Faith, at least in some quarters, had almost become a dirty word, such that to call someone a “person of faith” was to question their intellectual adequacy and to suggest an unreasonable commitment to the implausible and non-empirical. This attitude was typical of that particular element of the “anti-faith” brigade that held that science was the all-conquering, all-sufficient means of answering any and all allowable questions. They of course claimed for themselves the authority to decide which were the “allowable” questions. They had a habit of ruling as unallowable those questions that they didn’t like or which their methods of choice couldn’t cope with. Theirs was always a highly questionable (and questioned) approach and it has not aged well. At least in its “New Atheist” form, its influence does seem to have ebbed somewhat.

Perhaps this was the inevitable consequence of the post-modern fashion of arguing that as nothing was true, anything might be. Truth became merely a personal perspective with no interpersonal authority. Therefore even “faith” could not be criticised too harshly, particularly when held, practised and discussed privately, away from the tricky and pressing issues that are the focus of public dialogue. But although largely relegated to the private sphere, faith began to become at least semi-respectable. Mind you, this kind of faith was an odd, unattractive, sort of beast. It had no purchase on, or relevance to, anything that apparently mattered.

More recently there has been another development of note, for the post-modern tide has also receded  (mainly because in its strongest forms it was self-refuting). Some commentators, particularly, but not exclusively, on the political right, have begun to argue that in the West faith (specifically in its Christian form) had bequeathed us all certain cherished values and views. They traced back to a faith-based heritage important concepts like human dignity and equality, tolerance, pluralism and more. But because for the best part of a couple of centuries these very foundations had not just been rejected but thoroughly trashed, they had noticed that some of these concepts and values themselves, not merely the soil from which they sprang, have begun to be questioned. First in the academy, then in institutions and finally in the culture, values like equality before the law and human rights were seen as being in danger to everyone’s detriment. Consider the value of truth and speaking the truth. Once, both in the UK and the US, it was a basic assumption that in public as well as private life being honest and speaking the truth was a “good thing”. This came directly from the ninth (of ten) commandments, and commitments flowing from it. Why were such directives worth paying attention to? Because they were an aspect of health creaturely living and came backed by the authority of the Creator of the created. But having relegated said Creator to the role of remote first mover and tinkerer with watches, and then having spent a long time denying His existence at all, this scheme loses much of its force. Maybe such notions are not as “true” or as useful as was once supposed. They can be dispensed with at no real cost.

Currently, on both sides of the Atlantic we appear to be testing this to destruction. So we find ourselves mired in untruth but have discovered some of the costs. Scepticism quickly turns to cynicism, and trust is rapidly eroded. At least in the UK our political system managed to remove one of our most-noted untruth tellers of recent years. Boris is, at least for the political moment, no more. He is playing no obvious role in our current general election campaign. What did for him was his propensity for being less than honest, presumably on the basis that the rest of us either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care. However, it is worth noting that as well as having a semi-detached relationship with truth and integrity, he also turned out to lack basic competence when it came to running a government. Perhaps if he had done his day job better he would have got away with his truth problem. But the Boris episode, has tended to reinforce the old joke about how you tell when a politician is lying – his lips move. While funny, this used not to be particularly true. There were always exceptions, and there was a degree of obfuscation and hypocrisy involved. But by and large politicians knew that while they might get away with claiming grey that was either black or white they had to avoid insulting our intelligence by claiming that white was black (or vice versa).

On the other side of the Atlantic, even the small crumb of comfort one might take from Boris’ demise is striking in its absence. Trump has largely been exposed as suffering from the same disease that afflicted Boris (or possibly it’s the other way round) and yet he is very much still around. A large slice of his electorate, including a lot of “evangelicals”, seem to prefer myths to truth. Reasons keep being found for why what once would have made him unelectable (his flat out lies, his abuse of the law not to mention his legally established abuse of women) turn out not to be that big a problem. Truth has become tainted while rank mistrust (occasionally accompanied by politically inspired violence) are all too observable. All this in what once had been thought of as a stable and (largely) prosperous democracy one that could be depended upon to uphold commonly accepted values of decency and integrity. Now even that hallmark of a democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, has been attacked and is under attack.

