Liz Truss must be over the target.
She’s been attracting a lot of flak.
On Wednesday, August 3, 2022, The Telegraph‘s Allister Heath wrote an excellent editorial, ‘Truss Derangement Syndrome is lulling our failed elite into a fatal miscalculation’.
Truss is quickly becoming a hate figure, again showing that she is the continuity candidate to Boris, whom the metropolitan elite hounded out of leadership via a sizeable group of self-interested Conservative MPs.
Allister Heath tells us (emphases mine):
My enemy’s enemy is my friend, so it is no wonder that Liz Truss is ahead in the race to be our next prime minister. She is driving all of the right people mad, and their increasingly unhinged contempt is proving her best recruiting sergeant among a Tory membership desperate to sock it to the Left.
Her critics cannot understand her appeal, and are displaying all of the classic signs of a delusional ruling class that no longer likes or understands half their country. The Twitter mob is already exhibiting the full symptoms of Truss Derangement Syndrome, as an even cursory scroll through the rantings of our cultural elites immediately reveals …
There were several stages to the onset of TDS. First, when it became obvious that Truss was emerging as the frontrunner, the reaction was bafflement, hilarity and joy: those stupid Tories have really done it this time, handing the election to Labour! Then, as she started to unveil her offering, there was an outpouring of support for Rishi Sunak from people who would never dream of voting Tory.
We are now at the third stage, with anger, fury and extreme, disproportionate rage at her temerity, her audacity, her anti-orthodox positions, combined with almost staggering levels of complacency: how dare she call for more grammar schools or for an improved remit for the Bank of England? How stupid! Doesn’t she know that clever people have already looked into, and dismissed, this? The electorate will hate such ideas, won’t it? Won’t it?
There will undoubtedly be an even uglier, nastier fourth stage, triggered if and when she starts to score higher than Labour in the polls, and especially if she is able to break the 40 per cent support threshold. This will be met by total war and a hysterical, never-ending commitment to annihilate her, reminiscent of the scorched earth campaigning that accompanied the Brexit battles in the dying days of the May government …
TDS is closely connected to a series of bizarre emotional pathologies to which the British centre-Left has succumbed … a feeling among some of the latter that Britain doesn’t deserve to succeed. We need to be punished: we voted for Brexit and then for Boris, and so failure is our just desserts. That is why we are told that hiking corporation tax would make no difference to our competitiveness – though, of course, it would supposedly be demagogic to cut taxes to attract capital.
Then there is the closely related “Candide fallacy”, after Voltaire’s satirical novella: the idiotic idea, first aired by Treasury Remainers in 2016, that everything is already for the best in this best of all possible worlds …
Last but not least, our self-consciously egalitarian, progressive London elites make an exception when it comes to Right-wing Tory women: the over-the-top nature of some of the attacks on Truss are clearly partly driven by a despicable misogyny laced with anti-Northern snobbery. Even Johnson wasn’t treated with such disdain, such derision, such snootiness.
I disagree with that last sentence. Boris got similar treatment but it revolved around the metropolitan elite’s notional moral superiority and his Etonian education.
The question remains, if elected leader, does Truss have the stamina and enough good advisers to succeed as Prime Minister?
Heath says:
I’ve known Truss since 2008 and I’m cautiously optimistic. Comparisons with the Iron Lady can be inappropriate, but there is one enlightening historical parallel. Many dismissed Margaret Thatcher in the early 1970s; as education secretary, her opposition to comprehensivisation was disappointingly soft. She ensured that it was no longer compulsory for councils to turn all schools into comprehensives, but that only slowed the massacre. She didn’t defeat the Blob, and only saved 94 grammar schools, allowing hundreds to be vandalised. She wasted too much political capital ending free school milk, a minor cost cut.
A similar performance today would have seen centre-Right critics write Thatcher off in despair. Few would have predicted how much she would grow into the role, and Truss’s supporters hope that she too will eventually turn into a formidable leader. Her critics, blinded by Truss Derangement Syndrome, cannot even conceive of the possibility that this could be right. They will rue the day they so completely underestimated her.
On Friday, August 5, the Conservatives held a hustings in Eastbourne on the south coast (Sky News also has a video):
The audience was comprised of active Conservative Party members, some of whom were selected to ask questions of the candidates.
Jimmy McLoughlin, creator of the podcast Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future and a Party adviser during the time when David Cameron was leader, moderated the Q&A session.
Nus Ghani, MP for the nearby constituency of Wealden, approached the dais and was the first to pledge her support for Liz Truss.
At the 10-minute point in the video, Liz took the stage to introduce herself and elaborate on her achievements in Parliament.
As she was talking, a group of noisy climate protesters started shouting at Truss. One grabbed a microphone saying, ‘We are the majority’ (15:00):
Guido borrowed a Trumpism in describing the infiltrators — ‘low energy’:
It took a few minutes for security guards to remove them from the hall. Meanwhile, Conservatives in the audience chanted, ‘Out, out, out!’
After decorum was restored and Truss finished her introduction, Dominic Raab presented his reasons for supporting Rishi Sunak.
Sunak then introduced himself (32:00) and said he was the first to suggest that the Government implement freeports; he said he had written a paper on them in 2016, which would have been at the time of the Brexit referendum campaign.
Then it was time for Truss to return for her Q&A session (44:00).
She was happily answering questions when another protester barged in yelling, ‘Shame on you, shame on you’ and was summarily removed (1:00:00).
Rishi took his place to answer audience questions (1:15:00). He came across as a real technocrat.
I got the feeling that he viewed the British public as numbers rather than people.
He would continue to avoid us as much as he could.
To Sunak, we are the great unwashed. The next day, I saw a clip of him in his hometown of Southampton — standing on a pier with yachts swanning past him.
He talked a lot about new technology. A young Conservative asked him about smart phone use (1:28:00). Jimmy McLouglin asked jovially if the man asking the question was a plant.
Sunak talked about bringing in workers from overseas — ‘the best and the brightest’ — to implement new technology. Infosys, anyone?
Why did he not talk about training young Britons for this role? We have successful gaming start-ups in the West Midlands.
At one point, Sunak spoke about the importance he places on family, which for him, comes before everything else. Hmm. In normal circumstances, I would praise that but, given his billionaire in-laws, I wonder whether this indicates a personal agenda someone has asked him to fulfil for a future goal.
McLoughlin asked Sunak if he would have gone into banking today, were he 22 years old. Sunak replied that, in 2022, he would have become an entrepreneur.
Sunak closed by saying that, although Truss can explain Conservative values well (a bit condescending?), the Party needs someone who can beat Labour, meaning himself.
No one heckled Sunak.
Let’s go back to Truss’s bright moment during the hustings.
The Mail reported on that and on the protesters, complete with photographs:
Liz Truss made light of her Liberal Democrat past last night at the leadership hustings in Eastbourne – declaring that ‘we all had teenage misadventures’ and that joining the party was her version of ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ in an assured performance.
In a question regarding climate change and young people, Truss unprompted decided to tackle the issue head on by adding that she made a childish decision to join the party when she was a teenager.
Speaking in a Q&A section of the evening on the south coast, the Foreign Secretary said: ‘We all made mistakes. We all had teenage misadventures. That was mine.
‘Some people had sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. I had the Liberal Democrats.’
The quip came despite numerous attempts by eco-protesters to disrupt the hustings while the frontrunner Ms Truss was making her case to become the next Prime Minister.
Ms Truss was left fuming by six protesters who stormed yesterday’s hustings in Eastbourne before being removed by security.
The Foreign Secretary snapped back at the eco-warriors who could be heard shouting ‘shame’ and calling for a Green New Deal to be implemented by a new Prime Minister.
I did not see her fuming or hearing her snap at them. If anything, she stood back and looked at them patiently, waiting for them to finish their antics.
Anyway:
Five protesters were kicked out of the Tory leadership hustings in Eastbourne after shouting ‘shame on you’ to Liz Truss during her opening remarks, calling for a ‘Green New Deal’ and claiming to be the majority. Tory members in the audience could be heard chanting ‘out, out, out!’
Another was ejected during the Q&A section shouting similar slogans at Ms Truss.
During the initial incursion, Ms Truss said that she would legislate to stop the likes of these protesters from disrupting ordinary people’s lives and vowed to clamp down on them immediately if she wins the leadership.
She said: ‘I would legislate immediately to make sure that we are standing up to militant trade unions who stop ordinary commuters getting into work.
‘And I would legislate to protect our essential services. I will make sure that militant activists such as Extinction Rebellion are not able to disrupt ordinary people who work hard and do the right thing and go into work.
‘And I will never ever ever allow our democracy to be disrupted by unfair protests.’
After the initial wave of protesters, another disruptor infiltrated the arena and was removed.
The frontrunner then quipped that she was ‘popular with Extinction Rebellion’ after the eco-warriors did not heckle Mr Sunak.
The protesters were from Green New Deal Rising, a youth climate group, and they said: ‘This is a critical moment for our country. Our next Prime Minister should be responding to what the majority wants, which is good wages, secure jobs and a safe climate.
‘But Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are clogging up the airwaves with policies that will make things worse, not better.
‘Energy bills are set to rise to over £3000 a year and nothing they have announced will come anywhere near putting that money back in people’s pockets.
‘We disrupted the hustings tonight to send a clear message that we are the majority and we are rising up.’
However, Sunak was not without his own problem.
Conveniently, on the morning of the Eastbourne hustings, the pro-Labour New Statesman magazine issued a video of Sunak in the traditionally upmarket town of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in which he told Conservatives that, as Chancellor, he was able to reverse a Labour policy of targeting deprived areas in England’s major cities and put taxpayers’ money to work in their own areas instead:
That evening, in Eastbourne, he had some explaining to do.
On Saturday, the Mail reported that someone had asked him about it in his Q&A session:
… Rishi Sunak came under fire from Tories and Labour yesterday after he was recorded saying he had been working to divert funding from ‘deprived urban areas’ towards prosperous towns.
Responding to the furore, Mr Sunak said: ‘I wanna level up everywhere, and as you may have seen from a video clip that is online, I don’t believe that’s just about our very large urban cities.
‘I believe that’s about investing in and leveling up small towns in rural communities, in coastal communities like those here in the south-east.’
The intervention garnered applause from the watching Conservative members despite widespread backlash to his earlier remarks.
The former chancellor was filmed bragging that he had started changing public funding formulas when he was chancellor to ensure places like Tunbridge Wells receive ‘the funding they deserve’.
The New Statesman magazine, which obtained video revealing Mr Sunak’s remarks, said they were made to grassroots Tories in the Kent town on July 29.
It promoted criticism, with Foreign Office minister Lord Zac Goldsmith – a close ally of Boris Johnson – saying: ‘This is one of the weirdest – and dumbest – things I’ve ever heard from a politician.’
Jake Berry, the chairman of the Northern Research Group of Tory MPs, said that in public Mr Sunak ‘claims he wants to level up the North, but here, he boasts about trying to funnel vital investment away from deprived areas’.
‘He says one thing and does another – from putting up taxes to trying to block funding for our armed forces and now levelling up,’ the Truss supporter said …
But, and it’s a big but:
Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen said, ‘Strangely enough, most Red Wall areas that voted Conservative for the first time in 2019 – who have been left behind for decades – aren’t urban/city areas. Exactly the whole point of levelling up.
‘They should post the full clip, which would show Rishi Sunak talk about the local council funding formula and how it discriminated against non-metropolitan areas in favour of cities – by giving them less money for things like adult and children services, highways and fire.’
At the weekend, conservative broadcaster André Walker was on GB News. He said that he lives in Windsor, which has its tax money taken away to benefit more deprived parts of Berkshire, yet Windsor has its own needs that also require additional expenditure.
This is what Sunak said in the video:
I managed to start changing the funding formulas, to make sure areas like this are getting the funding they deserve because we inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas and that needed to be undone.
I started the work of undoing that.
Fair enough.
In Eastbourne, Truss said that, despite forecasts, a recession is not inevitable.
The Spectator‘s editor, Fraser Nelson, agrees with Truss. He wrote about Eastbourne the following day:
‘Forecasts are not destiny,’ said Liz Truss in last night’s debate: a remark that has drawn alarm in some quarters …
… I’d go further and say that the approach to economic forecasts is one of the biggest differences between the candidates. Rishi Sunak’s campaign is rather fatalistic: he seems to think we cannot really avoid a big-state, high-tax, low-growth future described by these forecasts. Under his plan then he’d need seven long years to reverse only half of his tax rises – and still leave us with the highest tax burden since the 1950s. Truss says there is another way, but she hasn’t said much about how she’d finance it.
… This dismal science has had a mixed record of late. A 2019 Bloomberg study looked at 469 downturns in national economies in the previous three decades and found only four had been predicted by the International Monetary Fund. In the UK, a recession was widely predicted after the Brexit vote. It didn’t materialise. Then we had the 2009 crash that, as the Queen pointed out, no one saw coming.
… And who saw inflation coming? As Niall Ferguson recently observed, if you go back to Easter last year only a handful of economic commentators were warning about what was in store …
Does the above mean the experts are stupid? No, it just underlines the problem with economic models. They are a mixture of maths and subjective assumptions: if one of the many assumptions is wrong, the whole picture changes.
After the Eastbourne hustings, Team Truss released an open letter from the Foreign Secretary’s most prominent backers suggesting that Rishi Sunak should stand down.
Early Saturday morning, the Mail reported:
Liz Truss called last night for the Conservative Party to ‘unite’ to take on Keir Starmer‘s Labour as 21 current and former Cabinet ministers issued a declaration of support for her.
The Foreign Secretary, firm favourite to succeed Boris Johnson, appeared to put pressure on her rival Rishi Sunak to stand down as she shared the open letter from some of her prominent backers, including Lord Frost, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
The signatories, which include ten sitting and 11 past Cabinet ministers, argued that only Miss Truss ‘has what it takes’ and would break from the ‘tired economic managerialism of the past’ in a thinly veiled swipe at the former chancellor …
… in their open letter, the 21 senior Tories say Miss Truss’s record as Foreign Secretary and low-tax promises should see her become prime minister.
They wrote: ‘For us, there is only one candidate who has what it takes: Liz Truss. She has shown she will do what is necessary and right, even in the face of great adversity.
‘In challenging times, Britain needs a prime minister who can be trusted to deliver. Liz has a clear plan to grow our economy, founded on true Conservative principles of aspiration, enterprise and freedom, which will help fund our public services and NHS.
‘She will unleash the huge opportunities of Brexit, break from the tired economic managerialism of the past and challenge failed groupthink.’
The backers include Tories from all regions of the country and wings of the party, such as Northern Research Group chairman Jake Berry, current Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and former leadership rival Penny Mordaunt.
Miss Truss responded by saying, ‘it’s time to unite’, and said she would ‘unite our party, beat Keir Starmer, and… deliver for Britain’.
For his part, Mr Sunak has repeatedly insisted he will not quit the contest even if he falls further behind his rival.
I agree with Sunak. As much as it pains me to watch that technocrat doing his Tony Blair impersonation, it is only fair — even with another three weeks of this contest — that he stay in it. Many Conservative Party members are rankled enough that Boris was taken from them. To see a Theresa May-style coronation (her opponent dropped out in 2016) would upset them further.
Again, I do not have a vote. I’m merely an interested bystander.
In closing, here are the latest polls from Monday, August 8.
Only Liz Truss has a chance of beating Labour’s Keir Starmer:
Guido Fawkes says (emphases his):
Opinium’s latest polling puts Liz far ahead of Rishi amongst Tory voters, with 2019 Tories now giving her 26-point lead at 48% to 22%. The previous survey had Rishi ahead on “looking like a Prime Minister in waiting“. That lead has now evaporated: Truss is leading on all measures with the Tories.
Even worse for Rishi is his polling against Starmer. In head-to-head polling, Liz beats Starmer amongst all voters by 1 point at 29% to 28%. Rishi, meanwhile, trails Starmer at 28% to 24%. Rishi and his supporters are still pushing the polls from last month showing him best placed to beat Sir Keir. That’s looking like a pretty weak claim now…
UPDATE: Redfield & Wilton find the same outcomes; Liz beats Keir, Keir beats Rishi.
I will have more on the protesters in a separate post.
There was no doubt that Sky News presenters and reporters promoted Rishi Sunak heavily before, during and after the last major debate of the Conservative Party leadership contest on Thursday, August 4, 2022.
All of them were talking about Rishi while downplaying or ignoring any mention of Liz Truss’s achievements at the Departments of the Treasury, Education, International Trade — or the Foreign Office.
It was all Rishi, Rishi, Rishi.
Sky claimed to have an audience of undecided Conservative Party members. I’ll address that claim below.
Prior to the debate, Sky presenters interviewed their colleagues, some of these undecided voters and two MPs, Dominic Raab on Team Rishi and Kwasi Kwarteng on Team Truss.
Raab, who looked rattled, kept interrupting Kwarteng on the subject of tax. Kwarteng politely asked him not to interrupt, especially as he had given Raab an opportunity to speak freely about his candidate.
Although Guido Fawkes’s tweet and video say this was after the debate, it was actually before the debate:
Sky’s clock says 19:18. The debate did not start until later:
Guido’s post says (red emphases his):
It seems Team Rishi forgot to send the ‘don’t shout over your opponent, it looks bad’ memo to their star backer…
Too right, but this was Sky and only Liz’s supporters probably took any notice.
Kay Burley, 61, was the moderator. The video of the coin toss determining who went first is here. Truss won the toss and said she would go first. Kay was all smiles at the end, so much so that she looked weird. Clearly, there was an opportunity for Sunak to shine later on.
During the debate, Burley asked questions after the audience of ‘undecideds’ had posed theirs.
Afterwards, the audience voted on their choice for the better candidate.
This is Truss’s Q&A session:
The Mail‘s Henry Deedes filed the following report (emphases in purple mine).
We had Truss’s use of the word ‘bold’:
Up first was Miss Truss, having won the coin toss. ‘It really is make or break,’ said Kay, doing the introductions. Cue Rocky soundtrack. Duff-duff-duff!
We heard from someone called Diana who worried about the Bank of England’s doom and gloom forecast yesterday that recession was inevitable. Liz insisted it wasn’t.
‘We can change the outcome,’ she said. ‘Now is the time to be bold.’ That’s what voters want to hear! Diane beamed. This was Elgar to her ears. One ticked ballot paper in the box marked ‘Truss’.
Deedes noted how Truss’s demeanour has improved over the past few weeks:
Remarkable how much the Foreign Secretary has grown during this contest. She was fluent – no ums and ahs. The joints too have loosened up. She was able to shimmy around the stage as she answered questions. At her launch a month ago, she was stiffer than a store mannequin.
An audience member criticised Truss’s proposal on realigning public sector pay outside of London — one that she ditched within 24 hours — and said he was deeply offended, especially as it would have included nurses and teachers. The man asked Truss whether she would apologise. A second man, sitting in the front row, said that he could not understand why every mis-step had to have an apology tacked on to it. Truss stood by waiting for the two men to finish.
It was a spiky exchange:
Now we get to Sky’s claim of having undecided Conservative Party members in the audience.
Guido reported on the offended man who asked Truss to apologise. It turns out that he, Tom Harding, was chief of staff to former MP Anna Soubry, a hardline Remainer who lost the Party whip in 2019. She did not win re-election later that year.
Guido told his readers the next day about Harding and another person in the audience, Jill Andrew:
To say questions have been raised about Sky’s debate audience last night would be an understatement. Despite two polls this week giving Liz a 32-34 point lead over rival Rishi, the audience was incredibly hostile towards her, with Rishi coming out on top. Sky News has said the audience was made up of undecided members. Guido’s not sure they did their homework properly…
One very critical anti-Liz audience member has already been identified as Jill Andrew, a former CCHQ lawyer and party candidate who stood against Boris for his Henley seat in 2001. Hardly a typical member…
The jewel in Sky’s audience crowd, however, was undoubtedly Tom Harding, who went to town on Liz over her regional pay boards u-turn before almost starting a fight with a fellow audience member standing up for her. Harding, it transpires, is none other than Anna Soubry’s former chief of staff…
It turns out that Harding has form, having appeared in a BBC Question Time audience two months ago criticising Boris:
Astute viewers at home were not impressed:
Guido had a closer look at Sky’s claims of an audience of undecided Party members and concluded it was bunkum:
The Times had more on Truss’s economic policy on the day that the Bank of England raised interest rates:
Liz Truss said last night that recession in Britain was “not inevitable”, as she claimed her plan to cut taxes could prevent an economic downturn.
In the last televised debate of the Tory leadership campaign the foreign secretary cast doubt on the Bank of England’s predictions of a slump and defended her plans for a multibillion-pound stimulus for the economy …
… Truss claimed that she had the policies to build towards growth.
“What the Bank of England has said is extremely worrying, but it is not inevitable,” she said.
“We can change the outcome, and we can make it more likely that the economy grows.”
The Mail reported that Truss was eager to get civil servants off their Pelotons and back into the office:
Liz Truss last night pledged to get more civil servants back to the office after it emerged many Whitehall desks are still empty.
She backed Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg‘s efforts to curb the work from home culture in the civil service.
The Foreign Secretary, who has previously suggested flexible working should ‘become the norm’, made the vow as Cabinet Office figures showed that in the week commencing July 25, just over half of Whitehall desks were occupied.
The worst culprits were the Scotland Office on 27 per cent and Miss Truss’s own department on 34 per cent. Numbers are falling as the weeks go on.
Miss Truss said: ‘I support the work Jacob Rees-Mogg has been doing… and I will be looking at that very carefully.’
Truss must be careful about flip-flopping. It is careless and gives her opponents ammunition.
After Truss finished answering questions from the audience, Burley invited her to sit down opposite her for questions. I thought this was terribly rude:
You can have a drink of water. You’re welcome.
Burley asked Truss about violations of lockdown rules, hinting at Boris.
Truss, recalling Burley’s 2020-2021 suspension from Sky for her 60th birthday bash in London’s West End, gave a tactful response, yet one that Burley would have found hard to miss:
Many mistakes were made during lockdown, Kay, by many people.
Here’s the video. The reply has another Burley incident involving a fellow journalist outside a London courthouse several years ago:
Then it was Sunak’s turn to shine:
At this point in the polls, Rishi was far behind and every Conservative knew it.
The Mail‘s Henry Deedes noted:
On came Rishi. He seemed jittery. Hyper. A man in a hurry. Much like his whole campaign, he was playing catch-up.
Going second was clearly a massive disadvantage. Good on him though. He must know his bid by now is doomed. Yet still he ploughed on, smiling and joking, charming the audience with his polished public school manners. He reminded me of a dutiful airline steward aboard a plummeting plane, insisting all’s tickety-boo.
There was an early question as to whether he was going to withdraw from the leadership contest. Course he wasn’t. He’d given up a holiday in sunny Californ-I-A to do this. He wasn’t going to pack it in early.
‘I’m sure we’ll get to talking about the economy in a minute,’ he said at one point. Translation: Please, please ask me about the economy.
Here’s the video of that exchange at 1:50 in. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get to talking about the economy, the best part:
Contrary to what Deedes wrote, going second was clearly a winning position for Sunak.
The Murdoch-owned Times gave much more coverage to him than to Truss. Recall that they came out immediately for Sunak as party leader, beginning with a hit on Truss:
In the last televised debate of the Tory leadership campaign the foreign secretary cast doubt on the Bank of England’s predictions of a slump and defended her plans for a multibillion-pound stimulus for the economy.
