Peter Inson

A secular society?

The place of Christianity, and of the established church in particular, in the public life of the nation is being questioned on the grounds that we are becoming a secular society. It seems to me a strange secularism where, every year, a large proportion of the population goes to considerable expense and trouble to celebrate the birthday of Christianity’s …

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“Stop everything – It’s Black Friday” – one advertiser’s e-mail message.

I know that advertising pays for my e-mail service but I don’t need an instruction masquerading as a friendly message. I am not a sheep that will simply follow the flock into the lorry that is bound for the slaughterhouse, or a lemming trying to keep up with other lemmings, unconcerned about the long drop. …

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Jihadi Babies

We hear of girls and women going off to be jihadi brides. Do we hear anything of jihadi babies? How many are there? Where are they registered? Whose responsibility are they? Can their mothers provide for them if their fathers are elsewhere? What are their parents’ intentions for them? Are they now fatherless? Stateless? Likely …

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More Grammar Schools

With the arrival of a new grammar school in Kent, arguments about selective education that have echoed throughout my lifetime are very much with us again because we have long ignored an important truth. Parents are never obliged to send children to academically selective schools and such schools know that they have been chosen because the …

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School exams: essential testing or narrow-minded bullying

Intelligence Squared On October 1st the motion for debate was, “Let’s end the tyranny of the test – relentless school testing demeans education.” Tristram Hunt – until recently Shadow Secretary of State for Education. He sees the purpose of education as liberation, providing social continuity so that the community sustains and passes on what has …

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