Spend several centuries dismissing what underlies the values that have shaped our culture, specifically faith in the God who reveals Himself in Scripture, and prepare to loose those values. Perhaps other foundations can be found, but most of the replacements that have been tried do not appear to have worked. Some no doubt celebrate the prospect of the demise of values that might loosely be called Biblical. For them the values themselves, as well as the foundation one which they were built, may have been the problem all along. And some have argued that we are seeing the fruit of a concerted campaign to undermine what had been widely accepted as valuable. Maybe might is right after all and human beings have no inherent dignity simply by virtue of the fact that they are human beings. Maybe inequality is just how things are and beyond that it is how things should be. While I view this brave new world as being intolerable, maybe you don’t.

However, if you feel that something important and valuable (and true) is being lost, much of this argument can be turned on its head. Perhaps the faith that gave rise to what had been valued is worth another look. This kind of reasoning prompted Justin Brierley to discus, first in his podcast “Unbelievable” and more recently in his book “The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God”, the proposition that faith is making a comeback (or at least its “ebb” has begun to reverse). It is worth pointing out that Brierley is a Christian, and his book is a work of apologetics; he writes to commend the Christian faith as being at the very least worth investigating. It could be he’s seeing a pattern where none actually exists. This is essentially the argument of Ralph Jones in his review of Brierley’s book in “The New Humanist” (but then, to be fair, it would be). But from Douglas Murray to Russell Brand something appears to be stirring.

At least “faith” is no longer a dirty word.

Amateur Hour

 It is hard to fathom the political pickle we are currently in. On this side of the Atlantic we (some of us) watched with horror as our friends in the US elected a political neophyte to the highest office in the land. From early on, it was clear that President Trump was completely mystified by the business of government. There were obviously things he wanted to do; he was admirably clear about what these were (fix healthcare, reduce crime, stop illegal migration by building “the wall”, appoint conservative judges, fix campaign finance). Some of them were entirely within the gift of the presidency, such as nominating Supreme Court justices. But many were not, requiring the cooperation of the legislative branch of the US system (ie the Congress). This should have been unproblematic for the at least the first part of his administration, given that he was elected as a Republican president, and the Republican party controlled both the Senate and the House of Representatives (and a majority of state Governorships to boot). The Republicans even tightened their grip on the Senate after the 2018 mid-term elections (although they lost control of the House).  But yet, Trump achieved remarkably little beyond securing a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. While this is not to be sniffed at, his term was more marked by an inability to govern than to get stuff done. He seemed to be more interested in trashing the very norms and institutions he should have been using. The simplest explanation is that he was an amateur and basically not up to the job. He famously said of healthcare “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated” in 2017. But everybody did know (except apparently him). Maybe he should have been paying more attention.

But Trump’s rise can be seen as part of a reaction to professional politics and the “elite” that populates it, as represented at the time by Hillary Clinton. There’s no doubt she knew all about politics from her experience as former First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State and so on. But she just couldn’t get enough voters to believe that she was on their side, and would get the sort of things done that they wanted. Trump was the perfect foil; a way of holding two fingers up to the system (apologies for this British cultural reference, in the US it is of course one finger). The problem is he proceeded to trash the system and the institutions that made it work, to the extent that it sort of did work, if only haltingly. And so a vacuum was created that was filled with conspiracies, distrust, misinformation, outright lies and an increase in domestic political violence (threatened and executed). The tragedy for us on this side of the Atlantic is that it appears that there are those that seek to follow the same playbook, whether actively or passively. And, at least initially, they managed to strike a similar cord.

For us it was not a disputed election that brought things to a head, but a contentious referendum. There’s no point relitigating Brexit. The decision was passed to the people, the people decided and we all have to live with the political, economic and cultural consequences. The outcome was in part about sticking it to the elite, or at least that section of it that seemed to have actual arguments, facts, analysis, the biggest political beasts (one remembers press conferences with Balls, Osborne and Cameron) and, of course, experts. And in order to “get Brexit done” we were then, by some margin, prepared to entrust our system to Boris, a man who in normal times would have been completely disqualified from the highest office by his track record of lying and buffoonery. We apparently had had enough of “experts”, and handed the keys to those who would not pay undue respect to important institutions, not to mention personal integrity. Things then began to look up when Boris was dispatched precisely because of his lack of integrity (although no doubt basic political and economic incompetence played a role). But, alas, this turned out to be a lull, the calm before an economic storm brought on by monumental hubris which magnified the effects of a basic incompetence. Once again, some the stabilizing and constraining institutions which previously might have moderated the excesses of the political class were ignored or undermined. In the case of the Truss/Kwarteng omnishambles, non-budget, “fiscal event” these were mainly economic institutions like the OBR, the Bank of England, and the top civil servant in the Treasury who was apparently too “orthodox” for comfort. Trussteng knew better than the faceless (if experienced) bureaucrats, and better than the markets that they proudly professed to worship. They had been warned of course, in public debate, that fantasy economics don’t usually fare well when they collide with reality, but they either didn’t listen, or didn’t care, or actually believed the fantasy. We may never know which it was. But they managed to persuade the key selectorate that they knew what they were doing, and so the keys were duly passed on to them. 

