Society and Politics

• The SNP’s ongoing ‘civil war’. A complex internal battle has been played out within the Scottish National Party for some time now: a bitter wrangle between the former leader, Alex Salmond, and the current chief, Nicola Sturgeon. Salmond is to submit a new dossier of allegations against Sturgeon to a Holyrood inquiry next week. It has been claimed, among other things, that Sturgeon lied to Parliament. The First Minister’s popularity north of the border remains strong – partly a result of her handling of the coronavirus epidemic – and the SNP is likely to win the Scottish elections in May. But the preservation of the United Kingdom may depend on the outcome of the internal wrangling, and on whether Boris Johnson will eventually grant the SNP another referendum. Believers are asked to keep this significant issue in prayer. Read more here.
• BBC’s resistance to criticising Islam. BBC Radio 4’s Emma Barnett interviewed Zara Mohammed, the new head (and the first female leader) of the Muslim Council of Britain, on Woman’s Hour earlier this month. Ms Mohammed was asked how many female imams there are in the UK. Several times Mohammed refused to answer. Despite the routine manner of questioning, many listeners saw the question as ‘racist’/‘Islamophobic’ and made their strong views evident on social media. The BBC surrendered to the criticisms and removed the video clip. The move has again called into question overt bias within the BBC.
• Vaccine Passports on the way in Britain. Although Boris Johnson has dismissed suggestions of a vaccine passport being introduced within the UK, such as for going to a restaurant or cinema, 'internal' passports are vigorously promoted by many businessmen, who have stated they would not employ anyone with no proof of having had the vaccine – “No jab, no job” is the mantra. British officials are already working on a vaccine passport for travellers to countries that may demand it as a condition of entry. A poll suggests that two-thirds of UK adults support the idea of vaccination passports, despite legal and ethical concerns. Some in the medical profession have expressed deep concerns with the various vaccines, but most, including many who are also Christians, strongly encourage their use.
• Labour party report urges UK reparations to former British Empire nations. The lengthy report says that reparation payments and "an unreserved apology should be made to all of the countries of the world that the Empire invaded and negatively impacted". The report, regarded as thoroughly Socialist in nature, also calls for, among many things, the disestablishment of the Church of England, abolition of "all of the trappings and add-ons of the Monarchy", and the return of flying pickets and general strikes. Read more here.
• University professor compares British Empire to Japan's World War II PoW treatment. Professor Fowler of Leicester University was one of the publishers of a 115-page report last September that ‘outed’ many National Trust properties for having links to slavery. Now Ms Fowler has compared the British Empire with Japan’s brutal treatment of prisoners during the Second World War. But Sir John Hayes called the comments "blinkered and blinded….It’s an extraordinary conflation to compare British history over the last 400 years with Japan’s”, he said. Read more here.
• Winston Churchill worse than Hitler? The onslaught against anything connected to the British Empire continues, with Winston Churchill being removed from his place in British history. A school has dropped Churchill’s name from one of its houses, after students said he “promoted racism and inequality, unfairly imprisoning and torturing many”. In addition, an academic panel at the Cambridge University college named after him argued that Churchill was a white supremacist. He led an empire that was "worse than the Nazis", they claimed. Historian Andrew Roberts, however, described the panels’ claims as “libels” that are “entirely factually incorrect. A white supremacist wants bad things to happen to non-whites... Churchill fought to protect the hundreds of millions of non-whites in the Empire." Read more here.

World Events

• Australian state of Victoria bans gay conversion therapies. The ruling goes further than a similar ban in Queensland last year, in that it prohibits any form of ‘conversion therapy’ not only in healthcare but also in religious settings. Read more here. Critics have slammed it as the biggest attack on religious freedom in years. According to Christian commentator, Martyn Iles, this means that even supporting believers with gay or lesbian inclinations who want to live a celibate lifestyle, even if they request such support, may potentially be a crime. Watch this 11-min video and read more in this week’s Editorial.

Israel & the Middle East

• World Council of Churches official declares war on Israel and its supporters. Rev. Frank Chikane, moderator of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs of the WCC, appeared to portray Israelis as demons and said that the world will seek blood from people who support them in their fight against the Palestinians. In his shocking one-sided tirade, the South African pastor said, “it’s almost as if the whole world is against the Palestinians, nobody cares. The Palestinians,” he said, are “dealing with the same demons we dealt with in South Africa, except that in their case, the demons have invited many other demons to make their struggle much more difficult.” Read more here.
• BBC admits Israel not obliged to vaccinate Palestinians. Most international media outlets last month criticised Israel for not including the Palestinian Arabs in its Covid-19 vaccination drive, insisting it was legally obliged to do so. Without making a full apology, the BBC has since corrected statements it made, stating that, in fact, the Oslo Accords “give the Palestinian Authority oversight of public health under the principles of self-determination.” It is of course in Israel’s interest that all Palestinians are vaccinated, and it has been providing assistance - including donating vaccine doses – though not all of it has been welcomed. Last year the Palestinian Authority rejected coronavirus aid from the United Arab Emirates because it passed through Israel. Read more here.

Upcoming Events

• Navigating the Pandemic Fog A Zoom conference is being held on Saturday, 6 March 2021, 9.30–1pm, to consider – from both secular and biblical perspectives – what has been happening in our world since the beginning of last year and the onset of the Covid pandemic. The conference, which is organised by a group of interested Christians from across the UK, will also look at where these events might be taking us and how we can understand them through the lens of God's word. More information, and registration details are available here.