BRIEFING
Committee will use powers to publish report after DWP refusal
USING POWERS given to it by the House of Commons, the Work and Pensions Committee is to obtain and publish a Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) commissioned report on disabled people’s experiences of the benefits system after the Department again refused to make...
Energy price rises leaving older people in crisis
AGE UK IS DEMANDING immediate government action to prevent millions more people falling into fuel poverty. With experts predicting that energy bills could rise by up to 50 per cent this spring, adding around £600 to the average annual bill, Age UK is warning that this...
Social care rationed in worsening national emergency
MORE THAN HALF the councils in England are resorting to exceptional measures to ration care and support in a worsening national emergency for social care, a survey has found. Despite a record increase in the hours of homecare being delivered to people with support...
Nationality and Borders Bill undermines human rights, says UN
UN HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS have expressed serious concern over the United Kingdom's Nationality and Borders Bill, which they said breaches the country's obligations under international law. “If adopted, it would seriously undermine the protection of the human rights of...
Clergy who stopped train in climate action found not guilty
THREE CHRISTIANS, including an Anglican priest and a Catholic priest, who stopped a DLR train in protest at inaction on the climate emergency, were lawfully exercising their right to peaceful protest, a jury has found. On 14 January Rev Sue Parfitt, 79, Fr Martin...
COMMENTARY
Tackling corruption, upholding justice and defending rights
THE LATEST SCANDALS surrounding the UK government have raised serious questions about how, and in whose interests, key decisions are made. Laws are being changed so that future critics of state abuse of power can be silenced or ignored. Poverty and lack of access to...
Reindeer cyclones and the UK’s Covid response
REINDEER CYCLONES: the term was strange to me when I came across it recently, but it describes a beautiful and rather moving natural phenomenon. A reindeer cyclone occurs when a herd feels under threat. The reindeer gather together in a tight circular group, and begin...
Christmas: How subversive hope is born
THE CHRISTMAS we celebrate in the western world in the first quarter of the C21st is an unwieldy mish-mash of sentimentality, rampant commercialism, tempered religiosity, honest paganism, the mass slaughter of animals, family hospitality and seasonal goodwill. It is...
Welcoming the stranger: resources for the churches
IF THE GOVERNMENT of the United Kingdom decides to follow the Australian policy of offshore processing refugees offshore, a strong theological response will be needed to underpin sustained practical resistance to such a policy. Fortunately, churches don’t have to...
Offshoring refugees: lessons from Australia
THE UK GOVERNMENT is reported to be wanting to move refugees and asylum seekers offshore. Following the Australian model apparently. So, do you want to know what the Australian model of offshore detention looks like? Let’s start with the annual financial costs of the...
MEDIA
UPDATES
An evening with Laurence Freeman OSB
'UNIFIED CONSCIOUSNESS: One Mind, One Heart' is the theme of an online evening with Fr Laurence Freeman from 6.30pm-8.30pm (GMT) on Thursday 9 December 2021. The Zoom meeting will be chaired by Simon Barrow, director of the change network and think-tank Ekklesia....
Forthcoming book: Exchange of Gifts
EKKLESIA PUBLISHING, which has produced ten titles since 2016, is pleased to announce the first of three new books which will appear in 2022. Exchange of Gifts: The Vision of Simon Barrington-Ward, edited by Graham Kings and Ian Randall, with a foreword from the...
COP26 in focus with Ekklesia
THE ROAD TO #COP26 has been a long one for Ekklesia. Environmental action was integral to our vision when we were first established nearly 20 years ago, and continues to be so. We were early backers of a Green New Deal, a fundamental re-orientation of the economy away...