If someone had proposed a script with a plot that followed the twists and turns of the last few months in UK politics, it would have been rejected out of hand as being too far-fetched. And the idea of a popular insurrection (albeit an unsuccessful one) in the US would also have seemed implausible not that long ago. But this torrid tale of people promoted or trusted beyond their abilities, of the triumph of the amateur and the charlatan over the serious and experienced, holds lessons for us. Knowledge, experience and character all count, particularly when it comes to running things like governments and economies. It turns out that this is no easy job and takes skill, experience, application and even a little luck (or the aid of Providence). Democratic political systems no doubt can be frustrating and exasperating, but the answer cannot be to entrust them to those who don’t really have a clue about what they are doing. Trusting the expert and the experienced, may also mean trusting the cautious, and that may mean that change is slow and incremental. But in the complex world in which we live, that may be the best we can hope for, no matter how impatient we may be. Better slow change than quick disaster.

Democracy only works where the voters play their part, inform themselves and decide carefully, weighing the options, judging character and ability deliberately and dismissing fantasies and the fantasists that promote them. Maybe in the end we get the politicians and governments we deserve. Well, we’ve tried the amateurs. Maybe it’s time to revert to the professionals, as unappealing as that might seem.

Bookending Boris

As one layer of political dust falls out of the air and begins to settle, another cloud is kicked up by the shuffle of political feet, stinging the eyes and clogging the back of the throat. Boris is no more. Not quite true of course. Like so much else about him, what is said, and what has actually transpired do not quite tally. They might, in time; hopefully they will. But with Boris, one just never knows. I am referring of course to our current and (probably) soon to be former Prime Minister, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. He became PM on the 24^th July, 2019, and stepped through the Number 10 door to announce his intention to resign at 12.30pm, July 7^th, 2022. When the Conservative party has elected a new leader, Boris will tender his resignation to her Majesty, who will then invite his replacement as Conservative party leader to form a new administration.

To digress and to be clear, the people of the UK to not elect Prime Ministers. We each of us have a vote for a constituency MP. In theory, the PM is anyone who can command a majority in the House of Commons (usually, but not always, determined by a general election), and he or she then chairs a cabinet of equals to implement a manifesto and govern the country. In practice, for much of the last 200 years this has been done on a party basis, and the leader of the largest party (which usually holds an absolute majority in the Commons) is the PM. Parties and manifestos have become less important as first mass and then social media have turned politics into a personality-driven affair focusing on one person. But our system does not work well this way. The kind of checks and balances in the US presidential system (of the kind Trump tried to subvert with partial success) do not actually exist here. In a way, because our PM holds lots of executive and legislative power, the position of PM is the more powerful (and therefore dangerous) position. This is something Boris has amply demonstrated.

He has been displaced without an election, even although it took an election to (only just) dispense with Trump – at least for now. There is no great policy divide in his party. Everyone is now a brexiteer, and believes in a small state and reduced taxation. It was Boris personally, rather than politically, who had become unacceptable and had to be replaced. It was his colleagues in government who provided the mechanism, not the people at large. This is not in the least anti-democratic, provided that Boris’ Conservative successor is committed to implementing the manifest on which all Conservatives were elected back in December 2019. There’s no point huffing and puffing that the next PM is being imposed on the rest of us by a selectorate of mainly southern bluerinsers. We don’t elect the PM, and we never have. Anyway, back to Boris.

