney counterfeit world religion that will be a syncretism of different world religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and state Catholicism, as they know they need a religion to help rubber stamp their ghastly vision of heaven on earth. The fulfilment of a truly wicked plan, the replacement of Judeo-Christian culture with a massive counterfeit system that will be rooted in coercion and totalitarianism.

Time for the warrior spirit to arise! You never know!

The Flying Inn – A Prophetic Tale?

This old tale by GK Chesterton was on my list of things to read and finally I managed it. It’s a story about an England where alcohol has been banned and the pub culture has died, so the working man has nowhere to drink his essential beer, whilst the rich and privileged can still get hold of the stuff, even under cover of ‘medicinal sources.’ Running through the story is the strange influence of a caricatured ‘prophet’ of Islam, Misysra Ammon, who first appears propagating his worldview on an English beach amongst other assorted speakers, but who then from time to time appears again extolling the virtues of the great Islamic religion and eastern ideas above and beyond the native traditions of ‘Christian England.’ As well as this he has a go at old English pub names which he argues are corruptions of Turkish or Arab words! He seems to have a strange hold on the more privileged classes who traditionally and historically have been fascinated with eastern religions and alien cultures. There is even a ban on the sign of the cross on ballot papers, and a new game is introduced called ‘noughts and crescents.’ The sign of the cross is of course an offence in Islam.

Into this mix a motley crew upset the apple cart by realising that through a loophole in the law, that if they have a pub sign they can sell or imbibe alcohol wherever that sign is erected, and so become the ‘Flying Inn,’ outwitting the authorities wherever they try to stamp out this ‘errant’ behaviour. And so they move from place to place in a donkey cart carrying a keg of rum and a hoop of cheese, whipping out the pub sign at all the right moments and giving solace to lovers of alcohol everywhere. The core characters in this little charade are Captain Patrick Dalroy (radical), a larger than life Irishman with a shock of red hair and a preponderance to ‘cock a snoop’ at authority, and his sidekick Humphrey Pump, the former innkeeper (‘good old English Tory’ as Charles Moore describes him). As they travel they philosophise and write songs and poetry to entertain themselves. And we mustn’t forget the accompanying dog, Quoodle! They are joined later in the story by the poet, Dorian Wimpole.

Representing the ‘elite’ is Lord Ivywood, who represents a ‘we know better than you’ attitude and an over zealousness in implementing the temperance regime. At the same time he comes over as the ‘enlightened’ individual who has left behind any simple idea of what it means to be English and taken on a more progressive persona, perhaps linked with the influence of Islam or the Turks, as they are referred to in this tale. He is determined to stamp out the tomfoolery of Dalroy and Hump and goes to parliament to quietly implement an amendment to the temperance law stating that alcohol can only be sold, with the pub sign of course, when it has been on the premises for three days. That should deal with Dalroy’s nomadic inn!

In the end Dalroy and Hump form the beginnings of a mass movement, who having seen the hypocrisy of the upper classes in supplying their own alcohol, resolve to rebel against the authorities. They end up marching to Lord Ivywood’s estate. The twist in the tale is that adjoining Ivywood’s estate is another somewhat mysterious estate where it transpires a secret military machine has been assembled, centring on the Turks and Islam. Dalroy and his cohorts of course confront them and triumph over them. And so in the end the true spirit of the Englishman shines through.

I have read the reviews which variously and predictably mention shades of racism, anti-semitism and xenophobia in the book, so predictable in the present cultural climate. This highlights just how far the thinking of the average opinion former today differs from the status quo in early twentieth century England. Mention has also been made in reviews of the place of Islam in the book, that it portends an Islamic takeover of the nation. It is difficult to believe that Chesterton at that time was writing something prophetic about what he believed would happen to England in the future, given that England was a far more homogenous culture in his day, but had he seen something in the English ruling classes, their psyche, that predisposed them towards a denial of their culture and an assimilation with other cultures?

Certainly the analogy could be taken too far, but the story of the ‘Flying Inn’ is particularly prescient today given the rise of militant Islam and the pusillanimous response of the authorities in the UK to it. The book ends with a clash between the indigenous culture and a military force that has been secretly built up over a period of time.

Chillingly, we recently hear that Islamic jihadists have been smuggling arms into this country. With regard to the recent Tunisian outrage against, sadly, many British people, the authorities have raided mosques in Tunisia, and many of them have been storing arms. Perhaps there is more to Chesterton’s tale than we give him credit for. What will it take for the so called progressive (or deceived?) British ruling classes to wake up and divine what might be happening to their country over which they should have a cherished responsibility. Unless of course it is happening by design, the ultimate wickedness.

Fancy more Sunday shopping?

