Christians do suffer persecution in UK
Widdecombe
THE Pope used his Easter message to highlight the persecution of Christians. He was of course talking about the plight of those driven from their homes or killed by Islamic State. When we talk about the persecution of Christians in this country the reaction is often that we don’t know the meaning of the word but being seriously concerned about one does not mean being indifferent to the other. A man who has a shrapnel wound but walks away from the battle field has been nothing like as badly injured as the man who suffers an amputation but he is still entitled to describe himself as injured. A petty theft is nowhere on the Richter scale compared with murder but we are still entitled to call it a crime.
So, yes, it is true that Christians are persecuted in this country. In some places of work they may not wear crosses but their Muslim colleagues can wear hijabs. In others they can be demoted for expressing views of a Christian nature even outside the workplace.
On Monday this paper carried a report of the Pope’s warnings about persecution and then, a few pages further on, another on a Christian woman who had been suspended from her NHS job because she invited a Muslim colleague to church. Apparently this is classified as bullying.
I have often been invited to other people’s places of worship or to read some colleague’s religious material or have been involved in discussions about beliefs. None of this is bullying. It is simple workplace conversation springing from what is important to some of its members.
If it is OK to ask Catholics how they feel about paedophile priests then it is OK to ask a Muslim how he feels about Islamic State and in a free society both questions should be permissible.
The Muslim was hardly under any compulsion to accept that Christian’s invitation to church. A simple, “No, thank you and I would prefer it if you didn’t ask again,” would have sufficed. Instead you and I are paying for the tribunal. THOSE thinking of voting Ukip because they don’t fancy being ruled from Brussels should ask themselves if they prefer to be ruled from Edinburgh, which will be the quite inevitable result of any Labour/ SNP pact.
There are two ways of ending up in that situation: by voting Labour directly or by voting that way indirectly in selecting anything other than Conservative at the ballot box. Those who are desperate for a referendum should vote for the only party which is committed to one and which has a hope of government. If Cameron wins then in two years’ time, we have the longed- for in/ out referendum.
He may not negotiate a single improvement or he may strongly advocate staying in but we still get the referendum. With a Labour government, with or without the SNP, we will not. Miliband says we will not. End of story.
What we will, however, most certainly get with a Labour/ SNP pact is a large cadre of MPs voting for laws to bind us which will not bind their own constituencies. Yes, Cameron is largely the author of his own misfortune. By unleashing the Scottish independence referendum he turned the SNP from being regarded as a few well- intentioned AM I the only person who is fed up to the back teeth with the acres of newsprint being devoted to the mixed- up love life of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin? I do not care whether they are consciously coupled, uncoupled, de- coupled or recoupled or even unconsciously or subconsciously any or all of the above.
Their children are named after a fruit and a prophet but you do not need a prophet to tell you that these fruit cases are unlikely to be peering lovingly at each other over their Zimmer frames.
VOTERS MUST BE SAVVY TO PREVENT A LABOUR PACT WITH THE SNP
eccentrics to being a serious political force with the capacity to influence all our futures. Everybody who votes Labour, abstains or votes for a smaller party will have helped to bring this about.
After I commented on the perils of abstention last week one reader wrote asking for a box saying “none of the above”. I am tempted to agree but what happens if “none of the above” wins?