Published on
28 September 2011
Posted in Culture, Social Commentary
From a Guest Blogger: After the erection of The Times pay wall I have been confined to the websites of The Telegraph and The Guardian for my broadsheet news. These two papers appear at times to be simply the right- and left-wing pages of a single pan-political publication – and very much so on Monday. […]
Published on
21 September 2011
The Government is currently undertaking a consultation about the National Policy Framework for house-building. The aim is to simplify the policies binding local councils and house-builders. The responses of groups such as the National Trust, Woodland Trust and Campaign for the Protection of Rural England have – predictably – been negative. The National Trust is […]
Published on
10 June 2011
Posted in Culture, Europe, Marriage & Family, Moral Philosophy, Public Policy, Social Commentary, Virtue, World Affairs
‘We live in an age of growing self-indulgence, of hardening materialism and of falling moral standards… When we see around us the havoc which has been wrought, above all among the children, by the breakup of homes, we can have no doubt that divorce and separation are responsible for some of the darkest evils in […]
Published on
6 June 2011
Posted in Euthanasia, Human Life, Social Commentary
A report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) into the standard of patient care in hospitals and nursing homes has been dubbed by one commentator as a ‘perfect storm’ for euthanasia advocates, and cited as evidence of the growing ‘culture of death’ enveloping health care. Anthony Ozimic, who has previously studied the effect of abortion […]
Published on
28 March 2011
Posted in Christianity, Conscience, Education, Europe, Human Rights, Legal Affairs, Liberty, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy, Religion, Social Commentary
It was with surprise that many people heard last week of the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), by a majority of 15-2, to overturn its own much-criticised decision in 2009 to forbid the display of crucifixes in Italian schoolrooms. Perhaps it would be kinder not to point out to the hapless […]
Published on
8 March 2011
Posted in Ethics in Business, Europe, Human Rights, Legal Affairs, Public Policy, Social Commentary
From a guest blogger: If I were to describe a friend as possessed of ‘discriminating taste’ many would think I had proffered a compliment. Images of a man who knows his Virgil from his Wagner come to mind, not to mention the knowledge that ‘V’ and ‘W’ in those names should be pronounced in the […]
Published on
21 February 2011
Posted in Africa, Culture, Middle East, Social Commentary, World Affairs
There is an interesting article on the Witherspoon Institute’s Public Discourse site by Egyptian journalist Yasser Khalil, who took part in the recent protests in that country. ‘The question that now hangs over Egypt,’ he argues, ‘is whether real freedom is possible, or whether the country inevitably will fall under authoritarian control or the rule […]
Published on
18 February 2011
Posted in Culture, Education, Recommended Links, Social Commentary
Is it the end of the world as we know it? Not quite, but it might be the end of ‘coherent speech’. Clark Whelton, writing in City Journal, chronicles the rise of ‘Vagueness’, ‘the linguistic virus that infected spoken language in the late twentieth century’. Read the article here. (Article © The Manhattan Institute, New […]