What's it with Auntie and the C of E?

Occasionally, Auntie Beeb, that revered national institution, the BBC, gets a bee in her bonnet. And at the moment it appears to be concerning another national institution, the Church of England. One has to wonder why. Maybe it's to prove that the broadcaster is not the only organisation that has, or has had, failures in dealing with abuse.

For example yesterday the 'Today Programme' had another item about the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, and his perceived failure to deal with a former school chaplain, David Tudor, who had maltreated and raped students. The item was introduced with a short extract of an interview with th Bishop of Winchester, which was part of very long feature on Monday's 'World at One'. The guts of yesterday's items was the opinions of the BBC's favourite cleric, the hyper-articulate Giles Fraser who can be relied on to voice his dogmatically provocative views. Predictably he wanted the Archbishop out. He'd already campaigned for Archbishop Justin Welby's resignatiion. While I personallly dislike the pomp and circumstance of establishment, I don't believe either servant of the church merited the trial by media and petition to which they have been subjected.

So my question is this: why does the BBC never ask someone like Andrew Brown, the journalist who probably knows more about the Church of England, than any other, certainly than their own perfectly competent, Aleem Maqbool, to comment? Are they afraid he might puncture their proudly inflated thesis about the corruption of the CofE? Which he has done effectively, in a post on his blog, The Slow Deep Hover, 'In Defence of Stephen Cottrell'. "The basis of his defence is that he had no choice in law. He had inherited Tudor from two preceding bishops of Chelmsford, one of whom had granted Tudor the freehold. Since he had twice been acquitted of the offences that no one doubted he had committed, he could not even be suspended until or unless fresh charges were brought against him. As soon as that happened, in 2018, Cottrell suspended him. He should not be blamed for failing to do what was legally impossible....

"Sooner or later someone has to blow up the insatiable shark. The Church of England cannot be run by Twitter storms and petitions on Change.org. Time, effort, and money are all limited resources for a bishop, and to govern is to choose." (Incidentally all Brown's posts about the recent news concerning safeguarding are worth reading. He doesn't minimise its seriousness but does question the resulting conclusions.)

 

The Church of England is a complex and arcane creature. It's like no other institution, certainly not like a commercial company, or even like a government. Andrew Brown refers to the curious phenomenon of 'the freehold' - which means that it is a well nigh impossible for a vicar to be removed from his or her post, and it's not possible either for a congregation to vote their vicar out, however incompetent or uncongenial they may be. Sad but true.

Certainly the CofE needs reforming - that's something which the General Synod (its parliament) needs to attend to, rather than seeking ever more scapegoats for past failures. Ultimately, being the established 'state' church, it may be a matter the Government has to sort out. That might focus everyone's minds!

NHS and NDS

Well, on Friday the Commons voted in favour of the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (aka the Assisted Suicide Act) by a majority of 55. Kim Leadbeater bravely introduced the Bill. There was silence in the chamber when the result was announced, but loud cheers by campaigners outside.

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I wasn’t surprised. I was disappointed, but as Canute (or Cnut) knew you can’t turn back the tide. So when people express their sympathy, my honest feeling is that I'm relieved that the vote is over. I think I’ve done my bit to stem the flow, but maybe my job is done now. I’m sure the bill will be extended, despite the ‘cast iron’ safeguards. It will come to include the chronically ill, people under 18, even the depressed. The tide will continue to come in and unlike the sea it will not ebb again. 

So ironically the Labour Party which is rightly proud of having set up the National Health Service in 1948 will almost certainly be responsiblef for setting up a National Death Service. As Shabana Masood, Secretary of State for Justice, wisely warned, "The state should never offer death as a service." I fear we will come to regret Friday's vote in the long run.
  

On Assisted Dying - a letter to my MP

On 7th October I sent my newly elected MP a letter:

Olly Glover MP                
House of Commons
SW1A 0AA
 
Dear Mr Glover
    

 First, may I congratulate you on your election as our MP.  It was the first time in my memory that someone I voted for has been elected - and I’m now 75!  So I was delighted.  You got my vote not only from a desire to oust the rotten Tory government, but also because of Sir Ed Davey’s obvious concern for the vulnerable in society, like his son, and for their carers.
    You see, I have Primary Lateral Sclerosis, the rarest and slowest form of MND, and my wife has been my sole carer for the last twenty-two years.  As you’ll appreciate, looking after an increasingly disabled aging husband is no small burden, and being increasingly and incurably incapacitated is no joke — and yet we have a remarkably fulfilled life, even if physically circumscribed.  For example we were able to celebrate our golden wedding with a long weekend with our four children and their families this summer.
    The reason for telling you this is that, as you’ll understand, I’ve had a long time to think about assisted dying — not least as my own end approaches.  MND is one of the classic conditions which Dignity in Dying teaches us to fear.  Well, it is a cruel disease from which at the moment there is no escape.  However, the MND Association is actually reassuring about dying (and they should know): ‘The final stages of MND will usually involve gradual weakening of the breathing muscles and increasing sleepiness. This is usually the cause of death, either because of an infection or because the muscles stop working… Specialist palliative care supports quality of life through symptom control, practical help, medication to ease symptoms and emotional support for you and your family... In the majority of cases, death with MND is peaceful and dignified.’  So I’m under no illusions about the complexities of end-of-life.
    And I do realise it’s far from a simple issue — and in a way I’m glad it’s going to be discussed thanks to Kim Leadbeater’s early day motion.  But may I ask you to bear in mind when you consider the pros and cons some of the following.
When I was diagnosed as having ‘a motor neurone disorder’, it would have been very easy for me at that point to have assumed the worst and ended it all, had there not been the safeguard of the 1961 Suicide Act.  Prognosis in many conditions (including cancer — remember the Lockerbie bomber?) can only be an approximate art.   
    Not being depressive by nature, I’m lucky, but even I have my dark moments when I wonder how much longer….  For those more prone to depression the temptation to suicide must seem irresistible even though family and friends would be devastated by their loss and they themselves could miss out of more years of real fulfilment.
    I do understand why friends of mine have asked their palliative care doctors not to prolong their lives, but relieve both their symptoms and their pain, and why the professionals have agreed.  That seems to me both right and caring.  There’s a difference between not officiously prolonging and deliberately shortening; and the difference is intention.  
    Life is precious.  I don’t believe it’s our possession; but we are a part of life.  When it lets us go, we should go gracefully; but until then we shouldn’t dispense with it.
The pressure to end one’s life when in my situation is more internal than external, though no doubt there are some unscrupulous families who would wish their ailing or disabled relatives gone.  I remember early in my disease meeting an old lady in a supermarket car park who told us she was just a burden and would be better off dead.  I can now understand her sentiments, but surely the answer is greater valuing and care for every individual.
    I wonder whether the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm for legalising assisted dying has been in any way bolstered by the £20 billion black hole the government has ‘discovered’ in the national coffers, as it would a much cheaper way of taking ‘care’ of us as we approach death than palliative care.  I’ve no doubt that consideration is not what is motivating Ms Leadbeater.  However I’m sure you would agree that living in a society which valued money, or indeed anything, over life would be a desperate thing.
    Reflecting on today’s anniversary (Holocaust Day), I have read again Elie Wiesel’s 1986 Nobel lecture, as he considered how events can take on their own momentum, only to be perceived in retrospect.  ’And yet real despair only seized us later. Afterwards. As we emerged from the nightmare and began to search for meaning. All those doctors of law or medicine or theology, all those lovers of art and poetry, of Bach and Goethe, who coldly, deliberately ordered the massacres and participated in them. What did their metamorphosis signify? Could anything explain their loss of ethical, cultural and religious memory? How could we ever understand the passivity of the onlookers and – yes – the silence of the Allies?’

    As Liz Carr’s BBC documentary reminded us, introducing assisted dying from the most compassionate of motives has scarcely, if ever, remained within its original limits.  I think we all need to be aware of unintended consequences, which history teaches us can be far-reaching - which none of us can predict.
    May I respectfully suggest that for Parliament a potentially more constructive consideration of end-of-life care could be (a) to invest much more generously in palliative care. - Isn’t it the case that hospices rely largely on charitable giving? - and (b) to protect the medical profession better when they are faced with the dreadfully difficult decisions around the end of patients’ lives.  
    Thank you for reading this letter, and may I assure you of my best wishes when you face this very complex and sensitive issue.

Yours sincerely

After a month Olly replied with a much more considered and longer response than one normally receives from an MP. I think he was suggesting that the subject should be exhaustively debated. "With these concerns in mind, I am worried that introducing this measure as a Private Members’ Bill will not allow for full debate and scrutiny of all the relevant provisions.  For that reason I have put my name to a letter to the Prime Minister and Leader of the House, recommending they bring forward a Bill in government time, in order that it has sufficient parliamentary scrutiny and to ensure public confidence in such an important decision." 