Although he has not yet departed, it is worth identifying what has done for him, because it is both troubling and heartening. His lack of attention to the requirements of governing (as opposed to campaigning), observing important rules and conventions, paying attention to detail, caused problems which afflicted his administration right from the start. But it was his complete inability to act honestly and transparently that really hurt him. Latterly, there was even an attempt to institutionalise what looked like his contempt for honesty by making none-too-subtle tweaks to the “ministerial code” – a venerable but toothless set of guidance authored by each PM, and provided to serving ministers. Boris’ problems with honestly and consistency, as evidenced by his inability to apply the code to himself and one of his friends, cost him two ethics advisors who were both serious and non-political public servants with copious experience in public life. This all began catching up with Boris when his Health Secretary and then his Chancellor resigned, to be followed by a gathering avalanche of other resignations. So the central issue was not policy; it was entirely to do with Boris’ unsuitability for the role because of his lack of personal integrity. What’s troubling is not only that all of this was predictable, but that it was predicted.

This is usefully illustrated by two columns written by Max Hastings, the first in June 2019 and the second last Thursday, (7^th July). Two bookends for Boris’ time as PM. Hastings is a distinguished (indeed Knighted) journalist and historian, and one of Boris’ previous bosses. He has observed him from afar and up close, and while never a chum, was not a natural enemy. While I suspect Hastings is a natural, small “c” conservative, he has actually voted both Conservative and Labour in the past. In 2019 he was excoriating; he is now relieved, while sounding somewhat apprehensive about the future. He is clearly a remainer, although in his more recent article he makes it clear that for the time being re-joining the EU is off the agenda (the current political consensus), even while arguing that he expects the issue to be revisited in the future. But while thinking that Brexit is folly, this is not at the centre of his critique.

Writing in 2019, Hastings quickly honed in on the character flaw that would eventually lead to Boris’ downfall: “He would not recognize the truth…if confronted by it in an identity parade”. He was unfit for national office because “…he cares for no interest save his own frame and gratification”. He then predicted that Boris’ premiership “..will almost certainly reveal a contempt for rules, precedent, order and stability”. Prescient indeed. Writing after Boris’ demise, with the evidence clear to see, Hastings wrote “[Boris] is a stranger to truth who has sooner or later betrayed every man, woman and cause with which he associates”. Nothing has changed though, Boris was “the same moral bankrupt as when the Conservative party chose him”. Of course both the Conservative party and the country connived in the Boris phenomenon. Pushing issues of personal morality aside, he was voted for to achieve what was deemed of more importance than things like truth and integrity. I understand this; I struggled with it myself at onepoint.

The heartening bit is that, having flirted with disaster, we have avoided it. The unwritten British constitution has been flexible enough to both survive and remove Boris, without mass violence. This is not something to be dismissed lightly, as events in the US demonstrated. It looks like the system there has also survived but only after mass violence that cost lives. We have apparently decided that integrity matters, even if accompanied by a dash of hypocrisy and political calculation. It may not be everything, but I’ll take it as a promising sign that all is not lost.

One other heartening aspect is that according to Sajid Javid, whose resignation got the ball rolling, it was the sermon of the Rev Les Isaac, “Serving the Common Good”, at the National Prayer Breakfast early on the 5^th July that pushed him across the line. He went straight back to his office to write his letter of resignation. The cynics will claim that this is just convenient cover for ambition and disloyalty. But it sounds to me more like Providence being kind to us (again), and doing what we could not do ourselves – focus on, and value, truth over expediency.

Below the surface.....

There have been some scary headlines recently. Yesterday’s Daily Mail Scottish addition (we’re back in the homeland on a visit) all but declared a polio epidemic. In fact, some evidence has of the virus has been discovered in sewage samples; there have been no cases. Today, Boris’ government is apparently imploding (two bye election loses overnight, and the resignation of the party chairman) while Boris goes for a swim in Rwanda. And of course on the other side of the Atlantic, in one of the world’s younger democracies, words such as coup and insurrection are used daily in the January 6^th Congressional committee hearings (with some justification), and New Yorkers will be able to openly carry their guns thanks to a Supreme Court ruling. Headlines are of course designed to be eye-catching. But if you are a news junkie, their constant catastrophism has an effect. To conclude all is always and only disaster is probably to take the headlines too seriously. It usually entails not reading the actual story (which is often more moderate and nuanced). But to conclude that it is all just about overwrought teenage scribblers (to use Nigel Lawson’s famous put-down of financial journalists) over-egging the pudding is also probably unwise.

