The Sixth Sunday of Easter is on May 22, 2022.
Readings for Year C can be found here.
There are two choices for the Gospel. I have chosen the first, which concerns the first Pentecost.
It is as follows (emphases mine):
John 14:23-29
14:23 Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
14:24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.
14:25 “I have said these things to you while I am still with you.
14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
14:28 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.
14:29 And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This is part of our Lord’s final teaching to the Apostles following the Last Supper. His discourse began after Judas left. This can be found in the reading for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year C).
Only John’s Gospel has this discourse, which runs from John 13 to John 16, with closing prayers in John 17. These are, in my opinion, the most beautiful chapters of the New Testament. Every time I read them, something new stands out to me.
Let us look at the preceding verses in which Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to His disciples:
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[c] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
That Judas was Jude Thaddeus, the author of the one-page letter, the Book of Jude.
He voiced the confusion that the Twelve had. They still expected Jesus to set up an earthly kingdom whereby Israel would triumph over the Romans.
Undeterred, Jesus replied that those who love Him will obey Him; as such, He and His Father will love them and make their home with them (verse 23).
What a generous promise that is.
Matthew Henry’s commentary says:
First, My Father will love him; this he had said before (John 14:21; John 14:21), and here repeats it for the confirming of our faith; because it is hard to imagine that the great God should make those the objects of his love that had made themselves vessels of his wrath. Jude wondered that Christ should manifest himself to them; but this answers it, “If my Father love you, why should not I be free with you?” Secondly, We will come unto him, and make our abode with him. This explains the meaning of Christ’s manifesting himself to him, and magnifies the favour. 1. Not only, I will, but, We will, I and the Father, who, in this, are one. See John 14:9; John 14:9. The light and love of God are communicated to man in the light and love of the Redeemer, so that wherever Christ is formed the image of God is stamped. 2. Not only, “I will show myself to him at a distance,” but, “We will come to him, to be near him, to be with him,” such are the powerful influences of divine graces and comforts upon the souls of those that love Christ in sincerity. 3. Not only, “I will give him a transient view of me, or make him a short and running visit,” but, We will take up our abode with him which denotes complacency in him and constancy to him. God will not only love obedient believers, but he will take a pleasure in loving them, will rest in love to them, Zephaniah 3:17. He will be with them as at his home.
John MacArthur points out that Jesus spoke of the Holy Trinity, in whom we must believe:
Becoming a Christian is being in living union with the triune God at its core. That’s what it is. It is eternal life.
Jesus went on to say that those who do not love Him do not obey Him; those words come not from Him but the Father (verse 24).
Henry says:
First, the stress of duty is laid upon the precept of Christ as our rule, and justly, for that word of Christ which we are to keep is the Father’s word, and his will the Father’s will. Secondly, The stress of our comfort is laid upon the promise of Christ. But forasmuch as, in dependence upon that promise, we must deny ourselves, and take up our cross, and quit all, it concerns us to enquire whether the security be sufficient for us to venture our all upon; and this satisfies us that it is, that the promise is not Christ’s bare word, but the Father’s which sent him, which therefore we may rely upon.
Jesus said these things while He was with the Twelve (verse 25), to dispel any misunderstandings and to make sure they knew what to expect of this divine promise.
Henry tells us:
That what he had said he did not retract nor unsay, but ratify it, or stand to it. What he had spoken he had spoken, and would abide by it.
Jesus told the Apostles that the Father would send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to them to teach them everything and to remind them of our Lord’s words (verse 26).
MacArthur explains the essential nature of and belief in the Holy Trinity:
What does it mean to have eternal life? It means to have the eternal life in you, the eternal life in you, and the eternal life is none other than God Himself, which then leads us to the third member of the Trinity, and we’ll drop down to verse 24: “Jesus said, ‘If anyone loves Me, He will keep My word.’”
There it is again. Again, the qualifier: This is only a promise to those who are lovers of the Lord and demonstrate it by patterns of obedience …
... It is correct to say that you are the temple of the living God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You need to acknowledge that, and you need to acknowledge each person of the Trinity.
Sometimes we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” because that’s the way the Lord taught us to pray. But on the other side of the cross, we could easily say, “Blessed Father, who dwelled in me. Blessed Spirit.” You can communicate with each member of the Trinity – talk to the Son, talk to the Father, talk to the Spirit. Communicate with the triune God.
This is why a regenerated Christian shuns sin. MacArthur cites verses from 1 Corinthians 6 to prove the point:
You want to be characterized by renewal. You want to live as one who – ” verse 10 “ – is in the image of the One who created him. You want to live like One recreated by the Creator, chosen by God, holy and beloved – ” verse 12 “ – so you should be characterized by compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance forgiveness, and of course, love, the perfect bond of unity.”
Really, it’s who we are that determines how we act, isn’t it? Who you are is you are the temple of the living God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Do you adorn that reality? Do you let your light so shine before men that they may glorify your Father in heaven? Do you bring honor to Christ, honor to the Spirit, honor to the Father? The Trinity is in complete intimate life-giving union with every true Christian. That powerful reality should be a purifying reality.
Of the gift of the Holy Spirit, MacArthur explains how it benefited the Apostles:
Even the things Jesus said, they didn’t understand. “But when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him.” What jogged their memories? What gave them understanding? The coming of the Holy Spirit. It was the Spirit’s coming that enlightened them. That’s why our Lord said in chapter 16 verse 7: it’s better that I go and the Helper come. And He says in verse 12 of 16, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” You – there’s got to be more than I’ve been able to do for you; it’s going to be better for you when the Spirit comes, because He will teach you all things.
You see it in verse 26. “He will teach you all things.” There are things I’ve taught you you don’t understand. Some of them, you’ll begin to understand after the resurrection. Some of them, you’ll begin to understand after I rise and explain things to you. Some of them, you will begin to grasp as the days go on and we talk about the kingdom, and the 40 days before the ascension. But when it comes to knowing all things that I have desired to reveal to you, that necessitates the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Now, you may not be thinking about this the way you should be thinking about it. Because He’s not so much talking about what the Holy Spirit’s going to do in you, as what the Holy Spirit’s going to allow the disciples to do for you. What do you mean by that? I mean, this is primarily a promise that the Holy Spirit will enable the apostles and their associates to write the New Testament. Okay? To write the New Testament. And then, the Lord will give us all the things that He couldn’t say, because the disciples weren’t able to handle it. That’s what this promise is all about. That’s what it’s all about.
Jesus says that He will give the Apostles peace, His peace, which is not the same peace that the world gives; therefore, their hearts should not trouble them or be afraid (verse 27).
We have heard so much about peace since the late 1960s that the word has lost its meaning. There are times when I cannot bear hearing about ‘peace’ because it is so empty in its temporal meaning.
However, here, we understand that Christ’s peace is not mankind’s peace.
MacArthur explains:
… this is a supernatural peace. It belongs only to those who are Christ’s. There are four features of this peace that I want you to see in this one verse ...
First of all, the nature of this peace, the nature of peace. When we’re talking about peace, what are we talking about exactly, specifically? Well let me say very simply, there are two aspects to this: one is objective and one is subjective. What do I mean by that?
An objective peace is that peace which is outside of you. It is not inside of you; it is not experienced by you; it is outside of you. It is a transactional peace. And then that’s the objective peace. The subjective peace is that peace that is inside of you and it is experiential, and the second is based on the first.
So when we talk about peace, let’s look at verse 27 and see how our Lord gives us the nature of this peace inherent in this statement: “Peace I leave with you.” This is a deposit; this is a gift. This is not a command, this is a gift. He is not asking them to find this peace, He is saying, “I’m leaving this peace with you. I’m depositing this peace. You will possess this peace.” It is a reality; it is a gift; it is a transaction. Our Lord grants them this peace and to all who will follow them in loving and serving Him.