I hope my MP's letter is heeded, and that Gordon Brown's proposal for a commission on palliative care is adopted as a better way forward.

The insufficiently curious scapegoat

I cannot imagine what being the subject of abuse is like. At the moment I am watching ITV's Until I Kill You starring Anna Maxwell Martin and Shaun Evans only in small doses because contemplating the terror is scarcely bearable. How much worse being abused as a child must be! Thus, in what I'm writing I am by no means minimising the extent of the harm inflicted on the boys and men involved. The Makin Report into John Smyth's activities chooses the term 'victim' rather than the often preferred 'survivor' for the individuals who suffered at his hands. It seems appropriate. Not only did he beat them with relish, he also groomed them into a state of dependence. That may go some of the way to explain why it took so long for the extent of his abuse to become known.     

Maybe it was also a product of the times. It's easy to forget that corporal punishment was banned in state schools only in 1987 and in independent schools only in 1999. A diary piece in The Times in 1973 headed "Beating their privileged bottoms" commented, "Privileged parents spend fortunes sending their sons to schools where, even as recently as the sixties, they could be beaten savagely." Today attitudes such as "Spare the rod; spoil the child" rightly appal us, although only ten years ago James Dobson the American evangelical psychologist was advocating "Corporal punishment, when used lovingly and properly, is beneficial to a child because it is in harmony with nature itself." Perhaps in John Smyth, himself a product of a minor public school and a narrowly conservative Christian family, these two strands gave rise to his peculiarly perverted interpretation of the Bible and his abhorrent activity. That does nothing to excuse it. It was recognised as early as 1982 that some of his beatings were criminal offences and yet were not reported to the police. 

The two best bits of the Makin report in my view are the recommendations and Appendix 4, the Psychological Analysis by Dr Elly Hanson, in which she examines all the evidence.

    "On the basis of my review of all of the above, I am of the view that his abuse was an attempt to achieve the following:
• Sexual gratification
• Pleasure from other people’s pain (including their humiliation) – i.e. a sadistic motive
• Status; a desire to be at the top of one’s chosen hierarchy and to be admired and 
revered
• Dominance and control of others.
    "It is also possible that he was acting out of resentment and revenge motives (discussed briefly towards the end of the section on Smyth’s narcissism below), but there is insufficient evidence to be confident of this.
John Smyth had various psychological qualities that contributed to these motives, as well as to his decision to act on them and to the escalation of his behaviour                                                                                            "It appears that he had Narcissistic Personality Disorder (grandiose type) and, related to this, little interest in relational connection; little ability or willingness to self-reflect; a focus on his self-interest 
above those of others; and little or no empathy. He displayed exhibitionist and voyeuristic tendencies; callousness; and an ability to charm (a magnetism).                                                                                            "It also appears that he had a sexual interest in boys and young man (not incompatible with a sexual interest in his wife).                                        "Interacting with these motives and qualities, he held a number of core beliefs that may have either helped fuel or support his abusive behaviour. These included the beliefs that he was more important than others (i.e. a sense of entitlement); that being gay (or having gay sexual experiences) is a serious moral wrong; and that some people are ‘elected’ and endowed with special qualities to lead and be an authority over others (in particular himself). It seems that he had an implicit working model of the world in which relationships conformed to a dominant / submissive pattern (in other words, he did not have a conception of or belief in relationships between equals), and that he often saw his family members as avatars, not full people in their own right but in some way extensions of himself."

So where, you might wonder, does Justin Welby come into it so that he felt compelled to resign? He certainly wasn't one of the clerics among whom a report ("the Ruston report" of 1982) which detailed the extent of John Smyth's activities among schoolchildren and students was circulated. Indeed he wasn't ordained until ten years later. One of the first things I noticed on first reading the Makin Report was how frequently odd references to Justin Welby occurred, for example the times he attended Iwerne Trust camps, Christian houseparties for boys from an élite selection of public schools. We learn that from 1975 for four years he attended some of the same camps as Smyth. You might wonder, "So what? So presumably did hundreds of the élite in society, including many clergy, because that was the raison d'être of Iwerne, to convert potential future leaders." The Review's Terms of Reference include "(1) What information was available to Church of England bodies or office holders relating to John Smyth’s alleged abuse of children and individuals; and 
(2) Who had this information and when and what did they do with it." Justin Welby worked in the oil industry until 1989. Then he started training for ordination. Even if he knew that John Smyth was not a nice man as he was once told in Paris, there is absolutely no evidence that he was aware of Smyth's sadistic activity. So why is he in particular introduced at this point of the report, when he's neither a church body nor office holder? There are several clergy leaders who were in the circle of those in the know. They are mentioned, as is appropriate. It is true that he was informed in 2013, in that his office was told by Ely diocese that one case of historic abuse had been reported and appropriately passed over both to the police and to South Africa where Smyth then lived.

