Religion

Before Trump or Farage, before Wilders or Marine Le Pen, there was Pauline. Pauline Hanson was the original rabble-rouser who disrupted the pieties of liberal multiculturalism. Along came this copper-topped fish ’n’ chip shop owner with her screechy, strangled sentences and her gut prejudices about immigrants, welfare wasters and Aborigines. Unexpectedly elected to Parliament in 1996, Hanson stunned her fellow MPs and much of the country by declaring in her maiden speech that Australia was in danger of being ‘swamped by Asians’. She is back in the news after wearing then tearing off a burqa in the Australian Senate. Senator Hanson, who leads the hard-right One Nation party, has made

I quite enjoyed James Fergusson’s exploration of British Islam – Al-Britannia, My Country. If it is done intelligently, I approve of someone accentuating the positive, reminding us that the majority of British Muslims have successfully integrated to a large extent, and that optimism is warranted. But I have a couple of quibbles. He spends much time arguing that it is dangerously wrong to conflate conservative Islam with extremism – the alleged sin of the Prevent programme. We should tolerate those who disparage gay rights or feminism, rather than accuse them of extremism, which will drive them underground. Fair point, but I feel his argument misses a central issue. If ‘conservative

The Government’s eleventh-hour political solution to Stella Creasy’s abortion amendment to the Queen’s Speech could create an unhelpful precedent within the delicate balance of the devolution settlements. I have long opposed the abhorrent abortion policies both north and south of the Irish border, so my concerns about last Thursday’s funding fudge to allow women from Northern Ireland to receive funding for abortions in England via the Government Equalities Office are purely technical. While the decision will address one form of inequality, it will also highlight the many other inequalities across the borders. The lack of understanding of our system of devolution is staggering. Devolved governments of every political persuasion, will, at some point, enact policies distasteful

‘If he can’t be in politics,’ the Archbishop of Canterbury tweeted last week after Tim Farron resigned the leadership of his party, ‘media & politicians have questions.’ So prelates now think complex theological concerns can be despatched within the Twitter limit of 140 characters. They cannot. Let me now unpack Dr Welby’s abbreviated consideration of this subject and examine what’s behind it, because the subject is of profound importance —and not only for Christians. Nobody has said Mr Farron can’t be in politics. He has been returned as MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale with the support of 26,686 voters. Farron himself, however, has doubted he should be leader of a

Forgive the inflammatory headline, but that’s the conclusion that millions of Britons have drawn from media descriptions of the DUP. Mainland commentators seem unable to make any distinction between the Democratic Unionist Party, founded by the late Ian Paisley, and his small Free Presbyterian sect, which is indeed influenced by American fundamentalism. We know the DUP is against abortion and gay marriage. But are its members also creationists who think the world was created 6,000 years ago? In this week’s Holy Smoke podcast, Cristina Odone and I talk to Jon Anderson, a Northern Irish writer specialising in religious and political sectarianism. He lays some myths to rest. For example, the

In a sense it was the Liberal Democrats who did worst in this odd election. For the point of this party is to attract progressives who find Labour too dogmatic. And in the past two years Labour has been taken over by old-fashioned socialist dogma. It was the perfect opportunity to create a huge base of homeless New Labour voters. And then came Brexit, doubling this golden opportunity, for the Liberal Democrats were the main party of Brexit-scepticism. Why was the chance missed? Maybe English voters can only really believe in the two main parties, when it comes to governing. In fact, most of us find one of these parties