What are we talking about? What is this peace? Maybe the best way to start explaining it is to have you turn to Romans 5; Romans, chapter 5. And here it jumps out of the page at you right away; chapter 5, verse 1. Based on the work of Christ in the end of chapter 4, Him being delivered over because of our transgressions and raised for our justification, based on His work on the cross, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” okay.
So now we’re talking about peace with God. Preposition is very important: peace with God. We are at peace with God, that is why Paul in Ephesians 6:15 calls the gospel, “The gospel of peace,” because the gospel brings peace between the sinner and God. That’s what justification does. When God declares you just, when He imputes the righteousness of Christ to you, you are declared righteous. You are justified by faith in Christ and by the work that He did on the cross.
On the cross, He paid the penalty for your sin, and that frees God to forgive you and impute the righteousness of Christ to you. That is a declaration; that is a divine decree; that is not an experience. That is not inside of you, it is a transaction that takes place outside of you by a sovereign God.
You are justified by God; that means declared righteous based upon your faith in Jesus Christ; and His righteousness then imputed to you, you stand just before God. Therefore, we have peace with God. Every Christian has peace with God, every Christian …
Put it another way: forever God is on our side. Forever He will never leave us or forsake us. Forever we will be in the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Forever we will possess the very life of God, forever. That is an external, eternal reality, never to change. That’s objective peace with God.
But that objective peace also provides for us a subjective peace, an internal peace, an experiential peace; a sense of goodness, trust, contentment, tranquility, confidence, well-being …
Now this is not a kind of passive peace; it is not just being willing to endure; it is a lot more than that. It is not some kind of benign reality. It is a triumphant peace. It is an aggressive peace. It is a peace that moves out. It is a conquering peace.
It is a peace that not only protects you from anxiety, and fear, and doubt, and despair; but it is a peace that triumphs over everything with courage, confidence, contentment. It’s a triumphant peace, and you should be experiencing all of it. So that’s the kind of peace our Lord is saying: “I leave you this peace.” First of all, objectively, peace with God; and then subjectively, the peace of God, which is what it’s called Philippians 4 as we will see. So that’s the kind of peace.
All right, just another feature: the source of peace. Back to verse 27: “My peace I give to you, My peace. Peace I leave you, but it’s My peace.” That is to say it’s divine, it’s supernatural. It comes from heaven; it belongs to Christ; it belongs to God … many places in the Bible you will find this statement: “The God of peace, the God of peace.”
… Again, this is the essence of the Trinity that dwells in the believer; with the eternal life of the presence of the triune God comes divine peace. It was the same peace: “My peace,” He said, that kept Him calm on that Thursday night knowing what was about to happen; knowing that His disciples would scatter, Peter would deny Him; knowing that He would go to the cross, bear sin. It was the same calm really that he exhibited through His whole life when He was treated with mockery, scorn, hostility, hatred, betrayal, all undeserved.
Where did that peace come from? Well, essentially, it came from perfect trust in the Father, perfect trust in the Father. So just mark it down in your mind: peace is connected to trust. It’s connected to trust. His trust in the Father was so clear and so consummate and so complete that Hebrews 12:2 says, “He went to the cross for the joy that was set before Him,” even though in the going, in the garden, He was sweating blood in the agony.
Henry makes an excellent observation on Christ’s peace versus the world’s peace:
As is the difference between a killing lethargy and a reviving refreshing sleep, such is the difference between Christ’s peace and the world’s.
Jesus told the Apostles that He would be going away and He would come again to them; if they loved Him, they would be rejoicing that He would be going to the Father, because the Father is greater (verse 28).
MacArthur explains that this is because Jesus is all human yet all divine. It is because of His human nature that He spoke those words:
Look at Philippians, chapter 2. Philippians 2 is the explanation of this. It says He existed in the morph of God. He existed as God, but He didn’t regard equality with God, something to be held onto, grasped. He was willing to give up that face-to-face, full, glorious equality with God, and He emptied Himself, He divested Himself of that and took the form of a slave and was made in the likeness of men.
Again, as to His Godhood, He’s equal to God. As to His manhood, He’s inferior, He submits. He’s found in appearance as a man, humbles Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. But for this reason then, God highly exalted him, bestowed on Him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those in heaven and earth, and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.
The name is Lord. God gives Him the name Lord, takes Him back into heaven to sit on His throne from which He had come. They should have rejoiced because Jesus’ humiliation was over. He had come all the way down to the depths of humiliation, born in a stable, no place to rest His head during His ministry, suffering hatred, abuse, jeers, crucifixion at the hands of evil men, rejected by His own people, bitter cup was almost ended. They should have rejoiced.
They should have rejoiced that He was going to the Father from whom He had come. The garb of lowliness is about to fall from His shoulders, and to love Him would be to rejoice for Him. So first of all, they should rejoice because His person will be dignified. Secondly, His truth will be documented. What’s going to happen is going to validate what He has been saying. This is very powerful.
Henry has a practical application for us:
Many that love Christ, let their love run out in a wrong channel; they think if they love him they must be continually in pain because of him; whereas those that love him should dwell at ease in him, should rejoice in Christ Jesus.
Jesus said that He told them these things before they happened so that when they did take place the Apostles would believe (verse 29).
Henry explains that verse:
Christ told his disciples of his death, though he knew it would both puzzle them and grieve them, because it would afterwards redound to the confirmation of their faith in two things:– 1. That he who foretold these things had a divine prescience, and knew beforehand what day would bring forth. When St. Paul was going to Jerusalem, he knew not the things that did abide him there, but Christ did. 2. That the things foretold were according to the divine purpose and designation, not sudden resolves, but the counterparts of an eternal counsel. Let them therefore not be troubled at that which would be for the confirmation of their faith, and so would redound to their real benefit; for the trial of our faith is very precious, though it cost us present heaviness, through manifold temptations, 1 Peter 1:6.
These are the final verses of John 14, after which they leave the room where the Last Supper took place. Note that Jesus says that Satan has no power over Him, even in death:
30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
“Come now; let us leave.
MacArthur says that Jesus had to tell the Apostles what would happen to Him even if they did not understand why. If He hadn’t said anything about His death and resurrection, they would have scattered, never to gather together again:
Look, could you imagine if He had never told them He was going to die, never told them all the details, and it came to pass; they would have been scattered, never to be recovered. They would have been useless. But all of a sudden, as these things began to unfold – the death, the resurrection – they began to remember that He had said these things specifically, and they were regathered and reconstituted, even before the Holy Spirit came in Acts 2.
They’re all together in the temple. They’re meeting together in the temple. They’re meeting with the Lord. They’re learning about the kingdom in the 40 days of His time on earth before His ascension, and they’re taking it all in. They’re listening to Him. And I’m sure during those times, He was affirming all that He had said that had been historically validated with more to come.
What was to come? The coming of the Holy Spirit which He promised. What was to come? Persecution which He promised. That would all come. And every time something happened, it validated Him as the Messiah, the Son of God. And that’s what empowered them to give their lives to preach the gospel. That’s why they turned the world upside-down because they knew who He was. If He hadn’t told them any of these things before they happened, they would have wondered how this all happened and who really was He.
He said He would die; He did. He said He would be lifted up in death; he was. He said He would rise; He did. He said He would ascend to the Father; He did. He said He would send the Holy Spirit; He did. He said He would give supernatural life; He did. Everything He said He would do He did. He said they would be persecuted; they were. Every prophecy, every promise, every pledge, fulfilled in exact precision, documenting His word.
Christ knows that the message has to go forth, the message of the gospel has to be preached. There has to be a book of Acts to record and chronicle what happened. They have to go to preach the gospel and they’re not going to do that unless they believe it, unless they really hold to it with solid conviction. They have to have confidence, and that can happen only if they believe His word.
In closing, Ascension Day is Thursday, May 26. May 28 is the final Sunday in Eastertide for 2022. Pentecost Sunday is June 5 this year.
Our Creator broke the mould when he made Lee Anderson.
Of all the Red Wall MPs, he is the most candid and colourful.