However as Andrew Brown, respected Guardian journalist who has no party axe to grind, has clearly demostrated in three pieces this is one among many flaws in the Makin Report. The gist of Brown's emotions are encapsulated in a reflection in the Church Times' article, "Press media mob helps Welby's foes to get their way". Brown's articles in his substack blog The slow deep hover are worth reading in their entirety, starting with "Does Makin finger Justin Welby?" (The others are "Against Makin" (Nov 15) and "Stephen Conway is innocent OK" (Nov 17)
.) Read these before you join the hue and cry arising from this whole horrifying failure of child protection, and consider too the part that a number of police forces played or failed to play in it.

I was alerted to some subterranean forces at work to unseat Justin Welby by a polemicaxl Facebook post by Adrian Beney, which for those who know me well will recognise echoes with my own school and undergraduate experience: 

    "The Archbishop of Canterbury is to resign because of failures in safeguarding. This follows the absolutely appalling revelations about the behaviour of John Smyth who was part of the Iwerne Camps. Whether he's right to resign I am not qualified to say....
    "I think Justin’s resignation leaves the church more uncertain and weaker than otherwise. Maybe this organised conservative group will already be mustering their tactics to have a conservative appointed to the See of Canterbury. Indeed, I suspect they've been doing it for months.
    "Without diminishing the seriousness of the Makin report, it was undoubtedly a convenient hook upon which to hang Justin out to dry in order to achieve the wider end of displacing him from the see of Canterbury. This will also displace him from being Member number 001 in General Synod. Which is where the Prayers of Love and Faith - the proposed not-a-marriage prayers for same sex relationships - will or will not be finally authorised.
    "It's ironic that in his appalling abuse of young men, Smyth's behaviour may also have solidified his party's hold on the theology of the Church of England for a decade or more." 

What lay behind this post, I don't know. I do not know Mr Beney himself, but I've gathered enough to realise that quite some number of vocal church people have tired of the Archbishop's leadership.

Personally although my father in his early days had been a Iwerne leader I'm glad to say he didn't encourage me to spend any time there, and although I was friends with a number of "Iwerne men" at university and many of the names in the Makin report are familiar to me I am too old to have fallen prey to John Smyth's clutches. 

Hindsight, they say, is a wonderful thing. Some readers of the Makin Report seem to have lost sight of one wise principle underlying the review: "Consider the actions of individuals and organisations against the standards of practice which applied at the relevant time, i.e. understand practice from the view point of the individuals and organisations at the time rather than using hindsight." While they and no doubt others seem to have forgotten the warning, "Judge not that ye be not judged."

Finally I have to conclude that I believe that Justin Welby has been utterly unjustly attacked both for his part in the affair beyond what he has already admitted and apologised for. In my opinion he has grown into what must be the most difficult position in the Church of England. One has only to consider the breadth of his remit and the narrowness of his power - looked to as the first among equals among archbishops of the global Anglican but independent churches and also among bishops within this country. At the same time he has to maintain, as far as he can, his own spiritual life. All this at the time when the body of the church in England has been radically and painfully divided. As Archbishop Justin Welby brought his deep experience of reconciliation mediation to bear with great patience to preserve the unity which should be the hallmark of the Church. I am deeply sad about his departure and the circumstances surrounding it. I hope that whoever succeeds him will carry on that mission.

If you have any doubt of the scope of his job, I recommend that you watch him being interviewed by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart on their podcast, The Rest is Politics, in the episode "Why Church Attendance is now Increasing" (search on YouTube "rory stewart alastair campbell justin welby"}. It might also give you an idea why we have actually been blessed to have him as archbishop.

The strange biblical account of the scapegoat ends with the words, "and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness." Even though I would not have wished his time as archbishop to have ended in such unmerited blame and I am very sad at his departure I wish Justin Welby enjoyment of his freedom from the intolerable burdens of his office.

(Post amended for accuracy 25th November 2024)

Monsters in Iwerne

No, I couldn't say nothing, could I?

When I was a boy, my parents would drive us several times a year in our ancient black Austin A6 to visit my grandparents who lived on the south coast.