Well it’s come back to bite us in the bottom again after surfacing in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher and undermining a little more of our Christian heritage. There was a big battle in the 1980s between the government who wanted to deregulate Sunday and such as the traditionalists of the ‘Keep Sunday Special’ pressure group campaign. Sunday trading law is in the government’s sights again, further liberalisation of course. This is against a historical background of Sunday being a day of rest in the UK, and legislation which forbade ‘worldly labour’ has been around since at least the reign of Charles the 2nd.

John Bingham reports in the Daily Telegraph that ‘an alliance of faith groups, unions and small retailers is lining up to oppose government plans for the biggest shake-up of Sunday trading in a generation, condemning it as a threat to family and community life as much as religious observance.’

Now I am a free marketeer because as far as I am concerned that is the norm. I remember seeing film of the time when the Soviet empire In Eastern Europe was falling. Immediately people were out on the streets trying to make money from selling their wares to make a dime and try and clear a profit. That’s reality and thus will it ever be. However, I do not believe that free markets should be totally unregulated, government intervention should be kept to a minimum of course, but Sunday trading is an issue where unfettered capitalism may not necessarily be the best answer. I think this is an issue where a little bit of regulation adds to the common good.

I was in Freiburg, Germany last summer and found myself in town on Sunday. Having been there a few days previously when it was buzzing to the rafters, it was a bit of a shock to see the town centre almost empty, as if everyone had gone on holiday. It was just like being transported back in time to when I was a kid in England and Sunday was for God, church, family and rest, or the last two for the heathens amongst us. Things have changed a little for us in the UK since the eighties and it’s the norm to nip to Tescos on a Sunday for our groceries. It’s still more traditional in Germany where there is a clause in the German constitution that Sunday should be a day of rest and ‘spiritual elevation,’ although some Sunday shopping has been allowed and the general trend seems to be towards more liberalisation. Interestingly in Germany shop regulation of opening hours has passed from federal to state government. However, quiet Sundays don’t seem to have affected the strength of the German economy, the fourth biggest in the world.

I must admit I think it’s a bit of a shame what’s happened to Sunday in England. In terms of business it has become much more like other days. Admittedly you don’t have the morning and evening rush hour, but you certainly have equivalent levels of traffic on the road at certain times of day. I miss that feeling of Sunday being significantly different and quieter than any other day.

Sunday as a day of rest of course has its roots in our traditional Judeo-Christian culture. Ancient Israel venerated the sabbath, there was something special about the number seven and it all goes back to what some biblical scholars refer to as the ‘first mention’ principle. In other words, where an important word is first mentioned in the bible it expresses its fullest and most complete meaning. Where is seven first mentioned in the bible? Why of course when God created the heavens and the earth in six days he decided to rest on the seventh day. If God needed a rest then surely the men and women he created did. After all, the bible teaches that we are made in His image. The Ten Commandments thundered ‘Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy’. It was the rule for ancient Israel, and in the New Testament and through church history the principle of one day in seven embedded itself in Christendom.

The Soviets were your classic God haters and tried to eliminate God from society. One person described communism as a spirit from hell that overtook Russian society in 1917. Well the bloodstained history of the communist Soviet Union certainly bares testimony to that. What did they do? They brought in the Soviet Revolutionary Calendar from 1929 to 1940. 1929 to 1939 saw the most savage persecution of religion in the whole Soviet period. The seven day week was abolished in favour of a five day week, in part an anti-religious measure, to get rid of the Christian Sunday as a day of rest. All sorts of public and voluntary organisations including the ‘League of Militant Atheists’ were encouraged in anti-religious activity, including promoting the observance of the five day working week. In 1931 a six day work week was experimented with. It is reported that the Sunday tradition proved hard to get rid of, as workers would often take Sunday off as well as the new day of rest, and who could blame them! Eventually in 1940 the old seven day week was restored. So maybe God had the last laugh in the midst of godlessness.

One day in seven has persisted pretty well to date, and even in England where the forces of mammon encroached upon the traditional Sunday in the 1980s and left us with a somewhat watered down version, it’s still a day off for the majority of people. However most people don’t worship in their local Anglican Church but find their idols in the gilded shopping malls, in crowded cafes and restaurants, on the sports field or perhaps down at the beach.

So is it right for the government to be telling the church to back Sunday shopping? It is being proposed that supermarkets could be prevented from opening longer in order to help revive Britain’s ailing high streets, to ensure that high streets remain ‘the heartbeat of our communities.’ At the moment all shops bar the smallest cannot open for more than six hours on a Sunday, but it is proposed that local government regulate their own Sunday trading law. The government calculates that ‘relaxing Sunday trading laws will lead to £14 billion worth of benefits to the economy a year and increase the amount people spend by as much as 12.5%. Ah, ‘the love of money is the root of all evil.?’ Is the government putting pound notes before health and welfare. Might there be other ways of reviving High Streets? Methinks free town centre parking’s not a bad idea for a start!