Lee Anderson represents his home constituency of Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, which, since its inception in 1955, has always had a Labour MP, except for a brief period between 1977 and 1979, when it had a Conservative MP because of a by-election.
Lee Anderson was Labour born and bred. He was a card-carrying Party member. He served as a local councillor for Ashfield’s Huthwaite and Brierley ward from 2015 until 2018. He also actively campaigned for his parliamentary predecessor, Gloria De Piero, in 2015 and 2017.
De Piero decided not to run for re-election in 2019, having been Ashfield’s MP for nine years at that point. Prior to entering politics, she was a presenter on ITV’s breakfast show GMTV (as was) and is now a presenter on GB News at lunchtime.
Another famous Labour MP representing Ashfield was Geoff Hoon, who served between 1992 and 2010. He is a former Defence Secretary, Transport Secretary, Leader of the House of Commons and Government Chief Whip.
Returning to Lee Anderson, he was a strong supporter of Brexit and backed the Vote Leave campaign preceding the June 2016 referendum.
In 2018, he left Labour for the Conservative Party. In May 2019, he was elected as Conservative councillor for the Oakham ward in nearby Mansfield. It was a position he held until early 2021, when he resigned.
In December 2019’s general election, he won Ashfield with a majority of 5,733 votes. An Independent candidate placed second, with Labour a distant third.
Maiden speech
Anderson gave his maiden speech on Monday, January 27, 2020 during an NHS funding debate.
Emphases in purple mine below.
As is customary, he paid tribute to his predecessor and pointed out that Nottinghamshire had voted Conservative:
I am bursting with pride as I stand here as the newly elected Member of Parliament for Ashfield, but I want to pay tribute to my predecessor, Gloria De Piero, who was the MP for Ashfield for nine years. I am sure everybody in the Chamber will agree that she was well respected on both sides of the House. I also want to pay respect to my seven colleagues in Nottinghamshire, who were all elected on the same day as me last month. They did a fantastic job …
Also customary is to praise one’s constituency and throw in a few quips. Note that Anderson worked as a miner for some time, partly because of Labour’s abysmal education policies:
Ashfield was once voted the best place in the world to live—by me and my mates one Sunday afternoon in the local Wetherspoons. It really is the best place. Ashfield is a typical mining constituency. To the south of the constituency we have Eastwood, birthplace of D.H. Lawrence, to the north we have Nuncargate, birthplace of our most famous cricketer, Harold Larwood, and further north we have Teversal, which is where D.H. Lawrence wrote probably his most famous novel, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”—a book I have read several times. We have many other great towns and villages in Ashfield, such as Sutton, Kirkby, Annesley, Selston, Jacksdale, Westwood, Bagthorpe and Stanton Hill, but the place that is closest to my heart in Ashfield is the place where I grew up, a mining village called Huthwaite.
Like with many villages, when I was growing up in the 1970s most of the men in Huthwaite worked down the pits. I went to a school called John Davies Primary School, and I was always told at school in the ’70s, as many of us were, “Work hard, lad, do well, take the 11-plus, go to grammar school and you’ll not have to go down the pit like your dad and your granddad and your uncles.” Unfortunately, a couple of years before we were due to take our 11-plus, the Labour Government at the time withdrew it from our curriculum, so I was unable to go to grammar school, and none of our school went as a consequence of that. Just a few years later I was down the pit with my dad—working at the pit where my granddad and my uncles had worked. I did that for many years and I am sure my dad, who is watching this right now—a decent, hard-working, working-class bloke—did not want me down the pit. He wanted better for me, but that was taken away. I cannot help but think that, had children in my day had the chance to go to grammar school, they would have had more opportunities and probably a better life. Because I am telling you now, when I worked down those pits in Nottinghamshire, I worked with doctors, with brain surgeons, with airline pilots, with astronauts—with all these brilliant people who never a chance. The Prime Minister is quite right when he says that talent is spread evenly across this country but opportunity is not, and my constituency is living proof of that.
People of Ashfield are a straight-talking bunch—a bit dry, a wicked sense of humour, a bit sarcastic sometimes—but that is borne out of our tough industrial past. You have to remember that we were the people who dug the coal to fuel the nation. We were the people who sent our young people—our young men and women—to war to die for this country. We were the people who made the clothes that clothed the nation. And we were the people who brewed the beer that got us all persistently drunk every single weekend.
In 1993, under a Conservative Government, we reopened the Robin Hood line in Ashfield, and all through the county of Nottinghamshire, which created endless opportunities for passengers to travel for work, for play and for jobs. Standing here as a Conservative MP in 2020, I am proud to say that this Government are once again looking at extending our Robin Hood line to cover the rest of the county. They are also looking at reopening the Maid Marian line, which will again carry passengers to the most isolated and rural areas of our country. It is all well and good having good education and good training, but transport means just as much to the people in my community.
My friends, family and constituents have asked me every single day what it is like to be down here in Westminster. I say, “It’s brilliant—amazing. We’ve got great staff—the doorkeepers.” Every single person who works here has been absolutely brilliant to me. It is an amazing place. I have met all these famous people—I have met MPs, Lords and Ministers—but the best moment for me was last Wednesday night, when I got invited to Downing Street, to No. 10, for the first time ever in my life. I walked through that door and there he was, the man himself—Larry the Cat. [Laughter.] Told you we were funny.
I was born at the brilliant King’s Mill Hospital in Ashfield. King’s Mill was built by the American army during world war two to look after its injured service personnel. After the war, the American Government gave King’s Mill Hospital—the buildings and equipment—to the people of Ashfield as a thank-you gift. What a wonderful gift that is from our American cousins—absolutely stunning. I cannot praise the current staff and management at King’s Mill highly enough. They have really turned things around. Just 20-odd years after the American Government gave King’s Mill Hospital to the people of Ashford, I was born there, and later my children were born there.
It is not just our hospital in Ashfield that means a lot to me; it is the fact that it has saved my wife’s life for many, many years now. My wife was born with a condition called cystic fibrosis. She was not diagnosed until she was 18, and for anybody, to be told that they have cystic fibrosis is like getting an early death sentence. But undeterred, my wife—my beautiful wife—went to work for a year. She then went to university, she studied, she became a teacher and she taught for 10 years, until she got to her early 30s, when she could not really carry on any more and gave up work. All that time, our brilliant NHS staff looked after her and kept her alive—I cannot thank them enough—but things got really bad in her mid-30s and she had to go on the list for a double lung transplant. She was on that list for two years, and we had five false alarms before we finally got the call on 19 December 2016. The operation was 14 hours and she spent three days in critical care. I thank my lucky stars for our brilliant NHS. They looked after her, they have kept her alive, and last year she was elected as a Conservative councillor in our home town.
I am incredibly proud, and when people say that this party is a party of privilege, I say to them, “I’m privileged to be in this party.”
Cost of living crisis
Two years later, Anderson was still firmly in the Conservative camp. In the January 11, 2022 debate on Household Energy Bills, he skewered Labour:
Now then, if Labour Members really wanted to help the poorest people in society, they would not come to this House with a motion to cut somebody’s bill by £61 a year. There were Labour MPs drinking in the Terrace bar last night who spent more than that on a round of drinks.
Do I want VAT removed from our energy bills? Of course I do. Everybody does. That is why last week I signed a letter to the Chancellor, asking him to cut the VAT on bills. I also want the removal of levies on domestic energy, which are nearly a quarter of an electricity bill. That sort of saving is a real saving, which would make a real difference to the people in Ashfield and Eastwood, but of course there is not much of an appetite for that in this place as we strive to be net zero in record time.
No one disagrees with what we are trying to do to save the planet, but a lot of us are sat here on over 80 grand a year—and some people have second jobs—and we are telling poor people that they must pay more to heat their homes. Frankly, when it comes to heating homes, people do not care where their gas or electricity comes from, in the same way as they do not care where their petrol or diesel comes from when they go to fill up their cars. All people want is to be able to afford their bills—that is all.