Those days of course were before motorways and in-car entertainment. So my father would help the journey pass with the pub sign game, in which you take turns to spot the number of legs on the pub sign - thus the Red Lion in Sturminster Marshall would give you four, while the George at Norton St Philip with St George on his horse would give you six. However trumping them all was the Thousand Millipedes, which Dad assured us was down a side-road in Iwerne Minster. 

Iwerne Minster has hit the headlines recently as it was one of the locations where the serial child abuser John Smyth, QC and Church of England lay reader, used to operate in the 1970s and 80s - decades after our car journeys. Summer camps for public school boys were held in a prep school there. His other locations were near Winchester (where he established links with the famous public school), Zimbabwe and probably South Africa - until his death in 2018. His sadistic and perverted actions were first publically hinted at in an article in The Sunday Mail in 2012. But they were already known about to a limited number of Anglican churchmen as long ago as 1982. In 2017 the story broke on the Channel 4 News when Smyth himself was challenged by Kathy Newman about his activities. In 2021 Andrew Graystone published an account in his journalistic book, Bleeding for Jesus. 

In 2019 the Church of England's Archbishops' Council commissioned an independent review of the abuse and the involvement of what are termed "church officers". Five years later Keith Makin and Sarah Lawrence have produced their report. It is 263 pages long. It is exhaustive and not an easy read in either its content or its style. (It could have done with a bit more proof-reading.) Much to the media's glee, Archbishop Justin Welby, after a campaign of pressure, announced that he had tendered his resignation to the King. The hanging offence seems to have been that he had been "insufficiently curious" when "informed" of Mr Smyth's grotesquely sadistic activity in the late 70s and early 80s. As Andrew Brown the Guardian writer has shown - see my next post - this is not borne out by the facts.

Holman Hunt, The Scapegoat (Liverpool Art Gallery)

I tend to agree with the author of the Sunday Mail article, Anne Adkins, on Newsnight, that the Archbishop is being treated as a scapegoat, since  we always want someone to blame, but the abuser himself is now dead and beyond the reach of human justice.

In my next post I shall explain more of my reasons. However for now I shall quote the comments of the Rev Dr Sam Wells, vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in a letter to his church. They seem to me both judicious and helpful: 

"To be subject to profound and repeated physical abuse at a vulnerable age is among the worst things to befall anyone. Those who have had the courage to come forward and detail their experiences at the hands of a distorted individual over a period of decades must be at the very centre of the church’s care and concern.

"While the individual responsible was not an employee of the Church of England, and the channels through which he worked were not under the authority of the Church of England, it was nonetheless right that the Archbishop of Canterbury commissioned Keith Makin to investigate whether there was anything the church could have done to have prevented these terrible crimes and what lessons could be learned. After five years, the Makin Review has concluded that the church could have done much better, and has pointed the finger at certain individuals in particular. The central issue is that the information came to light in 2013, but between then and his death at his own hand in 2018, the perpetrator abused several dozen more people – and it’s not clear how this was permitted to happen.

"Over recent decades the church, along with many organisations, has undergone a radical reappraisal of its procedures around safeguarding children and adults at risk of harm. This has been a huge institutional culture change. The simple principles of vigilance, reporting and safeguarding being everyone’s responsibility have made the church a much safer place. One result of that is that failures stand out painfully; and failure in relation to a case as grievous as this is something neither church nor society is able to countenance. The church has failed many individuals whose lives have been impacted beyond description. It puts in question the significant progress that has been made. And it undermines the church’s credibility all over again.

"It is this that has led to the news today of the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as a result of the words in the Makin Report that suggest that he, along with others, could have acted differently – and that if they had, many could have been saved from an unspeakable experience of harm. Leadership can be lonely; in today’s culture, when there is a very great wrong, there is a corresponding tide of demand that a leader visibly pay the price for an institution’s failings. It is tragic that a primacy bringing such profound good in so many areas, conducted by a person of singular faith, courage, humility and integrity, should end like this. But it seems the Archbishop has concluded that the unheard pleas of survivors, the degree of institutional failure, and the fact that his own role in the case was not impeccable, have together made it impossible for him to continue. His dignity and selflessness are an example to all of us."

(Post amended for accuracy 25th November 2024)

Thank God for human beings

We're all familiar with that irritating voice: "Your call is important to us. Please hold while we connect you." Or, "You are number 133 in the queue." It's irritating because we know that it's not a human voice but either a recording or one produced by AI. 

