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  • 17 May 2013
    Austerity damages public health as well as the economy

    Austerity measures are causing avoidable illness and death on a major scale, public health experts have shown. In the UK and internationally, harsh cuts in public services and social services are damaging child and adult health and hindering economic recovery, yet some governments are pressing ahead.

  • 13 May 2013
    We need to recognise our common humanity as the welfare changes hit

    On the miserable journey that is welfare reform, we have reached a very sad milestone: the first suicide to be attributed to the bedroom tax.

  • 10 May 2013
    Official rebuke to Iain Duncan Smith over statistics misuse

    UK statistics authority chair Andrew Dilnot has criticised work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith’s misleading claims on the impact of capping benefits. This is not the first time that he, and the department he heads, have been found to have misused statistics.

  • 8 May 2013
    BAE bosses try to hide from scrutiny - and fail

    I’ve just returned from the annual general meeting of BAE Systems, one of the world’s largest arms companies. I was forcibly carried out of the building after challenging the board on BAE’s arms sales to the brutal regimes of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

  • 7 May 2013
    The BBC: Promoting UKIP and ignoring NHS privatisation

    When the House of Lords recently passed Section 75 of the Health and Social Care Bill, there was no coverage on BBC News. The significance and contentiousness of this legislation, which opens the NHS up to a free market in healthcare, was explained here by Savi Hensman.

  • 5 May 2013
    Small circles and unarmed forces at the National Memorial Arboretum

    War memorials and Quakers do not always get on. The kind of memorialising which is strong on military ceremony and pride does not sit well with us and we tend to avoid it. But we hold it important to remember all people killed in war, civilians as well as combatants. “This is the use of memory – for liberation” TS Eliot wrote in Little Gidding. And if we are to be liberated from bitterness, hatred and the propensity to pass conflict down the generations, we must remember well.

  • 3 May 2013
    UKIP, the NHS and perils of protest voting

    The United Kingdom Independence Party won around a quarter of the votes in wards where it fielded candidates in English local elections. Mainstream parties may be tempted to shift even further to the right in order to win over UKIP voters. But this might end up losing them electoral support, as well as being unjust and deepening rifts in society.

  • 3 May 2013
    The Christian lobby group and the far-right party

    I blogged earlier this week about statements from the socially conservative lobby group Christian Concern ahead of the local elections. They encouraged people to vote for candidates opposed to same-sex marriage.

  • 2 May 2013
    Civil service privatisation damages democracy

    Sections of the UK civil service are to be privatised. Unions have raised concerns about the impact on staff pay and conditions. Such a move also raises serious questions about accountability to the public and democracy.

  • 1 May 2013
    Same-sex marriage and the local elections: Who thinks they're connected?

    The “Christian Right” in Britain – inasmuch as it exists – is not like the Christian Right in the US. Over there, conservatism on issues such as marriage and abortion seems to go hand in hand with right-wing views on economics and foreign policy. Over here, we have conservative Christian lobby groups with a far more narrow focus. Organisations such as the Christian Institute, Christian Concern/Christian Legal Centre and so-called Anglican Mainstream focus largely on attacking LGBT rights. They also speak out against abortion, Islam and the supposed marginalisation of Christians in Britain.