Only eleven per cent of voters in marginal constituencies think religious liberty has improved since David Cameron became Prime Minister, according to a new survey. The ComRes poll, commissioned by The Christian Institute, found that over four in ten (44 per cent) of those surveyed support legal protections for people with ‘sincere, profoundly-held beliefs’. ComRes surveyed 1,000 British adults living in the 40 most marginal Conservative/Labour constituencies last month. Only 21 per cent disagreed that the ‘tide of equality legislation has gone too far in elevating equality over religious freedom’. Colin Hart, Director of The Christian Institute, said the results should act as a ‘wake up call’ to party leaders, as voters in key marginal seats are ‘very concerned about threats to religious liberty and free speech. Those surveyed rightly believe that religious freedom in this country has not improved under Mr Cameron’s leadership.

Christian charities from across the UK are joining forces to launch a year of prayer and fasting for the climate. A number of church services are taking place around the country where believers will be encouraged to pray on the first day of every month during 2015. In December 2015 a new international climate agreement will be signed in Paris. Charities like Operation Noah, A Rocha, Christian Aid, Christian Concern for One World, Christian Ecology Link, OurVoices, Hope for the Future and Shrinking the Footprint are all involved. The campaign is aiming to highlight the political and spiritual significance of prayer and fasting as a powerful platform for change. Canon Giles Goddard, board member of Operation Noah said: ‘The need for change is urgent and everyone can help bring it about. Praying and fasting for the climate will inspire action and encourage people to think about what needs to happen.'

Christian speaker Rev J John questions what Halloween stands for and believes it is getting ‘darker and nastier’ each year. Halloween has become one of the biggest events in the British calendar. There have always been traditions associated with 31 October, but the present extravaganza, with its epidemic of ‘trick-or-treating’, is a recent phenomenon. Financially, Halloween is now, after Christmas and Easter, our third highest grossing celebration. When people talk about what happens on 31 October a little phrase commonly heard is that Halloween is ‘harmless nonsense’. But is it indeed harmless? Is it merely nonsense? It’s time to do some hard thinking. JJohn gives you six reasons why Halloween is not harmless: 1. Halloween celebrates evil. 2: Halloween is unhelpful: 3. Halloween trivialises bad things: 4. Halloween is offensive: 5. Halloween is getting worse: 6. Halloween allows evil a victory.` Click on the ‘More’ link for details.

A Christian film distributor wants to recruit more than 100 pastors to hold prayers at multi-screen cinemas in the UK. Kingdom Cinema is run by the Rev George Hargreaves, a former music producer and leader of the Christian Party. He began distributing Christian films last year, with one, God's Not Dead, reaching the top 20 in April. Now he wants pastors to speak and pray after screenings in December of Ragamuffin, a film about a Christian musician. He has negotiated with chains like Cineworld and Odeon for the pastors to address audiences after the movie which tells the story of Rich Mullins, who struggled with addiction and depression. Rev Hargreaves said: ‘It is not bashing people over the head with a Bible or making people embarrassed. It will be a few minutes at the end of the screening just to wrap up the themes and let the audience know more about our faith.’

Children and young people have a ‘profound lack of trust’ in the Police, bordering on fear in some cases, a report by MPs and peers has suggested. Children are often treated as ‘small adults’, with their specific needs disregarded, according to the all-party parliamentary group for children. Negative experiences, such as arrest and stop and search procedures, breeds ‘frustration and anger’, it warned. It urged changes to training, custody facilities and safeguarding approaches. Publishing the findings of an 18-month inquiry, the committee said children and young people's first contact with the police was vital in shaping their attitudes towards them. ‘For a significant number of children and young people, this experience is a negative one as a victim or suspected offender,’ the report said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned politicians not to demonise immigrants, a day after a Cabinet minister suggested that some parts of the country felt ‘swamped’ by foreign arrivals. Justin Welby said on Monday that he was worried about the language used in the debate. ‘We have 9,000 clergy working and livingin 16,000 parishes, We have better reports from the grassroots than almost anyone. What we are seeing is an upsurge of minor racist, anti-semitic, anti-Islamic, anti-foreigner xenophobia – not major things – just comments being made, things being said which are for the people who grew up in those backgrounds seriously uncomfortable, really quite frightening.'

A family judge says marriage and cohabitation should be put on the same legal footing when relationships break down – but a newspaper columnist says he is ‘utterly and sadly mistaken’. Sir Nicholas Mostyn’s comments were reportedly aimed at Sir Paul Coleridge – a former High Court judge who has spoken out in favour of traditional marriage. He also claimed that there was no evidence to prove marriage is more stable than a co-habiting relationship. However, columnist Sarah Vine said there was a ‘mountain of academic research proving beyond doubt that married couples are healthier, wealthier, happier and less likely to break-up than co-habiting ones. All these benefits also apply to the children of married parents’. Last year research from the Marriage Foundation said only one in eight children born to cohabiting couples will reach the age of 16 with their parents still together and unmarried

Thousands of dementia patients are hiding symptoms from loved ones and doctors because they are ashamed, a report warns. It compares the stigma to that of HIV and Aids in the 1980s and says that as many as a quarter of those suffering are refusing to speak out. Doctors say patients tell them how their friends ‘disappeared’ after they were diagnosed and in some cases how their own children have stopped visiting. A joint report led by the Medical Research Council warns that this ‘unacceptable stigma’ is denying patients vital help and resulting in them being ‘marginalised’ from the rest of society. Around 850,000 patients in Britain are thought to have dementia but only half have been given a proper diagnosis. The Government is urging GPs to improve their detection rates over concerns that victims and their families are struggling in silence.

A member of the public has taken the dramatic step of starting criminal proceedings against two doctors who were identified by a national newspaper as authorising the abortion of two babies because they were not the sex that the mother wanted. In two instances doctors were recorded offering to arrange abortions after being told that the mother did not want to go ahead with the pregnancy because of the sex of the unborn child. At the Pall Mall Medical Centre in Manchester, Dr Parabha Sivaraman was filmed giving consent for a woman to have an abortion purely on the grounds that the pre-born child was the ‘wrong gender’. The second was at the Calthorpe Clinic in Birmingham where Dr Raj Mohan was secretly filmed offering to arrange an abortion for a woman who said she wanted to abort her baby because it was a girl.

The UK has the highest rate of family breakdown in Western Europe, ‘alarming’ findings show. For the first time, the proportion of children living in single parent households has been found to be higher in the UK than all other Western European countries. According to the latest figures from Eurostat, the European Union’s official statistics body, almost one in four UK children were found to be living in single parent households in 2012. This means that the UK has jumped to pole position, having been placed between second and fifth in Western Europe since 2005. The average number of children living in single parent households in Europe as a whole is around one in six. Commenting on the findings Harry Benson, Research Director for the Marriage Foundation, said: ‘These figures are alarming.’ He stressed ‘that while most lone parents do an excellent job with fewer resources, not many will have chosen this lifestyle’.