Let’s begin over the pond. The Congressional hearings on the January 6^th attack on the US Capitol (which it clearly was), have been revealing and are chilling. Former President Trump is both more calculating and more determined that he is often given credit for. And it appears that he set out, probably knowingly and certainly illegally (as he was often told) to subvert a basically sound election result. He is no democrat (with a small d obviously). I have expressed previously my bemusement that so many “evangelicals” voted for him. Any one of his utter detachment from the truth and anything approaching integrity, his attitude to people in general and women in particular, and his basic lack of competence, should have disqualified him. I know the arguments (the other “guy”, the Supreme Court etc) that were deployed. But for anyone with a commitment to Scripture, these arguments could not, and should not have stumbled as far as the end of the runway, never mind flown. In the US the presidential election is, in most states, a binary choice – or you can sit on your hands. Trump has not gone away and a comeback presidential run cannot be ruled out. But underlying his arrival and staying power, with all that they might imply, is something more basic and powerful. Whether he is a deliverance or a judgment on the US, Providence, that great outworking of the sovereign purposes of God, is quietly at work.

We also have our own travails here in the UK. Boris’ basic lack of interest in truth and integrity, so noted from his earlier career that some warned of why he was unsuitable for high office, has once again been demonstrated in his approach to that same high office. You can often tell when he is dissembling because he mutters; and he mutters a lot. He has now learned that his party colleagues will not only tolerate him, but will continue to support him for fear of the alternatives. Ethics, or the lack thereof (along with the absence of an appointed ethics advisor) mark his premiership, and don't seem to bother his supporters. And he is not even careful or measured about his approach. Tony Blair suffered the accusation of lying over the Iraq war. But this was an accusation; it is debatable whether he did or did not. But there is really no argument about Boris who has already been sacked twice for telling porkies, and has deserved to be sacked again (and for some time). He appears to revel in his reputation. It would apparently not matter to him if he was known as a liar as long as he was also known as a doer. This no longer shocks; but it should. Just as Billy Bush should have ended Donald, so all this muttered dissembling should have disqualified Boris. But it didn’t and we are where we are. 

These local difficulties have their global accompaniment. Just as it looked as though the global pandemic was slackening, and we thought that with the help of vaccines we had escaped the worst, Covid is making a comeback in China, potentially with global consequences (and then there’s “monkey pox” and polio of course). The war in Ukraine, as well as a tragedy for Ukraine, and in its own way for Russia, is pushing a large slices of the developing world into hunger, if not outright famine. And it is causing severe economic dislocation adding to that caused by the pandemic. Because of the media’s linear and limited thought processes, which in the West largely dictates political agendas, the pressure to respond to climate change has been largely removed from the political class. Indeed, because of economic pressure and the effects of sanctions on Russia, coal is making a comeback, and oil is again highly profitable. And populations suffering from the kind of inflation not experienced for fifty years don’t want to hear about green taxes and switching to environmentally friendly and marginally more expensive farming techniques. Relief is wanted now. And a generation of democratic politicians who live by expedient rather than principle (as did older political generations to be fair), but now without even ideology to guide them, are probably not up to the task of leading rather than following.

In all of this, it is easy to miss the deeper point. What did the individual Israelite in Judah feel as he or she saw their relatives among the northern tribes being swept away by Assyria? When the Assyrians approached Jerusalem in Hezekiah’s day, to insult and threaten, Hezekiah had the benefit (as we do) of Isaiah to explain the deeper meaning of what was going on. We know that God was working His purposes out. The individual Israelite, if they had a knowledge of their own Scriptures and a sensitivity to their surroundings, might have had an awareness of larger forces at work. Tragically few had either, and their leaders largely and consistently discounted what the likes of Isaiah had to say (and then write). Faced with a bemusing cocktail of war, disease, famine and political turmoil, and the daily struggle to survive, one suspects that the immediate probably obscured the fundamental. And so to our day.

I do seek to understand the proximate causes of the current situation, local, national and global. I am a self-confessed news junkie, and so may well be afflicted with a sombre mood because of headline-itis. I know that there is a need for care when tempted to point to particular events and crying judgement or some such. And I’m aware that in almost every generation, Christians have found reasons to decry their current circumstances and cry both “How long O Lord” and “Amen. Come Lord Jesus”. But beneath the froth and the fury, Providence does proceed unimpeded. Both the trajectory and the endpoint of history have already been revealed (and it’s not the triumph of Western liberal democracy whatever that is).

