Nadine Dorries rides again!

Nadine Dorries takes a swipe at Rowan Williams.

Those who know me personally will tell you that I am not a person of faith. I think that, taking the worldwide view, religion possibly causes more problems than it solves. Maybe I’m slightly biased because, having a technical background, I am suspicious of any set up where we’re asked to put evidence aside and take matters purely on faith. So, other than perhaps values, I doubt there’s much common ground in the thinking of the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and I.

Fortunately, we can thank the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, Nadine Dorries, for her efforts to bring us both together – because it seems that whilst the rest of us were sleeping last night, Dorries decided to treat everyone to yet another of her deluded blog posts – this time trying to savage the venerable Arch Bish! A bit of a childish extravagance, motivated no doubt by his recent comments on coalition policies.

Well, since I have real loathing for this excuse for a Member of Parliament (based on her conduct – we’ve never met personally…) – and also since I presume the Arch Bish has other commitments on Sunday mornings, I thought I’d have a quick shufty through latest lamentable utterances and show them up for what they are. Let’s start picking that post apart then…

I would like to write that the Archbishop of Canterbury had been at his most controversial this week when he launched an undisguised left wing attack upon the Prime Minister, and the coalition government, however, that’s not possible when only weeks ago he proclaimed how uncomfortable he had been with the shooting of the mass murderer and most wanted man in the world, Osama Bin Laden. In 2008 we had Sharia Gate. A speech given by the Archbishop which must have deeply offended every practicing Christian in the UK.

An undisguised left wing attack eh? Don’t worry Rowan – you’ll get used to this. If you ever utter anything that remotely contravenes the worldly/unwordly view of Dorries, you’re branded as a left wing nutter. Best not to take this to heart – it’s not like it’s coming from an informed source or anything…

Oh, and I don’t think the Arch Bishop’s objections relate just to the mere shooting of the Osama Bin Laden. I don’t know (I haven’t read his precise claims), but I suspect that had the Seals fired in self defence he wouldn’t have had a problem with it. However, since there is a lot evidence mulling about suggesting that this wasn’t the case, and that they shot him whilst he was unarmed, then I think the Arch Bishops concerns are perhaps rooted in a belief that maybe the correct thing to do would have been to arrest him, and bring him to justice. As I say – that’s just a guess.

As for “Sharia Gate”, yes – I remember that – and I remember at the time thinking that he’d completely lost the plot. Bonkers. Utter madness. Still, if anyone’s keeping score, I assure you it’s at least 9-1 to Dorries in the crazy stakes! I’ll forgive him.

His attack, written in The New Statesman, a socialist magazine read almost exclusively by the university educated Liberal elite, was a derogation of his responsibility to lead and unite his flock and the most transparent expose yet of the fact that at the top, the Church of England is almost wholly infiltrated and run by people who would regard The New Statesman as their own particular gospel.

I’ve actually met The New Statesman’s legal correspondent, David Allen Green, through our mutual involvement in the Twitter Joke Trial. He struck me as someone who actually cared about both the law, his country, and the freedoms its citizens are supposed to enjoy. If his colleagues are of a similar mind, I’m not surprised Dorries doesn’t like that publication.

So the fact that he chooses to publish his comments through The New Statesman is apparently indicative of a plot by The New Statesman’s readership to infilitrate and take over the church. You heard it here first folks! You’ll notice that Dorries characteristically fails to provide any evidence for this – she just lets the allegation fly and steps back… Evidence really isn’t something Mrs. Dorries is all that big on at the best of times.

There are areas of policy where politics and the church overlap, where debate should be robust and where the church and its Archbishops could speak with authority and have real influence and effect. When this occurs, Rowan Williams, has ample opportunity to speak out and influence policy, however, strangely, when such opportunities present, he is deafening in his silence as he hides away with his fingers in his ears.

No there aren’t. Religious belief does not make your views, in our secular society, any more valuable than those of anyone else in the land. I don’t care which sky pixie you subscribe to – your religious views alone neither entitle nor oblige you to speak out on political issues. However, the man is a public figure, and he has chosen to speak out on the coalition’s policies. Perhaps, and I know this might be a bit of a hard pill to swallow Nadine, this is because he feels that your policies represent a greater danger to society than your your perceived need for abstinence based education and moves against abortion. Just a thought – and I don’t mean to suggest that the Arch Bishop has no views on abortion – I’m sure he has.

MPs and congregations want to know, what does Rowan Williams think of our over sexualised society, or the teaching of abstinence in schools? What words does he have for his congregations on abortion or assisted suicide? What does he have to say about the screening of the documentary to be shown which next week which will shows us a man’s dying moments at a Dignistas clinic in Switzerland? What does he think of embryology research? Silence. Nothing, nada, not a word.

If you’re so desperate to know his views, then I can only presume you have written to him to seek them? Please publish that correspondence Nadine – because if you’re unable, then you start to come over as a hypocrite. In the mean time, here are a selection of links alluding to his views on the very topics you cite. It’s not like he’s hiding on these issues!

Abortion | Euthanasia | Embryology

True, I couldn’t find his views on the sexualisation of society in my brief five minute search – but the point is Nadine that I tried. Really – research woman!!!

As these opportunities arise, as Parliament debates the thorny issues rooted in moral Christian belief, the priest says nothing. As MPs look to the church to speak to its congregations they face a press release black out from Lambeth Palace.

Erm, small point perhaps, but the Arch Bishop is not a priest. Were he to join the priesthood, I think you’ll find the good ol’ CofE would be rather vocal on the topic. As for the church – they do speak to their congregations – it’s just that they do it, you know, in church… Press releases? Are you bloody serious???