Labour Members are trying to play politics with people’s lives so that they can get a cheap social media clip saying, “The nasty Tories are voting against a cut in VAT.” They rely on the great British public not knowing how the process works in this place. It is a pitiful way of conducting themselves.
Let us be honest, this is not a vote to help poorer people pay their bills. It is a vote to take over the Order Paper so the Opposition can return us to the disastrous days of a few years ago that almost cancelled Brexit. There is no doubt that people are struggling and the cost of living is increasing with the increase in fuel prices, but who is to blame for that increase? We cannot just blame the pandemic, as we are all to blame. Successive Governments have never taken this seriously. We closed all our pits and we do not produce gas like we used to. Both Conservative and Labour Governments, let us be honest, have ignored this for years.
I see Labour Members shaking their heads, but they are not really interested in helping people in places like Ashfield, which has been ignored for decades. Ashfield has had no investment at all, but so far under this Government we have had £70 million, two new schools coming and hopefully a new railway line. We have millions of pounds coming to Ashfield, and what is Labour’s answer to levelling up Ashfield? A saving of £1 a week on energy bills. That is absolutely disgraceful, and Labour Members should hang their head in shame.
Labour and the SNP
Few MPs are as outspoken about Labour and Scotland’s SNP as Lee Anderson.
On Tuesday, November 30, 2021 — St Andrew’s Day — the Opposition Day debate was all about Boris. The Downing Street parties had just come to light: ‘Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip’.
As expected, Labour and the other opposition parties painted themselves whiter than white, including Annelise Dodds MP, who led the debate. She said, in part:
the current Prime Minister is, unfortunately, falling short, the Conservative Government are failing to get a grip, and working people are paying the price.
Anderson intervened:
The hon. Lady talks about honesty and integrity. Could she please confirm how many Labour MPs have ended up in the nick over the past 10 years?
Dodds brushed over the intervention, but Anderson was undaunted. He signalled the answer:
Here’s Guido’s video:
He also launched broadsides at the SNP, the Commons’ third largest party. For months — and well over a year now — the SNP have refused to say what has happened to £600,000 from their donors. At first it was ‘ring fenced’ (their words), then it seemed to have gone into other funds. However, what actually was done with the money remains a mystery.
Anderson said:
On this happy St Andrew’s Day I have had haggis, Irn-Bru and an SNP debate; I can recommend two out of the three any time of day.
Since arriving here in Parliament in 2019 it has always struck me that the SNP is just a one-trick pony, ignoring its own failings on health, education and the economy to put its own selfish case forward for independence. But it is losing the argument—we know that by the poll results—so SNP Members have adopted a new tactic: to besmirch the good name of our great Prime Minister. Maybe they should tell us where the missing £600,000 is and explain why senior members of their party stood down from its national executive committee earlier this year. Their own MPs are asking difficult questions yet the leadership remains silent. Maybe they should apologise to the people of Scotland for the state of their education system, which is failing thousands of Scottish children while they bang on about leaving the Union and rejoining the European Union. Maybe they should explain to the people of Scotland why, despite being in power for 13 years, they have the worst health statistics in the world. Frankly, they should be ashamed of themselves, instead of wasting parliamentary time on a pointless debate that will achieve nothing, and they should explain why after 13 years in power Scotland is going backwards.
A back-and-forth with SNP MP Marion Fellows followed. Fellows objected to Anderson’s allegation about Scotland’s health statistics.
He came back with this:
I might make a slight correction here: perhaps I should have referred to the drug deaths, which are the worst in the western world.
What we need to chat about is the Westminster leader of the SNP, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who has been very quiet about the £270,000 he has rinsed from outside earnings since he was elected to Westminster in 2015. It would take the average worker in Scotland 11 years to earn that much money yet he stands over there every single Wednesday talking about poverty when his greedy snout is firmly in the trough; and remember this is on top—
He ended up having to apologise for mentioning another MP — Ian Blackford — in debate without his permission.
However, Anderson returned to Labour who previously mentioned they wanted the British military to turn into a gentle peace-keeping force:
I am going to stop picking on the SNP, because I want to talk about the massed ranks of the Labour party. I am struggling to see them at the moment. Despite pretending to be bothered, they could not be bothered to turn up today. They seem to think that there is a war raging in France at the moment and that it is acceptable for thousands of illegal migrants to cross our channel every single day. They really need to get a grip.
Another sign that the Labour party has lost the plot is that it wants to replace our armed forces with “human security services”—a shift from the classic armed forces to a gender balanced, ethnically diverse human security services tasked with dampening down violence. Imagine that, Madam Deputy Speaker: a peace-loving British tank—
Madam Deputy Speaker put a stop to Anderson’s interventions and called on another MP.
One week later, on Wednesday, December 8, Anderson openly criticised Labour’s Ian Lavery, MP for Wansbeck, former chairman of the Labour Party and, before he entered politics, former president of the National Union of Mineworkers. This was during a debate on Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan:
Guido Fawkes had the highlights and the video (red emphases in the original):
Lee Anderson returns to once again slap down misbehaving Labour MPs in the chamber … Lavery kept his jeering off-mic, interrupting Anderson’s speech by calling him “a scab“. Anderson returned the favour by reminding Lavery he could help miners get a “fair deal” by “handing back the £165,000 he stole from them”…
This relates to a news story from 2017. On October 20 that year, the BBC reported (bold emphasis in the original):
MP Ian Lavery received £165,000 from the 10-member trade union he ran.
We have learned this from the trade union regulator which has now released a report into Mr Lavery’s actions as general secretary of the NUM Northumberland Area.
He will now face questions on his record over a number of disputed payments by the union he ran.
Mr Lavery, who is the chairman of the Labour Party, denies any wrongdoing.
Ian Lavery is a coming power in the land, Jeremy Corbyn’s general election joint co-ordinator and chairman of the Labour Party. If the Conservatives fall, he’s most likely destined for high office. But, perhaps, for one thing: his refusal to answer a simple question asked by BBC Newsnight last year: “Did you pay off the mortgage?” BBC Newsnight asked him nine times without getting a reply.
The answer, it turns out, is no. He didn’t pay off his mortgage. The union of which he was general secretary for 18 years, the NUM Northumberland Area, paid it off and paid him much more besides.
Last year, both Jeremy Corbyn and the parliamentary watchdog cleared Mr Lavery. He denies any wrongdoing.
The reason we know more about Mr Lavery’s peculiar mortgage arrangements is because the trade union regulator, the Certification Officer, Gerard Walker, examined the books after investigations by BBC Newsnight and the Sunday Times. Mr Lavery ran the NUM Northumberland Area for 18 years until he stepped down in 2010 to become the MP for Wansbeck.
The regulator’s findings are available online …
I’ll leave it to readers to get the rest of the story, which involved a lot of money over various periods in time.
Ian Lavery is still a big deal in Parliament.
This is what Lee Anderson said in the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) debate:
Let us remember that until a few years ago, the red wall seats like Ashfield had several things in common. They had above-average deprivation, failing town centres, lower life expectancy, poor transport links and lower aspirations; but the main thing that places like Ashfield, Mansfield and Bolsover had in common was Labour MPs and Labour-run councils. What a shocking track record that is. [Interruption.] Rather than chuntering, Opposition Members should be ashamed of the legacy that they have left us new Conservative Members in places like Ashfield. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) might want to concentrate on giving back the £165,000 that he stole from the miners on his own patch. He is an absolute disgrace.
What does this world-class plan mean for the people of Nottinghamshire? It means a high-speed line from the west midlands to the east midlands, providing direct high-speed rail services to Nottingham, Derby, Chesterfield, and Sheffield. Journey times from London to Nottingham will be cut by a third to just 57 minutes. Journey times from Sheffield to London will be cut by a quarter, to just 1 hour 27 minutes. Journey times from Nottingham to Birmingham will be cut by two thirds, to just 26 minutes. Even Labour in the north is backing the plan. According to the leader of Rotherham council, “It is a victory for common sense”.
