Displaying items by tag: United Kingdom

Plans for a new Holocaust memorial and learning centre in Westminster are currently being strongly opposed. The plans, first announced by David Cameron in 2016, have the backing of every major UK Jewish organisation and 170+ politicians from all political parties. A growing number of people in this country, especially the younger generation, know nothing or very little about the Holocaust, so a vital education centre for that generation risks being lost. The memorial will use 7% of the park, with the education centre underground. Whilst many genuinely oppose the construction without discriminatory motives, there is evidence of anti-Semitism from some opponents. A petition to save the memorial has been posted online, because it ‘could be stopped if we fail to act before the end of March.’

The murders of two 17-year-olds in one weekend have catapulted knife crime back into news headlines. Jodie Chesney’s death stands out because she is the first girl out of ten teenagers who have been killed by knives so far this year. While most victims of murders know their assailant, reports suggest Jodie was stabbed in the back by a stranger in a London park, in a ‘random and unprovoked attack’. Last weekend’s other victim, Yousef Ghaleb Makki, was killed in an affluent Manchester suburb. He attended a private school, and was planning to train as a heart surgeon. These two deaths show that knife violence involving teenagers is not, as is sometimes suggested, a problem confined to boys on tough estates. The homicide rate and the number of teenagers killed with knives in England and Wales is at its highest for a decade.

One in ten people know someone who has drowned and nearly one in five know someone who has nearly drowned. A survey shows that one person drowns every 20 hours, and thousands more have near-drowning experiences, sometimes causing life-changing injuries. Alcohol is a contributor to these statistics. It lowers inhibitions and impairs judgment, causing people to be more likely to take risks and get into trouble. It limits muscle ability, making simple movements much harder, slows down reactions and numbs the sight, sound and touch senses, making swimming very difficult. Over the last five years there have been 1,581 accidental deaths in the UK, and almost 30% of the victims (346) had alcohol in their bloodstream. Don’t Drink and Drown was launched in 2014, following a string of tragic drownings of young people. In 2017 there were 75 alcohol-related drownings, compared to 53 in 2016.

A shooting range which provides ‘family fun’ for adults and children aged six and over announced a new target in a tweet. ‘Hot off the press’ showed an image of Shamima Begum and the hashtag ‘no remorse’. 19-year-old Shamima is in a refugee camp, asking to return to the UK after living with IS terrorists for four years. The home secretary removed her British citizenship for the public good, and suggested she apply for Bangladeshi nationality as her mother is a Bangladeshi. There are questions around citizenship, justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of the most brutal conflict so far this century. Our moral reasoning and response to those complicit in IS evil will be debated in the law courts. Our government has responsibilities to protect citizens, administer justice and look after those who have suffered. What would Jesus do? For background, see

(Linda Digby - Prayer Alert team)

The former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply concerned that the UK’s export credit agency had provided billions of pounds in recent years to support businesses involved in oil and gas schemes around the world. ‘These figures and policies are hard to reconcile with the UK’s commitments under the Paris agreement,’ said Ban, referring to the international climate deal he forged in 2015 as UN chief. ‘The time has come for the UK to change course, in the interests of the whole world,’ he wrote in a comment for the Guardian. Pray that the Government’s priority, at home and abroad, will be to forge opportunities for UK businesses to resist investing in or funding fossil fuel projects. Recent projects supported by the UK include oil and gas fields off the coast of Ghana, a major gas pipeline in Oman, and software for an oil firm in Argentina.

Research has found that 24% of boys aged 16 to 24 in the UK self-harm. Sadly, the culture of men not showing emotions or talking through their emotional concerns has a direct link to the suicide rate in older men. Young men need to talk about their feelings and emotions before they become men who haven’t learnt how to, and feel they have no way of coping but to take their own lives. Self-harm in young men and teenage boys may exhibit differently from females. Males self-poison with paracetamol or ibuprofen as a way of coping with daily anxieties and fears; the next highest form of self-harm in young men is cutting and hanging. Punching walls or regularly fighting are forms of self-harm that are missed because the behaviour is seen as aggressive rather than emotional.

Councils are accused of hiding the scale of the rough sleeping crisis in England by changing the way they compiled figures for the 2018 official count. For example, Southend had 72 people sleeping rough in 2017. Then in 2018 they did their street count on one especially cold night late November night and submitted a street count of 11. Official government statistics reported a 2% fall in rough sleeping in England in 2018 after seven consecutive years of rises. Critics suggest the fall in official numbers does not reflect the reality of homelessness. Homeless charity Crisis estimated that over 22,000 people spent Christmas sleeping rough or in cars, trains, buses or tents. The official figure was 4,677. We can pray that this report will highlight councils’ smokescreens, and prompt authorities to face the reality of our rough sleeping crisis and do more to eradicate it.

A Twitter video of a street preacher’s arrest in London has been viewed over 1.8 million times. It shows the man confronted by two police officers warning he would be arrested for a breach of the peace if he refuses to leave the area. One said, 'You're disturbing people, you're causing problems, and you're breaching their peace.' The man says, 'I need to tell people Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life’, to which the officer replies, 'I appreciate that, but nobody wants to hear that, they want you to go away’. When the man told his reasons for preaching, they handcuffed him and took his Bible. The preacher said, 'No, no, no, don't take my Bible away!’ It is unclear what he said that triggered the incident. An eyewitness said, ‘This man was preaching and did nothing wrong, he had a hostile person near him.’ He was later released.

A review was launched into working practices at Amnesty International after two staff members, Gaetan Mootoo and Rosalind McGregor, committed suicide last year. The review found that ‘organisational culture and management failures’ were the root cause of deep staff unhappiness in Amnesty’s ‘toxic culture’ of workplace bullying. Their efforts to address its problems were described as ‘ad hoc, reactive, and inconsistent’, and the senior leadership team was described as out-of-touch, incompetent and callous. There was bullying, harassment, sexism, racism, and poor management. Decentralising the organisation from its global headquarters in London had caused unnecessary turmoil and compounded job pressures. Seven management team members acknowledged that there was a climate of tension and mistrust, and have offered to resign.

Unless there is a postponement or a second referendum, the UK will leave (or partly leave) the EU on 29 March. Whatever the exact outcome, this will mark a watershed in our nation’s history and lead to a time of much disruption. The call to prayer is therefore urgent. Christians are primarily citizens of Heaven, and need to be about the King’s business. Pray that the Lord will give Christians, both rural and urban, renewed strength to show exemplary love for one another (John 13:34-35), ‘preach the word in season and out of season’, and to walk as ‘children of light’ in the midst of a dark world.