But she was attacked by Rishi Sunak, her rival, who said the Conservative Party needed to “get real and fast”.
He said: “The lights on the economy are flashing red and the root cause is inflation. I’m worried Liz Truss’s plans will make the situation worse.
“It’s not the tax burden which is causing the recession. That’s simply wrong” …
“What I’m not going to do is embark on a borrowing spree worth tens of billions of pounds,” he said. “We need to be really careful about policies that will make it worse” …
During the debate Sunak was confronted with polling suggesting that he was trailing Truss in the contest. But the former chancellor insisted that he would not concede. “I’m fighting for something I really believe in,” he said.
Sunak also gave a spirited defence of his decision to resign from Boris Johnson’s cabinet.
“Everyone remembers what was going on with Chris Pincher, that was a serious ethical question that the government was on the wrong side of again, and I couldn’t defend it,” he said, referring to the former deputy chief whip who has been accused of groping men.
“Maybe you’re OK to defend that, I wasn’t OK to defend it, 60 other members of the government were not OK to defend it because it was wrong.”
After Truss secured a number of high-profile endorsements in recent days, Sunak insisted that he was the most popular candidate with Tory MPs.
“Every single round of the parliamentary process, I led,” he said. “And since it finished, more and more people have come and joined the team.”
At the end of the programme, the audience was asked for a show of hands on who they thought would make a better prime minister, with Sunak emerging as the clear winner.
Sky were eager for everyone to pile on in support of Sunak.
After the debate, reporters and audience members gave their view.
Only one person, a manager in the social care sector, supported Truss. The reporter tried to change her mind. The woman felt awkward, shifting in her chair. She was unshakeable, however, and repeated that she thought Truss had a better solution for social care.
Journalists at The Telegraph gave their views on the debate.
Madeline Grant thought that Truss won, despite having to admit policy U-turns:
Liz Truss won. Both she and Kay Burley, the compere, had arrived in the same shade of red, like a pair of awkward accidentally-matching wedding guests. Liz’s outfit was offset with a Frodo Baggins ring around her neck – appropriate on a day when the Bank of England was predicting Mount Doom.
Rishi Sunak looked more like a Moss Bros dummy than ever, with his sharp suit and matinee idol quiff …
Faced, for the first time in ages, with real grassroots rage, Liz garbled in that weirdly jolty way of hers, hands outstretched like an angler lying about his catch …
… Kay stirred the pot by presenting the Liz of 2022 with a quote from the Liz of 2019 about the necessity of building on the green belt. Liz squirmed again. “I’ve changed my view on that… What I don’t want to do, Kay, is build on the green belt” …
After a series of irritating one-on-one questions that told us more about the host than the interviewee, it was Rishi’s turn, and he did his best to shake off his reputation as the establishment candidate by listing all the Tory grandees who had lined up behind him.
Despite invoking Michael Howard and William Hague, he reprised his old Tony Blair impression, with lots of gesticulations and compliments to the audience. However, like his campaign, it was a patchy mix, half New Labour, half Ukip – his Blairite intonation, “I wanna deliver”, was matched with a Faragean dig at “Lefty lawyers”.
Kay began a question in Latin. “Et tu, Rishi?”, she snarled. The Wykehamist tried unconvincingly to pretend he didn’t know what this meant. In the end, it took a man from the audience shouting in plain English – “you stabbed Boris in the back!” – for the message to seep in …
The audience poll pointed to a decisive win for Rishi, but he’ll need to land many more body blows if he is to win the ultimate toss of the Tory coin.
In another Telegraph article, Ross Clark and Tim Stanley gave their impressions of the candidates’ performance.
Ross Clark pointed out that Truss never recovered from having to defend her public sector pay policy reversal:
Truss was less wooden, less awkward than on some previous occasions. She showed a sense of humour. But, thanks to her rapidly-withdrawn policy of regional pay boards, she spent much of her 45 minutes on the back foot. Her most difficult moment was when a man from Newcastle [Tom Harding] said he had been ‘offended’ by the suggestion that his work in the North East was of less value than someone doing the same job in London.
Truss was also a little hampered when answering questions on Ukraine and Taiwan – she is the foreign secretary, and her answers really mattered.
… But she never explained why she had come up with her regional pay policy in the first place if she was going to drop it so quickly.
Truss came across as someone more prepared to answer questions directly. The more that Sunak’s 45 minutes went on, the more he came across as someone who was repeating prepared questions on autopilot – and the more you understood why support for him in this contest was draining away. But not was not, it appeared, how the studio audience saw it – a show of hands at the end suggested he had firmly won over the audience.
Tim Stanley said the audience won the debate, in a sense, but Truss’s weak spots mean the contest between her and Sunak is far from over:
The winner of the Sky debate was the audience. It was invited, said Kay Burley, to reflect the demographics of the Conservative party, so I was anticipating something like Cluedo: a vicar, a professor, a colonel and an inebriated peacock.
Instead we got some marvellous characters who, when the candidates failed to answer a question, argued with themselves instead. A debate broke out between Tom from Gateshead who found Liz’s regional pay policy insulting and a fellow in the front row who thought politicians should stop apologising.
“When someone’s asking for your vote, you don’t expect to be offended,” said Tom. If looks could kill! Who murdered the Tory Party? Tom from Gateshead, in the TV studio, with passive aggression.
On the subject of *that* policy, Liz, who was dressed as Miss Scarlett, refused to admit an error while also trying to make a virtue out of being willing to make a u-turn …
Rishi Sunak, meanwhile, tried to combine being a safe pair of hands with being a radical reformer. His vibe is “recklessly sensible”, and it won over this sceptical crowd. The polls, and the pundits, say Liz is the favourite, but given the alarming rise in inflation, and combined with the late arrival of ballots – I still think the election is up for grabs.
Guido reported a snap poll that Redfield & Wilton Strategies took after the debate:
A second poll in a row has found Liz to be more popular than Keir Starmer, widening her lead to three points. A Team Liz source joked to Guido that with Rishi we’ll get socialism for two years followed by socialism for another 5”
The poll shows that Labour’s Keir Starmer would beat Sunak 39% to 32%.
Truss holds a narrow lead over Starmer, 37% to 35%.
Readers interested in more policy detail from the candidates can read about it here, here and here.
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Timothy and Epaphroditus
19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. 20 For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. 21 For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 But you know Timothy’s[a] proven worth, how as a son[b] with a father he has served with me in the gospel. 23 I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, 24 and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also.
—————————————————————————————-
Last week’s post discussed Paul’s instruction not to complain, because the Philippians — and we — are to be as shining lights in a dark, fallen world. Paul also said that he considered himself to be a sacrificial drink offering poured on the greater sacrifice of the Philippians’ faith.
In today’s reading, we find out more about Timothy. Epaphroditus will be the subject of next week’s post.
Paul, hoping in the Lord Jesus, is writing about Timothy because, as a friend to the congregation, he wanted the young man to visit them shortly to take back good news of them to Rome (verse 19), where the Apostle was under house arrest, chained to a guard.
Matthew Henry’s commentary says that, as the Philippians had not been in touch with Paul for a while, he was concerned about them:
See Paul’s care of the churches, and the comfort he had in their well-doing. He was in pain when he had not heard of them for a good while, and therefore would send Timothy to enquire, and bring him an account …
Paul says that he has no one like Timothy, who is generally concerned for their welfare (verse 20).
Although the Philippians were a good congregation overall, Paul was concerned about spiritual fissures showing. If he could have been with them, he surely would have.
John MacArthur tells us (emphases mine):
… there was another element in his wanting to be with the Philippians. It wasn’t just fellowship. It wasn’t just love. It wasn’t just affection. It was also spiritual progress. While he was a prisoner at Rome and while he may have been a little bit melancholy as he thought about the affection he had for these Philippians, he was also pretty astute in his mind and he realized that he needed to be there, not just for the sake of fellowship but also for the sake of their spiritual progress. They had some real needs.
For example, look at chapter 1 verse 27. He says, “Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.” Now the first thing we would note is that there was a bit of discord among those people in Philippi. We don’t know the extent of it but there was some disharmony there and there was need for greater unity.
Chapter 2 verse 1 affirms it. He says, “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” Here he’s calling for humility. He’s calling for unity. He’s calling for oneness. He’s calling for loving each other the same, and so forth …
And there was one other thing on his mind and that is that the Philippian church was being attacked by some theological opposition. In chapter 1 again verse 28 says, “In no way be alarmed by your opponents.” Striving together for the faith of the gospel indicates that there was a war going on about the faith of the gospel. As some opponents were coming in teaching false doctrine, the fact that they opposed the gospel, he says in verse 28, is a sign of destruction for them. Then in verse 29 he reminds them, “It has been granted for Christ’s sake not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me.” In other words, this is to be expected. You’ve been called to suffer. You’re being attacked. There are those who are coming with false doctrine, opponents and enemies. Obviously under this attack he was concerned that they have an adequate and appropriate response to that. So that was another reason that he would have desired to be with them.
Philippians 3 and 4 provide further insight.
MacArthur explains Paul’s unswerving desire to do God’s will:
Now because he had such a strong desire to help the Philippians out of love, and because at the time he was a prisoner, he had no recourse other than to send someone else. And so verse 19 he says, “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you.” Obviously Timothy then is going to carry Paul’s mission. He will carry Paul’s affection. He will carry his message and effort toward unity and toward doctrinal clarity and strength against persecution. That’s why he wants him to go.
Thus we are introduced to Timothy. Notice how Paul frames what he says. “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy.” I like that. I hope would not be enough for Paul because everything he hoped for had to be submitted to the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus. That little phrase “in the Lord Jesus” simply means consistent with His will, His purpose, His person, His plan, just that, in accord with His will. Paul never did anything. That’s the baseline, that’s the bottom line in Christian experience. The goal of the believer is to fill out the will of God, to do what God wants him to do. And so, you live in constant submission to the will of God, and we should always say, “I hope in the Lord Jesus, I trust in the Lord Jesus to do this or that.”
Paul never wanted to act independently of his Master’s desires. He submitted all of his plans to the Lord. The Lord was sovereign. Everything was submitted to the Lord. That was the bottom line in his life. And by the way, this is not a stock phrase like “if the Lord is willing,” sort of slapped on the end, tacked on in an unthinking way. Nor is it some especially self-abnegating phrase indicating that Paul hasn’t got any clue about what his future is and doesn’t have any idea of what’s coming and so he just sort of pushes it off to the Lord. It’s not that either.
It’s simply to say I make plans and I make strategies and I set goals but they are all subject to the sovereign Lord under whose leadership I live. That’s the only way to live, to live in a confident trust in the sovereignty of God. So he says I hope in the Lord Jesus, that is if the Lord Jesus wills it and if the Lord Jesus wants it, and it’s consistent with His person and plan, to send Timothy.
MacArthur gives us a brief biography of Timothy, who was in Philippi when Paul planted the church there:
He was a native either of Derbe or Lystra, two little towns in the are we know as Galatia. His mother was a Jew by the name of Eunice, his grandmother, Lois. His father was a Greek so he had a Jewish mother and a Greek father and thus he was able to meet those two sort of colliding cultures, Judaism and Hellenistic Greek culture. Obviously he had not been circumcised. He had to be circumcised, but he had not been circumcised and as a consequence to that its indication that probably he was educated in Greek culture and Greek circles formally. So informally he was educated by his mother and his grandmother from whom he learned the doctrines of salvation, as Paul tells us in his epistle to him. From his father and the culture of the Greeks, he learned that world and that perspective. So he was eminently qualified to go with Paul into the Greek world to bear the message of Jesus Christ.
We don’t know when he was converted to Christianity. We don’t know the details about it. We know by the time Paul met him in Acts 16 he had already become a Christian and was such a proven young man that Paul said, “I want to take him with me.” He became Paul’s protege. I don’t know if you know how extensively he was a part of Paul’s life. He speaks of him as his son in the Lord, his son in the faith, his true child. He speaks of him as his brother and his coworker and his fellow servant and his fellow slave. He was with Paul in Philippi, he was with him in Thessalonica, he was with him in Berea, he was with him in Corinth, he was with him in Ephesus, he is with him here in Rome as he writes this. He was associated with Paul in the writing of some of his epistles…such as 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 2 Corinthians, Colossians, Philippians. And when Paul wrote to the Romans, Timothy was there as well.
He was of great use to Paul because he was so willing to do anything Paul ever wanted him to do. Paul could send him somewhere, he would go. Paul could take him with him, he would go. Paul could leave him somewhere, he would stay. And always faithful to fulfill that which God had given him to do. A message in the hands of Timothy would be as safe as it was in the hands of Paul because Timothy was truly his protege.
The Philippians knew him, too, because he had been Philippi from the very beginning. He was taken up by Paul in Acts 16. Later in the sixteenth chapter the church at Philippi was founded, Timothy was surely there at the very founding of the church. And so they knew Timothy as long as they had known Paul. And certainly next to [Paul] he must have been their second favorite. So he was the right choice. And Paul was very anxious to send him because of his concern.
I wrote about the relevant passages in Acts in 2018:
Acts 16:1-5 — Paul, Timothy, Silas, Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, Eunice, Lois
Acts 16:6-10: The Holy Spirit and Spirit of Jesus, Paul, Phyrgia, Galatia, Mysia, Bithynia, Macedonia, Luke
Acts 16:11-15 – Paul, Lydia, first European convert, women, Philippi, Thyatira
Acts 19:21-22 – Paul, Timothy, Erastus, Ephesus, Macedonia, Archaia, Jerusalem, Rome
Acts 20:1-6 – Paul, third missionary tour, Timothy, Sopater the Berean, Thessalonians Aristarchus and Secundus, Gaius of Derbe, Asians Tychicus and Trophimus, Luke, Greece, Macedonia and Troas
Like Paul, Timothy had great empathy for the various congregations, including the Philippians.
MacArthur says:
Verse 20, “I have no one else of kindred spirit.” Similar to Paul. Paul is saying, “As I survey the people that I might send to you, I have only this man, I have no one else available to me of kindred spirit. He’s the only one similar to me. He’s the only one who is like me.”
The word there is one…really two words in the Greek, “of kindred spirit,” iso psuche, one souled, one souled…s-o-u-l-e-d, one minded. He is one with me in mind, one with me in thought, one with me in feeling, one with me in spirit.
In other words, he thinks like I think. He acts like I act. He reacts like I react. That’s why I’m sending him.
He operated like Paul. He learned to think like Paul. He learned to perceive like Paul. He learned to evaluate like Paul, to assess like Paul. He came with a spiritual mind, not with emotion.
Paul wrote of other Christians in Rome who were spreading the Gospel, saying that, unlike Timothy, they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ (verse 21).
Paul had already mentioned these men in Philippians 1:15-18.
Henry says:
Note, Seeking our own interest to the neglect of Jesus Christ is a very great sin, and very common among Christians and ministers. Many prefer their own credit, ease, and safety, before truth, holiness, and duty, the things of their own pleasure and reputation before the things of Christ’s kingdom and his honour and interest in the world: but Timothy was none of these.
MacArthur says that finding a kindred spirit in ministry is difficult, if not impossible:
… you may spend a life time in ministry and when you come down to the end find that you have been indeed rich if you have produced one who is like you. I have no one else.
Even Paul found that those who were unusually faithful and those who were unusually able and those who were unusually gifted were very, very few, very few. Only Timothy.
Paul reminds the Philippians of Timothy’s proven worth, how Timothy is a spiritual son serving with him as a spiritual father to further the Gospel (verse 22).
MacArthur explains:
Verse 22, Paul says, “You know of his proven worth.” Just that phrase, “you know of his proven worth.” This is not an unknown quantity here. Timothy’s integrity was well established. You know, ginosko, by experience is the implication, you’ve experienced his validity, his proven worth, dokime, that word from dokimos, familiar New Testament word, means to be approved after testing. He has passed the test. He was proven. Please note, not by school but by service. Not by a test but by testings and trials.
Previous ministry on a number of occasions had provided evidence of Timothy’s spiritual character and maturity. As I noted, he was there when the church began in Acts 16. You read Acts 19, Acts 20 you’ll see again that he intersects with the Philippian congregation. They knew, you know by personal experience the proven worth of this man. He was known to you from the start.
By the way, 2 Corinthians appears to have been written from Philippi also. And as I mentioned earlier, Paul and Timothy were together in the writing of that epistle. And so he was there even at that writing and certainly was well-known to them.
This unique servant of the Lord was a seasoned man. You’ll remember that in the qualifications for elder, 1 Timothy chapter 3, it could not be more clear as to what the standard must be. The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy that this man who was an elder must not be a new convert lest he become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. And then in verse 10 regarding a deacon, he says, “Let these also first be tested.” And the “also” means that the elders had to be tested, just as the elders are tested also, the deacons have to be tested. In other words, they have to be dokimos, proven after testing. And again I say, not proven in school but proven in service. Not proven by a test, but proven through testings. This is a man who is a model spiritual servant because he is seasoned. He has been proven …
The word “serve” is to slave. He slaved with me, sunemoi(?). Please note this, it doesn’t say he served me. It doesn’t say he served under me. It says he slaved with me. He’s a fellow slave. Paul doesn’t see himself as the master and Timothy is the slave. He slaved alongside of me. Just like he said to him in 2 Timothy 2, “Suffer hardship along with me as a good servant of Christ.” He sees Timothy as an equal. That’s again his humility. He sees Timothy in the spiritual dimension as an equal. He slaved along with me. But from Timothy’s viewpoint, his attitude was like a child serving his father.
It isn’t a master and a slave. It isn’t a sergeant and a private relationship. He slaved with me with the mentality of a son serving alongside his father so that whatever submission was there was a not a forced submission but an earned respect. Both were servants of God, both slaved side by side. But Timothy with the willing, loving, submission of a son who honors and respects and wants to learn from the father of his love. The word for son here is not huion which is the generic word for son, but teknon which means child. He served alongside me as if he were a little boy and I was his spiritual father. That’s marvelous…marvelous, beautiful submission, wonderful meekness. He never competed with Paul. No more than a little boy competes with the father of his heart’s affection. But he came alongside his father. From his father’s view they were serving together. From the boy’s view he was lovingly and affectionately looking at his father whom he loved and honored and learning from him with joy. That’s why he calls him, “My true child in the faith.”
Paul repeats his wish of verse 19, hoping to send Timothy as soon as he can, depending on how things go with him (verse 23).
That implies he had a personal issue of some sort and wanted Timothy with him until it was resolved.
Paul says that he trusts in the Lord that he, too, will be able to make a trip to Philippi soon (verse 24).
MacArthur thinks that Paul might have visited Philippi once more:
Paul did get released from this imprisonment, I’m confident of that. Acts chapter 28 verse 30 says he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness unhindered. I believe it was a two-year imprisonment. At the end of that time he was free for a while. Later on was imprisonment and there he lost his life. But when he was released he may well have gone to Philippi.
I haven’t yet written about 1 and 2 Timothy, but MacArthur gives us an insight into Timothy’s mindset when Paul wrote those letters:
Now let me close with this, and I want you to listen very carefully cause this is so helpful. Here Paul writes Philippians and he just paints a picture of Timothy that sets him apart as this wonderful person, a real model for us. And it was true. But Timothy was human and Timothy was a sinner. And for those of us who are sinful human beings, even though we’re redeemed, there is an ebb and a flow in life, isn’t there? There are highs and lows. There are victories and defeats. And it isn’t long after this…it isn’t long, we don’t know exactly how long, until the Apostle Paul just a few years writes back to Timothy the final letter and he says to him some things that are most remarkable. Second Timothy chapter 2 verse 21, “If a man cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared for every good work.” Timothy, I want you to be useful. “Now flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness and call on the Lord from a pure heart and refuse foolish and ignorant speculations. And don’t be quarrelsome.”
Now wait a minute…wait a minute, that’s the last letter Paul ever wrote at the end of this life and he writes it to Timothy and says, “Timothy,” first letter he said, “Be an example to the believers.” Now he says, “Follow righteousness, run away from unholiness.” And I personally believe that at that point in Timothy’s life there was the ebb, there was the waning of his spiritual strength. And Paul, knowing his life is at an end as he writes 2 Timothy, is so burdened because Timothy is the only one who is of kindred spirit. He’s the only one whose only interests are Christ’s. He’s so totally focused and so totally serviceable and so uniquely gifted and yet he’s reached an ebbing of his spiritual zeal. And Paul has to write the second epistle to strengthen him. Be strong in the Lord, he says in chapter 2 verse 1. And so Timothy is the perfect model for us. He’s so human.
In closing, Timothy, in obedience to Christ and in imitation of Paul, is another role model for us to follow in our Christian journey:
We see the standard of what he was in Philippians. Paul holds him to and calls him back to that standard in 2 Timothy. And he would do the same for us today. You see the model of Timothy, hear the word of Paul to Timothy later and be sure that you become what you can be in the power of God’s Spirit.
Paul goes on to write about Epaphroditus, the subject of next week’s post.
Next time — Philippians 2:25-30
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity is on August 7, 2022.
Readings for Year C can be found here.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
Luke 12:32-40
12:32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
12:33 Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.
12:34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
12:35 “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit;
12:36 be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.
12:37 Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.
12:38 If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
12:39 “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.
12:40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Last week, we had the Parable of the Rich Fool, whom God called to his death just as he was contemplating building barns for his harvest and his goods.
Today’s reading is about the Second Coming of Christ.
In between the Parable of the Rich Fool and today’s verses is another instruction from Jesus, which is not to worry.
Here are those verses from Luke 12:
Do Not Worry
22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life[b]? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
27 “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30 For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
Luke 9 through Luke 19 is all about our Lord’s instructions during the last six months of His life on Earth.
The discourse that Jesus gives in Luke 12 runs all the way through to Luke 13:9.
John MacArthur says:
At this point probably the buzz through the crowd to whom Jesus is speaking… Remember now, 12:1 to 13:9 is one discourse Jesus gave to a crowd, very large crowd, tens of thousands of people. And the buzz through the crowd would be, “Wow, this is pretty amazing stuff here.”
Jesus addressed the crowd as ‘little flock’, telling them not to be afraid, because God would give them His kingdom (verse 32).
Matthew Henry explains the words ‘little flock’:
This comfortable word we had not in Matthew. Note, [1.] Christ’s flock in this world is a little flock; his sheep are but few and feeble. The church is a vineyard, a garden, a small spot, compared with the wilderness of this world; as Israel (1 Kings 20 27), who were like two little flocks of kids, when the Syrians filled the country. [2.] Though it be a little flock, quite over-numbered, and therefore in danger of being overpowered, by its enemies, yet it is the will of Christ that they should not be afraid: “Fear not, little flock, but see yourselves safe under the protection and conduct of the great and good Shepherd, and lie easy.”
God will gladly give the faithful His kingdom as their inheritance:
[3.] God has a kingdom in store for all that belong to Christ’s little flock, a crown of glory (1 Pet 5 4), a throne of power (Rev 3 21), unsearchable riches, far exceeding the peculiar treasures of kings and provinces. The sheep on the right hand are called to come and inherit the kingdom; it is theirs for ever; a kingdom for each. [4.] The kingdom is given according to the good pleasure of the Father; It is your Father’s good pleasure; it is given not of debt, but of grace, free grace, sovereign grace; even so, Father, because it seemed good unto thee. The kingdom is his; and may he not do what he will with his own? [5.] The believing hopes and prospects of the kingdom should silence and suppress the fears of Christ’s little flock in this world. “Fear no trouble; for, though it should come, it shall not come between you and the kingdom, that is sure, it is near.” (That is not an evil worth trembling at the thought of which cannot separate us from the love of God). “Fear not the want of any thing that is good for you; for, if it be your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, you need not question but he will bear your charges thither.”