It is a pity that that lot have no common sense.
This is all good news. The Mayor of Doncaster welcomes the plan, and even the next Labour leader, the Mayor of Manchester, welcomes it. It would appear that the members of the parliamentary Labour party are out of touch with their friends in the midlands and the north, who back the IRP. It is a good job that Conservative MPs are sitting here today speaking out for the Labour voters of yesterday.
As the furore about the Downing Street parties raged, and despite Boris’s apology to MPs in the chamber in mid-January, then-Conservative MP Christian Wakeford, who represents Bury, crossed the aisle just before Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, January 19, 2022 to sit with Labour MPs.
Anderson was disgusted. His former boss, Gloria De Piero, interviewed him for GB News:
I have much more to write about Lee Anderson, one of the most refreshing Conservative MPs we’ve had in ages.
To be continued …
On May 15, 2022, the Gospel reading for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year C) was from John 13, wherein Jesus gave the Apostles a new commandment at the Last Supper:
13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
When I returned home from my local Anglican church that day, I read about two rather sad situations in the Church of England involving senior clergy.
The way the bishops handled these situations made me wonder how Christlike they are.
Loving each other the way Christ loves us demands a lot of concessions on our part, the very same that He showed towards His disciples, making allowances for human misunderstanding and weakness. Above all, He forgave those faults time and time again, with loving patience.
The Save the Parish network has been doing much heavy lifting in trying to get bishops to become more responsive to and respectful of parish churches across the country.
What follows are two examples of their efforts.
Cornwall
A conflict has been growing between Anglicans in Cornwall and their bishop, the Right Revd Philip Mounstephen, over the axeing of clergy, meaning the potential closure of historical churches in that beautiful county.
The Diocese of Truro prefers to spend money on administrative positions, as the following Save the Parish letter to the bishop makes clear:
The bishop sent back a terse reply, saying that, as the group had gone to the press with the story, he would not be meeting with them, as they had requested:
Given that you have taken this route I’m afraid I will not be offering you a meeting.
Rather, I encourage you to engage seriously in the On the Way process in your local community.
If you have continuing concerns these should best be raised in your PCC and by the normal synodical processes by which we work.
That sounds so petty and so corporate. Would our Lord have responded in such a cold and unforgiving way? Certainly not.
A Catholic chimed in to say that the same thing is going on in the Diocese of Plymouth. Very sad:
The Catholic Diocese of Plymouth is in serious decline and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that my Bishop (and the entire episcopate of England & Wales) and your Bishop are sharing & comparing notes on this planned ‘reconfiguration’. Very best wishes to you in this.
Other Anglicans were also unhappy with the direction the C of E has taken over the past few years:
I agree with the next tweets that say the rot started around 30 years ago:
Without churches, how will the faithful gather together to worship? Please don’t say via a Zoom call with self-consecrated sandwich bread and a glass of whatever juice or wine one has to hand. We are not Evangelicals.
Where is the Great Commission (Matthew 28) in this plan?
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Budget
Earlier this month, on May 11, the C of E issued its triennial budget, channelling £3.6 billion into parishes and social action.
Some people, like the Revd Giles Fraser, were happy but others wondered how much money would actually be going to parishes. Pictured is the Archbishop of Canterbury:
The Revd Marcus Walker of St Bartholomew in London, who chairs the Save The Parish network, was guardedly optimistic about the budget and its allocation to individual churches:
Interestingly, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York will not deliver the budget to the General Synod until July — with no vote.
Why wasn’t it presented to them upon release?
Someone noted the irony and hypocrisy of the Archbishops going to the press to announce the budget. Hmm:
On May 12, the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that the hierarchy ‘got it wrong’ in ignoring parish churches, especially those in the countryside:
If it hadn’t been for Save The Parish, would the hierarchy have admitted their mistake?
Would Jesus have ignored the humble faithful? No, certainly not. The people the disciples tried to shoo away, Jesus invited to approach Him. He never turned His back on anyone.
The Guardian‘s account of the budget emphasised its social action aspects (emphases mine):
The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, admitted the C of E had been heavy-handed in concentrating funds on urban churches in recent years. “Allocating money in the past was perhaps, if we’re honest, a bit too driven from the centre. Now we’re trusting the dioceses much more,” said Cottrell.
Rural parishes have complained that they have been starved of cash, which has been diverted to inner-city churches. As a result, churches have closed and clergy jobs have been lost, according to a campaign group, Save the Parish.
Welby said: “Over the last few years, the priority has been very much for the more heavily populated areas. Having listened carefully to what people were saying, this [funding] is for everyone, including the rural areas.”
The core of the extra funding will be used for programmes that focus on young and disadvantaged people, deliver social action work, address racism and cut the church’s carbon footprint.
It will support churches in the poorest areas of the country and fund more clergy in frontline ministries, including chaplaincies. “This funding will help the C of E raise its game in its service to the nation,” said Cottrell.
The Telegraph‘s article focused more on individual parish churches, the ones that Save The Parish is concerned about:
The Church of England’s Archbishops have admitted that they “got it wrong” by not prioritising rural parishes over city churches, as they announced new funding worth £3.6 billion …
In an online press conference, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, and the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, announced the plans and reiterated their commitment to rural church communities, saying that rural parishes “really matter” …
Furthermore, in December, figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that the number of Christians in England is close to falling below 50 per cent for the first time, as atheists now account for more than a third of “faith” groups in an increasingly secular society.
Do we think the bishops and two archbishops care about that statistic? They should, given that they, too, must follow the Great Commission. It wasn’t meant only for the Apostles.
The Archbishop of York, the Most Revd Stephen Cottrell said:
I don’t think we don’t need to be embarrassed by saying we’ve learned, we’ve listened. We’ve changed our mind. It’s not that what was done in the past was bad and this is now good. It’s: that was good and we think this is better.
The money which was distributed in this kind of way in recent years, was much more focused on populous areas. And of course populous areas, they really matter. But so do rural areas, and there’s a lot of hidden rural poverty, and it just meant that they didn’t meet the criteria. So we’ve changed the criteria and that’s a good thing to do …
We do want to move to try to decentralise it a bit and work much more closely with dioceses and parishes.
I think the game changer has been that we’ve now much more clearly got a set of owned priorities as a church and that therefore provides the criteria for spending.
And it might be in very small ways in rural communities or in so-called larger ways.
It’s the ‘or’ that bothers me in that sentence, but I could be reading too much into it. Why not say ‘and’ instead?
Save The Parish gave a level-headed response:
Following the press conference, Admiral Sir James Burnell-Nugent, of the Save the Parish campaign group, said: “We welcome the recognition of the pleading from Save The Parish and similar organisations that are fighting against cuts in clergy and the formation of mega-parishes.
“It is very pleasing that rural and small parishes will be able to apply for the new funding, having been deliberately excluded from the previous three-year round.
“The proof of the pudding will be whether these new funds are genuinely accessible in a way that eases the huge burden of the parish share which is a struggle for so many parishes.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Conclusion
The two illustrations above show how pharisaical the C of E senior clergy are.
They remind me of the Sanhedrin in the Gospels: haughtily lording their position over those they considered to be inferior — the faithful.
I do hope this new plan works out, but, on a wider note, senior clergy must really do better to be more Christlike in the way they deal with priests and laity.
What follows is a short, subtitled video interview of a retired Russian military officer Mikhail Khodaryonok, who discusses the reality of the battles in Ukraine.
The news show hosts, particularly anchor Olga Skabeyeva, were not best pleased to hear that things are not going well for Mother Russia:
He is a reliable analyst:
Olga Skabeyeva tried to push the motherland’s line throughout the interview, but Khodaryonok was undaunted.
He said that Russia’s performance was not ‘normal’, which means ‘okay’ in their language. He added that no country is supporting Russia in this conflict. He pointed out that 42 nations adamantly oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Skabeyeva asked if Putin could ‘make friends with London’, to which he replied, ‘No’.