And so I was pleasantly surprised by my recent dealings with Apple - of computers, iPhones, watches etc. Since my earliest contact with computers, I have used Apple Macs for the simple reason that when I was thinking it was about time I caught up with the 20th century a kind parishioner called Sheila gave me a Macintosh Lisa (second-hand). She swore by them. In fact she was employed to troubleshoot them for a huge commercial concern. She assured me that it was very intuitive to use - and she was right. I now wish I'd kept that one, of course! They're quite valuable. But being shallow prey to fashion, I kept replacing it with the latest Apples, which never let me down. 

No. This is not an advertising pitch for the manufacturer! Despite its ubiquitous product placement on films (movies as they say in another place) and television, Microsoft still seems to dominate the commercial operating system market inexplicably but perhaps fortunately since Microsoft appears to me to attract hackers. 

In the end, I came unstuck. Despite my reputation for being highly computer-literate, I am in fact a rank amateur in all matters digital. My attempts to migrate my data from my present laptop (a MacBook Air) to a brand new version proved fruitless, not totally but partially. The trouble is I'm getting older and I'm wedded to my present format. Anyway, for the first time in my life, I resorted to Apple Support. First I used the online facility. However none of the suggested topics met my need. AI couldn't help me. Then I was guided to a person, but my problem was beyond their competence and so I was escalated upwards to a phone link, with help from Jane who interprets for me. This time we made progress. 

Still, I didn't have breakthrough. One feature of Apple Support is that you're provided with a case number, and so you don't have to regurgitate all the details you've already explained lower/earlier in the chain. In the end, a young human being, a man called Alaa spent most of his afternoon working on the final and only solution as it seemed to me, which was to stick with my present machine. Having come to this conclusion, the efficiency of sorting everything out was lightning fast. No doubt that process was considerably aided by AI, but the crucial element in the whole saga were the dialogues with various human beings who were universally tolerant - and humane. May they never be phased out.

On a much more significant level than my personal computer illiteracy, I have much enjoyed the bits of the Paris Paralympics that I've watched - from the joyful entrance of the athletes at the opening ceremony to the warmth of winners and losers at the end of events, all sharing in each other's achievements - the best of humanity.

It's not coming home

Well, it was definitely Spain's day on Sunday, wasn't it? with triumph at Wimbledon in the afternoon and in Berlin in the evening.

 

I must confess I don't miss all the hype and hysteria surrounding our poor footballers, trying to win 'the first trophy on foreign soil', as the media never tired of telling us. And I was quite grateful not to have been woken by celebrating drinkers pouring out of The Bay Tree in the late or early hours. 

Someone close to me observed that the excitement seemed a trifle excessive because it was 'only the European Cup'! I took their point, but then I'm old enough to remember the 1966 World Cup. Indeed I remember exactly where I was when the result came through, not in the UK in order to witness Kenneth Wolstenholme's famous commentary, 'They think it's all over.... It is now.' Is it possible today, I wonder, for anyone to score a hat-trick at international level? Because that's what we need - not just England, but generally. I heard Chris Sutton talking of 'the beautiful game' of which he said, in contrast to England, Spain was an exponent. The English team certainly has a handful of very skilful footballers, but they, in company with most highly paid male players, do not play beautifully. 

I have some suggestions to restore the beauty to the game:

• Get rid of VAR (Video assistant referee)! I've written about the difference that would make before: see here VAR. It makes for more grown-up sportmanship.

• Give yellow cards for shirt-tugging, tripping and diving;

• Red cards for dissent, i.e. disputing the referee's decisions, and for professional fouls, i.e. cynical fouls designed to prevent possible goals.

• And off the field more generally don't pay already wealthy players to don the national shirt. To have our teams appearing simply for the privilege of representing the nation, or even - dare I suggest? - for the love of their country, would prevent them being mercenaries but afford them a genuine reason for respect, and even possibly to merit, win or lose, the award of one of those absurdly coveted minor honours of imperial days. If that's not good enough for one of our 'star' players, too bad. No one is indispensable.

Talking of honours, it does seem to me that Gareth Southgate has been the best manager of the England team since Sir Alf Ramsey, who managed his team to World Cup victory in 1966. Whether or not he chooses to remain in post for another two years, he for one deserves recognition for his contribution to the game (and beyond) in this country. 

PS Sadly, I see that he has now resigned. Well, I suppose that like Jürgen Klopp he has been wise, having restored his team's fortunes, in taking a break from the almost unendurable pressure placed on managers by media and public alike. 

PPS How absurd for example for fans to spend tens of thousands of pounds, as I gather some did, to obtain a ticket to watch the match - and how wicked of touts to exploit such misplaced dedication!