Jesus told the crowd to sell their possessions and give to charity, to create a spiritual, heavenly ‘purse’ that does not wear out and cannot fall prey to a thief or a moth (verse 33).
Henry says that Jesus did not mean to literally sell everything and leave oneself a pauper but give away whatever prevents us from fully coming to Christ:
“Sit loose to this world, and to all your possessions in it: Sell that ye have, and give alms,” that is, “rather than want wherewith to relieve those that are truly necessitous, sell what you have that is superfluous, all that you can spare from the support of yourselves and families, and give it to the poor. Sell what you have, if you find it a hindrance from, or incumbrance in, the service of Christ. Do not think yourselves undone, if by being fined, imprisoned, or banished, for the testimony of Jesus, you be forced to sell your estates, thought they be the inheritance of your fathers. Do not sell to hoard up the money, or because you can make more of it by usury, but sell and give alms; what is given in alms, in a right manner, is put out to the best interest, upon the best security.”
MacArthur says that Jesus is inviting the crowd into His Father’s kingdom:
So here is an invitation then to the kingdom. But it appeals only to the desperate, only to the broken, only to the penitent, only for the hungry and thirsty whose desire to be delivered from sin and death and hell into the kingdom of righteousness, joy and peace is so strong that they would pay any cost. So Jesus is saying what John the Baptist said, “Bring forth fruits unto repentance.” You say you want to repent, do you? Are you willing to give up everything? Are you willing to make for yourself purses which don’t wear out? In other words, instead of accumulating everything in this world in earthly barns, or earthly purses, are you…are you willing to put them in a heavenly purse, to put your treasure in heaven? Are you willing to give up everything in a spiritual investment with God, who will return to you eternal dividends? You will receive in heaven an unfailing treasure where no thief comes near nor moth destroys.
Jesus said that, where our hearts are, there will our treasure also be (verse 34). That is one of my favourite Bible verses.
MacArthur says:
So here is our Lord’s invitation. It is an invitation to live in His kingdom. It is an invitation to submit your life to the heavenly King and to invest everything into His care. To set your affections on things above, as verse 34 says, to put your heart in heaven. Heart is kardia, cardiac. It means feeling, thought, desire, will, the core of life; everything in that heavenly investment.
Jesus then went into an allegory of a wedding feast, with the bridegroom not yet home and with waiting servants. This is His discussion of His Second Coming.
He said to be dressed appropriately — ‘for action’ — and have enough oil in the lamps, as did servants and slaves in that era (verse 35).
MacArthur explains that the length of time for a wedding feast in those days varied. No one knew when it would begin or end:
… a wedding feast was something that just sort of happened in a general sense at a general time rather than saying, you know, we’re going to have a wedding, it’s going to be Saturday at eight o’clock. They would say you’re all invited to a wedding. They would send out wedding invitations and it would say, like, “In the month of April and we’ll let you know when it starts.” And by the way, they would last … up to seven days or even more, depending on how wealthy they were, how many people came, and how much food there was available. They weren’t sure exactly when it would begin because all of the accumulation of the food and all that needed to be done was somewhat undetermined. And so here’s a perfect illustration. A master goes to a wedding. And he has to tell his people, “I…I don’t know when I’ll be back,” because that’s how weddings were. “So I’m just going to put you in charge of everything.” Now they could take it seriously or not so seriously.
MacArthur explains the attire, being dressed ‘for action’:
The Lord gives four analogies of readiness, OK? Four analogies of readiness. Now we’ll go back and look at verses 35 to 39 and it will all just unfold pretty simply. Four analogies of readiness. Number one, verse 35, first half of the verse, “Be dressed in readiness.” Literally, let your loins be girded. Let your loins be girded. Everybody wore dresses in those days, everybody wore wrong…long robes. They had a couple of holes for the arms and a hole for the head and you just threw on this robe. You’ve seen all the pictures and film depictions of life in this period and it’s true. They all wore these flowing robes. If you were going to go into action that was a very, very inconvenient way to be dressed and so what they would typically do would be take a sash or some kind of belt and pull it around their waist and pull all of that loose material together. And very often they would take the corners of their robes, pull them up through so that they would shorten them up so that they could move with more facility and more alacrity. It was very important. This goes even back to the Exodus, back in Exodus chapter 12 verse 11, the angel of death was going to come and it was moving time. After four centuries in Egypt, they were going. And Israel was going out of Egypt. God was going to deliver them. And you remember what He said? “You eat the Passover but you eat the Passover fast and you eat the Passover with your loins girded and your sandals on.” We’re moving out.
What is He saying? He’s saying you’ve got to be ready to be going. It’s going to happen so fast, it’s going to happen in a nanosecond, you don’t know when it’s going to happen. You better be ready to move. The New Testament adds to that. There are a number of Old Testament uses of that phrase, 1 Kings 18:46, 2 Kings 4:29. It was a very familiar Jewish metaphor for readiness. It also worked in the Roman world. Paul said that a Roman soldier, when he was talking about the armor of the Christian, had on a belt of sincerity or truthfulness, the belt of truth. And what he was saying by that is, look, if you’re going to engage in spiritual war, you’ve…you’ve got to pull the loose ends of your life together. First Peter 1:13, “Gird up your minds for action.” Pull in the loose ends of your life. It’s a metaphor for spiritual readiness, call to action to be ready to move and move fast.
Now on to the lamps:
Second metaphor is lamps. The first one is clothing. The second one is lamp, lamps. “Keep your lamps alight,” or “keep your lamps lit.” This is not time to be meandering around in the darkness. This is no time to be fumbling and stumbling. Be alert, be aware, be watchful, have everything ready. You remember the story in Matthew chapter 25, the parable that Jesus told about the ten virgins. And the ten virgins, you know, were the bridesmaids to the bride and they were supposed to be ready for whenever the bridegroom came. Weddings were really very hard to nail down in terms of time. They started when they started and they ended when they ended. You know, they started when everything was done and the preparations were made and the food was fixed and they ended when they ran out. And so they were sort of floating as to their beginning and their end. And in the case of Matthew 25, they were waiting and waiting for the bridegroom to come and He didn’t come and He didn’t come and it got to be night and dark and, of course now it’s midnight and some of them let their lamps go out. They weren’t ready when He came. That’s a metaphor of lack of preparation. The bridegroom came, the wedding took place, the door was slammed in the faces of the virgins who had no oil and Jesus is saying by that story…story, “You don’t know when the bridegroom is coming and you better be ready or you’re going to be on the outside. And outside is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Be ready when He comes. You don’t know when He’s coming.
Paul put it this way in Romans 13, “Do this knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep.” Wake up. “Now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” He’s saying that 2,000 years ago. “Let us cast off the works of darkness. Let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. It’s time to come to Christ. It’s time to live godly lives.” Jesus is coming, could come at any moment. You need to be alert, have the light on and not be in spiritual darkness.
Jesus told the crowd to be ready for the time the bridegroom returns — His Second Coming — so that they can be ready to open the door as soon as he/He knocks (verse 36).
MacArthur says:
Third picture, third metaphor is of servants. Clothing, lamps, and servants …
… And so in verse 36 he’s saying, “You need to be like that. You need to be like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding feast which carries the idea of you don’t know when it’s going to be, so that he may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks. You’ve just got to be there waiting so that when he arrives and puts one hand on that door, that door is open and you’re ready to receive him and give a full account of everything.”
Jesus went on to say that those servants or slaves who are ready for the master’s return will be blessed, because he will fasten his belt, call them to table and serve them himself (verse 37).
Now that must have struck the crowd as an amazing thought, because it was unheard of.
MacArthur says:
That’s turning the proverbial tables. When he comes home and he finds you ready, everything is ready, everything is as you know he would want it to be, you are prepared for his arrival. He is going to be so thrilled and so thankful for that that he is going to say, “Folks, sit down, I’ll cook dinner. I’ll feed you. You are now my honored guests.”
Jesus said that the slaves who were ready in the early hours of the morning and near dawn would be blessed indeed (verse 38).
MacArthur says that big households with servants or slaves set up a schedule so that a group of them would be on watch at various times starting in the evening and going into the early morning:
The Romans had divided the night military watch into four parts: six to nine, nine to twelve, twelve to three, three to six. The Jews divided into three parts. Scholars like to debate whether Jesus was thinking of a Jewish watch or a Roman watch and really, who cares? It’s not a critical point. Who knows what Jesus was thinking, we only know what He said, and He didn’t say either. The point is this, the second or the third watch would be late. In a Roman setting, it would be between nine and three A.M. and in a Jewish setting it would span basically the same amount of time. So you’re talking about a very inconvenient time when people would normally be asleep and they had finished their day of work and he said, “But you know what? If you’re ready in that most unexpected time, if you’re ready even if he comes in the third watch of the night, even if he comes in the dark when you should be asleep, and you’re ready, He is going to light everything, He’s going to set a table, He’s going to sit you down and He’s going to feed you.” And there’s another picture of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb at which the bridegroom Himself will serve His bride. When He comes and takes us to heaven, He will sit us at His table and He will serve us. That’s one of the great pictures of the love of Christ for His redeemed church. I understand the part that we serve Him. This is over the top, that He serves us. When He comes back and finds us faithful, He will serve us.
Jesus ended with a warning.
He said, ‘Know this’, that, if the owner of the house knew what time a thief would break in, he would have been on guard to prevent it (verse 39).
He ended by saying that we must be ready, at all times, because the Son of Man will return at an unexpected hour (verse 40).
In verse 39, we have our Lord’s fourth and final metaphor, that of the thief and the associated element of shock and surprise that accompanies a break-in.
MacArthur tells us:
… one final metaphor here in Luke 12: that of a thief. Clothing, lamps, servants, and a thief, verse 39, “Be sure of this.” This is emphatic, obvious but emphatic, “that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into,” or literally, dug through, because houses were made out of mud and the thieves would dig through as verse 33 says, they would steal. And so if a man knew when the thief was coming, he would make sure that no thief could do his dastardly work. A thief’s stock-in-trade is surprise, when you don’t expect it. I mean no thief is very successful who comes when you expect it. They thrive on coming when you don’t expect it. And this is the picture of the coming of the Lord. He’s going to come like a thief, not in that he’s going to do damage, not in that he’s going to take something he’s not entitled to, but it’s the element of surprise that is carried in this metaphor. Listen to 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 2, “You yourselves know full well the Day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night,” just like a thief in the night. “But you, brethren, are not in darkness that the day should overtake you like a thief, for you are all sons of light and sons of the day.” You’re ready, you have the lamps on, you have your loins girded and you’ve rendered your service to your Master and you’re ready to go. He’s coming like a thief. Peter said the same thing in 2 Peter, using that same metaphor. Once the Lord used it, they all started borrowing it from Him. Second Peter 3:10, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief.” Revelation, we even have the same thing and here in chapter 16 and verse 15 says, “Behold,” this is the Lord talking, “I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake, has the lamp on, keeps his garments,” that is, is dressed and ready to go. And even back in I think it’s the 3rd chapter of Revelation, and verse 3, “Remember therefore what you have received and heard, keep it and repent. If therefore you will not wake up, I will come like a thief” and here it is, “and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you.” That’s the concept of the thief, you don’t know when. So be ready.
Luke has more quotes from Jesus on spiritual readiness:
How do we get ready? How do you get ready? First of all, you need to come to Christ. We can go back to Luke 9, can’t we, on that one and it says in verse 23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.” Come to Christ, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for My sake is the one who will save it. What does a man profit it he gains the whole world and forfeits his own soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes.” Get ready, He’s coming and you don’t want Him to be ashamed of you when He comes.
Listen to Luke 21:34, “Be on guard that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life and that day suddenly come upon you like a trap. For it will come on all those who dwell on the face of all the earth, but keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place and to stand before the Son of Man.” Be ready to stand before the Son of Man when He comes. This is a call to salvation.
Readiness also implies sanctification:
But there’s also a call to sanctification, a call to sanctification, and Peter gives us that call in 2 Peter 3:14. He says, “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things” I love this “be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.” You want to be ready when He comes, not just because you belong to Him but because you are living a godly life. You’re living a holy life. Since we are looking for this coming, what kind of persons should we be? Second Peter 3:11 says: “You are to be holy in your conduct and godly.” He’s coming. He’s coming when we don’t expect it. You need to come to Christ and be saved, to be ready when He arrives to be taken to glory and you need to be living a godly life to receive then a full reward when He arrives.
A lot of Christians think that the end of the world will come in our lifetime.
It might, but it might not. However, we will surely pass this mortal coil, and for that, we also need to be ready.
As to when the end of the world will come, I often think of one of the lines of O God, Our Help in Ages Past:
A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone …
MacArthur gives us reason to think the end of the world is coming, but, perhaps not yet. He cites 2 Peter 3:
… you say, “But…but He said He’s coming and it’s 2,000 years.” Verse 8, here’s the key. “Do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as (what?) a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” You’re talking about the eternal God who is beyond time. You say, “But still, what’s He waiting for?” You know, we want to crawl under the altar with the saints in Revelation, “How long, oh Lord, how long, how long? When are You going to come? When are You going to glorify Yourself? When are You going to judge the ungodly? When are You going to vindicate Your name and manifest the glory of Your people? How long? What’s He waiting for?”
Verse 9 tells you what He’s waiting for. “The Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness.” Some people accuse God of not…just not getting around to it, maybe, “but is patient toward you.” You? Who are you? The ones He’s writing to. Who are they? Verse 1 chapter 1, “Those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” You believers, what is God waiting for? Listen to me, He’s waiting for you because He does not wish that any of His own who have been chosen perish, but that all come to repentance, and God cannot come, He cannot return, Jesus can’t return until all the elect are redeemed. That’s what He’s waiting for. The reason for His delay is not that He’s negligent. It’s not that He’s careless. It’s not that He’s doing other things. He’ll come when His bride for His Son is complete. He’ll come when redemption is over. The fact that 2,000 years have elapsed is utterly irrelevant to the doctrine of imminence. It’s still imminent. I don’t know when He’s coming, but I’ll tell you this, it’s sooner than it’s ever been. A certain event, an uncertain time.
Until then, MacArthur gives us guidance for readiness:
One other comment from Luke and that is to ask the question. So what are we supposed to do now in the light of this? And that’s how Jesus begins that verse, verse 40. “You too be ready.” Be ready. How do you get ready? Abandon false religion, fear God, confess Christ, trust the Holy Spirit, be rich toward God, leave the world behind, seek His spiritual kingdom. That’s how you get ready. He’s coming and His coming is certain and powerfully and for the purpose of motivation, motivating every generation, its timing is uncertain. And so the message is, you better be ready, you better be ready.
May all reading this enjoy a blessed Sunday.
So much happened in the UK this week that it is hard to find the time and the space to write about it all.
Conservative leadership contest
Liz Truss’s campaign continues to motor ahead, gaining powerful MPs’ backing.
On Wednesday, August 3, a new Conservative Home poll appeared, its results matching those of polling companies, e.g. YouGov. Liz is 32 points ahead:
Conservative Home‘s Paul Goodman analysed his site’s results and YouGov’s (emphases mine):
Granted, neither can be proved right or wrong: as our proprietor has it, a poll is a snapshot, not a prediction. If our survey is correct, all that follows is that Truss would win the contest, were it held now, by 32 points among those who have declared their hand.
However, if we and YouGov are right it is very hard to see how Sunak recovers in the month or so between the opening and closing of the poll. For even if during that time he won over that 16 per of undecideds and others, Truss would still beat him by 58 per cent to 42 per cent.
In short, if our survey is correct he would have to add to that 16 per cent of don’t knows and others some nine per cent of Truss’s supporters – i.e: persuade them to switch.
This seems most unlikely if YouGov’s question about certainty of intention is taken into account. For it finds that 83 per cent of Truss voters and 70 per cent of Sunak voters have made their minds up.
What odds would you give on Sunak winning over all those don’t knows and others (from our survey), and then adding to that pile over half of Truss’s soft support (using YouGov’s figure)? I would say that they are very long indeed …
Those interested in events slightly further back will recall that Boris Johnson beat Jeremy Hunt by 66 per cent to 34 per cent during the leadership election of 2019. That’s exactly the same margin as the Truss-Sunak forced choice I spell out above from our new survey.
One way of looking at Conservative leadership election as matters stand might be to forget the thrills and spills, hype and blunders – such as Truss’s yesterday over regional public sector pay.
And stick instead to the simple thought that the Tory membership divides right-of-party-centre to left-of-party-centre by about two to one and so, all other things being equal, the leadership candidate perceived to be right-wing than the other will win by a margin about two to one.
Finally, Opinium promises a Conservative members poll next week, and it has tended recently to find better results for Sunak than ours or YouGovs.
The YouGov poll from August 3 showed that Britons believe Truss is better than Sunak on the main issues:
Liz gained another supporter in former Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who was also Boris Johnson’s first Chancellor from the summer of 2019 through to February 2020, at which point Rishi Sunak took over.
Sunak worked for Javid when the latter was Chancellor. Javid mentored his younger MP friend:
However, the dynamic changed when Chancellor Sunak locked horns with Health Secretary Javid during the pandemic in 2021.
… those who know both men say there are more prescient personal and political reasons behind Javid’s decision [to back Truss].
They say that tensions emerged after Javid was brought back into the government as health secretary. Sunak regarded the NHS as a bottomless drain on resources and was exasperated by what he saw as Javid’s failure to spearhead fundamental reform of the health service.
Javid for his part was frustrated with the highhanded manner in which the Treasury dealt with the Department of Health and its refusal to countenance the type of spending he believed was necessary to tackle treatment backlogs coming out of the pandemic. He felt that Sunak had not shown the loyalty that he had when the power dynamics were reversed.
There are now significant policy differences as well. When Javid threw his hat in for the leadership he set out a tax-cutting agenda broadly similar to that proposed by Truss. He proposed cutting national insurance and reversing the planned corporation tax rise while Sunak stuck to his policies as chancellor.
One ally said Javid sincerely believes that only by kick-starting growth through tax cuts can public services be properly funded. They said it would have been “odd” if Javid had backed Sunak, given their different and genuinely held views on how to deal with Britain’s economic uncertainties.
This is what Javid had to say about Truss in his article for The Times:
“I fought for strong fiscal rules in our last manifesto,” he wrote. “But the circumstances we are in require a new approach. Over the long term, we are more likely to be fiscally sustainable by improving trend growth.
“Only by getting growth back to pre-financial crisis levels can we hope to support the high-quality public services people rightly expect.”
In a direct attack on Sunak, he said: “Some claim that tax cuts can only come once we have growth. I believe the exact opposite — tax cuts are a prerequisite for growth. Tax cuts now are essential. There are no risk-free options in government. However, in my view, not cutting taxes carries an even greater risk.”
He added: “With only two years before the next election, there has been a temptation to just ‘get the barnacles off the boat’ and avoid any short-term political pain for long-term national gain.
“We must reject that. As a nation we are sleepwalking into a big-state, high-tax, low-growth, social democratic style model which risks us becoming a middle-income economy by the 2030s with the loss of global influence and power” …
A senior Truss campaign source described Javid’s endorsement as the “big one for us”.
They added: “The bigger beasts of the party are uniting behind Liz because they believe in her vision for the economy. We can’t have the Treasury orthodoxy and tired status quo. They believe she will turn things around in time for the next election by getting on and delivering quickly in No10.”
On Wednesday, August 3, Truss and Sunak canvassed separately in Wales before meeting up for a televised hustings in Cardiff later in the day.
A Conservative Welsh Senedd (Senate) member, James Evans, changed his mind about Sunak and decided to support Truss instead. He got a lot of flak in response to his tweet:
Truss’s former party, the Liberal Democrats, criticised her for taking a helicopter around Wales to get to the various Conservative associations there. Pictured is the Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey:
Guido Fawkes points out that the Lib Dems are suffering an attack of sour grapes — and hypocrisy (red emphases his):
… Rishi’s been known to use them, so why should Liz be confined to the rail network…
i News were the ones to reveal Liz’s chartering this afternoon, juxtaposing the decision against her backing of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The LibDems were only too happy to butt in, providing a quote for the copy that it “makes a complete mockery of her promises on Net Zero. It’s clear that she is not serious on climate change.” This quote came from Vera Hobhouse rather than Sir Ed Davey himself, who surely wouldn’t mind the coverage…
Guido’s sure Sir Ed’s decision not to provide the comment has little to do with the fact that, in 2013 as Energy Secretary, he hitched a ride in the helicopter of EDF boss Henri Proglio, after handing him a nuclear deal at double the going rate for electricity. The decision raised objections from Friends of the Earth at the time, who said it “confirms how close the Big Six energy firms are to our decision-makers.” A source close to Liz Truss calls the political attack “the usual sanctimonious hypocrisy from the LibDems”. Sir Ed may need to refuel his own spin machine…
While in Wales, Truss took the opportunity to have a go at First Minister Mark Drakeford (Labour), calling him:
the low energy version of Jeremy Corbyn.
Bullseye!
John McTernan, who advised Tony Blair between 2005 and 2007, wrote in UnHerd why Labour should be afraid of Truss.
I’ve seen John McTernan on GB News and he knows whereof he speaks.
He explains Truss’s strengths:
One of her overlooked strengths is that she has been on a political journey. Changing your mind is often thought of as a weakness in politicians, whereas in reality an unchanging commitment to ideology is one of their most eccentric habits. In normal life, we change our minds frequently and without fuss. As economist Paul Samuelson said, in a line so good it is often attributed to Keynes: “Well when events change, I change my mind. What do you do?” In itself, changing their mind humanises a politician — a particular asset in a time of popular revolt against out-of-touch elites.
But, more than that, making a political journey shows character. Three of the most significant politicians of the Blair era — John Reid, Alan Milburn, and David Blunkett — were great New Labour reformers who had started on the hard Left. Their politics had been tempered and strengthened by their journey. Liz Truss was brought up on the Left and attended anti-nuclear peace camps with her mother. She then became a Liberal Democrat activist, famously demanding an end to the monarchy to Paddy Ashdown’s discomfort. And when a Tory Cabinet minister she backed Remain not Leave, though she is now a passionate Brexiteer. Those surprised that Tory party members overwhelmingly see a former Remainer as the best defender of Brexit need to remember their New Testament: “There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” The redemption narrative is one of our most powerful stories: she who once was blind, but now can see.
The fact Liz Truss has been on a political journey also makes her a powerful communicator. Some of the most persuasive arguments in politics are based on empathy rather than angry disagreement. Liz Truss knows why voters find progressive policies attractive, which can strengthen the persuasive power of her arguments for people to change their views. And her speaking style is clear and simple. The listener readily understands what she thinks and believes. Her opponents who too readily dismiss her as simplistic are missing the point. Politics is not a mathematical equation — a ten-point plan won’t beat a five-point plan 10-5. The messages and policies that win are those that connect with the heart as much as the head.
