Thank you to John for sharing this. I always find it wonderful to hear the testimony of Christians whose perspective on governing brings them to different conclusions to mine. The wonderful challenge of our faith is just how rich and wonderful the variety is in our family of faith and we'll spend eternity worshipping alongside people we didn't expect to have common ground with. That said I really find it quite difficult to reconcile several things that John is saying about his faith and his politics. I appreciate that being interviewed publicly about that dynamic at the height of an election is an impossible situation when it comes to defending the performance of his party over these 14 years. He's obviously got to stick to the party messaging and not add to the lament over the health of the nation. But as I listened I was furrowing my brow about many things and three things in particular. The prompt to comment in the first place was when we got onto Rwanda. It's really difficult to have John make an appeal to discussing the nuance with honesty while completely ignoring the fact that his government has removed just about every legal route for claiming asylum outside the UK. He says we need to be honest about the alternatives but it's unfortunate, disappointing even, that he isn't doing that here and falls into support of a policy discourse that emphasises the criminality of gangs ahead of the humanity of those looking to this country as a place to build a safer life. Connected to that it's hard to hear him position all the blame for current challenge on the period of 2020-2023 and at the door of the pandemic and Ukraine. Those two things are huge shocks for any government to contend with but I don't think it's an honest reflection of the weakness which earlier discussions have created. The underlying reality is that much of the decline, and failure, in the UK state owes its condition to decisions made prior 2016 (austerity) and then the implications of the chaotic internal in-fighting within the Conservative party that resulted from the 2016 referendum and the impossible task of finding any workable solution to the fantasy of the Brexit promises. Since 2015 almost every ministerial brief has been held multiple times and only for a matter of months as the party has lurched from leadership crisis to leadership crisis. 14 years of continuous governing should have offered an opportunity to really commit to and deliver on a set of really ideologically consistent and interconnected policy ambitions but the slate of policy put on the table today bears little resemblance to that advocated for in manifesto after manifesto and right now of course we're 3 leaders deep compared to the last time we were given the opportunity to express our democratic mandate. He expresses disappointment about our Amazon culture but he's been part of a party that has placed soundbite over substance for over a decade in office - chopping and changing of policy or stubborn adherence to impossible and divisive rhetoric is not a conducive environment to good governance. Finally I understand his loyalty to his friend and colleague but it is unfortunate to have him refer to Sunak as a man of complete integrity given the demonstrable distorting of the truth that's been taking place in pursuit of campaigning this week. The deficit we have in trust towards government and politicians is not going to be healed until people and parties conduct themselves in a way that truly reflects complete integrity. John is in an impossible position to answer that question during an election but as followers of Jesus our first responsibility is to Him and not to our party or our position. I'll have to see if the other interviews provoke quite as much personal angst as this one did!
Thank you to John for sharing this. I always find it wonderful to hear the testimony of Christians whose perspective on governing brings them to different conclusions to mine. The wonderful challenge of our faith is just how rich and wonderful the variety is in our family of faith and we'll spend eternity worshipping alongside people we didn't expect to have common ground with.
That said I really find it quite difficult to reconcile several things that John is saying about his faith and his politics. I appreciate that being interviewed publicly about that dynamic at the height of an election is an impossible situation when it comes to defending the performance of his party over these 14 years. He's obviously got to stick to the party messaging and not add to the lament over the health of the nation.
But as I listened I was furrowing my brow about many things and three things in particular.
The prompt to comment in the first place was when we got onto Rwanda. It's really difficult to have John make an appeal to discussing the nuance with honesty while completely ignoring the fact that his government has removed just about every legal route for claiming asylum outside the UK. He says we need to be honest about the alternatives but it's unfortunate, disappointing even, that he isn't doing that here and falls into support of a policy discourse that emphasises the criminality of gangs ahead of the humanity of those looking to this country as a place to build a safer life.
Connected to that it's hard to hear him position all the blame for current challenge on the period of 2020-2023 and at the door of the pandemic and Ukraine. Those two things are huge shocks for any government to contend with but I don't think it's an honest reflection of the weakness which earlier discussions have created. The underlying reality is that much of the decline, and failure, in the UK state owes its condition to decisions made prior 2016 (austerity) and then the implications of the chaotic internal in-fighting within the Conservative party that resulted from the 2016 referendum and the impossible task of finding any workable solution to the fantasy of the Brexit promises. Since 2015 almost every ministerial brief has been held multiple times and only for a matter of months as the party has lurched from leadership crisis to leadership crisis. 14 years of continuous governing should have offered an opportunity to really commit to and deliver on a set of really ideologically consistent and interconnected policy ambitions but the slate of policy put on the table today bears little resemblance to that advocated for in manifesto after manifesto and right now of course we're 3 leaders deep compared to the last time we were given the opportunity to express our democratic mandate. He expresses disappointment about our Amazon culture but he's been part of a party that has placed soundbite over substance for over a decade in office - chopping and changing of policy or stubborn adherence to impossible and divisive rhetoric is not a conducive environment to good governance.
Finally I understand his loyalty to his friend and colleague but it is unfortunate to have him refer to Sunak as a man of complete integrity given the demonstrable distorting of the truth that's been taking place in pursuit of campaigning this week. The deficit we have in trust towards government and politicians is not going to be healed until people and parties conduct themselves in a way that truly reflects complete integrity. John is in an impossible position to answer that question during an election but as followers of Jesus our first responsibility is to Him and not to our party or our position.
I'll have to see if the other interviews provoke quite as much personal angst as this one did!