A very wise woman

Well, as I promised myself in February ('ITV, please repeat Breathtaking'), I have now read Rachel Clarke's wonderful and moving book Dear Life. It is what its subtitle says, 'a doctor's story of love and loss'. As a hospital doctor, she chose to specialise in palliative care. As someone said, she's the kind of doctor we'd all want at our sides when we're dying. Her profession is truly put to the test when her dearly loved father, a local GP of the old school, who is her inspiration, is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Her account is both heartbreaking and life-affirming. Significantly, she chooses to keep her counsel on the vexed subject of assisted dying - as does the subject of this piece, Dr Kathryn Mannix.

I first came across Dr Mannix, when she gave a very short talk on BBC Radio 4 in 2018. Her title was 'Dying is not as bad as you think'. It was a simple description of the normal process of dying - and it was not as bad I'd thought. If you've not heard it, it's certainly worth listening to. A few weeks ago she gave an interview to a Financial Times journalist, Emma Jacobs, in which she talked about herself, her books and about "ordinary dying". It's so much about the listening. Of course the journalist brings up the hot topic of assisted dying. I've previously commented on Esther Rantzen joining the advocates of legalising assisted suicide. She's since been joined by Keir Starmer, and most recently by Bake-Off judge, Prue Leith. Dr Mannix is more circumspect:

"Mannix fears for the texture of the debate. 'We can be opponents about an issue and agree with far more than we disagree about, but the point on which we disagree is so important to us . . . Increasingly [political debate] is about point-scoring.' It means that we fail to include nuanced conversations on palliative, social and healthcare. 'We’re not hearing any of that. We’re just having a ding-dong about where the law sits.'” She particularly fears for the sick and the elderly, who might have their peace of mind destroyed every day with the thought they are yet again being a burden to their family. (And I would add an unwanted expense to the state as well.) As her BBC talk taught me, dying is not as bad we are given to think. 

More recently she's given a very personal interview in the BBC Outlook programme:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct4r4d. Listen to it! It's very reminiscent of Rachel Clarke's Dear Life. And it's magnificent.

"There’s something sad about the idea that the only way we can help [make] dying better is to be dead." Ordinary dying is even better. What wisdom!

An electoral dilemma

As my readers will have gathered, I have reservations concerning legalising assisted suicide. At the last general election, at our local hustings I asked the candidates their views. Rather uninterestingly, all four of them agreed with the idea that people should be able to choose the time of their death, when they were in terminal pain. 

😏😎😌🙊

That didn't help me decide, and so I voted with my old inclinations. However the urbane Conservative, David Johnstone, was comfortably elected. But if the same is true this time, I shall face a dilemma. In the wake of Esther Rantzen's comments, Sir Keir Starmer, who is likely to the next Prime Minister, declared that he would give some government time for a private members' bill to legalise assisted dying. And so I wrote to the leader of the opposition.

"Dear Sir Keir

"I had hoped to kick the Tories out of this true blue constituency and vote in a Labour candidate, as I believed was achievable.  I was at one time a member of the Labour Party when it espoused truly socialist values and policies.  However your latest pronouncement that you would make government time available for a private member’s bill and that you were yourself in favour of legalising assisted dying/suicide has been the final straw for me. 

"I clearly don’t know where our election candidates will stand on the issue, though I know our present MP’s views, but I view a change in the law dangerous, both from the precedence set in other jurisdictions and the pressures it would put on the vulnerable, and a betrayal of our past record of upholding the sanctity of life.  I know you won’t change your mind in an election year when polling (which depends on the framing of the question - for example ‘Would you prefer a Labour or a Conservative government?’) seems to indicate a majority of voters sharing your view. 

"So, anyway, regretfully, I’m writing to inform you that you have lost at least one vote here. 

"By the way I have Motor Neurone Disease.

"Yours sincerely..."

 

I wonder what the Reform UK Party's policy about it is...!

ITV, please repeat 'Breathtaking'

All photos ITV

Last night, we watched the final episode of Breathtaking, the three-part docudrama based on Dr Rachel Clarke's memoir of being a hospital doctor during the Covid pandemic. Joanne Froggatt gives a tour de force performance as Dr Abbey Henderson, an acute medicine consultant, from meeting the new coronavirus for the first time until the first roll-out of vaccines. Somehow she expresses the whole gamut of emotions mostly with a mask covering half her face and often with a visor as well.