So, maybe soon…..

Providence or judgement – it’s too early to tell

In 1972, the then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was widely misquoted as saying that it was too early to tell whether the French revolution had been a success. It turns out that he was actually referring to the 1968 student uprising, not the 18^th century revolution. But why let the facts ruin a good quip. At the turn of a new year, with Boris Johnston’s new administration (it could hardly be called a new government) still to take full shape, I’ve been trying to work out what to make of recent events.

I dutifully made my way to my polling station on the 12^th December, more or less decided on which party not to vote for, but less sure who I should vote for. When it came to it, I just couldn’t put my “x” against the Conservative party candidate. Where I should put it was more of a struggle. On one level this is all entirely unimportant. We’re talking about just one vote (ie mine) in a safe Labour seat. Unlike so many in the north of England it is still a safe Labour seat. Voting Conservative in this election was a possibility simply because they were the only party on the ballot that were going to deliver on the outcome of the EU referendum. As I’ve explained before, even although I voted “remain” I think that the clear (if narrow) result of the referendum should be upheld. That’s means leaving the EU. I find none of the subsequent rewriting, rewording, rerunning, and reneging on the outcome of the referendum in any way convincing. Even had the alternatives been a lot more palatable than they were, I would still have considered voting Conservative on the basis of this one issue. But on careful reflection, I couldn’t do it. Here’s why.

I have lots of friends in the US who thought carefully about their options in the last US presidential election, and decided for a whole heap of reasons that they would vote for one Donald J. Trump. I thought, and still think, that this was a crazy decision. I understand that many of them wanted a president that would make conservative picks for the Supreme Court and I understand why this is important to them. For others there were other issues like Trump’s support of the state of Israel. What I don’t understand is why these political issues trump (as it were) the demonstrable fact that the Donald is a serial liar, with apparently little respect for truth. He has raised telling not just half-truths (the terminological inexactitude so beloved by British politicians), but full blown non-truths to a finely honed political weapon. He has systematically sought to undermine truth more widely by sowing confusion at every turn. He has branded those who have sought to hold him to account and fact check him as “fake news” peddlers. Words matter. True words matter, and false words matter. I’ve concluded that none of this is accidental, it’s policy. Neither is it because of some intellectual impairment on his part. It’s done deliberately, knowingly and with calculation. It is unforgivable because it is plain wrong; and it is corrosive.

Then there’s the issue of his attitude to women. The “Access Hollywood” tape should have killed his presidential campaign stone dead. He never fully repudiated the views he expressed, and indeed subsequently suggested that the tape is not genuine. The lack of plain human decency revealed by that particularly nasty conversation was exhibited on other occasions during the campaign, and has been exhibited time after time in his conduct as president particularly in his twitter rants. The notion that he could be re-elected, now that his basic indecency has been chronicled, observed and established, is terrifying in the extreme.

I would gently point out to my US chums that the US Supreme Court is mentioned nowhere in Scripture. But a commitment to truth is. Being careful with our words does. Integrity, honesty, decency all do. What Scripture teaches about the role of women we can argue about. What we can’t argue about is the basic respect that all are entitled to, which contrasts sharply with Trump’s attitude that debases women to the level of exploitable objects. There is such a basic disconnect between the values, attitudes and behaviours that we are called to, and those exhibited on a daily (not to say hourly) basis by the Donald. I cannot understand how so much of what Scripture calls for can be set aside, in order to obtain questionable temporal objectives that Scripture has little to say about. “Evangelicals” as a block in the US elevated arguable political gains above clear values that they should have been articulating and honouring. But what struck me on the way to polling station was that I was in danger of doing exactly the same thing.  