The Truss agenda is straightforward. The educational system is failing kids. Grammar schools would identify and help some bright working-class and minority children. The cost-of-living crisis is hitting wallets and purses. A tax cut would give money back to the public. Energy prices are spiking. Pausing the green levy would reduce prices. Now, there are good arguments against each of these policies, but they are superficially strong one-liners. It takes time to explain how grammar schools distort the education of the vast majority of pupils who don’t get into them, or to make the case that there is a danger that tax cuts lead to more inflation. The arguments against Liz Truss’s policies are strong but they need to be explained. And, as the old political saying goes, “when you’re explaining, you’re losing”.
… One of the best jokes in the US TV show Veep comes when Selina Myers uses the slogan “continuity with change” for her Presidential campaign. It works because it is bizarrely true — and it is true because that is what most voters want. They’re not revolutionaries, they’re realists.
The Truss offer is continuity with the spirit of Johnson and Brexit while meeting the demands of the voters who were, and are, angry with the status quo. That anger has been the fuel of politics since the Global Financial Crisis — it was there in Brexit, in the Scottish independence referendum, in the rise of Corbyn, and in Boris Johnson’s 2019 landslide. The fact that such competing and conflicting political forces can harness that same anger signals that there is an underlying volatility in British politics that can be channelled in different directions by strong and intelligent leadership.
It is in leadership that Labour must contest most convincingly. Liz Truss will likely be undone by events. The cost-of-living crisis is of such a scale that it is hard to see any of her policies — or any of Rishi Sunak’s — that will be more than a drop in the ocean. To win, Keir Starmer must learn from New Labour [Tony Blair’s government]. Attack the new Prime Minister and her government, but don’t nit-pick. The critique must be based on a vision of hope and a positive project that positions Labour once more as the “political wing of the British people”. Otherwise, Keir Starmer risks being just one more man, in a long line of men, who have underestimated Liz Truss at their peril. After all, there are no accidental Prime Ministers, and like the rest, Truss has guile, will and talent.
Guido Fawkes adds another point:
… Truss will be the Tories’ third female PM to Labour’s big fat nought …
Exactly. And Conservatives didn’t need to have all-women shortlists, either, unlike Labour.
For Conservative Party member Toby Young, General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Truss’s strength lies in opposing another lockdown, which she said ‘No’ to on Monday night in Exeter:
Also in Exeter, on Monday, Truss said that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) was an ‘attention seeker’ who should be ignored. Again, I’m pretty sure Truss meant that with regard to appeals for a second independence referendum.
The Telegraph‘s Alan Cochrane, who lives in Scotland, said that some would sincerely welcome those words: ‘Amen to that! Liz Truss finally puts the boot into Nicola Sturgeon’:
It is easy to sympathise with Liz Truss’s presumably exasperated and outspoken statement that the best way to deal with Nicola Sturgeon was to ignore her.
After watching, listening and responding to this ambitious politician for more than 20 years, ignoring her is something I’d rather have been doing than countering every one of her largely lame-brained arguments for breaking up Britain.
Furthermore, the First Minister is every bit the “attention seeker” that the Foreign Secretary portrays her as – most especially when she dons her “Mother of Scotland” role and seeks to insist that she, and only she, speaks for the whole of Scotland.
The truth, of course, is that she speaks only for her party and government, neither of which commands an overwhelming majority of Scottish opinion …
… while Ms Truss is being assailed for her choice of words by the Nationalists and those faint hearts who seek a peaceful political life, there will be more than a few who will shout “Amen to that!” when she talks of Ms Sturgeon’s perpetual attention seeking.
Furthermore, a great deal more candour from Westminster in its dealings with the SNP is long overdue. Far too long. Successive UK administrations have bent over backwards not to be seen as provoking the cause of independence when the truth is that it is already on a life support system, with a fast declining appeal to the Scottish people.
The fact is that Ms Truss knows that she cannot just ignore the devolved Scottish Government and its leader. But she is to be commended for putting the boot in. It’s about time someone did.
While Truss and Sunak were in Wales, Iain Duncan Smith MP was north of the border in Scotland.
He was at an event for Scottish Conservatives in Stirling, in Scotland’s central belt.
The former work and pensions secretary backtracked on comments made by Truss that Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, should be “ignored” as he criticised the UK government’s approach towards the Union.
“I don’t want to ignore her,” he said. “What I want to do is to let the world know just exactly why Scotland is suffering so much under this incompetent regime at Holyrood. The truth is, it is a disaster: everything from health, the police, the railways — they can’t even build ships sometimes on time and on budget.”
He’s not exaggerating. It’s the raw truth.
The MP wants the next PM to have greater powers of scrutiny over the way Scotland’s SNP government is run. They get billions from taxpayers in the Barnett Formula and waste it. No one, not even Scots, has any idea where the money goes.
He said:
I am desperate for greater powers for scrutiny. It is only scrutiny that unearths all this nonsense and … that the weaker scrutiny up here has allowed the Nationalists to get away with it. So I am going to take that straight back and talk to her about it and see what we could do.
Not surprisingly, the SNP were furious and, as usual, blamed Westminster:
Kirsten Oswald, the SNP deputy leader at Westminster, said: “This is an utterly ridiculous suggestion, showing that even the Tories are out of ideas for how to fix the broken Westminster system. It is not the SNP’s job to explain why Westminster control is increasingly making life more difficult for the people of Scotland — even if the Tories are out of excuses.
“The job of SNP MPs in Westminster is to stand up for Scotland against a UK government choosing to ignore our interests at every turn. That is what they will continue to do.”
Duncan Smith justified his desire for scrutiny saying that SNP MPs are part of the Scottish government, too:
… Duncan Smith said: “We need to turn the tables on them and start saying, ‘Well, can we have a period of question time for you lot to talk about what you are doing in Scotland as the devolved administration?’
“And start examining some of this stuff because they’re not just SNP protesters down in parliament, they are actually part of the government up here.”
Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak told the audience in Cardiff that Truss was wrong about her public sector pay reform and tried to scare Welsh Conservatives into thinking that Truss was going to cut the pay of every single public sector worker in Wales:
However, Sunak got himself into a bit of hot water when he ‘misspoke’ on wind turbines at the event:
On Thursday, August 4, Guido reported:
Rishi’s team has said he “misspoke” during the hustings last night when it appeared he’d u-turned on his opposition to new onshore wind. At the Wales’ husting, Sunak was asked “will you be bold enough to scrap the embargo on onshore wind in England?”, replying “So, yes, in a nutshell.” This appeared totally contradictory to one of his previous policy announcements:
Wind energy will be an important part of our strategy, but I want to reassure communities that as prime minister I would scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind in England, instead focusing on building more turbines offshore,
Team Liz immediately leapt on his words as sign of yet another u-turn from Rishi, alleging it was his eleventh campaign u-turn.
This morning Team Rishi, asked to justify his words, bluntly replied “he misspoke”. Much like Britain under Rishi’s actual wind energy policy, he’s losing fans rapidly…
Sunak is also being economical with the truth when he says that he personally came up with the idea of British freeports, which were first mooted in an early Margaret Thatcher manifesto for the Conservatives:
However, Rishi managed to get two notable endorsements, one from former Conservative Party leader Michael Howard and Nigel Lawson, who was Chancellor under Margaret Thatcher. He is also Nigella Lawson’s father.
Guido has more:
-
- Finally got an endorsement from Nigel Lawson himself, who writes in The Telegraph that Rishi is “the only candidate who understands Thatcherite economics” …
- Finally got an endorsement from Nigel Lawson himself, who writes in The Telegraph that Rishi is “the only candidate who understands Thatcherite economics” …
-
- Michael Howard opened for Rishi at Wales’ Tory husting last night, saying he can provide the leadership needed “not only in this country, but across the wider western world”
Lawson must have felt obliged to endorse Sunak, given that the latter has a photo of him in his office.
Sunak was over the moon about Lawson’s Telegraph article:
Boris looms large
Prime Minister Boris Johnson still looms large in the psyche of British voters.
Normally, we are all too happy when a Prime Minister stands down. When Margaret Thatcher’s MPs booted her out, we breathed a sigh of relief. We’d had enough of Tony Blair when he left No. 10 to Gordon Brown. We didn’t care too much about David Cameron’s resignation, although we did think he was petty-minded for resigning the morning after the Brexit referendum result. And we were only too happy for Theresa May to go, although we did feel sorry for her as she cried at the Downing Street podium.
However, Boris is a different kettle of fish.
The August 3 YouGov poll showed that a) most Conservative Party members thought their MPs made a mistake in getting him to resign as Party leader and b) he would make a better PM than either Truss or Sunak:
In response to the aforementioned Welsh Senedd member’s tweet, someone responded with this:
Incredibly, as ballots are currently being posted to Conservative Party members, Alex Story, the leader of the Bring Back Boris campaign, still thinks there is time to add Boris’s name to the list of candidates.
He spoke to Nigel Farage on Wednesday, August 3:
He said that 14,000 members of the public wrote to Conservative Party headquarters after Boris stood down as leader.
He added that most Boris supporters knew he was economical with the truth, but they felt that his ouster was forced.
Nigel Farage countered by saying that 40% of Conservative voters wanted Boris to leave. Furthermore, he could no longer command the support of his MPs.
Story responded by saying that Boris will be like ‘Lazarus [rising] from the dead … something romantic and quirky’.
That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.
It is highly unlikely that Boris’s name will be on the ballot, but … one cannot fault Story and Lord Cruddas for trying on the public’s behalf.
More news next week.
On Monday, August 1, 2022, a hustings took place in Exeter.
The event was two hours long. Sky News filmed it, and the moderator was Sebastian Payne, the Financial Times‘s Whitehall editor:
The sound quality is not the best. There are lots of echoes.
The venue was full. Some supporters made their allegiances known Trump rally style, either by waving ‘Ready for Rishi’ placards or by wearing ‘Liz for Leader’ tee shirts.
The event began with a couple of videos from Conservative MPs.
Then Penny Mordaunt appeared on stage to pledge her support for Liz Truss (video clip here):
Liz took the stage afterwards (17:38 in the video) and introduced her platform.
Afterwards, Liam Fox went on stage (33:34), announcing that he would be backing Rishi Sunak.
Liz’s Q&A came after that (45:00), taking questions from the audience and Sebastian Payne.
She was much more relaxed than she had been at previous events over the past two weeks. She has a sense of humour. She gesticulated in a natural way. She was conversational.
When an audience member asked if she would favour another lockdown, she gave a simple answer — ‘No’. She explained that, during the pandemic, her Cabinet responsibilities lay in areas other than health and that when presented with past measures, she said others told her they were already ‘a fait accompli‘. Liz said she always favours the least amount of intervention:
Liz also lobbed a zinger at Scotland’s First Minister Nicola (Neverendum) Sturgeon (SNP) by saying that she should was an ‘attention seeker’ who should be ignored. She got a huge round of applause.
This raised a stink the next day, including on GB News, but I understood it in the context of having another independence referendum eight years after the first ‘once in a generation’ one:
GB News has the quote (emphases mine):
Liz Truss has claimed it is best to ignore “attention seeker” Nicola Sturgeon.
The Conservative Party leadership candidate criticised Scotland’s First Minister before ruling out a second independence referendum.
Ms Truss, speaking at a hustings event in Exeter, referenced growing up in Paisley before saying: “I feel like I’m a child of the union, I really believe we’re a family and we’re better together and I think the best thing to do with Nicola Sturgeon is ignore her.”
Tory members cheered and applauded the comment, with the Foreign Secretary adding: “She’s an attention seeker, that’s what she is.
“What we need to do is show the people of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales what we’re delivering for them and making sure that all of our Government policies apply right across the United Kingdom.”
She replied “no, no, no” when asked about another independence referendum in Scotland if she becomes prime minister.
SNP MP Chris Law, posting on Twitter with a link to Ms Truss’s remarks, said: “The only reason why Scotland needs independence. Utter contempt from the future PM.”
Rishi Sunak has also ruled out having a second referendum on Scottish independence should be become Prime Minister.
He said: “I am clear that another referendum is the wrong priority at the worst possible moment.
“The SNP are wrong to try and tear the country apart when we should be pulling together. Why aren’t they talking about the drugs crisis in Scotland or how we can get more money into Scottish workers’ pockets?
“Just as I want to be more accountable to people in every corner of the United Kingdom, so too does the SNP need to be more accountable for their responsibilities.”
That night, comedians on GB News’s Headliners joked about the SNP’s utter irresponsibility north of the border. Leo Kearse is Scottish and gives the full story of the disappearing billions. He says that Westminster should audit the Scottish Government:
Earlier, on Dan Wootton’s show, 90% of viewers agreed with Liz on Nicola Sturgeon with regard to a second referendum:
In short, Liz came across as the continuity candidate. People who liked Boris will find an appropriate comfort level with her.
Then it was Rishi’s turn to take questions (1:17:00).
Both candidates received warm applause for their policies, but some applauded only for their preferred candidate.
Rishi left the stage with a clean slate.
However, Liz got into trouble over the next 24 hours for saying that she would reform public sector pay. I took her to mean civil servants, but people got anxious and critical over teachers and NHS staff.
Liz said she would cut public sector pay outside of London, but wouldn’t keeping their pay the same or upping it a pledge to ‘levelling up’?
Years ago, Labour’s Harriet Harman tried the same thing:
The Financial Times article that Guido Fawkes cites explains why what Liz’s proposal is problematic.
Journalist Stephen Bush begins by disingenuously putting on the frighteners …
Liz Truss has promised to save £11bn a year by cutting pay for public sector workers — including civil servants, teachers and nurses — outside London and the South-East.
… before clarifying that it would take several years for the proposed plan to be rolled out to all public sector workers:
The foreign secretary said she would introduce regional pay boards that would set wages for civil servants working outside London in line with local labour market conditions and living costs. Her campaign said the regional pay would initially be introduced for new civil service recruits, but if successful would be rolled out over a number of years to all public sector workers.
From that, it is obvious that the FT want Rishi Sunak to win.
This is why public sector pay is difficult to reform:
Now, it’s true to say that, in real terms, a secondary school teacher in Torridge in north Devon or Cannock Chase in Staffordshire is paid more in real terms than they are in St Albans or Hackney. And this is true across the public sector. In real terms, a public sector worker would be economically better off working in Don Valley in South Yorkshire than if they were working in the centre of Manchester.
But of course, it is also true to say that we find it easier to recruit secondary schoolteachers, GPs, firefighters and police officers in St Albans, Hackney or Manchester than we do in Don Valley, Cannock Chase or Torridge …
The policy suggestion does the rounds every so often and it founders on the same basic problem: you can’t cut salaries in the places you struggle to recruit. Given that the UK state (rather like the UK as a whole) faces considerable difficulties in recruiting enough workers it is highly unlikely that the policy will succeed now.
… What might matter is if enough Conservative members see this policy as an electorally disastrous idea they need to avoid.
One thing that would be welcome is reforming or getting rid of unnecessary posts in the public sector. Liz favours this, too:
I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Polling
Stephen Bush’s article gave more evidence that he and the FT are Ready for Rishi, so to speak.
Based on polling, Bush is worried that Liz might be winning:
Every scrap of data suggests Liz Truss is ahead of Rishi Sunak, and that Sunak failed to really change the dynamic of the race in any of the televised debates.
Although both Ben Wallace and Tom Tugendhat have ideological and policy reasons to endorse Truss over Sunak, it helps, of course, when everything suggests that to help Truss is to help yourself. Unless her campaign finds a way to implode or the polls are wildly out of kilter.
Now, of course, the big known unknown in this leadership election is just how big Liz Truss’s lead actually is. YouGov’s polls have shown the foreign secretary enjoying a 24 point lead over Rishi Sunak (opens a new window) among Tory members. The gap suggested by Opinium has been a narrower one. Its latest snap poll showed (opens a new window) Tory voters thought Truss did better in the television debate last week by 47-38.
Now another pollster, Techne, has tried its hand at a poll of the Conservative supporters (opens a new window), who comprise Tory voters that are also activists. The result is, again, a Truss lead, but not a very large one.
I wouldn’t sweat this too much, frankly. What unites the various polls (Liz Truss is winning all of them) is more important than what divides them (the exact size of Liz Truss’s opinion poll lead). It’s possible that some error or event on the part of Truss’s campaign may hand Sunak a victory, and it’s possible that all the polls are wrong. Given all that, the implied 10 per cent probability of a Sunak victory suggested by the prediction website Metaculus (opens a new window) seems about right to me. But of course, if Truss’s lead is only five points, this “cut public sector pay in places with greater shortages” wheeze may well prove catastrophic for her chances.
Guido has more on the Techne results.
Another interesting poll appeared on August 1. Redfield & Wilton Strategies results show that Liz Truss could just beat Labour’s Keir Starmer in being perceived to be a better potential Prime Minister. Rishi, on the other hand, would lose to Starmer — 40% to 33%:
Why are all the metropolitan elite coming out for Rishi? They know he would lose and put the Conservatives out of office for years!
On Tuesday, August 2, YouGov came out with a poll also showing stonking results for Liz:
Polling took place between July 29 and August 2:
Guido also posted about the polls and another pro-Rishi publication, The Times:
Guido then posted the YouGov poll:
I couldn’t agree more about voting anxiety. This reminds me of the 2019 contest between the totalitarian Jeremy Hunt and Boris ‘Sunlit Uplands’ Johnson.
Guido explained the stark differences between the two polls:
The Times claimed — wrongly — that Liz Truss’s team commissioned the more favourable YouGov poll. Guido notes that the newspaper has since changed its copy. Good:
And someone confirmed the hypothesis that media supporting Rishi want the Conservatives to lose:
On Wednesday, August 3, YouGov published an all-party poll. After months of the Conservatives trailing Labour by a large margin, there is now only one percentage point between the two!
Amazing!
Guido wrote (red emphases his):
The YouGov poll of Tory members showing Liz looking to take two-thirds of the vote for leader was not the only surprising poll result. YouGov’s regular voting intention survey has the Tories on 34% (+2 from 21-22 July), just a point behind Labour on 35% (-4). Is this an outlier?
YouGov themselves say “This shrinking of Labour’s lead from 7 points to 1 point is a sharp move, but changes are either within the margin of error or close to it. It will be worth waiting to see whether further polls replicate the extent of this narrowing of the gap before we can be certain of a Tory recovery.”
Yet, an IPSOS-Mori poll from Monday shows Rishi in the lead.
The Evening Standard reported:
As the 160,000 members of the Tory party prepare to start voting in the Tory leadership contest from Monday, the exclusive survey by Ipsos shows that 49 per cent of Conservative backers said the former Chancellor would make a good premier compared to 40 per cent for rival Liz Truss.
Among Conservative voters in the 2019 general election, Mr Sunak enjoys an even bigger lead over the Foreign Secretary with 49 per cent saying Mr Sunak has what it takes for the top job compared to 35 per cent for Ms Truss.
Among the general public, just over a third of people said Mr Sunak would make a good Prime Minister compared to just 24 per cent for Ms Truss.
Conservative Home‘s poll of its readers did not show Rishi on their chart. This is because he resigned as Chancellor and is no longer in the Cabinet:
The perils of policy on the hoof
Now that we have covered the good news, let us return to Liz’s public sector statement, which is the first real blunder she has made in her campaign.
Not surprisingly, Team Rishi jumped on it.
On Tuesday, August 2, Guido reported that a Red Wall mayor is also unhappy:
Team Rishi has slammed Liz Truss over her policy announcement last night that she can save up to £8.8 billion by replacing National Pay Boards with Regional Pay Boards. This sum immediately raised eyebrows given the total Civil Service salary budget is around £16.5 billion. The footnotes of the press release specified this figure is “the potential savings if the system were to be adopted for all public sector workers in the long term,” allowing her opponents to spin the policy as one of cutting nurses’ and teachers’ pay in the Red Wall while improving the pay packets of those in London and the South East. Tees Valley Metro Mayor Ben Houchen is not happy:
There is simply no way you can do this without a massive pay cut for 5.5m people including nurses, police officers and our armed forces outside London.
Liz Truss’s campaign is explicit that their savings target is only possible ‘if the system were to be adopted for all public sector workers’.
This is a ticking time bomb set by team Truss that will explode ahead of the next general election.
Just one mistake like this can help Rishi win over Conservative Party members:
Rishi doubles down by calling the policy “a gift to the Labour Party and Keir Starmer. Her plan would punish hard working nurses, police officers and soldiers across the country, including in the Red Wall just before a General Election”. Rishi was already reportedly performing better among Southern members – can this latest attack help him claw back up North?
Liz and her team quickly backtracked but said it was a ‘wilful misrepresentation’ of the policy:
UPDATE: Team Truss say
Over the last few hours there has been a wilful misrepresentation of our campaign. Current levels of public sector pay will absolutely be maintained. Anything to suggest otherwise is simply wrong. Our hard-working frontline staff are the bedrock of society and there will be no proposal taken forward on regional pay boards for civil servants or public sector workers.
Under fire from Rishi she drops the policy. So we now have the status quo of a national pay rate for civil servants.
Another member of Liz’s team told Guido that the policy will not be taken forward. Nonetheless:
Team Rishi are absolutely loving this, joking “The lady is for turning”…
Yes, one can imagine.
On GB News Tuesday afternoon, a number of presenters and pundits, some of whom think Liz either should or could win (there is a difference), thought that she made a terrible mistake with this.
One said that making policy up on the hoof was a ‘dangerous’ thing to do and could turn the contest against her.
However, Team Liz were ready to fire back at Rishi, accusing him of more U-turns during this campaign than at a driving test centre.
Note that only one of Liz’s U-turns happened during the campaign. The other three happened when she was a young adult. The same cannot be said of Rishi:
Guido has the full story, which begins with this:
Hours after a brief campaign blip from Team Liz, which involved a somewhat humiliating climbdown from their regional pay boards policy, they’ve finally pulled their finger out for some return fire on the topic of u-turns. Team Rishi has spent the morning on cloud nine, joking that it turns out “The lady is for turning”, and accusing Liz of having a Mayite ‘Dementia Tax’ moment. In return Liz Truss’s team have compiled a list, which they allege shows Rishi has performed “more u-turns than a DVLA test centre”. A spokesperson for Liz says:
This is all a bit rich coming from Sunak’s backers when they stayed schtum on the steady stream of u-turns from Rishi over the recent weeks. He’s flip-flopped on tax cuts, VAT, grammar schools, China , EU regulations, Northern Ireland protocol and planning to name a few.
Before Monday’s debate, Liz issued a letter to Conservative Party members, which can be read in full here. It has way too many ‘I’s, which someone should have reworded.
An excerpt follows:
… If you work hard, do the right thing, save your money, or start your own business, then I am on your side.
And you can trust me to deliver. I have delivered trade deals, faced down Putin’s Russia, and got on with sorting the Northern Ireland Protocol. I am honest and straight talking. I do what I say I will and I know what it takes to get things done.
We cannot continue to have business-as-usual and I have a bold plan to get our economy back on track.
We must reject orthodoxy, the voices of decline and unleash Britain’s potential in line with Conservative values.
I will lower taxes to spark economic growth and reward people for working hard. I will seize the full opportunities of Brexit, and level up in a Conservative way. I will defend freedom at home and abroad, and keep Britain safe.
I will ensure the police do more to crack down on real crimes, and raise defence spending. I will stand up for free speech, and protect single sex spaces for our young women. And I will abolish Soviet top-down housing targets. I know from being a councillor that local people are best-placed to deliver the housing we need.
