All these voices calling for his resignation, what a lamentable state of affairs, especially perhaps on the part of those who accuse him of naivety and ineptness. Implicitly it is a new informal version of Erastianism, the doctrine that the Church should be subservient to the State, in the sense that these people would really like to be the ones who decide what is politically opportune and what is not. But they are implicated in its very inopportuness by their misrepresentation. And their track record in the way of political shrewdness ...


I heard excerpts from Rowan Williams's Today programme interview and have now read the lecture. When I say that I have 'read' the lecture I mean that I have read through it fairly fast and therefore there is much that I would have to go back to if I were to formulate an assessment or reponse.

Williams makes hardly any positive suggestion, but simply raises issues about what would be reasonable and what would be unacceptable. For instance, I thought it was interesting that he raised the distinction between vexatious and serious conscientious objection, the Muslim girl who wouldn't handle a book of bible stories and the medics who refused to perform abortions. In that context his suggestion that there should be some recognised Muslim body that would provide criteria about what was vexatious and what was serious was a helpful one. Though it would not be the end of the story. We should have to reflect on how far we should want to go along with their recommendations. This would introduce a debate similar to those occasioned by Catholic scruples. Thus, at a certain point during the writing of the Abortion Act there would have been discusion about whether catholic (or other) doctors and nurses should be entitled to opt out. It was determined that they should be allowed to opt out. By contrast Catholic adoption agencies were not allowed effectively to discriminate against particular adoption candidates. It seems to me that the right judgment was made in the two cases. It also seems to me that the issue would always be one of particular debates and resolutions and it would work in this way in Muslim contexts as well as Catholic or other ...


Ironically, I have been reading about Mill and his reflections on the tyranny of the majority, on the need for philosophers (as opposed to philosopher-kings) and here we are with the entrenched anti-intellectualism of these islands, though 'anti-intellectualism' hardly captures the hatred ... Is there a country where even the popular press would attempt to understand and not thoughtlessly misrepresent, attempt to understand and set out, though not uncritically ...


... do I really enter my 63rd year shocked that various interests groups prefer their interests to the truth?