Furthermore, he added that China’s and India’s support is ‘not unconditional’.
Khodaryonok said that old Soviet tactics, such as invading Finland, would look silly:
He suggested that morale on the Russian side is not very good, whereas the Ukrainian troops are ready to fight to the death. Quoting Lenin and Marx, he said that, in order to win, an army must have strong resolve:
Replies to the tweet with the video questioned what Khodaryonok‘s interview is meant to signal to the Russian people.
Nothing like this would be broadcast, people say, without some sort of authorisation from the Kremlin:
Perhaps it signals an upcoming admission of Russian defeat:
Or perhaps there will be a temporary Russian withdrawal in order for them to regroup and invade again:
This is not the first time Khodaryonok has spoken out about Russia’s attacks on Ukraine. In the second video below, he says how difficult it would be to amass air, naval and land power. To get new planes would take until 2023. A new naval fleet would take two years. As for land power, he says that Russian materiel is simply too old and that NATO has 21st century equipment. As for boots on the ground? See the first video:
Those are great videos worth watching in under five minutes.
I pray this conflict ends sooner rather than later.
At the weekend, I ran across a lovely 45-second long video of dozens of young Catholic Iraqis making their First Holy Communion in April 2022:
Sachin Jose, who filmed this splendid procession, is a Catholic journalist.
I wish him and all the young communicants a very happy Christian walk.
It is always better for parents to initiate their children in the faith rather than wait until they are young adults and ‘give them the choice’, as so many parents aged 70 and younger say. We now have three generations of adults brought up this way. What a parlous state of affairs.
Psalm 127:3 reminds us that we all come from our Creator:
Children are a heritage from the Lord,
offspring a reward from him.
Therefore, let us honour Him by consecrating our children to Him from an early age.
Waiting or allowing them to make a choice makes a commitment to Christ much more difficult. Yesterday’s post featured an Anglican priest who baptises adults whose parents never brought them up in the faith. He says that the adult catechumens wonder what the fine print is, as if Baptism were the same as a mobile phone contract, rather than a spiritual journey of sanctification and salvation.
Children can easily learn from their parents that there is no finer promise of everlasting glory than faith in Jesus Christ. There is no reason to wait to teach them prayers and take them to church for regular worship or Sunday School.
The Revd Giles Fraser is a past Canon at St Paul’s Cathedral and former Rector at the south London church of St Mary, Newington. He also writes for UnHerd and is author of Chosen.
He will soon be taking up a new post as Vicar of St Anne’s in Kew, West London.
Fortunately, Fraser was able to stay at St Mary’s for Easter, the Church’s greatest feast, celebrating Christ’s resurrection from the dead:
The object hanging over the altar is a pyx. It contains a consecrated host, representing the Body of Christ, as remembered from the Last Supper in the sacrament of Holy Communion:
The congregation bought a very special bottle of wine for him to consecrate at his last Communion service there. How fitting that the winemaker’s surname is Le Moine — Monk:
These were members of St Mary’s on Easter 2019:
St Mary’s held a farewell party for him on Easter Day, April 17, 2022:
Then it was off to St Anne’s in Kew Green. How wonderful to have a cricket pitch next door:
Fraser has met the vicar of St Luke’s, also in Kew:
One wonders if they discussed Brexit:
In lighter matters, St Anne’s new vicar is planning on learning the piano. He received many supportive comments to this tweet:
Note the sheet music: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’, one of the grandest of hymns.
Fraser posted his thoughts about changing parishes for UnHerd: ‘Have I abandoned my flock?’
It is a deeply moving account of faith, a church family and the challenges that ministry presents.
Excerpts follow, emphases mine.
He describes his final Easter at St Mary, Newington, damaged by the Germans in the Second World War:
When I celebrate Mass here for the final time, I need to remind myself that I am not abandoning people, because it’s not all about me. The only real job of a priest is to point beyond him or herself to that God who, I believe, is the only true ground of lasting hope. In a funny way, I suspect my departure has helped focus that for some of the congregation …
On Easter Sunday, as dawn breaks over South London, I will light a fire in the crumbling remains of my old church, substantially redesigned by the Luftwaffe, yet unbowed. I will take that fire into church and the first of the day’s baptisms will begin. Clouds of incense will pick up the light now streaming in through the window. The fire will be shared as everyone’s candles are lit. I will cry. Hugs will be shared. The victory over death will be proclaimed.
Later, we will feast on Jollof rice, which is a kind of sacrament of community round these parts. That seems a perfect way to say goodbye. We will always be family.
That morning, Fraser baptised two adults and two children. Easter Sunday is the traditional day for group baptisms.
He had this to say about the sacrament, which involves sprinkling of water, symbolic of full immersion:
… like learning to swim, faith also involves the prospect of drowning. Baptism isn’t a little bit of genteel water sprinkling. The imagery is one of death and rebirth. It’s a simulated drowning. The old person is destroyed; the new one rises from the waters. Like Neo being unplugged from the Matrix and being reborn into a new reality. Evangelicals are not wrong when they speak of being born again. You can’t fully plan for what that involves. At some level, you just have to take the plunge.
He discussed moving out, discarding old belongings, comparing it to a type of death, rather apposite for Holy Week, the culmination of which is Good Friday:
I have been the priest at St Mary, Newington for ten years. This Sunday, I am moving on. A new parish awaits. The skip is full of stuff I remember buying with much excitement, but now looks like pointless trash; the salvation promised by advertising and the shopping centre is so short-lived. And now the removal vans have been — and trashed more of our apparently precious belongings — there are further trips to the local tip, which is rather poignantly located next to the crematorium.
This is where things come when they have stopped working: our fridges and our bodies. The tip and the crem are Good Friday places. This is the wasteland, the valley of the shadow of death. Perhaps one day we should gather here, rather than in a lovely church, to experience the full existential desolation of the crucifixion. Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion, was itself a rubbish dump. A place of human landfill. This is where our dreams come to die.
I have never been especially threatened by atheism. For one thing, atheism is good for business: it helps maintain the tension. Indifference is the real enemy. But also because atheism is assigned a pivotal place in the Christian narrative. The period between 3pm on Friday and dawn on Sunday symbolises my own atheistic imaginings. When He is murdered by the Romans, all the expectation and excitement of Jesus-following is shown up as a terrible, embarrassing mistake. We were conned. He wasn’t the new King after all. Might is right. Oh, I get atheism all right. It’s an essential part of the cycle of Holy Week.
Then he discusses the Resurrection:
A wander around Kew Gardens, right next to my new church, reveals the natural world coming back to glorious life after the dead of winter. It’s a wholly natural expression of deep Christian instinct: that there is life beyond death. That even death cannot keep life down.
The resurrection of Jesus is not magic. Not “a conjuring trick with bones”, as the great Bishop David Jenkins once put it.
By the way, Jenkins’s full quote was ‘Well, it’s certainly much more than just a conjuring trick with bones’.
Fraser continues:
It’s an acknowledgement that a life rooted in the eternal will not remain under the heel of perpetual nothingness. Agreed, this is not an empirical statement. I have stepped outside what can be demonstrated naturally. The God I describe is beyond time and space, the author of all things, not one thing among others.
“Blah,” go the atheists. But upon this “blah” I hang my whole life. The God who is there in the person of Jesus is the same one in whom everything moves and has their being. It’s not that physical death doesn’t happen. It’s just that it doesn’t mean what nihilists believe it means. Hope exists because God exists.
He expressed his concerns about leaving his congregation at St Mary, Newington, and remembered his arrival ten years ago. He left St Paul’s under a cloud, having run into trouble after hosting Occupy London on the Cathedral grounds:
As I leave my old parish, I feel a terrible sense of abandoning my people. It was hard to start with. Ten years ago, I was parachuted in by the Bishop who took pity on me after my resignation from St Paul’s Cathedral. Like all parishes, they wanted St Francis of Assisi with an MBA. What they got was a broken spirit, in hiding from the world. And to start with, many of them didn’t much care for what they got.
