As the bicentenary of the end of the transatlantic slave trade approaches Jonathan Bartley says we are enslaved until Africa is free

Parliamentary rebellion is not quite what it used to be. Many of us recall the colourful heyday of ‘the beast of Bolsover’, Dennis Skinner MP, the backbencher who usurped the best seats, scowling leftist disapproval of Thatcherite policies and Labour fudges. His acerbic wit was a refreshing antidote to the bland reassurances of routine political rhetoric.

It would appear that the most senior figures in the English Catholic and Anglican churches have no real idea just how bad they look to a massive number of people right now. Living in something of an ecclesial cocoon, they express "shock" at the reaction to their determination to discriminate. I refer, of course, to the unseemly row over the Equality Act 2006 (due to be implemented on 6 April 2007) and Catholic adoption agencies.

On the third Monday of every January, the United States marks Martin Luther King Day. The national holiday celebrates the birth and life of the civil rights activist and Baptist minister, whose Christian convictions about justice and the Gospel led him to a path of non-violence and peacemaking.

Anxious claims about anti-Christian discrimination come under scrutiny

How to put people before political posturing