To win in 2024, we must work relentlessly to deliver on our promises.
Now is the time to be bold …
That is how Liz came across in the debate, so I was happy to see The Telegraph endorse her candidacy that night:
Ballots delayed to next week
The Party members’ ballots were to have arrived this week.
However, a security issue has caused a delay, therefore, they will not be sent until next week.
Nigel Farage tweeted:
The Telegraph‘s Ben Riley-Smith got the scoop on the ballots. Furthermore, members can now vote only once, not twice as planned — excellent:
This might turn out to be a blessing in disguise for Liz.
A week is a long time in politics, so by the time the ballots arrive, Liz’s public sector policy blunder is likely to be old news.
Even better, however, is the platform that GB News will give her on Wednesday, August 10, just as the ballots arrive:
I do not have details as to how the event was arranged nor do I know whether Rishi was invited to appear on a separate programme.
The next debate was on Sky News on Thursday, August 4. More about that in a separate post.
It’s difficult winning against Andrew Neil, the longtime BBC political presenter who was the leading face of GB News for a month in 2021 and who currently has his own Friday evening show on Channel 4.
When it comes to grilling politicians, no one does it better than he.
Rishi Sunak agreed to subject himself to Neil’s unfailing command of the facts. So far, Liz Truss — as did Boris Johnson — has not committed to the same.
Neil’s interview
Sunak appeared with Neil on Friday, July 29, 2022, to put forth his case for becoming the next leader of the Conservative Party and, by extension, the United Kingdom’s next Prime Minister.
Having watched the Q&A session, I thought that Rishi did a good job.
However, there was a real dissonance between what he said his policies involved and what Neil said they did.
As such, it made for awkward viewing. Who was telling the truth? I was left none the wiser.
At times, I was focusing on Neil’s hair, which he has dyed a dark brown. His natural colour is ginger.
Rishi presented himself as the sensible, cautious candidate with regard to tax and the deficit:
Rishi defended raising taxes to fund the NHS. He did well in preventing his irritability from showing, but a vulnerability did slip out here:
Neil accused him of being ‘consistently inconsistent’ with regard to tax reform, but Rishi said that’s how it works:
Hmm.
Neil asked Rishi about his wife’s non-dom status. The former Chancellor gave a short reply, saying that she addressed it. This did not satisfy me, but then I don’t have a vote in this contest:
Yes, there are family obligations here, it would seem. Those appear to involve his in-laws.
Neil was surprised at Rishi’s answer about curbing the number of refugees. What Neil doesn’t realise is that legal immigrants and their children take a much different view on migration than the British metropolitan elite.
Neil also managed to squeeze in Rishi’s televised statement from his teenage years in 2001 in which he said he had no working class friends:
Neil concluded by reiterating that Liz Truss was still welcome to appear on his show.
I did not really know what to make of this half-hour broadcast.
Only the Mail had any commentary on it.
One article with more dialogue from the programme is ‘Sunak is forced to deny he has shown a “lack of consistency” on VAT to Andrew Neil’.
An excerpt follows:
Veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil said Mr Sunak’s approach of tightening fiscal policy risks recession in an interview on Channel 4.
The Tory leadership hopeful replied: ‘No, if you look at what’s happening around the world, it’s inflation that is slowing economies down. It’s rising interest rates that are already putting a brake on economic activity.
‘And my concern is that I want to get to grips with inflation as quickly as possible because inflation makes everybody poorer. It erodes people’s living standards.’
He also insisted his policy to hike national insurance thresholds was ‘undoubtedly, objectively progressive’ when Neil suggested it penalised workers.
‘It’s an entirely progressive measure,’ Mr Sunak said. ‘Raising thresholds means that those with the broadest shoulders contribute the most.’
The heated exchange resulted in Neil saying that the OECD has said that Mr Sunak’s plans will result in a recession for the UK economy – which the former Chancellor disputed.
It came as Mr Sunak sat down with the fearless interviewer Mr Neil on Channel Four – after frontrunner Liz Truss refused to do the same.
Mr Neil once again extended the hand to come on his show to the Foreign Secretary – saying the ‘invitation is still open’.
The Southampton-born millionaire repeated his claims that tax rises were necessary for paying for Covid measures and said that he did not want to pass debt onto future generations.
He said that it would be the ‘easiest thing in the world’ to cut taxes to aide his leadership campaign but that he thought it was not the responsible thing to do.
Mr Neil hit out at Mr Sunak’s wife’s non-dom status which hit the papers earlier this year but the former Chancellor attempted to draw a line under the line of questioning, saying that he was the one running for office – not his partner.
The line of questioning made Mr Sunak visibly uncomfortable as he tried to move on from the scandal.
The tax cuts intended to fund the NHS were another line with Mr Neil used to attack Mr Sunak – as the interviewer quoted suggestions that the waiting lists on the NHS will reach 10 million in the next two years.
Mr Sunak attempted to distance himself from the Conservative’s record on health after the fierce Scot tried to pin the NHS’s problems on him – saying that he has left Government to change course on the NHS.
He added that he wanted to set up over 100 ‘elective surgery hubs’ to bring down the backlog.
Henry Deedes examined the optics of the interview: ‘The ex-chancellor sat awkwardly, like a man about to undergo an enema’.
Excerpts follow:
We immediately saw Sunak sat behind a desk, his hands placed slightly awkwardly on top of each other. Across his mouth was smeared a distinctly uncomfortable grin. He looked like a man nervously waiting to undergo an enema …
Tax was the main topic, namely why Rishi as chancellor made us pay so much of it. Sunak said he wanted to pay down the cost of the pandemic rather than saddle our grandchildren with all that debt. ‘I’d like to give people all these nice things – don’t you think that’d make my life easier?’ he pleaded.
Rishi kept calling Neil by his first name. Most of his replies began with a chummy ‘look, Andrew’. Doubtless his spin doctors thought familiarity might soften the old brute. It didn’t.
Neil kept coming at him over tax rises. A Bren gun with ceaseless ammunition. Pop, pop, pop.
Why had he frozen the income tax threshold? Why had he left comfortable pensioners alone? Why were so many people paying the top rate? Unfortunately for Sunak, Neil is that rare thing in journalism – someone who actually understands economics …
Talk turned toward the NHS. Neil pointed out that waiting lists were up, despite the gazillions of pounds which get thrown at the Health Service every year. ‘These are complex issues, Andrew,’ Rishi mansplained.
Yes, yes, said Neil. But it had gotten worse on the Government’s watch. ‘Andrew, I left the Government,’ pleaded Rishi.
‘Yes, but only a few days ago,’ barked Neil. Sunak’s answer to the NHS backlog was to set up a task force. Yes, that should do it!
There was mention of a recent video which surfaced of Sunak in which he told an interviewer he didn’t know any working class people.
Bit odd for someone who claims to come from such a modest background. ‘I grew up working in my mother’s pharmacy,’ Sunak reasoned. ‘We know all that,’ sighed Neil witheringly.
He seemed to think Sunak’s ’umble roots were a tad overplayed. Especially since he was schooled at Winchester. Neil’s intellect of course was forged and honed at Paisley Grammar.
A brief tit-for-tat developed over Lady Sunak’s non-dom tax status. ‘I’m the one running for office, not my wife,’ said Rishi. His voice lowered a bit at this point. He shot Neil a steely look as if to say ‘Let’s leave her out of this, shall we?’ Respect.
We were now out of time. To be fair to Sunak he was still standing. But only just.
Incidentally, his opponent Liz Truss had given Neil’s offer of an interview a wide swerve. ‘Her choice, of course,’ said Neil, voice laced with irritation. Chicken? Jolly wise, I’d say…
More scrutiny
Last week, Rishi’s policies and personal life came under more scrutiny.
A Mail headline from April 24 resurfaced about his lavish Yorkshire home, which has a heated pool and will soon have a new gym and tennis courts. Incidentally, he has other homes, including a pricey mews house in London:
Just a little over a year ago, on July 2, 2021, Asia Financial reported that Rishi wanted more trade between the UK and China:
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak called for a “mature and balanced relationship” with China that helps British firms to exploit “the potential of a fast-growing financial services market with total assets worth £40 trillion” ($55 trillion) in a speech on Thursday July 1 …
Sunak set out alternative plans for an independent financial services policy for the UK and spent more time discussing opportunities in China than the US, which is the UK’s most important bilateral partner.
He attempted to frame the opportunity to sell financial services to China within a context of maintaining principles such as openness and commitment to a rules-based order.
“Too often, the debate on China lacks nuance,” Sunak said. “Some people on both sides argue either that we should sever all ties or focus solely on commercial opportunities at the expense of our values. Neither position adequately reflects the reality of our relationship with a vast, complex country, with a long history.”
Sunak highlighted the appeal of China’s financial services market for UK firms, as well as the need to cooperate on global issues like health, ageing, climate and biodiversity.
He seemed to effectively offer China the opportunity to agree different financial services terms with the UK than the EU, now that Brexit has arrived without a deal on mutual recognition of standards across Europe – which was the former target of “equivalence” of regulation.
Hmm. Interesting. His father-in-law’s Infosys has an office in China.
A year later, on July 25, after China’s Global Times endorsed him as the next Conservative Party leader, he walked back his support and claimed Liz Truss was the greater supporter of the Communist nation.
Guido Fawkes reported (red emphases his):
It’s unsurprising, given his tacit endorsement from the Chinese propaganda arm Global Times, that Rishi has decided to go in hard on the country’s security threat this morning. Declaring the Chinese Communist Party “the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity this century”, Sunak attacks Liz for “[rolling] out the red carpet” and turning “a blind eye to China’s nefarious activity and ambitions”. He calls for a new NATO alliance to be set up to counter it the threat, and pledges to close all 30 Confucius centres, which teach Mandarin in the UK and are thought to be used as fronts by the Chinese intelligence services.
In response Team Truss returned fire last night, using Iain Duncan Smith to call the policy “surprising” and asking where Sinophobe Sunak has been for the last two years. Her team points to the above Sunak’s endorsement by Global Times, and says he has been consistently soft on China …
In response, a Truss ally bluntly tells Guido that Sunak’s team are “moronic”, given not only was Truss responsible for childcare policy as an education minister, universities policy was run out of the business department at the time. David Willets was the BIS minister responsible, who – whilst yet to declare in this leadership election – has backed Sunak’s tax rises.
Guido also exposed the fact that the Artichoke Trust received £1,234,682 through Cultural Recovery Grants during the pandemic, when Rishi was Chancellor.
The Artichoke Trust puts out ‘art’ like this:
Clearly, not much scrutiny took place during the pandemic. No doubt, the Treasury were all in a rush to send out grants — taxpayers’ money — to all and sundry.
On Tuesday, July 26, Rishi did a huge tax U-turn, imitating his rival Liz Truss.
Only days before, Rishi told Liz that it would be ‘immoral’ to lower taxes, yet, here he was at the beginning of last week reversing that to sound more like his rival:
Guido rightly asked why Rishi did not cut VAT on energy bills when he was Chancellor. Oddly, he now advocates the policy:
This is what the former Chancellor said in February 2022:
Guido has more on his February comments here.
On July 27, the Mail on Sunday had an article about his U-turn, saying he was ‘under pressure’ since the BBC debate of July 25 (emphases in purple mine):
This morning, Truss ally Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business secretary, welcomed Mr Sunak’s ‘late to the party’ change on taxes.
He told Times Radio: ‘I think he’s under a lot of pressure. That’s why we see all these statements: he was the person who said the VAT cut would disproportionately benefit rich families and now he’s saying that a VAT cut on energy bills is the right thing.
‘He was saying that tax cuts were a fairytale, now he is proposing an unfunded tax cut.
‘There comes a time in campaigns when people are under a lot of pressure, he clearly felt under a lot of pressure in the debate and he wanted to get out on the front foot and interrupt Liz.’
But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, an ally of Rishi Sunak, defended the former chancellor’s plan. He rejected the suggestion that Mr Sunak is ‘flip-flopping’ and said the £4.3 billion policy is sensible as it would not add to inflation.
Put to him that it is a ‘flip-flop’, Mr Shapps said: ‘If he hadn’t produced £37 billion of support, about £1,200 to the hardest-up households already – if he hadn’t done any of that and then suddenly did it then you would have a point.
‘But he has, he has been providing all this support, now he is saying ”Here’s something that won’t add to inflation that would save every person watching your programme £160 off their energy bills” – I think that’s worthwhile.’
Last night No10 insiders told the Daily Mail that Mr Sunak’s plan was something Boris Johnson tried to implement to ease the burden on consumers – but was blocked by his then chancellor.
‘Boris begged him to do it – but he wouldn’t budge’, said the source. ‘It’s astonishing that he’s now claiming it as his own policy.’
Meanwhile new polling shows that the rising cost of living and handling of the NHS could cost the Tories the most votes at the next election.
The Mail on Sunday‘s Anna Mikhailova pointed out that Rishi hardly had a long-term career in business, despite his own claims.
Nigel Farage picked up on her tweet and called Rishi ‘a fraud’:
Farage had elaborated on his GB News show the day before, Monday, July 25. He pointed out that Rishi included a clip of him in his campaign video on immigration. He doubted Sunak’s sincerity on China and ended by saying, ‘Well, I guess that leaves us with Liz Truss’:
By July 27, the bookies gave Liz Truss an 83% chance of winning the leadership contest.
That night, Dan Wootton said that ‘Fishy’ Rishi’s tax U-turn was ‘too little, too late’:
John Sergeant, who reported for the BBC for decades, said that the former Chancellor appeared ‘rattled’:
Political commentator Patrick O’Flynn said that many intelligent politicians weren’t very good at politics, Rishi being a case in point:
On Thursday, July 28, Lord Ranger, a Rishi supporter, said that if the Conservative Party members do not choose the former Chancellor as leader, they are racists.
Dan Wootton responded by pointing out that this Conservative leadership contest has been the most diverse in history:
That includes Labour, too, by the way.
Wootton said, in part:
It was still only a matter of time before Team Rishi Sunak blamed his imploding campaign on racism.
Forget the fact that Kemi Badenoch was a surprise favourite among the party membership before being booted out by MPs for being too daring and different.
Forget the fact that Liz Truss is a woman who went to a Leeds comprehensive.
Nope, Sunak’s failure is nothing to do with his big state/high tax agenda, which saw him increase our tax burden to the highest it’s been in 70 years.
Nothing to do with his globalist posturing and desire to cosy up to China by making the Communist country our market of choice, as revealed in bombshell leaked Treasury documents reported in The Times today.
Nothing to do with the fact he backstabbed Boris Johnson – the man to whom he owes his career – plotting his leadership campaign, all the while pretending to be his loyal Chancellor.
No, no, no, no it’s down to racism.
Conservative donor and Fishy Rishi supporter Lord Ranger told Indian news network Bharat Tak: “If people reject him, it will be a bad name for the party and the country because this will be perceived as racist.
“And so there is pressure on them to prove that here race does not matter.
“Calibre matters, and Rishi’s calibre is above everyone. I am optimistic that people here will be fair and will not reject anyone on the basis of race.”
Lord Ranger, I can assure you the Conservative members are not rejecting Rishi based on race.
They’re rejecting him based on policies and a lack of loyalty too.
As my colleague and friend Calvin Robinson tweeted in response: “‘Vote for me because I am brown,’ is bad enough ‘if you don’t you’re a racist’ is even worse.
“This divisive, toxic rhetoric is straight from the Leftist guidebook on Critical Race Theory and should have no place in the Conservative Party or the government of this great nation.”
Former Cabinet member Michael Gove’s ex-wife Sarah Vine, who writes for the Daily Mail, said that Rishi stabbed Boris in the front:
On Friday, July 28, a Techne poll showed that Liz was gaining ground over Rishi:
That morning, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace put the boot into Rishi’s decision to resign as Chancellor:
Wallace told Sky News:
Wallace: Let’s look at that Friday afternoon – I think it was a Friday – what if the markets had crashed? What if the Home Secretary had done that and there was a terrorist attack? What would the public think, they would never forgive us for that… I don’t think people needed to walk out, the public would see that as a government not thinking about the job in hand.
The multi-year settlement [for the Department of Defence] that we got was not what the Treasury had wanted, they wanted a one-year settlement – this was back in 2019 I think – and it was vital that we got a multi-year settlement, and the PM effectively asserted his authority and made all that to happen…
Interviewer: But Mr Sunak was not in support?
Wallace: Not that I remember.
Cut the right taxes like not proceed with corporation tax rises helps growth. When Rishi was Chancellor he cut entrepreneurial relief – he cut the relief we give to entrepreneurs who’ve invested in this country, invested in businesses – that’s not a way to help create either wealth or indeed growth.
Wallace had more to say. He said that, as Secretary of State for Defence, he did not have the ‘luxury’ of resigning, a pointed barb at Rishi, who, he intimated, should have stayed on as Chancellor:
Wallace pledged his support for Liz Truss.
Meanwhile, Rishi’s team claimed someone was leaking official documents:
Rishi allegedly asked Simon Case, the head of the civil service, to get involved.
Guido reported:
What leaks might Rishi be upset about? The Treasury documents which completely undermined his pledge to “scrap or reform EU laws in 100 days” is a strong bet. Earlier this month, just after promising to review all of the remaining 2,400 EU laws on the statute book, Bloomberg revealed the Treasury had – under Rishi’s leadership – written to Liz Truss to claim that reforming EU taxes was desirable but probably not deliverable until 2026. Last time Guido checked, that wasn’t quite within 100 days. Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg even responded by claiming it was “a surprising promise as the Treasury under his leadership was insisting that taxation was exempt from the removal of EU law.” What was it Rishi said about “fairytale promises”?
UPDATE: Now a spokesperson for Liz Truss says:
We condemn the leaking of Government documents and papers. Neither campaign condones leaks of material and will not use documents it receives. Furthermore, both campaigns will report any such leaks to the Cabinet Secretary who may take action directly, or via the Police, against the individuals involved in perpetrating such leaks or receiving and not reporting material. We understand leak investigations will be carried out without fear or favour.
Word around Whitehall is that Simon Case is livid, demanded both camps issue a statement and has called in police to investigate the China leaks.
On Saturday, July 30, things got worse for Team Rishi. He had to give away tickets to what had been a £20 per person hustings event:
Then, Tom Tugendhat, he of the military service, endorsed Liz Truss:
Oh, dear.
While all that was going on, staff at the Mail on Sunday (MoS) were preparing its copy.
Late on Saturday in one of the MoS pieces, Boris loyalist Nadine Dorries MP further reinforced the notion that Rishi is not a man of the people. She wrote about a tweet she’d sent out a few days before commenting on his expensive attire:
I wanted to highlight Rishi’s misguided sartorial style in order to alert Tory members not to be taken in by appearances in the way that happened to many of us who served with the Chancellor in Cabinet. The assassin’s gleaming smile, his gentle voice and even his diminutive stature had many of us well and truly fooled.
I wish to stress it’s not the case that I believe a rich man or woman – even if their father-in-law is one of the richest men on an entire continent – cannot be Prime Minister of this great country. But they do have to possess good judgment, understand the lives of others, have empathy, compassion and know how to fill a car with petrol and pay for it at a till.
Rishi’s father was a GP, his mother a pharmacist. He attended a public school where the annual fees are about £36,000. They were in the top two per cent income bracket of all earners in the UK. To describe his background as humble is yet another indication of poor judgment.
Rishi will never know what it is like to feel scared, broke and hopeless, without a safety net provided by wealthy parents. He has never had to lie awake at night, worrying about how to pay the bills. A bailiff will never knock on his door …
Too right.
Dorries said that Boris was not best pleased when he found out that Rishi is now pledging to cut VAT on energy bills, something she said Boris begged him to do as Chancellor:
… Rishi says he wants to cut VAT on energy bills. However, Boris had been pleading with him to introduce this measure for two years as the PM had been convinced that such a cut could provide immediate relief to families.
In a speech on Thursday, Boris commented with a hint of uncustomary sarcasm: ‘Turns out it was easier than we thought!’
Rishi was the classic dog in the manger as Chancellor. Whenever Boris sought him out to discuss serious issues, Rishi was always polite but unforthcoming. Never a team player.
Another MoS article revealed photos of a young Rishi Sunak at an exclusive nightclub in London’s fashionable Mayfair.
Reporter Michelle Bromley included photos, writing about the young man and his then-fiancée, now wife, the Infosys heiress Akshata Murty, who lived in California in 2008:
Despite living 5,400 miles apart, the couple regularly flew back and forth across the Atlantic.
These photographs show how they spent an evening with friends at the Whisky Mist nightclub in London.
Ms Murty is seen with a cocktail while Mr Sunak (who says he’s teetotal and ‘a total Coca-Cola addict’) generously bought all the drinks that night for the couple’s friends.
At the time, the club off Park Lane was popular with the young Prince Harry and celebrities such as Beyoncé and Leonardo DiCaprio. Many years later, Tesla tycoon Elon Musk met his second wife, actress Talulah Riley, there.
Whisky Mist was apparently named after an incident during which a tipsy Queen Victoria thought she’d spotted a stag in the fog from the window of Balmoral Castle.
Friends with Mr Sunak and his girlfriend that night recall how many of the guests were focused on Ms Murty because of her family’s fabulous wealth.
Her father founded global IT giant Infosys.
Mr Sunak was described by a female reveller as ‘the most attentive boyfriend you have ever seen’ and as ‘someone who would ask a lot of questions but not give too much away about himself’.
Not long before, he had been to Africa where he met some of Barack Obama’s relatives. He was photographed with them while holding a copy of the future US president’s book, Dreams From My Father: A Story Of Race And Inheritance.
The picture was posted on Mr Sunak’s Facebook page. Mr Obama used his book as a primer to introduce himself to the American people as he campaigned in 2008 to become the first black US president.
Fourteen years on, the young Briton captivated by that book is campaigning to become Britain’s first Prime Minister of Asian heritage – and of America’s greatest ally.
Nadine Dorries is right. Rishi Sunak will never have to worry about anything significant in his life.
The Sunday Telegraph said that Conservative MPs criticised Dorries for retweeting a photoshopped image showing Rishi as Brutus wielding a knife at Johnson’s Julius Caesar’s back. The original tweet is at the link.
The MoS also reported that some of the MPs supporting Rishi have serious doubts about his campaign:
Conservative MPs backing Rishi Sunak have privately admitted ‘It’s over’ as panic sets into his leadership campaign.
Insiders told The Mail on Sunday that some supporters were refusing to do campaigning events for the former Chancellor.
MPs are said to be getting cold feet after Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and former leadership rival Tom Tugendhat threw their support behind Liz Truss in quick succession.
However, other MPs backing Mr Sunak insisted he was doing well with Tory members, and said private polling showed Ms Truss’s supporters had been easily convinced to switch their support to him.
As this week opened, Dan Wootton’s Monday poll showed that GB News viewers thought that his tax U-turn was still too little, too late:
That polling ran while Rishi and Liz were at a hustings in Exeter, more about which tomorrow.
I hope the former Chancellor, whose mother owned a pharmacy, does not get anywhere near Downing Street, except as a visitor:
Why anyone wants Rishi to be the next occupant of No. 10 escapes me. Convince me — someone, anyone — why he should be our next Prime Minister.
In writing this week’s Forbidden Bible Verses post on Philippians 2:14-18, I used, as per usual, John MacArthur’s sermons.