There are very short counter bursts of complacent politicians (such as a Prime Minister announcing he wouldn't stop shaking people's hands, and a smiling Chancellor handing out dishes in a restaurant at the announcement of the "Eat out to help out" scheme) blandly pronouncing that everything is under control while we watch the continuing reality of the situation in the hospital wards. 

(The following paragraph has a number of plot spoilers, and so if you've not watched it you may wish to skip it, though the real thing is infinitely more powerful and moving.) This episode had many scenes which stick in my mind. For example, Ant, the registrar, pleading by phone with his vulnerable mother to stay at home until she can get the promised vaccine, and her regurgitating social media stories of the mythical disease, empty hospitals and dangerous vaccines; and later Abbey running the gauntlet of shouting and spitting Covid-deniers at the hospital doors on her home after an emotional and exhausting shift. Then there was the scene of Emma, a student doctor, whom Abbey finds crouching in emotional collapse and the two of them together silently sharing their intolerable grief. There's the scene of Abbey smoothing the brow of a dying terrified patient, and of her having to explain to the husband of a Covid patient with MS that if she deteriorates her preexisting conditions means she won't be moved to Intensive Care (on the assumption that her chances of recovery are compromised - thank God I was spared that, I thought). At other times we see her desperately and furiously arguing with the administrator and senior doctors hidebound by NHS and Government rules and guidelines, and later we witness her whistleblowing radio interview in which she reveals the real situation in hospital dealing with Covid and risks disclosing her name and job. 

What are my abiding reactions and conclusions? First it was one of gratitude to Rachel Clarke for writing her memories and for creating the drama with Jed Mercurio, and to ITV for broadcasting it. More it was of overwhelming gratitude to the doctors and nurses of the NHS in whose debt we were and remain. It was eye-opening to see the reality of life inside a hospital during a prolonged emergency - from the staff point of view. It was heart-breaking (yes, I did cry) to witness the stresses and the sacrifices made on doctors and nurses. Having watched all the episodes, I do wish that everyone, including MPs, would watch it and give our medics the honour and reward that they are due. I trust that ITV will broadcast it again - perhaps when the Covid Inquiry publishes its findings, or when it is next in the news. Lastly, I intend to read Breathtaking myself and Rachel Clarke's other books.

A clarification

I was upset today to find an email thanking me for "speaking out so clearly" "in the Christian institute’s weekly email". I don't remember speaking to them, I thought. And so I looked them up on line. I hadn't spoken to them. And if they had asked me to comment on the subject of assisted dying, I would probably have politely declined.

Why?

First of all, it is, I understand, basic journalistic courtesy to ask an individual before you name them in a story. And I wasn't approached. Secondly, examining the Christian Institute's website confirmed to me what I vaguely recalled, i.e. that it campaigns on certain issues with which I am not in sympathy and represents an extremely conservative type of Christianity which I no longer hold, if I ever did. For one example, it appears homophobic, which for me is the antithesis of the Christian good news - which this weekend we celebrate is for all people. I suspect that I could not in all conscience subscribe to all its tenets.

However I do acknowledge that I wrote a letter to the Guardian on the subject of assisted suicide and therefore put my views in the public domain, as they are also, of course, on my blog. So I can't complain, but simply dissociate my views from those of the Christian Institute - and hope that if they ever want to quote me again they are polite enough to contact me first.

Where is love?

Mike Chapman 'Christ Child'

 

HOLY INNOCENTS DAY

The first words we were taught in Latin
Were amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant:
Verb, transitive; meaning love.
Outside the church on Trafalgar Square
Stands a great block of Portland Stone
With a carved new-born baby soft and smooth
Lying not in Christmas card manger
But on a rough bed of rock.

Round the plinth is inscribed:
‘In the beginning was the word…
And the word became flesh
And dwelt among us’.
Look once more at the naked baby
His cord has not even been cut
He lies without defences and alone
Can this truly be the Word made flesh?

Naked new borns lie in Mariupol’s wreckage
Mothers weep for their Infants in al-Shifa
With ash grey dust their only shroud
‘What kind of a country is afraid of hospitals
and maternity wards and destroys them?’
Is it leaders lusting to unleash
Their fear full fury while they can?
Wounded they see not neighbour but stranger,

Not brother but alien, animal, pest
To be butchered, mortared, missiled from our land.
We are the chosen inhabitants of this place
Pity we can’t afford, we dare not open our eyes
To the mothers drowning in agony
To children scraping away the rubble
Wailing for lost baby brother Isa
Loved in Gaza’s hell. Are you here, Emmanuel?

28th December 2023