Brexit, the issue that nearly decided my vote, isn’t in the Bible either. Things like telling the truth are. We can argue about austerity, universal credit, NHS spending, taxation and the rest.  And we should. We can argue about whether and how we should leave the EU. Of course these things are important. But there are other things that are more important. Leading the Conservative party (by their active choice) is a man whose basic dishonesty over a long period should have disqualified him from high office. Boris has, after all, lost two jobs (one in journalism, one in politics) for telling straight out lies. And there was no obvious evidence in the election campaign that he has any regrets about what has been the hallmark of his basic approach to life as well as politics. This is enough to disqualify him from high office in the estimation of some who politically share many of his views. And while he hasn’t quite had an “Access Hollywood” moment, there are doubts about his attitude to women and family. I know that in our system all politics is about compromise, and if I’m waiting for what I think is perfection, I’ll be dead and in the glory before it arrives. But I only had one vote to cast, and basic issues of honesty, truth telling and decency determined how it wasn’t cast. Because our elections are a secret ballot, I don't need to let slip here how it was cast.

But given that even without my one vote Boris still got his “stonking” victory, did I just get it wrong? Well, that’s clearly logical possible. But I have my responsibilities, and I leave it to the Almighty to decide the big issue of who gets power. His perspective is bigger, deeper and longer than mine. Bigger forces were at work, and always are. Underpinning the stuff we see is a deeper reality of a God who continues to work His purposes out. It may turn out that, in ways invisible to me, Boris is just the right man for the times. Just the man to get us through the Brexit morass we find ourselves in (for which he is partly responsible after all). If we do get out of the situation we’re in with anything like limited damage, this will not reflect on Boris’ brilliance, although undoubtedly political hubris will impel him to claim exactly that. It will be providence protecting us from ourselves – again.

Of course it could be that things are going to go from bad to worse. The predictions of the remainers will turn out to be spot on, and we will endure economic, political, security and strategic disaster. We will never reach the sun-lit uplands promised by the hard brexiteers. In that case, Boris may turn out to be a modern form of Old Testament Babylon: God’s instrument of judgment. We would certainly deserve it. There are many ways in which the culture in which we find ourselves is deeply dysfunctional. I’m partly to blame of course by not being the salt and light that I should be. For all that, although we Christians may moan about the state of the UK, the fact is that compared to many of our brothers and sisters elsewhere we’ve actually had it very easy for a very long time. Maybe the ease, freedom and relative order we’ve enjoyed partly explains out lack of saltiness. Maybe it is coming to an end. I have no way of knowing. 

Time will tell. It’s too early to know which way it will go.  

What’s all this about more debate?

Here’s where my “remain” friends (and most of my friends voted remain) and me probably part company. I suspect most of them have been spluttering over their cornflakes and muttering darkly at TV news bulletins of late, because of the latest shenanigans at Westminster. And I understand why. They voted remain in the EU referendum (as did I) because they thought it was right and sensible. Probably, like me, they did not vote remain because the EU filled them with unalloyed joy (discussed further here). It’s a human institution with all the faults and flaws of any human institution (and a few extra ones to boot). But it made political sense to stay in, on the basis that many of the problems we face don’t respect borders and are better tackled as part of a larger political block. It made economic sense because the states of the EU form our largest and nearest market. Indeed the single market is as much a British construction as it is a European one. I could go on. But I won’t (at least not about all the reasons for voting remain). Leaving, they genuinely believed then and now, was and is madness. Leaving with “no deal” they regard as tantamount to national self-harm on an epic scale. I’m not sure I would put it that strongly. Time will, unfortunately, probably tell.

Their anger over Boris’ latest wheeze is genuine too. I have no reason to believe anything else. They see him as using illegitimate (if not strictly illegal) tactics to thwart the attempts of his Brexit opponents to scupper a “no deal” Brexit. Some, I have no doubt, think that the proroguing of Parliament is antidemocratic because it will deny the people’s representatives the opportunity to scrutinise the intentions and actions of the Executive. And with some justification they will point out that during the recent Conservative election campaign, Boris and a number of his current cabinet colleagues, sought to pacify moderate elements in the Conservative selectorate and garner votes by implying that they would not do what they have essentially just done. These various views are shared by a very large number of people. Last time I looked, well over 1.6M had signed a petition against proroguing Parliament. Polls suggest that there is currently a majority of that view by some margin. And there have been protests in many UK towns and cities.