‘Stop Complaining, Part 1’ begins with his view of an overly indulged, complaining generation.
He says that the problem is getting worse, rather than better.
Emphases mine below:
Let me sort of ease in to our subject a little bit, if I might. We’re in Philippians chapter 2 verses 14 through 16. And I titled the message, “Stop Complaining.” There’s a reason for that, and it’s fairly obvious if you look at verse 14 where Paul says, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing,” which are really two ways of saying stop complaining. And as I was thinking about this very pertinent message about living your Christian life without complaining, it became very apparent to me that we live in a very complaining society. And I really believe we are breeding a generation of complainers, and they seem to be getting worse with each passing generation.
And as I’ve said to you on a number of occasions, it is a curiosity to me that the most indulged society is the most discontent society, that the more people have, the more they seem to be discontent with what they have and the more complaining they seem to be. In thinking about this, and there would be many ways to approach it, I was just inadvertently flipping on the radio this week and I heard a speech by a sociologist that was quite curious to me and quite interesting. The sociologist made a very interesting point. He was talking about the young people in our culture, talking about their discontent, talking about their complaining attitude, their resistance to responsibility, and how that nothing is ever the way they would like it. And they go through life with a kind of sullen discontent, kind of rejection of things the way they are. And he had an interesting thesis. What he basically said was this: that in many ways this discontented generation of young people is a product of small families. His thesis was that where you have families where the average is two or less, of course the average family now in America is 1.7 children, which is kind of strange to think about; as one brother said to his sister, “I’m the one and you’re the point seven.” But every family seems to come out at about 1.7.7. We realize that families are getting smaller and smaller and moving toward one child families, if that. Most families in America have either none, one, or two children …
And the difference is where you have a small family, the system bends to the child. Where you have a large family, the child bends to the system. And so, what you have, he said, is young people growing up in an environment where the system bends to them. And you have child-centered parenting.
MacArthur grew up in a large family, where choice was not an option:
I know as a child myself, one of the reasons I wanted to grow up was I wanted freedom. I lived in a totally conformed society. I ate what they gave me. I don’t ever remember going shopping with my mother, ever. I wore whatever she brought home. I never picked out a thing, never. I don’t even remember going to a department store clothing section as a young person. My mother brought me what I needed, and I put it on. And I conformed to the system. And I looked forward to adulthood so that I could be free to make my own choices. The reverse is true now; children grow up controlling the family and they don’t want to become adults because that means conformity. Then, they have to go to work, and nobody at work says, “Now, how would you like your office decorated? And what time would you like to take a break for lunch?” Nobody says that. They put you on an assembly line or they put you in a place where you are forced to conform, so what you have then is a generation of young people who don’t want to grow up.
And this sociologist said on the radio, you ask the average high-school kid, what do you want to do when you get out of school? What’s his answer? “I don’t know.” You ask the average college student, what do you want to do when you’re out of college? “I don’t know.” And the reason he doesn’t know is because he is postponing responsibility because responsibility means conformity to a system, whereas childhood for him has been absolute freedom. Eat what you want when you want, wear what you want when you want, and your mother will take you anywhere you want to go whenever you want. And so, you breed a generation of young people who are irresponsible. And when they do get a job, they get a job simply to finance themselves so they can enjoy their indulgences, and then when they’re 28 years old their license plate says, “He wins who has the most toys.” And the whole idea of adulthood is to collect toys, boats, cars, vacation trips, on and on and on.
Now, what you have in this kind of thing, said this sociologist, is breeding moody discontent. And you build young people who cannot conform and cannot be satisfied, over-indulged kids who don’t want to be adults, continue to push off responsibility; they grow up in an environment they control. They don’t like being controlled. And they become discontent. They don’t want to take responsibility. They don’t want to work. And their adult years are sad. They become sullen, very often, they become complainers. And I really believe that he’s right in many cases. One of the curses of our culture are overindulged childish kind of adults who are really complainers about everything. Nothing is ever enough. That’s why we have a whole society with a critical mentality, constantly attacking everything.
The church environment is no different:
Now, I want you to know this has found its way into the church. And the church is full of its own complainers, and what is really sad is many of them are run by their children’s discontent. People leaving the church because their children don’t like it. Can’t imagine such a thing, unless their children control the family. The church has its complainers. And here we are with so much, so much. How in the world could we possibly complain just because every little thing in life isn’t exactly the way we want it? Frankly, I would suggest to you that few sins are uglier to me and few sins are uglier to God than the sin of complaining. Frankly, I think the church at large does much to feed this thing by continuing to propagate this self-esteem, self-fulfillment garbage that just feeds the same discontent. There’s little loyalty. There’s little thankfulness. There’s little gratitude. And there’s very little contentment. And sadly, what happens eventually is your griping, grumbling, murmuring discontent is really blaming God because, after all, God is the one who put you where you are. So, just know who you’re complaining against.
He discusses how famous people from the Bible railed against God, from the very beginning:
Now, having said all of that there is a sense in which this complaining is part of our culture. There’s another sense in which it’s not new at all. Who was the first complainer who ever walked the earth? Who was it? The first complaining human being who ever walked was the first human being whoever walked. And what was Adam’s first complaint? “God, the woman You gave me.” We are in this mess because of this woman. He didn’t blame Eve; he blamed God. Eve had nothing to do with it. God made Eve. Adam wasn’t married; he woke up one morning he was married. God could have picked anybody He wanted, He picked her. Why? It’s God’s fault. She led the whole human race in sin. The woman You gave me, complaining. Cain complained to God about God’s work in his life, Genesis 4:13 and 14. Moses complained to God for not doing what he wanted Him to do when he wanted Him to do it, Exodus 5:22 and 23. Aaron and Miriam complained to God against Moses, His chosen leader and their own brother in Numbers chapter 12. Jonah complained to God because he was mad at God for saving the Ninevites, Jonah chapter 4 verses 9 and 10. And it is still a popular pastime to complain at God. And may I say that all of your complaints in one way or another are complaints against the providential purpose and will of God.
There’s a new book out called “Disappointment With God,” very popular and being promoted very heavily. It seems to me to make complaining against God okay. It sort of tries to define God as a lonely misunderstood lover who is really trying to work things out, but is really kind of a victim of all of us and we shouldn’t complain against Him, we ought to love Him. What a strange view of God. He is not some lonely misunderstood lover; He is the sovereign God who has ordered the circumstances of all of our lives. And to complain against God, to grumble against God is a sin and we must see it as such.
In the ninth chapter of Romans verse 20, “O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?” Who in the world are you to answer back to God? What an unthinkable thing to do. And when describing the apostates in Jude 16, it says they are grumblers finding fault following after their own lusts. All they want is what they want when they want it, they don’t get it, they grumble and find fault. It’s characteristic sin of the proud and it is characteristic sin of the wicked.
Now, the tragedy of this particular sin is that it is so contagious. Let me take a minute to usher you back into the Old Testament, chapter 13 of Numbers. And I want you to follow me and we’ll at least get through this little introduction and I think set the stage for what is ahead of us. This is really very, very interesting and very important. We go back to the number one illustration of grumbling, murmuring belly-aching griping people the world has ever known, namely whom? The Israelites. Numbers 13 just gives us a little insight in to the potential power of this attitude to spread. Verse 30 says, “Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, we should by all means go up and take possession of it for we shall surely overcome it.” Joshua, you remember, and Caleb came back from spying out the land and they said we can do it; God is on our side, we can take it. “But the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people for they are too strong for us.” Which is nothing but doubting God. “So, they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out saying the land through which we have gone in spying it out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.” And then, they said this, “Also we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim, and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight and so were we in their sight.”
So, they come back with this complaining: we’ll never do it, we can’t make it, we can’t defeat them. It’s a bad report. It will fail, it will never make it. Prophets of doom, they are. And they’re really complaining against the fact that God has told them to go in.
God hates complaining as much as He hates sin.
God killed complaining Israelites. The wages of complaining were death:
Now, go over to chapter 14, watch what happens in verse 36, “As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land and who returned and made all the congregation,” what? “Grumble against him by bringing out a bad report concerning the land, even those men who brought out the very bad report of the land,” follow this, “died by a plague before the Lord.” You know what the Lord thinks of grumblers? He killed them because they spread a brooding discontent against God. That’s the issue. These people complained against God, they complained against God calling them to go into the land, they complained because the odds were against them humanly speaking. And in their disbelief and complaining against God, they caused the whole nation to grumble, and as a result God killed them with a plague. Grumbling really spreads, and your discontent, and your critical spirit, and your grumbling attitude, and your murmuring complaints will infect other people.
Here were the children of God. They had been led out of Egypt. God had parted the Red Sea for them. They had seen ten plagues, miraculous plagues at the point of their deliverance. And as soon as they got out of the land of Egypt they started to complain, and it never really ended. Can I take you through a little trek? Go back to Exodus and let’s go back to where it started in the Exodus. Verse 11 of chapter 14, “Then, they said to Moses,” and they’re out in the wilderness now. “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?” They said, “What do you bring us out here for, because there weren’t any graves in Egypt?” Which is a mocking statement. I mean, wasn’t there a place to bury us there? You’re going to have to take us to the desert to bury us? “Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt?” Here’s the complaint, it’s not like they want it. They’ve left Egypt, it’s not the way they want it. Pharaoh is moving after them, and they begin to complain. Of course, God did a marvelous thing, He opened the Red Sea, drowned Pharaoh’s entire army and saved them.
Go to chapter 15, they come through the Red Sea, they’ve been delivered, and in that great 15th chapter, the song of Moses sings of God’s great deliverance. And it’s no sooner than they’ve done that, verse 22, then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and they went three days and they didn’t have any water, three days. And they came to Marah, they couldn’t drink the waters of Marah, they were bitter therefore it was named Marah, so the people what? Grumbled at Moses saying, “What shall we drink?” Again, the same attitude. Chapter 16, by the way, God provided water for them. You remember it. Verse 27 of chapter 15, 12 springs of water and they camped there and 70 date palms and they had a feast. “Then, they set out from Elim and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin which is between Elim and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt, and the whole congregation of Israel grumbled against Moses.” Nothing is ever enough. Part the Red Sea, provide the water, more grumbling. “Would that we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, we would have been better off there when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full.” Boy, this is a crass crowd, right? They don’t care about anything but food. “We’re all going to die of hunger.” Boy, they’re real deep, aren’t they? Real deep people. “And the Lord provides again.” It’s absolutely incredible. God sends quail, God sends manna down.
Then, you come to chapter 17. “Then, all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin according to the command of the Lord and camped at Rephidim and there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink.” See, here’s more complaining, griping, grumbling, quarreling, disputing. “Moses said to them, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? He is the one who has ordained the circumstances. But the people thirsted there for water and they grumbled against Moses and they said, why now have you brought us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”
Well, Moses is getting to the end of his rope. So, Moses cried to the Lord, and I’m sure it was loud, “What shall I do to this people? A little more and they’ll stone me.” Some group, huh? So, the Lord said, “Pass before the people, take with you some of the elders of Israel, take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go. I’ll stand before you there on the rock at Horeb and you’ll strike the rock and water will come out of it the people may drink. Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel, he named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not?” It doesn’t take very long for people to forget the provision of God.
Now, go over to Numbers for just a moment or two because I want you to see this pattern. Now, they’re at the other end of the 40 years. They’re ready. Time is ready to go into the land. And it’s not much different. Verse 1 of chapter 11 of Numbers, “Now, the people became like those who complain.” You ought to underline that. “They became like those who complain of adversity. Complaining of adversity in the hearing of the Lord.” That’s where their complaint really was directed. “And when the Lord heard it His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. The people therefore cried out to Moses and Moses prayed to the Lord and the fire died out. So, the name of the place was called Taberah because the first of the Lord burned among them.” 40 years later, and they have been complaining the whole time about everything.
Verse 4 says, “The rabble who were among them had greedy desires, and the sons of Israel wept again and said, who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish and the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, and we’ve got nothing but manna, crummy manna.” Day after day, this is typical complaining. Chapter 14, God keeps on providing. God sends the spies into the land. And what happens? They come out, they give this evil report, we can’t do it. Verse 27 of chapter 14, “How long,” the Lord says to Moses and Aaron, “shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel which they are making against Me. Say to them as I live, says the Lord, just as you have spoken in my hearing, so I will surely do to you. Your corpses shall fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men according to your complete number from 20 years old and upward who have grumbled against Me.” God says I’ll kill the whole lot of you, you’ll never enter the promised land, and He did it. He did it.
Chapter 16 verse 41, “On the next day,” what next day? The next day after God had just punished some people for invading the priesthood. The next day after God’s object lesson about serious treatment of His law, “All the congregation of the sons of Israel,” verse 41, “grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and they’re saying you are the ones who caused the death of the Lord’s people.” And the Lord was furious. Verse 45, He says, “Get away from among this congregation that I may consume them instantly. Then, they fell on their faces.” And Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and put in a fire from the altar and take incense in and bring it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord, the plague has begun. Then, Aaron took it as Moses had spoken, ran into the midst of the assembly, for behold the plague had begun among the people so he put on the incense and made atonement for the people. And he took his stand between the dead and the living and the plague was checked, but those who died by the plague were 14,700, besides those who died on account of Korah,” where the ground swallowed them all up. God just starts slaughtering thousands of them because of their grumbling, complaining, discontent.
You find it again in chapter 20. You find it again in chapter 21. I won’t read them to you. I suppose the summary of all of it could be in Psalm 106, just listen to this, verse 25. It says, “They didn’t believe in His word but grumbled in their tents. They didn’t listen to the voice of the Lord. Therefore, He swore to them that He would cast them down in the wilderness.” And that’s exactly what He did.
I read with interest and thought that this must be quite a recent sermon.
How old do you think it is?
MacArthur delivered that sermon on January 15, 1989!
Let’s return to our generation of complainers from that era, 33 years ago, as I write in 2022.
Their parents would have been born in the late 1950s through to the early 1960s, in most cases.
Those young adults, their children, in 1989, would have started getting married and bearing their own offspring in the 1990s.
Here we are, three decades — and three generations — later.
I have an update on today’s youth from Saturday’s Telegraph, July 30, 2022: ‘Our fixation with feelings has created a damaged generation’.
The article is about British youth. Post-pandemic, the main topic that appears in many news articles and parliamentary debates is mental health.
If I had £1 for every time I’ve heard the words ‘mental health’ in parliamentary debates between 2020 and 2022, I’d be living in Monaco right now.
Not only do we have a new generation of complainers, they say they are suffering.
They are suffering because they are too introspective.
Feelings are the order of the day. A dangerous solution to that is the Online Safety Bill currently in the House of Commons. Pray that we can put an end to it, because it has provisions for ‘legal but harmful’ speech. The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport — currently Nadine Dorries — can decide what is ‘legal but harmful’ speech.
Whoa!
That is a very dangerous route.
Even more dangerous are the voices coming from Labour MPs, who say that if they are ever in government again — a likely possibility — they will clamp down on whatever free speech remains.
Even worse, the legislation has not been passed, yet, here are Hampshire Constabulary just last Saturday, July 30, 2022, arresting a military veteran for tweeting a meme. The person who complained said that the meme caused him or her ‘anxiety’.
The police don’t ordinarily go to people’s homes to investigate crime these days. Yet, they are all too ready to look into social media.
Five officers attended this man’s residence and arrested him. It appears that no charges stuck, possibly because of the Reclaim Party’s Laurence Fox’s video of the incident. Perhaps the police were embarrassed?
The man tweeting this — unrelated to the incident — is former firefighter Paul Embery, a GB News panellist and Labour Party member who is active in unions, someone concerned about freedom of expression:
Guido Fawkes has more on the story and points out (emphasis in the original):
Arresting people for causing offence or anxiety, all while Hampshire recorded 8,000 burglaries in the last year, probably isn’t the best use of police time…
How did we get here?
The Telegraph article consists of an interview with Gillian Bridge, 71, who is an addiction therapist, mental health advocate, teacher and author of many years’ experience in schools and prisons.
Now you might think she makes all manner of apologies for today’s youth.
Au contraire!
Gillian Bridge was aghast to find that the BBC put great emphasis earlier this year on how young Britons were reacting to the war in Ukraine. She said:
… there was this expectation that they were going to be enormously distressed – and about something that was not affecting them directly. Meanwhile, what were they doing in Ukraine? Living in bomb shelters; giving birth in cellars. But we were supposed to worry about the ‘anxiety’ young people were experiencing here? Frankly, I found that terrifying.
She said that this was not surprising, because in our post-pandemic world, feelings in a world of short attention spans are the only thing that matter.
As such, Ukraine is less important now. It shouldn’t be, but it is:
Terrifying, but “not surprising”, she adds with a sigh. “And you’ll notice that just like other political subjects that have prompted huge emotional outpourings on and off social media of late, things have now gone very quiet on that front. Once we’ve had these ‘big’ emotions, we are no longer particularly interested, it seems.” She cites our celebration of the NHS as another example. “People were virtually orgasmic about their pan-banging, but how many of them then went on to volunteer or do something tangibly helpful?” It’s in part down to our gnat-like attention span, says Bridge, “but also the fact that a lot of the time we’re not interested in the actual subject, just the way we feel about it.”
Mental health problems, real or otherwise, have spun out of control over the past few years, even pre-pandemic:
… the 71-year-old has watched our “fixation with feelings” balloon out of all proportion, eclipsing reason, and predicted how damaging it would be, especially for the young. However, even Bridge was shocked by figures showing that more than a million prescriptions for antidepressants are now written for teenagers in England each year, with NHS data confirming that the number of drugs doled out to 13 to 19-year-olds has risen by a quarter between 2016 and 2020.
Child mental health services are reported to be “at breaking point”, with referrals up by 52 per cent last year and some parents even admitting that they have been sleeping outside their children’s bedrooms in order to check they are not self-harming. There is no doubt that we are dealing with an unprecedented crisis – one that was definitely heightened by the pandemic. “But Covid cannot be held responsible for all of it,” cautions Bridge. “And while antidepressants can be very effective, we need to be asking ourselves how we reached this point? Because whatever we’ve been doing clearly isn’t working.”
Bridge blames this on too much introspection:
At the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference in 2019 Bridge told the 250 independent school heads in attendance what she believed to be the root cause of this mass unhappiness: “This focus on ‘me, myself and I’ is the problem… It’s taking people who are vulnerable to begin with and asking them to focus inwards.” And in Bridge’s ground-breaking book, Sweet Distress: How Our Love Affair With Feelings Has Fuelled the Current Mental Health Crisis, the behavioural expert explains why too much emphasis on emotion is as bad for our health as a surfeit of sweet treats. Indeed the “empty calories contained in some feelings” have only helped our “sense of self-importance to grow fat”, she says. Hence the “emotional obesity many are suffering from now”.
Cancel culture and censorship are part of this dreadful focus on feelings:
The book – which kicks off with Bridge’s assertion, “We’ve been living in a gross-out world of personal emotional self-indulgence and sentiment for decades now … decades which have seen the nation’s mental health worsening” – is a succession of equally magnificent declarations. Magnificent because she has pinpointed the cause of a whole range of societal problems, from mental distress and the determined fragility of the young to the woke chaos of universities and cancel culture.
Interestingly, Bridge believes that this toxic focus on feelings began in the 1970s. MacArthur and the sociologist he cited spoke in 1989. The timing makes sense.
Bridge told The Telegraph:
Certainly the touchy-feely approach to things had already started in classrooms back in the 1970s.
From there, it gradually expanded, year after year, decade after decade:
Flash forward to today, when every boss can be silenced by an employee starting a sentence with: “I just feel that …”
Whereas you could do so in the old days, it is now taboo to downplay someone’s feelings, and that is not a good thing:
The great value of feelings today, Bridge tells me, “is that no one else can ever deny them … so if you feel offended then someone has genuinely harmed you”. Celebrity culture has promoted this new way of thinking as much as social media, “where you can witness people actually gorging on themselves, getting high on the strength of their own feelings just as they do on sugar – self-pleasuring, basically. And listen, it may feel good in the short term, but it’s very bad for us in the long run.”
People can convince themselves that their feelings are the truth, their truth, anyway. That omits fact, what really happened. Bridge mentioned Meghan Markle’s complaints:
Take the Duchess of Sussex, she points out, and her litany of “heartfelt” complaints. “Just last week there she was explaining that she didn’t lie to Oprah about growing up an only child, because she felt like one, so it was, as she put it ‘a subjective statement’.” Bridge laughs; shakes her head. “We really are tying ourselves up in knots now, aren’t we? Because it’s all about me, myself and I, and someone like Meghan has made it so much easier for people to follow in her footsteps, when the reality is that feelings are not immutable. They are not fixed, an absolute. They are not fact. And they are certainly not something that must override everything else.”
Yet there is a natural neurological process whereby the brain is able to turn feelings into fact, Bridge explains. “If you revise, rehearse, repeat and reinforce, then you create a fact, and that fact will then be embedded in your memory: ‘your truth’. Going back to Markle, that’s crucially a truth that no amount of counter-evidence can challenge.”
Bridge says that encouraging children to emote and focus on their feelings is unhelpful for them and for society at large. The focus on feelings originated in the United States, the source of all bad ideas in our time:
“The worst possible thing you can do with a child is to give them a fixed idea that they are feeling a certain way,” she says with aplomb. So those “emotional literacy” classes that started in California and are now being taught at schools here in the UK? The ones using a “traffic light” system, with pupils as young as four being asked to describe their “happiness levels” accordingly? “A terrible idea,” Bridge groans. “Feelings are simply physiological sensations mediated by cultural expectations; they go up and they go down!” Yet thanks to the pervasive narrative that every feeling should be given weight, “instead of enjoying the limitless health and optimism of youth” many youngsters “are now entrenched in their own misery”.
Bridge then tapped unknowingly into what MacArthur preached about in 1989, the notion that there were once roles for us in life, conformity to social expectations:
The desire to feel significant (either by embracing victimhood or by other means) is hardly new where young people are concerned, Bridge reminds me, and her tone is notably empathetic. “Let’s not forget that people used to have a role in life assigned for them within their communities. You might do an apprenticeship and then go and work in a factory or go into your father’s firm, or you might be preparing to get married and have babies. Now people have to find their role, they have to choose an identity, and that is much more complicated for them.”
Remember when we older folk — the 60+ group — were taught resilience at home when we were children? ‘Tomorrow’s another day’? It meant that today’s setback was temporary and, sure, we were hurt or upset, but better times were on the way. And, sure enough, they were.
Parents and schools are not teaching children about the temporary nature of setbacks. Therefore, today’s children lack resilience, which gave all of us who learned it so long ago hope for the future:
“The reason ‘everything will look better in the morning’ is so important,” says Bridge, “is that just like the children who did well in [Walter Mischel’s famous 1972] marshmallow experiment, they were able to predict the future based on their past.” That ability to delay and see the bigger picture is closely associated with the development of the hippocampus, she explains, “which is memory, navigation and good mental health. Yet by immersing ourselves in feelings and the now, we’ve blotted out the ‘OK so I’m feeling bad, but tomorrow will be another day’ logic, and we’re trusting the least intelligent part of our brains. As parents, we should all be discouraging this in our children. Because a child has to believe in tomorrow.”
Developing resilience is good for brain health, and it helps us to survive.