I don’t blame them really. I was a mess. Some of them left the church. But slowly we rebuilt and we bonded. Now they are my family, the water of baptism being thicker than the blood of biological relatedness. We have been through everything together: bereavements, deep disappointments, some of the happiest parties you can ever imagine, then the emotional desolation of lockdown. During my ten years here, some of the post-war estates have been demolished and new more expensive and private developments have taken their place. As gentrification spread, our congregation has become much younger and whiter …
Our new church intake looks very different. Apart from being younger and whiter, they were not raised in the faith. There were fewer infant baptisms for this generation. Here, faith is a choice not an inheritance. “I wish my parents had done this for me,” said one of the new baptismal candidates. I understand this. Becoming a Christian is much harder to do as an act of choice, more fraught with anxiety.
The generation raised under the aegis of liberalism have to bear the weight of their own choices. This is problematic because to be in a church is to be a part of a family. The idea that you choose your family, choose to be baptised, seems to introduce a strange contractual aspect to this relationship, like taking out a mobile phone contract. I wonder if those “wanting more” in baptism preparation are, on some level, asking me for the small print. Is that how they see the Bible, I wonder? I hope I have helped to disabuse them of this idea.
He says that he doesn’t have all the answers to people’s problems, however, the church is where we bring the problems we cannot solve:
I don’t have answers to many of the problems that people bring into this church. I can’t solve the deep poverty that many experience, nor the broken relationships, nor the desperate sense that the world is not responsive to everyone’s deepest needs. I am there to carry them, and they carry me. The church is where you can bring all the stuff that is impossible to solve. And there are advantages to this — it means that we are not frightened of all the stuff that cannot be remedied. We can carry failure. And we can only do this because, as I said before, hope exists because God exists.
I wish Giles Fraser well in Kew, with his ministry — and his piano lessons. I have a feeling he will really enjoy his new assignment and new pastime.
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.
17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.
—————————————————————————————-
Last week’s post discussed Paul’s righteous anger with the Judaizers and his hope that the Galatians would return to the eternal truth of the Gospel that he had taught them.
Today’s post ends Galatians. Much of Chapters 5 and 6 will be read in 2022 — Year C — on the Second and Third Sundays after Trinity.
In today’s verses we have Paul’s farewell to the Galatians.
By now, he is weary of his flock, the Galatians, being led astray by false teachers, the Judaizers. So he expresses an imperative about no one causing him any further trouble as he bears the physical marks of Jesus for his preaching and teaching (verse 17).
John MacArthur explains (emphases mine):
Who’s he talking to? Everybody. Talking to the people in the church who are making his life miserable because they’re listening to the false teachers. He’s talking to the false teachers who are attacking him. But on what basis, Paul? Why should we leave you alone? “For I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.” Whoa. “I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus”? What does that mean? “I have the scars for my service to Christ.”
You know, in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 when he was defending his apostleship, he defends it by saying, “I was beaten with rods, I was whipped, I was thrown in prison,” and he goes through this whole litany of things. “And these are the marks of Christ, these are the brand-marks of Christ. Don’t add any more suffering to me.”
He was stoned, by the way, in Galatia at Lystra; he had scars from that. “Look, I’m branded” – he says – “with the scars of an apostle.” Colossians 1:24, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” What do you mean? “They can’t, they can’t hit Christ, He’s not here, so they hit me in His place. So I bear in my body the marks of Jesus. The reason I am beaten, the reason I am abused is not because of something I’ve done, it’s because of who I represent. These are my apostolic credentials. Don’t question my authority, I have the marks of Jesus.”
In the ancient world slaves were branded. In the ancient world criminals were branded as a mark of identification for life. In the ancient world soldiers were branded to demonstrate their allegiance. Religious devotees were branded. And people who were hated, vilified, social pariahs were branded.
Paul says, “I’m all of that. I’m a slave a Christ, a soldier of Christ, devoted to Him. I’m a criminal as far as the world is concerned, and I’m hated because I have Jesus branded on me.” Every scar he ever got was a brand, a brand for Christ. “These are the scars of Jesus. Don’t trouble me; I represent Him, and I have the scars to prove it.”
We can contrast Paul’s suffering with the lack of it in the Judaizers. They escaped persecution because they preached a false halfway house of Christianity: believe in Jesus, by all means, but also obey Mosaic law, especially circumcision. Such a heresy denies Christ as Redeemer.
The Judaizers preached that so that they could avoid persecution. Their own Jewish families and social circles would still accept them as long as they preached about Mosaic law.
They were emissaries of Satan, especially in persuading Gentiles who had become Christians to embrace the Old Covenant.
The Judaizers never suffered a moment of hardship because they had a foot in each camp. Furthermore, as Paul rightly points out, they could rejoice in every Gentile Christian male whom they persuaded to be circumcised (Galatians 6:13):
13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.
Contrast that abominable approach with Paul’s, which is one of holiness (Galatians 6:14):
14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which[b] the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
As such, Paul asserts his unquestionable authority as an Apostle, as Matthew Henry points out:
He had already suffered much in the cause of Christ, for he bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus, the scars of those wounds which he had sustained from persecuting enemies, for his steady adherence to him, and that doctrine of the gospel which he had received from him. As from this it appeared that he was firmly persuaded of the truth and importance of it, and that he was far from being a favourer of circumcision, as they had falsely reported him to be, so hereupon, with a becoming warmth and vehemence, suitable to his authority as an apostle and to the deep concern of mind he was under, he insists upon it that no man should henceforth trouble him, namely by opposing his doctrine or authority, or by any such calumnies and reproaches as had been cast upon him; for as, both from what he had said and what he had suffered, they appeared to be highly unjust and injurious, so also those were very unreasonable who either raised or received them. Note, (1.) It may justly be presumed that men are fully persuaded of those truths in the defence of which they are willing to suffer. And (2.) It is very unjust to charge those things upon others which are contrary not only to their profession, but their sufferings too.
As always, Paul ended his letter with a generous benediction — blessing — upon the Galatians, praying that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon their spirit, adding an Amen (verse 18), ‘so be it’.
Henry has a marvellous analysis of what Paul is praying for:
The apostle, having now finished what he intended to write for the conviction and recovery of the churches of Galatia, concludes the epistle with his apostolical benediction, Galatians 6:18; Galatians 6:18. He calls them his brethren, wherein he shows his great humility, and the tender affection he had for them, notwithstanding the ill treatment he had met with from them; and takes his leave of them with this very serious and affectionate prayer, that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may be with their spirit. This was a usual farewell wish of the apostle’s, as we see, Romans 16:20; 1 Corinthians 16:23. And herein he prays that they might enjoy the favour of Christ, both in its special effects and its sensible evidences, that they might receive from him all that grace which was needful to guide them in their way, to strengthen them in their work, to establish them in their Christian course, and to encourage and comfort them under all the trials of life and the prospect of death itself. This is fitly called the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, as he is both the sole purchaser and the appointed dispenser of it; and though these churches had done enough to forfeit it, by suffering themselves to be drawn into an opinion and practice highly dishonourable to Christ, as well as dangerous to them, yet, out of his great concern for them, and knowing of what importance it was to them, he earnestly desires it on their behalf; yea, that it might be with their spirit, that they might continually experience the influences of it upon their souls, disposing and enabling them to act with sincerity and uprightness in religion. We need desire no more to make us happy than the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. This the apostle begs for these Christians, and therein shows us what we are chiefly concerned to obtain; and, both for their and our encouragement to hope for it, he adds his Amen.
When I read these verses, I thought of the Gospel reading from John 13 for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 15, 2022, in which Jesus commanded the Apostles to love one another the way He had loved them:
13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Paul certainly exemplified Christlike love towards all the churches he planted during his ministry. It is not an easy love to give, because it involves a seemingly infinite amount of patience, fortitude and kindness. A Christlike love must, in imitation of our Lord, overlook weakness, slights and fickleness. We read in the Gospels how Jesus treated His disciples. He forgave their spiritual frailties and did not forsake them.
