The government has retained support despite promises of swingeing cuts, the Lib Dems have gained little credit for their coalescing, and Labour has been on the up despite being leaderless and rudderless. Simon Barrow looks at the unreal politics of the parliamentary recess.

The Prime Minister's rapid response to the furore over his proposal to scrap free milk for children under five is revealing, says Jill Segger. But what it shows is political self-regard rather than high principle.

When Christians explore nonviolence, we do so with the legacy of Christian collusion with militarism hanging over us. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the confusion around Christian attitudes to the armed forces.

Investing in tradition-based pluralism rather than feeding monopoly needs to be the future of both religion and media, says Simon Barrow. And not just in the interactions between the two overlapping realms.

If corporate power groups are permitted to get their hands on our most important and humane social institution, the National Health Service, it will be all but impossible for a future government to restore it, says Jill Segger. The so-called Big Society will have got quite a lot smaller.

The new justice secretary's approach to prison indiciates a healthy departure from previous policy, but before we get too excited, it should be noted that it falls a long way short of restorative ideas, says Jonathan Bartley.

The origins of Christianity are in a dynamic and free movement around Jesus, but much of its history is bound up with institutional religion, says Simon Barrow. The challenge is to continue to respond to the transformative impulse of the Gospel, even in the midst of organisation and complexity.