Bridge says that altruism also helps our brain health. We look out for others, not just ourselves. She says:
Studies have shown that it protects us from mental decline in our later years, but that the self-involved are more likely to develop dementia.
She cautions against cancelling or revising our history, whether it be factual or cultural:
Learning and a sense of history are equally important when it comes to brain health. “Yet again we seem to be distancing ourselves from the very things that we need to thrive. We’re so threatened by history and its characters that we try to cancel them! When you only have to read something like Hamlet’s ‘to be, or not to be’ speech to understand that it encapsulates all of the issues and irritations we still suffer from today. And surely knowing that gives you a sense of belonging, a sense of context, continuity and, crucially, relativity?”
Alarmingly, Bridge says that some young people believe that suicide is a melodrama, not a final act:
… they don’t actually realise it’s the end of them. Instead, they are almost able to view it as a melodrama that they can observe from the outside. Which is a deeply distressing thought.
Scary.
Bridge warns that too much introspection can lead to criminality:
Although it’s hard to condense everything she learnt about the criminal brain during those years down to a tidy sound bite, “what was notable and important in this context,” she says, “was their fixation on themselves. So the more a person looks inwards at the me, myself and I, the more they’re likely to run afoul of everything, from addiction to criminality. In a way, the best thing you can do for your brain is to look beyond it.”
She tells me about a prisoner she was working with “who came up to me and said: ‘I’ve got mental health’ – as though that were a disorder. Because people have become so ‘into’ the problem that the phrase is now only negative. That’s surely one of the most worrying developments of all. And it’s why I refuse to use or accept the term ‘mental health’ unless it is prefixed by ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”
Incredibly, with all the misplaced importance on feelings, Bridge says she has never had a bad reception to her talks:
… she stresses she “has never encountered negativity anywhere I have spoken”. Yet another reason why Bridge isn’t about to dampen her argument.
She thinks there might be the seeds of a turnaround, based on news items over the past few weeks:
“I think people understand that it’s time for some tough talking,” she writes in Sweet Distress. “There is increasing evidence that families, schools and universities are being overwhelmed by an epidemic of mental ill health.” So whatever we are doing isn’t just “not helping”, but harming? “Absolutely. But I am seeing more and more people speaking up about this now. The narrative is changing. Just look at what the Coldstream Guards fitness instructor, Farren Morgan, said last week about body positivity promoting ‘a dangerous lifestyle’. He’s right.” She shrugs. “It’s no good saying ‘it’s OK to be any size you please’ when we know that if children have bad diets, that can in turn lead to obesity – which in turn makes it more likely that they will suffer both physically and mentally later on.”
She mentions the new smart dress code implemented by the head of Greater Manchester Police – the one that, according to reports last week, helped turn the force around into one of the “most improved” in the country. “These officers were performing better at work because they were dressed smarter. So what does that tell us? That if you have a disciplined life and if you accomplish the things you set out to do, that gives you self-esteem – which makes you happier. But of course none of this happens if we are just sitting around ‘feeling’ things.”
She suggests that a good way of getting young people out of the cancel culture narrative is to point out that, someday, they might be cancelled, too. Also note the final word:
How do we get people out of themselves when they are so entrenched, though? How do we root them when they are flailing to such an extent? “By giving them a sense of being part of history! By getting them to see that if they want to cancel someone who lived 50 or 100 years ago, then in 50 or 100 years’ time someone may have entirely ‘valid’ reasons to cancel them. By building the inner scaffolding that will keep them standing throughout life’s ups and downs. And you know what that inner scaffold is called?” she asks with a small smile. “Resilience.”
Get Gillian Bridge into the new Government, coming soon, as an adviser. The nation needs someone like her. She would be perfect in helping us to defeat our mental health pandemic.
On Thursday, July 28, 2022, LBC’s morning host Nick Ferrari presented a hustings in Leeds for Conservative Party members:
Ferrari interviewed the candidates separately, and each had a chance to deliver a message alone to the audience.
The audience also asked questions.
Liz Truss
This year’s burning question for any politician has been, ‘What is a woman?’ Very few have defined a woman, including Rishi Sunak.
Liz played on that theme:
This hustings took place on the same day that it was announced the Tavistock clinic was to close. This next video has an excellent interview with Dr David Bell, a whistleblower who used to work for the clinic:
Liz discussed sexual identity:
A member of the audience expressed her concern that school loos were changed to unisex during the pandemic when students were at home. Liz came out in favour of separate boys and girls facilities:
LBC’s article, which has a video of the hustings in full, says:
The foreign secretary was quizzed about same-sex toilets being introduced in schools during the pandemic while speaking at LBC’s Tory hustings.
When asked about returning to single-sex toilets, Ms Truss said: “I completely agree with you – I have sought to clarify that as women’s minister.
“I’ve been very clear that single-sex spaces should be protected, particularly for young people as well as vulnerable people – vulnerable women in domestic violence shelters, for example – and I can assure you, as Prime Minister, I would direct that to happen.
“It’s a difficult time being a teenager – being a young girl – and you should be able to have the privacy you need in your own loo, so I 100% agree with you and I would make that happen.
In a follow up question from LBC’s Nick Ferrari about pupils who are transitioning, Ms Truss added: “First of all, I do not believe that under-18s should be able to make irreversible decisions about their own bodies that they might come to regret later.
“It’s very important to note that.
“And of course, schools should be sensitive – they can provide additional facilities – but it should not be at the expense of protecting young girls.”
On the subject of schools and the pandemic, Liz said it was a mistake to close schools in early 2021 and allow the pubs to stay open. She would not have closed schools but said that hindsight is a wonderful thing and no one knew at the time what to do. She did give Boris credit for doing ‘his absolute best’:
In response to Peter from Tadcaster, Liz said that she supports fracking but said it must have residents’ consent. She also supports the smaller nuclear plants, ‘like we have in Derbyshire’. She also thinks that we need to continue to use more of our own gas as an immediate response to energy demand:
There was a light hearted moment when Ferrari asked her about her university days. She admitted she was something of ‘a teenage controversialist’. She said she regretted saying that the monarchy should be abolished as soon as she said it years ago. And she has since met the Queen. She also said that she had been a member of the Liberal Democrats but left when she realised ‘the error of their ways’:
A reality show, Love Island, has been this summer’s must-watch for a proportion of the British population. Liz said she could watch only ten minutes with her teenage daughter before she turned off the television. She thinks her daughter went to watch it in another room:
Liz repeated her stance on tax, saying that the rise in National Insurance not only broke the 2019 Party manifesto but is also unnecessary as it limits growth:
Liz, who grew up in Leeds, says that the public transport there is as bad now as it was when she was a girl. She promised to improve the situation. She also pledged to cut red tape for farmers:
Ferrari asked Liz for her opinion of Theresa May and Boris Johnson, as she served in both their Cabinets. She said that she always liked Boris and supported him in the 2016 leadership contest, which Theresa May ultimately won. She gave Boris much credit during his time as Party leader and Prime Minister:
Ferrari asked her whether she would lead us into World War Three, which she dismissed as Russian propaganda and sabre-rattling. She added that the UK should have been better prepared in the past, because we did not do enough for Ukraine over Crimea and the Donbass:
On that topic, Liz said that she would raise defence spending to three per cent of GDP by 2030:
More on that below.
An audience member asked about post-pandemic staff shortages. Liz said she would tighten benefits rules to get the workshy back into paid employment. She also said she would have a training programme so that Britons had the available skillsets that we need:
Contrast her response with Rishi’s below. He wants to bring more foreigners into the country and forget about our own people.
Someone from the Bury Conservative Association asked whether Liz would give Jeremy Hunt a Cabinet position. She replied that she was not thinking about a possible Cabinet at the moment but that she would appoint a broad range of Conservative talent, should she become Prime Minister:
Please, Liz, no Jeremy Hunt. He would deploy all of Beijing’s coronavirus policies and have us masked up and in lockdown in perpetuity. He also said in Parliament that he wanted to make the annual flu jab mandatory. No, no and no!
Rishi Sunak
Last week, Rishi was adamant that tax cuts were ‘immoral’, then he did a U-turn.
He tried to convince everyone that he didn’t do a U-turn on his tax policy. Hmm:
Ferrari then gave the UK’s most recent statistics on our poor economic performance this year, but Rishi reminded him about 2021 figures, which were far higher than any other Western nation. Rishi also said that visas needed to be revisited to make sure we attract the ‘best and brightest’ into Britain. Notice how he has no plans to train young Britons for British jobs. Why am I thinking of his father-in-law’s Infosys? Hmm:
Ferrari brought up the petition to the Conservative Party to put Boris’s name on the members’ ballots. By last Thursday, more than 14,000 people had signed the petition. Rishi said that Boris had lost the confidence of his MPs, 60 of whom resigned from various Government posts. Rishi said that a Prime Minister must have the confidence of his MPs, hence the present leadership contest:
Ferrari told Rishi that he was the first Chancellor since Labour’s Denis Healey to raise corporation tax. Healey did that in 1974.
Rishi gave an incoherent answer. He said that Margaret Thatcher raised taxes in the early part of her premiership which lowered inflation. (Mmm. Actually, Margaret Thatcher got different advisers who told her to lower tax, which brought about growth.) He said that lower corporation tax has not worked over the past decade. So, he would cut tax on business investment instead.
I’ll leave this to the Rishi fans to ponder and tell me why he is correct:
Ferrari said that President Zelenskyy said that he would like for Boris to remain front and centre for Ukraine and not disappear into the background. Rishi said that Boris is ‘very talented’ but that he would not give him a post in his Cabinet, were he to become Prime Minister:
A lady in the audience asked Rishi how he viewed our current asylum system. He said that it needs to be changed, by pulling out of the ECHR and using the international Refugee Convention instead. He said that we reject far fewer asylum claims than other European countries and that needs to be changed:
Another member of the audience asked Rishi how committed he would be to supporting Ukraine. Rishi said that he ‘absolutely’ would be. In elaborating, he said that sanctions towards Russia need to be changed, because, so far, they are having little effect on Putin:
Matthew from West Yorkshire asked Rishi whether he had stabbed Boris Johnson in the back and how the former Chancellor planned to reunite the Party. Rishi said that he had to resign because he and Boris differed too much in the end on economic policy (?!). He pledged to bring the best Conservatives into his Cabinet if elected leader and thinks that would reunite the Party. Watch his leg bob up and down as he answers Ferrari near the end of the video:
Verdict
Afterwards, LBC took calls and interviewed experts about what they thought of the hustings.
LBC’s Ben Kentish asked his fellow presenter Iain Dale, a Conservative, for his views. Dale said that not every topic can be covered in one of these events. Therefore, topics such as child care and the NHS are discussed at other local meetings.
Dale thought that Liz ‘smashed it’. She did not use any notes this time. She gave ‘interesting’ and ‘entertaining’ solo speeches, which surprised him. He said that Rishi did a good job, too, but didn’t quite come up to Liz’s standard that evening. He said that Rishi has a lot of catching up to do and that ‘he’s in a real bind now’.
He concluded that it was a ‘really good evening for Liz Truss’. He gives her a 75 per cent chance of becoming the next Party leader and, by extension, Prime Minister:
Ferrari took more reactions on his Friday morning show:
Body language expert Dr Harry Witchell said that Liz was more relaxed in both her presentation and gestures than she had been previously. Rishi, he said, was much less aggressive, which was an improvement over last week’s performances:
Patrick Hennessy from London Communications Agency said that Liz is likely to have won over the Telegraph‘s readers. the Leeds audience seemed to warm more to Liz than to Rishi. He reminded Ferrari of Matthew from West Yorkshire’s aforementioned question asking Rishi if he’d stabbed Boris Johnson in the back. Indeed:
Former Conservative MP Michael Portillo said that Rishi’s campaign is slipping away. He pointed out that, after the Leeds hustings, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace came out in favour of Liz Truss and, also crucially, Simon Clarke, who worked closely with Rishi, has come out in favour of Liz:
Ferrari then interviewed Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who described Liz as ‘feisty’:
Ben Wallace discussed Liz’s varied experience, reminding Ferrari and listeners that she had been Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The person in that post is the one who tells another Secretary of State whether they can increase their budget. Liz later worked in trade and is the current Foreign Secretary. Wallace said that he has been in meetings with her representing Britain around the world, so she has a lot of experience on the world stage:
Wallace told Ferrari that he ‘didn’t have the luxury’ of resigning … unlike some ministers. He meant Rishi, among others. He said that he, like the Home Secretary Priti Patel, needed to stay in place for national security reasons. The Home Secretary, he explains, has warrants to sign. He, as Defence Secretary, has military operations to authorise. He also said that he did not want Boris to stand down as Party leader:
Wallace said that, in 2019, Rishi wanted to give Defence a one-year monetary settlement. Wallace said that Boris overrode that decision and gave the department a multi-year settlement instead, which is what is necessary:
LBC has more on Wallace’s interview here.
All being well, tomorrow’s post will be about Andrew Neil’s grilling of Rishi Sunak last Friday evening on Channel 4.
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
—————————————————————————————
Last week’s post discussed Paul’s very real hope that, with the Philippians’ prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus (the Holy Spirit), his imprisonment would work out for his deliverance and honour Christ.
As I go through Paul’s letters to the various congregations, I still do not understand how he could have so much hope and joy with so much suffering.
Today’s post helps me — and I hope others — understand how he was able to rejoice in truly hard times.
Of course, faith is the key, but how exactly did he maintain it?
This post’s quotes from John MacArthur’s sermons are hard-hitting and will take some time to consider. This will not be easy.
Before beginning, here is the first part of Philippians 2 (emphases mine):
Christ’s Example of Humility
2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Lights in the World
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Paul tells the Philippians to do ‘all things’ without ‘grumbling or disputing’ (verse 14).
Whenever I used to ask my late grandmother-in-law, a widow who began life as a Primitive Methodist before becoming a Baptist, how she was, she always replied cheerfully:
Mustn’t grumble.
When I met her she was becoming arthritic. She used to journey by bus into Central London to buy her groceries at Marks & Spencer in Oxford Street. As the years passed, she was unable to continue those bus rides that gave her so much pleasure. She was also a regular churchgoer, again travelling by bus into the heart of the capital. By the end of her life, she had to enter a care home and had to give up those two pleasures.
I had not realised until today how many scriptural references there are to grumbling and how much God hates it. God actually killed many Israelites on several occasions for complaining.
The Bible uses the word ‘grumble’ but ‘murmur’ or ‘mumble’ means the same thing.
Reformed Wiki lists 25 verses against grumbling and complaining.
Bible Reasons has 19 of those verses along with Jude’s warning about murmuring:
Jude 1:16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.
Matthew Henry’s commentary gives us the Greek origins of ‘murmuring’:
The children of God should differ from the sons of men. Without rebuke—amometa. Momus was a carping deity among the Greeks, mentioned by Hesiod and Lucian, who did nothing himself, and found fault with every body and every thing. From him all carpers at other men, and rigid censurers of their works, were called Momi. The sense of the expression is, “Walk so circumspectly that Momus himself may have no occasion to cavil at you, that the severest censurer may find no fault with you.”
John MacArthur explains the Greek origins of ‘grumbling’ and ‘disputing’:
Now, those two words are very basic. Grumblings is an onomatopoetic word; that is, it sounds like what it means. The word is goggusmos. Goggusmos, ruh-ruh-ruh. It’s a grouchy, grumbly, onomatopoetic word. It means a murmuring, an expression of discontent, an expression of dissatisfaction, grumbling, actually muttering in a low voice. Ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh, you know. It’s, by the way, the very word used in the Greek Septuagint translation of Exodus and Numbers where we read about the grumblings of Israel. It is complaint expressed in a negative attitude. It is an emotional rejection of God’s will. It is an emotional rejection of God’s providence. It is an emotional rejection of your circumstances that comes through in mumbling, grumbling, griping, verbiage. It is an emotional rejection of the circumstances God has chosen for your life and the requirements He has for your conduct.
And then, there’s a second word, disputings. Dialogismos, dialogue we get from it. It means questionings, criticism. It is now an intellectual debate with God. The first one is an emotional belly-aching. The second is an intellectual debate with God. You want to argue with God about why things are the way they are. Or you want to argue with God about why you have to do what you have to do. Or you want to argue with God about why you’re in the circumstance you’re in, the marriage, the job, the singleness, the residence, whatever it is. Or even the church, for that matter. Arguing with God out of discontent, debating with God because you’ve got a better idea. While the first word means to just grumble, gripe, complain, murmur, almost an emotional guttural kind of thing.
MacArthur says that verse 14 refers to verses 12 and 13:
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
MacArthur explains:
So, Paul is saying, look, in working out your salvation the basic attitude is an attitude that does not complain. Why? You’re living in a very fallen world. You’re living in the fallen flesh. It isn’t always going to be the way you like it, the people around you aren’t always going to be the way you’d like them. The circumstances aren’t always going to be euphoric and perfect. It’s not going to be an idealistic world. You work out your salvation and in all the things that you do, and in all the circumstances you find yourself, don’t ever complain because God hates that, and He has judged it severely as an example to you of how He feels about it.
MacArthur derives that from 1 Corinthians 10. God killed some moaners with fatal snakebites and also by the angel of death. He killed many more Israelites through other means, but, here, Paul mentions two:
Warnings From Israel’s History
10 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”[a] 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test Christ,[b] as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.
11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation[c] has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted[d] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,[e] he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
MacArthur also cites Lamentations 3:39:
Why should the living complain
when punished for their sins?
He says:
Listen now, would you do this? Try your best to make it through today without complaining about something. Would you do that? And just make a note every time you complain, and you will find that for many of you it is a way of life. And it is frankly so utterly habitual that you probably don’t even realize what a dominant characteristic it is. And then, remember Lamentations, would you please? Just remember Lamentations 3 and 39 and memorize it: why should any living mortal or any man offer complaint in view of his sins? What do you think you deserve? Work on it today, will you?
In other words, we are all sinners who deserve God’s eternal wrath. Fortunately, we have a Saviour in Jesus Christ. Let us be thankful for His ultimate sacrifice which reconciled us to God.
Furthermore, let us be grateful for our many blessings, all of which come from God.
MacArthur has more on this:
… we throw tantrums because we got seated at a poorly located table in a fancy restaurant. Or we’re frustrated because we can’t lose ten pounds. Or we gripe about our monthly debts. You’ve got problems relative to what? But you see, it’s the mood of the mob to complain. And then, the idealistic fantasy oriented consumptive culture feeds the sin of discontent. How can we be discontent? Remember Lamentations 3:39, “Why should any mortal being or anyone offer complaint in view of his sins?” What do we have to complain about? So, Paul gives us a general principle in verse 14. And it really speaks to us at a time when we live in a culture of complaint. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing. Do all things without grumbling or disputing.” What do the “all things” refer to? The living out of your inward salvation, the working out of your salvation. Here is the pervasive attitude for the Christians’ experience. As we work out our salvation, as we live our godly life, we are to do it without ever complaining about the circumstances which God has put around us. We are to live a life without complaint. We are to rejoice always, to use Paul’s later terminology, and again I say rejoice. We are to be content whether we are based or whether we abound, whether we have much or whether we have little, whether we like the circumstances or don’t like them. There is no place for complaining.
And I only submit to you that it’s much more difficult it seems in this culture than in some because we are breeding a culture of complainers, absolute culture of complainers. And Paul then gives us a general principle that does speak to us very directly.
Now, note as I pointed out last time, that this matter of doing all things without grumbling or disputing has reference to God. Not so much grumbling disputing among others, that too is a sin, but the idea here is to accept that providential plan which God has ordained for your life, live out your salvation without any complaints directed at Him. A joyful heart, a thankful heart, no emotional grumbling, that’s the grumbling word, and no intellectual disputing or arguing with God. But rather, without complaint, gratefully we live out our salvation. That is what he calls for Christians to maintain in terms of an attitude that pervades all their living.
Paul goes on to give other reasons why we should not grumble or dispute: we should be blameless and innocent children of God, shining our light in the midst of a dark, fallen world (verse 15).
That means we really have to let our faith shine at its best. This, for me, is very difficult to do on a consistent basis.
MacArthur elaborates:
Now, he gives us three reasons why. Okay? And I’ll just lay these before you. They’re not new, they’re just a brief review, a summary, and I know you will be familiar with them. But nonetheless, they are the word of the Spirit of God for us today. Reason number one, in verse 15, “That you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach.” Let’s say, first of all, then we are to stop complaining for our own sake, for our own sake, that we might be the kind of children that God has saved us to be. It starts with us. And this is, by the way, clearly a purpose result clause, a little particle hina with a subjunctive always indicates purpose result. And so, it could be translated “in order that,” or “with the result that,” or “given the purpose that.” In other words, this is the very reason why you are to do this, so that you will be a blameless, harmless, above-reproach child of God. You are called to be all that a child of God should be. In Ephesians 5:1 that very, very important injunction of Paul where he says, “Be imitators of God as beloved children, be imitators of God as beloved children.” If God is your Father, then imitate God, then pattern your life after Him. If you are a child of God then live the way a child of God should live, manifesting the character of God. As it says in Titus 2, adorning the doctrine of God in the manner in which you live.
So, note again then, we’ll look at the verse specifically, you are to stop complaining, doing all things without grumbling or disputing, in order that you may prove yourselves to be. Now the Greek literally says, in order that you may become, in order that you may become. And I believe here is a process, you are to be in the process of becoming a blameless innocent above-reproach child of God. So, you are not to complain in order that process may work, that you may be in the process at the end of which you become a harmless, blameless, above-reproach child of God.
Now, those two words, blameless and harmless, or some of your translations will say blameless and innocent, really are not a great deal apart in terms of meaning. They both speak of moral purity. Blameless simply means a life that can’t be criticized, a life that can’t be criticized. There’s nothing for which you can be held responsible by way of sin, evil, wickedness. It’s a life without blame, it’s a life that has no blemish, no blot on it, no sinful stain which people can discern and see.
And then, the word “innocent” could be translated “harmless.” It is so translated in Matthew 10:16 where Jesus says, “Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” It is also translated “simple” in Romans 16:19, I think it is, Paul says that we are to be simple concerning evil. It has to do with being pure. It has to do with being unmixed, unadulterated, undefiled; it is used, for example, to refer to unmixed wine and unalloyed metal. So, he’s simply using two somewhat basic terms, saying that your life is to be a life which cannot be criticized for sin, and which is pure and undefiled and unadulterated and unmixed with evil. So, really two ways to say, essentially, a pure life, a life without fault and a life without flaw. That’s God’s desire for His people, that their character and their conduct should be so pure that they cannot justly be accused, that they are above criticism that is legitimate, there is no foreign element which contaminates their life. We are to be, in the terms of 2 Corinthians 11, a chaste virgin, a pure virgin, in terms of Ephesians 5, the church is to be a blameless without spot, without blemish bride. Same concept.
Then, you’ll note also in verse 15 he uses the term “above reproach.” That too is one word in the Greek, you have amemptos, akeraios, and then you have ammos, all of them have an alpha-privative which means they’re negative terms, and this means above reproach: faultless, flawless, spotless, blemishless. This word, by the way, is used in the Greek Old Testament in Numbers, I think it’s several times, Numbers 6:14, Numbers 19:2, I found in both places, and it’s there referring to a sacrifice, without blemish, without spot, the kind of sacrifice to be brought to the Lord. So, really three ways he’s saying the same thing: harmless, blameless, flawless, faultless, sinless, pure. That’s what he wants. Why? And the key is this, children of God. You are to be becoming the proper kind of child of God. In other words, the kind that would rightly represent God, that would be believable if you said I belong to God, He’s my Father, I’m His son, I’m His child. We are to be truly God’s children not only by divine decree, but by testimony as well. In Romans 12 we are to present our bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God. So, we are like a sacrifice, to be without spot, without blemish, without stain, undefiled, pure. We’re children of God.
