Displaying items by tag: United Kingdom

Shaun Bailey, Conservative London mayoral candidate, says the way Christians are treated in the UK is tantamount to persecution. A Londoner, he has often spoken about his Christian faith during his political career. As he prepares to stand against Sadiq Khan, he is concerned his faith may be used against him in the campaign. He said, ‘We're persecuted for our views. People say things to us that they wouldn't say to people of no faith or any other faith. I think that because we are seen as a sort of establishment faith, people are allowed to say things. Internationally, people might feel differently about it, but that's how I feel. I know lots of people of faith feel that way because of what is said about them and what they cannot say. You'll see it in my election campaign, I imagine.’ See also the world article ‘Life getting harder for Christians’.

TLG is a Christian charity that helps churches to bring hope and a future for struggling children. From school exclusion, to poverty and holiday hunger, there are children across the UK facing some of the toughest starts in life. TLG believes change is possible through early intervention: one coach per child, one hour a week, for children struggling in school because of bullying, bereavement, family breakdown, poverty, or being in the care system. These all have a huge impact on a child's education. Some children may be struggling with a lack of confidence, have no positive role models, or just need an adult to talk to. TLG Early Intervention gives the church a practical solution to support children, families and schools in their community. The programme enables trained volunteers to become coaches and work on a one-to-one basis with a child, improving their behaviour and in turn raising their levels of learning. 

Northern Ireland has been without a devolved government for three years. Proposed legislation for an Irish language act and reforming the assembly's controversial veto system are among the key sticking points in ongoing talks. The DUP has been accused of holding up a deal. Sinn Féin's Declan Kearney said on 9 January that the situation is at the point where closure must be found. After three days of talks, the text of a draft deal has been shown to the DUP and Sinn Féin, but not yet to the smaller parties, who feel they are being left out again. Some think that the two main parties have done enough negotiating, and a final call needs to be made. Since Stormont collapsed, civil servants have run day-to-day operations. In July the Government extended a law that gives civil servants flexibility to take certain decisions, but that runs out on 13 January.

Culture secretary Nicky Morgan has said that she hopes the Football Association will ‘reconsider’ after it allowed a betting company to broadcast FA Cup matches, more than two years after it had said it would end such partnerships. Bet365, which allows fans to watch play if they place a bet via their app, has been showing matches since the start of last season. The partnership drew criticism from viewers and campaigners last weekend, when all matches were delayed by a minute to promote the Duke of Cambridge’s mental health charity.

Pray for Brexit leavers and remainers to end enmity and rebuild a genuinely United Kingdom. Boris Johnson has an 80-seat majority; may his government members speak with strong voices in Brussels and achieve God’s purposes for our nations. There is a possibility that we will leave the EU without a deal on World Trade Organisation terms. May we be philosophical: Britain has been through worse in the past and moved on. Many promises were made before the election. Pray for the new government to reignite the North of England while keeping to its promise not to increase taxes (see also next article). Pray for enough new houses to be built on brownfield sites to end the housing crisis. May the promised 31,000 nurses and 20,000 police officers be recruited, trained and used by God to build a safer, healthier society. Pray also for local elections on 7 May to bring people back to voting on local issues, not national ones.

Government officials could face exams in a bid to end an environment where civil servants change jobs regularly and ‘almost no one is ever fired’, in an organisation of which some say ‘failure is normal’. Number 10 is planning a string of changes to the structure of government, with several departments set to be merged or rebadged in the early months of Boris Johnson's administration. Rachel Wolf, the Tory manifesto author, said officials should expect to be kept on projects where they ‘know the background’. In a move that could anger civil service unions, she hinted at a ‘rethink of incentives, numbers and pay’ in the organisation. She is urging Downing Street to oversee a wider change in the organisation, saying civil servants were currently too focused on ‘stakeholders’ and not the public, with too many officials seeing special interests as their customers. For information about a government reshuffle, go to

Olubunmi Diya is mourning after her daughter Comfort (9), son Praise-Emmanuel (16), and husband Pastor Gabriel (52) drowned in a hotel swimming pool on Christmas Eve. Olubunmi said she believed something was wrong that must have made swimming difficult for them’, and that they were somehow dragged into the middle of the pool. The hotel owners issued a statement stressing that exhaustive investigations by the police confirmed that the pool was working normally and there was no malfunction of any kind. They also cited the police statement that ‘the tragic accident was due to the lack of swimming expertise of the victims’. Olubunmi said that they were able to swim. Her family is not satisfied with the idea that it was a simple accident, and may open a parallel investigation into the deaths.

Conservative peer Charles Moore, as a guest editor on Radio 4's Today programme, said the BBC has a liberal bias: ‘What I am objecting to is preaching.’ He said the BBC is a secular church which tells us what we ought to think about things. Mr Moore had difficulty trying to get information about climate change onto the programme, even though he was the guest editor and should have had a free rein. He said the obstacles came because of bureaucracy and the fact that Roger Harabin, the environment editor, is ‘so biased’. Nick Robinson defended his colleague, stating the BBC is regulated by Ofcom. The director of Affinity, a network of UK churches, said that he has ‘a lot of sympathy’ with Mr Moore; BBC intolerance of any other view causes questioning and framing of questions to be based on a number of presumptions.

Between April 2017 and December 2019, Kent police investigated 109 children for possessing, or threatening with, an offensive weapon or blade at school. Two children, aged seven and nine, were not prosecuted for knife-related offences because they were under ten - the age of criminal responsibility. The most common age group for suspects was 14- to 15-year-olds. Five adults were also investigated for having knives on school premises. These figures follow similar disclosures by the majority of forces in England and Wales; numbers are much higher in places like London. An October investigation found that thousands of children had brought weapons to school, with some suspects as young as four. Pray for churches, support workers, and social services as they seek to help overwhelmed parents juggling busy lives with badly-behaved children and teenagers.

Britain's personal debt mountain is growing. Households borrowed an extra £20bn on credit cards and have £45bn more personal debt than they did a decade ago – an increase of 25%. In 2019, total unsecured debt (credit cards, personal loans and overdrafts) was £225bn. A decade ago Britain was near the peak of cheap credit-fuelled debt binges. Many hoped that personal debt would be reined in. This has not happened. Borrowing increased as wages failed to keep pace with inflation. These statistics do not include secured borrowing such as mortgage debt or student loans, which increases the figure substantially. Experts believe the personal debt surge is due to credit becoming cheaper towards the end of the decade. StepChange, a debt charity, recently estimated that across Britain, over three million people fell behind on an essential household bill in the last 12 months.