The question and our efforts to answer it reveal something unsettling; that civilisation and culture provide only the most fragile layer of defence against the encroachment of terrible darkness. This thin veil of security and freedom and rights is held in place by the flimsiest of pegs — intellectual and political freedom, respect and civility, and tolerance and the rule of law. When any one or a number of these pegs are compromised, weakened, or removed the structural integrity of the whole system that guarantees our safety and security is damaged...
Building Jerusalem: An Insight into English Exceptionalism
English religiosity has consistently sought to imbue England with sacredness, and, like Judah’s ancient dominance over the northern kingdom of Israel, this sense of English territorial sacredness is extended to Scotland. Wales (those Edomites) is not factored in – that is just ‘west England.’ The reigning monarch is ‘God’s appointed monarch’ like God’s anointed kings in Jerusalem. The Empire becomes a new Solomonic empire – God’s territory. And this strange thinking, this quasi-religious and nationalist exceptionalism, has never quite disappeared from the Church of England...
An Unbelievable Story
Had I thought this was the end of the insanity, I was wrong. The next morning, before heading east to Kirkcaldy, I was greeted by an email from Dale Miller at The Scotsman. Having failed to take me down with a rag, the union was upping its game. Miller’s task was to finish the job – I realised that much. On the train to Kirkcaldy I knew a juggernaut was headed my way, but I had no idea quite how vindictive this hack was going to be. He wanted a response by close of business. I told him he’d have it, and, so, after everything was wrapped up at the Kirkcaldy...
Random Public Journal 