We have to get in touch with that. Who do you belong to? Whose are you? Who owns you? Whose name do you bear? Whose identity do you share? Whose life do you share? The very life of God. And so, every believer needs to live in consistency with who He is.
MacArthur discusses ‘a crooked and twisted generation’:
Second point, when we talk about the reason for obedience, not only for our own sake but for the sake of the unsaved. Here’s a very basic principle here, for the sake of the unsaved. He says in verse 15, “You are to become blameless and innocent children of God, above reproach, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world holding forth the word of life.” Now, here he is saying this matter of how you live has a dramatic impact not only on whether or not you’re consistent as a child of God, but how you affect the world in which you appear as lights. Now, we’re talking about the unsaved, now we’re talking about our witnessing, now we’re talking about our evangelistic mandate. And this is the heart of the appeal, by the way. The first part just led into this; the last part just leads out of it. This is the main issue. Evangelism is primarily a matter of God’s children shining as lights in a dark world. But doing that effectively comes down to two things: character and content, character and content, or personality and proclamation. It’s not just what you say; it’s also what you are. And we know that. This is good reminder.
Now, would you notice verse 15, just to get you in touch with the specifics, he says, “In the midst of a crooked and perverse generation,” and he there borrows a phrase from the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 and verse 5. There, Moses was speaking to apostate Israel and saying you are no more the children of God for you are a crooked and perverse nation. So, he borrows that same phrase, only this time he’s not defining an apostate Israel; the writer of Scripture is now defining the society of the world in which the church exists. In Deuteronomy 32, Moses characterized apostate Israel as a crooked and perverse nation, and here Paul borrows that phrase to characterize the whole world in which the church exists. And we are living in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. And that is something we need to be very careful to understand.
… Please note: we are in the midst of it. Jesus said in John 17 when He prayed to the Father, I’m not going to ask you take them out of the world, I’m going to ask You to keep them in the world. There we are as lights in the world. It is a world of God-rejecters. It is a world of Christ-haters. It is a tragic world, morally warped, spiritually perverted. It rejects God’s message as Israel of old did. Would you notice those two words, “crooked and perverse?” The word generation is genea, could translate nation as well. But the words “crooked and perverse” are interesting. Crooked is a Greek word, skolios. Have you ever heard of an illness called scoliosis of the spine? It’s a curvature of the spine. It comes from this word because the word means curved, bent out of shape. It describes something that is out of proper alignment, that is off and deviated from the standard. Proverbs 2:15 describes the society of this world in these terms. It says, “Their paths are crooked, and they are devious in their ways.” Isaiah 53 puts it this way in verse 6, “All we like sheep have gone,” what? “Astray.” And so, man has a spiritual disease, scoliosis of the heart, in which he is deviated from God, in which he has left the standard, moved away from the straight plumb line of righteousness.
And then, an even stronger word is the word perverse. This word means to be severely twisted or severely distorted. So, man has deviated from the path, and in the deviation become severely twisted and severely distorted. It is an abnormal condition. By the way, our Lord also used this basic same expression in Luke 9. Jesus said, “O unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and put up with you?” So, this is a good characterization, one used in the Old Testament, one used in the gospels, one used by the writer of the epistle to describe someone who has deviated from the path of righteousness, deviated from the plan of God, become twisted, perverted.
Now, you’ll notice here that it says “in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation,” and then it says, “Among whom you appear as lights in the world.” So, in a sense, generation and world go together. Generation speaks basically of the popul[ace]; world speaks of the moral, ethical, sinful system in which they think and by which they operate their lives and conduct their behavior. So, we face a twisted distorted world. This is continuously brought home to me. It’s a twisted perverted world. Fornication is right, adultery is right, homosexuality is right, lying is right, cheating is right, and all the rest of it. Not the Word of God. So, the whole culture has deviated from the standard of righteousness, and in the deviation become distorted and twisted, and their thinking is so convoluted that we would never expect the natural man to understand the things of God. They are to him what? Foolishness.
Now, that leaves us then with two very important things. We are to reach this perverse world, we are to reach this crooked world and there are two ways: one, what we are; two, what we say. Let’s look, first of all, at what we are. Verse 15, “You are children of God, above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” Now, this is what we are. This is what we are. Among whom you appear, phainomai, probably could be translated “you are shining,” could be, “you must shine.” But he is saying you have to shine, and this is talking about now what we say but what we are, what we are. You shine, and here’s his analogy, as lights, phstr, that word in a metaphorical sense can refer to a lot of different lights. But whenever it’s used in a specific non-metaphorical sense it always refers to the sun, moon, or stars. And I take it here that that is probably what Paul is saying.
We find, for example, such a use of this term in the Septuagint in Genesis 1:14 and Genesis 1:16, we find some non-biblical sources where this word is used to refer to the sun, moon and the stars. And what he is simply saying is you live in a dark universe, and you are the stars and the sun and the moon; you’re the only light the world has. As the sun and the moon and the stars shine in the heavens, and as they illuminate an otherwise dark sky, so you shine in the world, illuminating an otherwise totally dark society. We shine.
Now, what do you mean by shine? We demonstrate the light of God. What is that? It’s the life of God. I’m not going to go into a whole study, but light and life are one. Life, the life of God in us emphasizes the character of that life. The life of God in us as light emphasizes the impact of that life. And you find John jumping back and forth to those concepts, light and life, as well as Paul on some occasions. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “You are the light of the world.” You are a vessel in whom the light of God has been poured with the life of God and now you have life as to its quality and light as to its impact. It is a shining life. It is a living light. And so, we are called to be what Israel failed to be. You remember in Romans 2:19, Paul says, “You’re confident that you’re a guide to the blind and a light to those who are in darkness, but you’re not.” Israel, the Jew as the Jewish leaders of Paul’s time thought they were the lights but they weren’t, and thus they are called the blind leading the blind, and both will fall in the ditch. But we are the light of the world. Why? Because the light of life shines in us and the light of His life in us shines from us. We are vessels.
In 2 Corinthians 4:6, Paul says God who first ordered the light to shine in the darkness has flooded our hearts with His light. We can now enlighten men by giving them the knowledge of God’s glory that comes through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are lights. We are children of light. In Ephesians 5:8, there’s a good reminder of that and you know it very well. “You were formerly darkness now you are light in the Lord, walk as children of light.” Then, he even talks about the fruit of light and what is it? The fruit of light is goodness, and righteousness, and truth, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord and not participating in the unfruitful deeds of darkness. Our light shines in our deeds: goodness, righteousness, truth, what we are, that’s how the light shines.
You actually light people one way or another. You send out an impulsive light, you as a child of God. You cannot come in contact with other people in this crooked and perverse generation without impacting them in some way. And if you are a godly, holy, obedient Christian, you will have an almost startling impact on most people. And they will feel the light and they may even shy away from the light because it is so obvious that you possess something they don’t possess. They may feel the vibrations, to put it in another analogy, of your own holiness; they may feel a yearning to be something better than they are. They may even sense the appetite, the hunger, the thirst for the unseen and the eternal which they know they don’t have. It’s also true that if you’re a bad person, you’ll bring dark vibrations, and your life will touch someone else and it will put out a corresponding current that you’ve induced. So, you affect people for good or for bad, everybody does.
MacArthur then quotes F B Meyer (1847-1929), a Baptist pastor and evangelist from London who also worked in the United States:
In a sense it’s a terrible thing to think about. FB Meyer wrote, “These thoughts press on one’s heart that one can never speak a word, never transact a piece of business that one’s face is never seen lighted up with the radiance of God or clouded and despondent without it being made harder or easier for other men to live a good life. Every one of us every day resembles Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made other men sin, or we are lifting other men into the light and the peace and the joy of God. No man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself, but the life of everyone is telling upon an increasing number of mankind what a solemn responsibility it is to live.” And we have that responsibility. You are light. You have been called to light the dark world. And the quality of your life is the platform of your personal testimony. You have to understand that. By the kind of life you live, you build a platform on which what you say is made believable. If you have no platform because of your life, your message isn’t believable. And a murmuring discontent, grumbling, griping, complaining Christian is never going to have a positive influence on others. You can’t be talking about the gospel, forgiveness, joy, peace, gladness, comfort, and be moaning and grumbling and complaining all the time. People are not going to believe the gospel will do what you’re trying to say it will do. That’s why the philosopher Heine in Germany said, “Show me your redeemed lives and I might be inclined to believe in your Redeemer.”
How true.
Returning to our text, Paul tells the Philippians to hold fast to the word of life, so that when he is finally with Christ he can be proud that he did not run (a spiritual marathon) in vain or labour in vain (verse 16).
The word of life is the Gospel.
MacArthur explains:
… in addition to our character is our content, it’s what we say. Look at verse 16. Also he adds, in the process of shining as lights in the world you are “holding forth the word of life.” Now, some would translate it “holding fast.” Now, my own feeling is that if Paul wanted to say “holding fast” he probably would have used katech, instead he uses epech, holding forth or holding out. That same verb used here is used in Homer’s “Odyssey” to refer to holding out a gift of wine for someone to take and drink, so it’s kind of an offer. It can mean holding firmly, holding tightly, but the context here is one of shining in a dark world. It’s one of sending light into a dark world. So, both the word, its uses, its comparison to other terms and its context seems to me to favor holding forth, holding out. We are shining as stars in terms of character. We are holding out the Word of life. What is that? The Word that gives life. What Word gives life? The gospel, the gospel, the message which gives life, the gospel of salvation that gives life, the life of God to the soul, the soul of man. Men are dead in trespasses and sin, Ephesians 2:1 says, they need life. We hold out that life. We hold forth that life. That’s proclamation. So, on the one hand it’s personality; on the other, it’s proclamation, it’s character, and it’s content. It’s what we are, it’s what we say.
MacArthur tells us what Paul meant by his own evangelistic efforts on the Philippians’ behalf:
Look at verse 16, “So that in the day of Christ I may have cause to rejoice because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.” He says, “Look, if you’ll obey this command, I’ll be happy in the day of Christ, and I’ll look back on my life and I’ll say it wasn’t in vain, it wasn’t in vain.” So, he says, do it for my sake. And his pastoral heart is showing here. He says, “Be pure, be godly, without complaint, for the sake of the one who has given his life in service to you, for the sake of the one who has been called by God, for the sake of the one who has been commissioned by God, for the sake of the one who has extended himself that he might minister to you. Please do this for my sake, and not for my temporal sake but for my eternal sake,” he says. Not to make me like my ministry better. No, but to give me a greater joy in eternity. Why? I believe it’s very simple. This isn’t proud, this isn’t self-serving. Paul’s saying this, look, “I love God. I love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. I live in this life to serve God. And I look forward to heaven for one great reason: I want to glorify God. And the more effective my service has been in this world, the greater my capacity to glorify Him will be in the world to come. So, don’t limit my capacity to glorify Him in the world to come by rendering my labors here in vain because you have not followed through.”
And so, here’s his third and compelling motivation: do it for your sake that you might be a proper child of God. Do it for the lost’s sake that you might shine as a light in the world holding forth the Word of life. And do it for my sake that out of love for me and esteem for me and desire to see me fully able to glorify God in eternity, do it. Marvelous point, isn’t it? He had given his life for them. He was the human instrument of their salvation. It’s recorded in Acts 16 how the Philippian church was born. Now, he’s in prison. He doesn’t know how long he has. For all he knows at this point he may lose his life. It turned out he didn’t lose it until later in a second imprisonment. But at the time he faced that prospect. He looks forward to meeting the Lord and he says, “When I meet the Lord,” verse 16, “in the day of Christ,” and that, by the way, is different than the day of the Lord. It’s a different emphasis. Day of the Lord emphasizes judgment; day of Christ emphasizes rewards. Day of the Lord focuses on the unbeliever; day of Christ focuses on the believer. So, he says, … “As I look forward to the day when I see Christ and I receive my reward,” he says, I will have cause to glory,” or better, “cause to rejoice, cause to rejoice.” And why will I rejoice? “Because I will know that I didn’t run in vain,” and that’s a word that’s used to speak of runners in a stadium, making a maximum effort to win a great event, “and I didn’t toil in vain,” that’s kopia, work to the point of sweat and exhaustion. In other words, I want to get to the end, I want to see Christ and know that none of the tremendous effort that I made was for nothing …
It’s not egotistical. It’s that you so cherish the responsibility of ministry that you want God to know you have rendered the very best effort possible. Paul, if he’s going to boast, Romans 15 says, in Christ Jesus, I have found reason for boasting, but I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me. He knows. Whatever we rejoice in Christ has done, whatever good happens in your life Christ has done. But be faithful for the sake of those who have poured their life into you. Be faithful for the sake of those who planted the seed and those who watered the seed.
Paul, considering his ongoing imprisonment, says that even if he becomes a drink offering on the sacrificial offering of the Philippians’ faith, he is happy and rejoices with all of them (verse 17).
MacArthur explains what a drink offering was in the ancient world when an animal sacrifice was made:
Paul is talking about an altar and he’s talking about an animal and he’s talking about blood and he’s talking about suffering and he’s talking about pouring out a libation, or otherwise called a drink offering. That’s the imagery that’s in his mind. And as he looks at his life and realizes that he is to humbly and without complaint work out his salvation, he recognizes that in doing that he will have to offer himself as a sacrifice which he gladly does. And he says this is what you are, of course, to follow, this is the pattern …
Well, in the ancient world of sacrifice…by the way, both the Jewish and the pagan world had these kinds of drink offerings…this is what typically would happen. After the animal on the altar had been killed and was being burned up, there was a final sort of capper, a final topping off of that sacrifice where the offerer came and took wine, sometimes they used water, occasionally we even have illustration of them using honey, but predominantly wine, and pouring wine either on the ground in front of the altar or on top of the burning sacrifice in which case it would vaporize immediately into steam and go into the air, symbolizing the rising of that sacrifice into the nostrils of the deity for whom it was being offered.
So Paul says I am now offering my life as this final topping off libation or drink offering upon another sacrifice. This is the completion of this full sacrifice. By the way, if you want some Scriptures to look up on that, 2 Kings 16:13 describes the Jewish drink offering. Jeremiah 7:18 talks about the pagan drink offerings. And Hosea 9:4 notes that the drink offering was wine. And those are just selected out of a number of Scriptures.
The process went like this. The offerer came and before the altar the animal was killed, put on the altar, burned. At some point during the burning the drink offering was poured out as the final sacrificial act. And that is exactly what Paul has in mind. He sees this whole sacrificial scene…now note this…but what he sees his sacrifice as is the drink offering, the final touch to another sacrifice.
MacArthur says Paul was speaking of his circumstances at the time he wrote to the Philippians, not the prospect of death:
“Even if” is a first-class conditional in the Greek which means that it indicates something that is so. So it should be translated “since.” But since I am being poured out. “I am being poured out” is in the present tense, so whatever it is he’s referring to it is going on right now. Some people have tried to make this verse refer to his martyrdom, to his future death in the event that he would be executed while imprisoned here, or whenever his martyrdom came that he had that in mind. No, this is not a future, this is a present tense. There is no reason to push this into a future interpretation, he is talking about something that is going on right now. So he is saying even if, and it is the case, I am presently being poured out as a drink offering. Note this, he saw then not his death as a sacrifice, but his life as a sacrifice in which his death was only the culmination. His whole life was a drink offering. His whole life had been poured out. It is happening right now. I am being spendomi, I am being poured out presently. It cannot mean his death, it can end with his death but he is talking about his sacrificial life. Here he is because of the cause of Christ a prisoner, chained to a Roman soldier twenty-four hours a day, he is bound, he cannot carry on his ministry the way he had been free to carry it on prior to this time. And in the difficulty of being chained to a Roman soldier, no privacy and under whatever kind of abuse that might have involved, he sees himself as pouring out his life as an offering to be pleasing to God.
Now note this. This kind of sacrifice is a willing one and Paul was making it with a willing heart. By the way, those who think that Paul’s referring to his death are assuming that he was anticipating that he might die. But I don’t sense that he really felt he was going to die, it was a remote possibility.
MacArthur explains ‘the sacrificial offering’ of the Philippians faith. In short, they were suffering persecution:
Now did you notice there is a greater sacrifice than the drink offering? The drink offering is Paul’s sacrifice, the greater sacrifice he indicates is that of the Philippian church. Did you see that? This is a very powerful point. I’m poured out as a drink offering on top of or upon the real sacrifice which is your sacrifice. You are making the great sacrifice, I am just the topping off of it …
Well, in the first place, we know that the Philippians were suffering greatly for their faith. Go back to chapter 1 verse … 28, he says, “I don’t want you to be in any way alarmed by your opponents.” Don’t be alarmed by your opponents. Then go down into verse 29, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake.” So they have opponents, they are suffering for the sake of Christ. Then verse 30 says, “You’re even experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me.” You’re going through what I’m going through. They were in a hostile environment. They were in an ungodly environment. They were in a pagan culture. And it was bringing on them that persecution which is indicated there in those verses. So Paul says yours is the great sacrifice. You are the one suffering as you proclaim Christ in Philippi. Mine is just the pouring out a libation on top of your great sacrifice …
Some translations add ‘service’ so that the verse reads ‘the sacrifice and service of your faith’:
Now notice that phrase “upon the sacrifice and service of your faith.” The sacrifice they were making was really the giving of their lives the cause of Christ…preaching, teaching, proclaiming, living for Christ. And he calls it “the service of your faith…the service of your faith.” The word “service” is leitourgia from which we get liturgy. Why? Because it means sacred service, religious service, priestly service.
Paul tells the Philippians to be glad in the midst of their suffering and to rejoice, just as he is rejoicing (verse 18):
So Paul looks at them and he sees them as priests. Just like Peter says, holy priests, royal priests, 1 Peter 2. And he sees the Philippians as priests who are offering up their lives as a sacrifice, and his by comparison is just a little topping off compared to theirs. They were a faithful people. They were a sacrificial people. He rejoiced over them. He just rejoiced over them because of their faithfulness to the Lord …
Well, you’re going through suffering and you’re going through persecution and you’re going through opposition, you rejoice too and I’ll rejoice and we’ll rejoice together that you have put your lives on the altar, that I have poured my life on the altar that it is all well pleasing to God and in that is our great joy.
MacArthur poses difficult questions for us in the context of these verses:
You look at trials and difficulties, hard places, physical discomfort, pain and even death as dark and forbidding. But when you get to the point where you totally abandon yourself to the will of God to be pleasing in His sight, nothing is dark, nothing is forbidding, light is shed on everything and ultimate sacrifice leads to ultimate joy. And the reason we know so little about that kind of joy is because we know so little about that kind of sacrifice.
For us, you see, the only thing that brings joy is what we do for ourselves, and once in a while the joy of seeing something done for someone else. But I wonder how many Christians really aren’t consumed with the joy that is theirs because of the total sacrifice they have made for Christ. We get joy out of what we do for ourselves, we get some joy out of what we do for others as a satisfaction in feeding the hungry, helping the poor, whatever it might be, helping little children, sick people. But how many of us are exhilarated with joy in the sacrifices we make for the cause of Christ? Let me ask the question, what are you sacrificing in service to Christ? What amount of treasure, what amount of time, what are you sacrificing for the cause of Christ? I’ll put it another way. What have you said no to in order to say yes to God’s will? What have you said no to in order to say yes to God’s Kingdom? What have you said no to in order to say yes to God’s church? That’s the question. Paul lived a life of sacrificial joy. And I’m telling you, and I’ll say it probably till I die some day, the reason we have such a discontent, unhappy society is because, and even among Christians, they are trying to find joy in possessions rather than in sacrifice where ultimate joy lies. And so they are chasing an illusion.
You say, “Well I don’t mind my life, it’s not that bad.” Well that may be true, God is gracious and you may have a modicum of happiness. But you will never know true joy, surpassing joy, sacrificial joy, the joy that allows a man being burned at the stake to sing with expressions of joy in his lips, the hymns of his great God and Savior, you may never know that exhilarating joy, the joy that comes out of sacrificial giving, sacrificial effort, the greatest joy.
… Jesus is the perfect illustration of ultimate sacrifice and ultimate joy. Jesus in giving His life, enduring the cross, did so for the ultimate joy of offering to God the ultimate sacrifice that was well-pleasing to Him. Paul learned it from Jesus. And he longed…he longed to learn Christ in his own life.
MacArthur contrasts our spiritual condition today with that of St Paul:
Let me make the point that needs to be made. The reason that we are reluctant to set ourselves up as the spiritual model is because we know so much about ourselves as to know the model is not what it ought to be. But listen carefully. When a person is truly spiritual and truly godly and truly deep and truly walks in intimacy with God, there is the utter lack of self-consciousness that is present in the hypocrite. And so Paul can rather readily, in fact almost easily use himself as an illustration because it is the reflection of the purest intent and the purest motive, and so it is done with no self-consciousness. It is the expression of a genuinely humble man, of a genuinely spiritual man, of a genuinely godly man and thus it is not a problem for him, as he said in 1 Corinthians, to literally say to us, “Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ.” If you find it difficult for you to say that about yourself, and to establish yourself as the standard for others to follow, it is because there is a self-consciousness there about that. That self-consciousness is born out of a sense of inadequacy because you are not before God what you ought to be. Paul, on the other hand, knows none of that self-consciousness and freely does he express the fact that he is the standard and the model and freely does the Spirit of God encourage him to do that knowing full well what is in his heart. So this is not a wrong thing to do, it is a right thing to do. It is just that there are very few who can be self-conscious and humble and so deeply godly that they can do it as Paul does it so easily. So he is the first illustration, rightly so, and it is godly for him to say so because it is the truest reflection of his pure heart.
In closing, here is another F B Meyer quote, which really brings home the sacrificial spiritual passion we see in Scripture:
It is certain that before any service that we do for God or man is likely to be of lasting or permanent benefit, it must be saturated with our heart’s blood. That which costs us nothing will not benefit others. If there is no expenditure of tears and prayer, if that love of which the Apostle speaks in another place which costs is lacking, we may speak with the tongues of men and of angels, may know all mysteries and all knowledge, may bestow all our goods to feed the poor but it will profit nothing. Let us rather seek to be poured forth as an offering, then to do much without feeling the least travail of soul. As the fertility of Egypt in any year is in direct proportion to the height that the waters of the Nile measure, so the amount of our real fruitfulness in the world is gauged by the expenditure of our spiritual force. It was because Moses was prepared to be blotted from the book of God for his people that he carried them for forty years through the desert and deposited them on the very borders of the promised land. It was because Jesus wept over Jerusalem that He was able to send a Pentecost on that guilty city. It was because Paul was prepared to be accursed for his brethren according to the flesh that he was able to turn so many from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God … No heart pangs, no spiritual seed.
Never mind the length of this post, the question is whether the content is difficult to comprehend and digest. I will be considering it for some time to come.
Next week, the tone changes as Paul discusses Timothy’s faithful ministry.
Next time — Philippians 2:19-24
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