As far as the proroguing issue goes, here’s my problem with those who have a problem. Their basic case seems to be that this is a manoeuvre to deny Parliament the opportunity to debate the issues around leaving the EU, particularly those raised by leaving without an agreement – the no deal scenario. But exactly what is there to debate that hasn’t been fully aired over the last three years? Who is there left in Parliament (or the country for that matter) that lacks the information required to form a view? The result of the referendum itself and how it should be responded to has been discussed to death. Early on the idea was floated that Parliament should simply refuse to act on what technically was an advisory vote. This was rejected. The overwhelming majority were clear that the result had to be honoured. Most MPs in 2016, and in the post 2017 House of Commons voted remain, and a minority of them have never reconciled themselves to the idea of leaving the EU. This I understand. But then, why did they vote 6-to-1 to put what was a complex and nuanced decision to the people in a binary referendum in the first place? Yes, David Cameron pushed the issue of a referendum for relatively selfish political and party management reasons. But he was aided and abetted by the political class as a whole, Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Greens and others. They all abrogated their responsibilities are all guilty for the resulting chaos.The historians can argue about how the guilt should be precisely divided up when the dust has settled.

Post referendum, and post Cameron, we had a general election. There were pro-EU membership/anti-Brexit options on the ballot paper in the form of the Liberal Democrats, Greens and occasional others. But these were decisively rejected. We saw the return (although perhaps temporarily) of two-party politics.  Of those two main parties, both made clear they would seek a negotiated withdrawal from the EU, so honouring the referendum result. Labour went further. They were specific in their rejection of no-deal, and said they would reject it as an option if they formed the government. The election was a close run thing, but Labour didn’t form the government because the Conservatives got more votes (although a relatively small win in terms of votes cast was then magnified by parliamentary arithmetic). But the options were there.

It is the no deal issue that has galvanised many of my remain friends, petition signers, press and politicians on all sides. It is presumably no deal, so the argument goes, that won’t be scrutinised and debated if Boris gets away with prorogation. But hang on, specifically this issue has been the subject of debate for months. It has been voted on in the Commons. Parliamentary skulduggery has even been resorted to by the opponents of no deal, with active support from the Speaker of the Commons. It’s not just Boris and his acolytes who can dive through gaps in our unwritten constitution. The debate has produced more heat than light and precious little agreement. Some insist that no deal will be an unmitigated disaster, others see it as the ideal clean break with the EU. Most are probably somewhere between these extremes. But the notion that it has not been debated, or that further debate is going to make any difference is not sustainable.

I have no idea precisely what the effect of a no deal Brexit will be. I am sure that there will be disruption. There will be costs. I don’t really see where there will be benefits. Will it be a disaster on the scale of war or famine or plague? Probably (hopefully) not. But this was always one of the possible ways of exiting the EU. It was also always one of the potential outcomes of the Article 50 process that Parliament voted, overwhelmingly, to trigger. In the referendum campaign, we were warned about the potential hit to the economy and jobs if we decided to leave. I found the warnings plausible, many did not. Some may or may not have been persuaded by the fantasy promises of the various out campaigns. But with all of that ringing in our ears a majority of my fellow citizens voted to leave the EU. We’ve now had three further years of debate. There’s no evidence of mass buyer’s remorse or that another referendum would produce a very different result, although conceivably it might produce a different outcome. But that would hardly help settle things. If it was remain 52% vs leave 48% (not entirely implausible if the polls are to be believed), why should that result be allowed to stand when the first one was reversed? Parliament ducked its obligations and handed the decision to the people. The people took the decision. The debate has been had. The democratic thing to do is implement the decision. It will be messy. But if democracy means anything is it surely that we get what we (or at least the majority) vote for.

But one final note. Recently I’ve been thinking about the life and times of a character in the Bible called Jonah. He lived in turbulent times. His own nation had been on the up, and under the current regime things seemed to be going well. It looked like the King (Jeroboam II) was doing well, militarily, politically and economically. I bet the King Jeroboam thought so. But it turned out there was a whole other level of reality that the King, and many people of the day in Israel, were missing. Their success was far more to do with providential timing and God moving the pieces on the international chess board, than Jeroboam's genius. He was working His larger purposes out. We know this because it’s helpfully recorded in 2 Kings 14:23-27, and explained further in the books of Jonah, Amos and Hosea. We live in turbulent times, nationally and internationally. This is not all and only about us, votes, debates, protest, politics and tactics. Providence may be merciful to us, and may come through these present difficulties unscathed. It might not. But the likes of Jonah, Amos and Hosea have a lot to say to us today. About the humility required of leaders if nothing else. Their own people, in their own time, did not listen to them. Perhaps we are in danger of making the same mistake.