And yet, the Archbishop feels it is his duty and place to launch an attack on the amazing policies put forward by Iain Duncan Smith to lift a million people out of poverty, on the coalition education policies which would allow the creation of a greater number of free, faith schools and an attack on the NHS reforms which aim to transfer funding from the temple, as in Whitehall, into the hands of GP’s who are closer to the patient. To be fair, he attacked the war on Iraq, but so did most of the Labour party and so that thinly veiled attempt to cover up his personal bleeding heart socialist beliefs just didn’t work. He described the ‘Big Society’ initiative as stale and yet failed to acknowledge that the retreat of the church from our communities into its own ivory alters, is what has left a void within communities. A void the Big Society initiative is trying desperately to fill. The coalition, Archbishop, is trying to do the job in which your church has failed and is that maybe what has irked? That the Big Society policy has shone a light over the lazy failings of a rather wealthy established church?

Again, the Arch Bishop’s views on Iraq are being described as “that thinly veiled attempt to cover up his personal bleeding heart socialist beliefs”. Without evidence. Oh – sorry – I forgot it’s Nadine…

As for the rest of it Nadine, niether he, I, or indeed your good self (“Now I don’t actually trust any government to deliver any service, actually any government of any party, to deliver any service, particularly one as big as the NHS.” – Nadine Dorries, Any Questions, 3rd June 2011) have much faith in anything the Conservatives are spouting. He, I, and indeed even you, are quite within our rights to say it.

Oh, and as for the Big Society, whether or not the church has failed in it’s endeavours, or even if there is a void to be filled, is something we can debate another time – but do you really think the coalition are trying to fill it? My understanding of the Big Society is that you want someone else, indeed ANYONE else, to fill it.

He writes that the country is ‘gripped by fear’ in the face of the coalition policies. No Archbishop, your congregation, the ordinary people of this country, those who don’t read the elitist magazine in which you chose to write your words of poor wisdom, they are fearful that their children will inherit a debt that the previous Labours administration has left. They were fearful of a failing NHS and the inability to get their children into a decent school. The polls indicate quite clearly that they are not gripped by fear of the coalition policies and your sensationalist headline not only has no evidence to back it up, but is in fact a blatant attempt to whip up a discontented fear, where none at present exists.

Erm, no, actually. Whilst we’re all concerned about the debt that the nation is leaving for our children, I think you’ll find we’re all more concerned about the £50,000 pounds of debt your policies will leave our sons and daughters with as they graduate. Each.

How this woman has the nerve to even mention the NHS given what the coalition is lining up for it is beyond me.

As for calling someone out for not having evidence, really Nadine, you’re making this too easy! Has he claimed to have been advised by a drugs organisation that cannabis is 50 times more potent now that it was this time last year, only for the group concerned to deny having either supplied that information, nor indeed having spoken to him for “many years”? Because that would be a evidence related scandal, wouldn’t it Nadine? Who do we know who might make such claims? Why – YOURSELF!

Oh, but if you would like some data, then here it is…

Rowan Williams defenders argue that the Anglican Church is broad with very divergent opinions. This may be the case, however, church goers across the country scream out for guidance. A church to lead and one they can follow. They want and need continuity and conformity, basic tenants upon which the church is based. That’s why they attend church because otherwise, they may as well stay at home and pray in isolation. They want their church leader to reflect the teaching of Jesus and to spread his word into the wider community. To influence policy in the way Jesus would do if he were here today. What people don’t want is an Archbishop hijacking their church as a platform for his own Sharia friendly, socialist, personal political views.

Screaming out for guidance? Okay – it’s “E” word time. Evidence?

People do not need guidance in how they live their lives – we have values for that, and values are not going to be changed from the altar – as evidenced by the fact that Dorries, a self proclaimed Christian, was recently forced to account for her sleeping with a friend’s husband.  I think you’ll find people attend church not to receive teachings on abstinence etc, but rather to engage in a communal act of worship as a community. As someone who professes to be a Christian, I would have expected Mrs. Dorries to have a better grip on this.

She’s banged on about this Sharia stuff a bit, so you might want to take a moment to look here, and note the Arch Bishop’s actual views, particularly the following:

“In a society where freedom of religion is secured by law, it is obviously impossible for any group to claim that conversion to another faith is simply disallowed or to claim the right to inflict punishment on a convert”

In his article he wrote that no one voted for the coalition or its policies. In 2010 the Conservative party alone took a greater proportion of the vote share than Labour did in 2005. The coalition with the Liberal Democrats, represents a far greater proportion of the electorate and is introducing a truly broad church of policies.

I think what he is saying is that both parties have differed wildly from their manifesto commitments, and therefore lack a mandate. I also think Nadine knows that.

The buzz word around Westminster is ‘Who will rid us of this troublesome priest’. The answer is ultimately his flock, as they stay at home week after week. The Archbishop is feeling the effect of true democracy as they let him know what they think of his ridiculous uttering’s, with their feet.

Really? Parliament is alight with conspiracies to thwart Rowan Williams is it? Really? Maybe people are staying at home because they feel that religion no longer has the place in our lives that it once did. Maybe they feel that religion is a source of conflict throughout the globe. Maybe as the population becomes scientifically literate they have decided that simply taking matters on faith no longer cuts the mustard?

For my part, I don’t have much time for religion, and I don’t think that the bishops really have a credible claim to their place in the parliament of this land. However, they do fulfill a role – namely acting as a check and balance to the wild excesses of politicians – and while ever Nadine Dorries sits in parliament, I think they are where they need to be.