My own view on this is that it is good to have one day in seven as a day of rest. I try to a degree to keep to this, no work to do with my normal occupation on a Sunday, avoid household chores and mowing the lawn if you can! This ingrained habit serves me well as the next day is Monday when the temptation might be to make sure you are well prepared by doing all your work planning on Sunday. But once you have learnt to put work aside and that you can do in six days what you imagine you need to do in seven, the battle is won.

A society builds up its social capital by having one day when everyone within reason has the option of a specific day off from work. We are not made to work every hour that God sends but to enjoy life and spend relaxation time with our families and friends. If anything the balance in the west is too performance orientated and not enough relationship orientated. Time with those we love or appreciate is extremely important for our health and welfare, adding to David Cameron’s concern about ‘wellness’ in society. It gives opportunity for us to build and cherish family which is under great pressure these days. Making Sunday a special day also provides protection to retail workers who may be put under huge pressure to work on Sundays. This is not a minor point as the UK has a massive retail sector.

Social capital is far more important than increasing the UK GDP at all costs . A healthy happy workforce that enjoys a day each week free from the pressures of having to provide for oneself or the family will probably be more productive in the long run. Human beings are made to work, but they are also made to rest and spend quality time with their loved ones. Former Bishop of Rochester, The Rt Rev Michael Nazir Ali recognises both that work and rest are important for individuals and society, the ‘humanitarian principle.’ He is right.

‘We must make a more robust defence of our Judeo-Christian heritage’

Our Christian heritage has been in the news quite a lot recently, with David Cameron defending the role of Christianity in our national life. It appears that he is trying to win back some of those voters who have left him for UKIP over the furore of ‘gay marriage.’ It is probably too late now, because the Conservatives have crossed the line too many times into non-conservative policies and people are waking up to a one party system with three faces in the UK, and have had enough.

‘Fear of causing offence drives the “Notting Hill claptrap about diversity”. “We need a much more muscular defence of our Judaeo-Christian heritage. Yes, we’re open to different cultures but we have to defend our values. That’s the message I want to hear from the Archbishop of Canterbury and from our politicians. Anything less is appeasement of the worst kind.”

So said Nigel Farage recently in an interview in November 2013, and he’s got something. If you deny our Judeo-Christian heritage then you deny an important element of who we are as a nation. It’s almost like trying to remove someone’s DNA. If you do so, they will die. It’s given many people have no obvious religious faith, many claim to be atheist or agnostic, many sneer at religion or its followers, but the indigenous British have been shaped substantially by Christianity. Even in our recent past, although there are many that will again sneer at it, the Christian roots of the UK came to the fore. In the dark days of the Second World War there were several national days of prayer called by the King and government. At the end of the War Winston Churchill led his MPs into St Margaret’s Church in Westminster to thank God for giving the allies victory in the Second World War. You never hear much about these incidents in accounts of our ‘finest hour’ as a nation. But emphasising such will have latte sipping liberals spitting into their coffee.

This again will chime with UKIP supporters and lays the lie that UKIP is just a single issue party. UKIP want out of the EU and much less immigration, but there is significantly more to their arsenal. They realise the importance of the Christian faith to our heritage and identity, and are not afraid of saying so. Plenty of people will warm to this message rather than the cold and clinical codes of equality and antidiscrimination legislation bought into by the main parties.

Whatever you say, there is strong evidence that a society’s or country’s religion has an awful lot to do with its position in the world. It is no accident that Great Britain was the world’s most influential nation for a very long time, followed by the USA since the early twentieth century, and that Christianity was their main religion. This does not whitewash all their actions by any means whatsoever, but in recent history these two nations were in the vanguard of standing against Hitler and Nazism, and stood for freedom and democracy. Then there are the shades of Christianity which seems to differentiate even further. For example it has been said that Catholic countries are generally behind the curve on economic statistics compared with Protestant nations. Out of the top ten nations in the world HDI index, which measures human development in terms of life expectancy, education and income, eight are traditional Christian Protestant or strongly Protestant nations. Here is the link:

Communist China did a recent survey which again proves rather inconvenient for the liberal left. They looked into the reasons why China has always been trying to catch up with the most socially, economically and militarily advanced countries on earth, what we generally understand as ‘the West.’ They looked at various factors as to why more advanced nations are more advanced, and found that the factor that made the difference was Christianity. You can see related information in this report from the BBC

https://data.undp.org/dataset/Table-1-Human-Development-Index-and-its-components/wxub-qc5k

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10942954 , and also in this article:

http://biblicaltimes.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/chinese-intellectuals-conclude-christianity-the-reason-for-success-of-the-west/.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr Dawkins!

A good dose of Christianity makes a society, kinder, more compassionate and tolerant than it would otherwise be, and has some immense practical benefits for everyone whether believers or not. They may not like it, but militant secularists, atheists and God haters are busy sawing off the branch that holds them up, for fused into the root of our liberty as a nation (now fast disappearing) is a healthy dose of Christianity. They are hollowing out a vacuum that will be filled by a wicked and dark force that they will not be able to control, unless there is a major push back against it now.