Such a love also shows the world that we are followers of Christ, which leads to infinite, eternal blessings but is not without the possibility of serious temporal risk, as Paul found through his suffering and anguish for the Gospel.
Next week, I will begin a study of Ephesians, most of which is in the three-year Lectionary.
Next time — Ephesians 1:1-2
The Fifth Sunday of Easter is on May 15, 2022.
Readings for Year C can be found here.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
John 13:31-35
13:31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.
13:32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.
13:33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’
13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
John’s Gospel has a beautiful and lengthy discourse from Jesus following the Last Supper.
It runs from the end of John 13 through John 17.
Jesus had just dismissed Judas to his sin and treachery; then He said that He has been glorified and God the Father has been glorified in Him (verse 31).
Jesus meant that God’s plan was now in place. Judas would complete his betrayal, Jesus would be crucified for our sins, rise again on the third day and ascend to heaven 40 days later.
Matthew Henry’s commentary on these verses is exceptional.
Henry gives us the following analysis of verse 31, beginning with the Crucifixion:
(1.) That he should himself be glorified in them. Now the Son of man is to be exposed to the greatest ignominy and disgrace, to be despitefully used to the last degree, and dishonoured both by the cowardice of his friends and the insolence of his enemies; yet now he is glorified; For, [1.] Now he is to obtain a glorious victory over Satan and all the powers of darkness, to spoil them, and triumph over them. He is now girding on the harness, to take the field against these adversaries of God and man, with as great an assurance as if he had put it off. [2.] Now he is to work out a glorious deliverance for his people, by his death to reconcile them to God, and bring in an everlasting righteousness and happiness for them; to shed that blood which is to be an inexhaustible fountain of joys and blessings to all believers. [3.] Now he is to give a glorious example of self-denial and patience under the cross, courage and contempt of the world, zeal for the glory of God, and love to the souls of men, such as will make him to be for ever admired and had in honour. Christ had been glorified in many miracles he had wrought, and yet he speaks of his being glorified now in his sufferings, as if that were more than all his other glories in his humble state.
God the Father was glorified in the Crucifixion because it meant redemption, our reconciliation with Him:
(2.) That God the Father should be glorified in them. The sufferings of Christ were, [1.] The satisfaction of God’s justice, and so God was glorified in them. Reparation was thereby made with great advantage for the wrong done him in his honour by the sin of man. The ends of the law were abundantly answered, and the glory of his government effectually asserted and maintained. [2.] They were the manifestation of his holiness and mercy. The attributes of God shine brightly in creation and providence, but much more in the work of redemption; see 1 Corinthians 1:24; 2 Corinthians 4:6. God is love, and herein he hath commended his love.
Then Jesus spoke in the third person. He said that if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself and will glorify Him at once (verse 32).
John MacArthur says:
Our Lord knew. Judas is gone. The events are in place. By tomorrow, I will be glorified on the cross. By Sunday, I will be out of the grave. 40 days later, I will ascend into heaven. And that’s the immediately that brings His glory to its culmination.
Henry says that verse 32 expands on verse 31:
Observe how he enlarges upon it. [1.] He is sure that God will glorify him; and those whom God glorifies are glorious indeed. Hell and earth set themselves to vilify Christ, but God resolved to glorify him, and he did it. He glorified him in his sufferings by the amazing signs and wonders, both in heaven and earth, which attended them, and extorted even from his crucifiers an acknowledgment that he was the Son of God. But especially after his sufferings he glorified him, when he set him at his own right hand, gave him a name above every name. [2.] That he will glorify him in himself—en heauto. Either, First, In Christ himself. He will glorify him in his own person, and not only in his kingdom among men. This supposes his speedy resurrection. A common person may be honoured after his death, in his memory or posterity, but Christ was honoured in himself. Or, secondly, in God himself. God will glorify him with himself, as it is explained, John 17:5; John 17:5. He shall sit down with the Father upon his throne, Revelation 3:21. This is true glory. [3.] That he will glorify him straightway. He looked upon the joy and glory set before him, not only as great, but as near; and his sorrows and sufferings short and soon over. Good services done to earthly princes often remain long unrewarded; but Christ had his preferments presently. It was but forty hours (or not so much) from his death to his resurrection, and forty days thence to his ascension, so that it might well be said that he was straightway glorified, Psalms 16:10. [4.] All this in consideration of God’s being glorified in and by his sufferings: Seeing God is glorified in him, and receives honour from his sufferings, God shall in like manner glorify him in himself, and give honour to him. Note, first, In the exaltation of Christ there was a regard had to his humiliation, and a reward given for it. Because he humbled himself, therefore God highly exalted him. If the Father be so great a gainer in his glory by the death of Christ, we may be sure that the Son shall be no loser in his. See the covenant between them, Isaiah 53:12. Secondly, Those who mind the business of glorifying God no doubt shall have the happiness of being glorified with him.
Jesus addressed the Apostles as ‘little children’, telling them He would be with them only for a little while longer; He told them what He told the Jews: they could not go where He was going (verse 33).
Calling the Apostles little children is a sign of our Lord’s affection for them, even though they were childish in being preoccupied by who would be first.
Henry has more:
Little children. This compellation does not bespeak so much their weakness as his tenderness and compassion; he speaks to them with the affection of a father, now that he is about to leave them, and to leave blessings with them. Know this, then, that yet a little while I am with you. Whether we understand this as referring to his death or his ascension it comes much to one; he had but a little time to spend with them, and therefore, [1.] Let them improve the advantage they now had. If they had any good question to ask, if they would have any advice, instruction, or comfort, let them speak quickly; for yet a little while I am with you. We must make the best of the helps we have for our souls while we have them, because we shall not have them long; they will be taken from us, or we from them. [2.] Let them not doat upon his bodily presence, as if their happiness and comfort were bound up in that; no, they must think of living without it; not be always little children, but go alone, without their nurses. Ways and means are appointed but for a little while, and are not to be rested in, but pressed through to our rest, to which they have a reference.
Their lack of understanding comes up again in John 16, as MacArthur explains:
A little later, down in verse 36, He says: you will follow after. But for now, you cannot come. There’s so much affection in this. Little children. Rare for Jesus to use that phrase talking to His disciples. There’s so much pathos in this. They don’t want Him to go. They’re trying to stand in the way. They’re trying to bar the events that He keeps talking about. They don’t like the idea. They don’t mind the fact that He said to the Jews in chapter 7:34 and 8:21 and 24, “You’re not going to be able to come where I go.” When they hear this for themselves, this pushes them over the edge.
By His death, He will leave. His time with them is over. They can’t stand that thought. They’ve got all their hope in Him, all their trust in Him. Everything is tied up with Him. They are sad. They are lonely. They are troubled. Peter even asks in verse 37, “Lord, why can’t I follow You right now?” Right now. If I have to, I’ll die.
The thought that He would leave them? Too much for them to bear. Over in chapter 16 verse 2, He says, “You too have grief now, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.”
What does He want them to know? You’ve got to be committed to My glory, no matter how it affects you. You’ve got to be committed to My glory. I’ve been telling you I have to go. It is My time to be glorified. Glorified at the cross, glorified through the open tomb, glorified by ascending into heaven, glorified by Him being seated at the right hand of the Father. It’s time for My glory. Time for My glory.
This was so hard for them, ‘cause they were all caught up in this kingdom concept that this was all leading to their glory, their elevation, their fulfillment of ambition. A true disciple, a true believer is completely consumed with the Lord’s glory, the Lord’s glory. Whatever happens to me, whether I live or whether I die, whatever happens to me, may Christ be glorified. The passionate, consuming love for His glory – just wasn’t in their thinking. Do they love Him? Sure. Did they believe in Him? Of course. But they were not consumed with His glory.
Jesus gave the Apostles a new commandment: to love one another as He has loved them (verse 34).
This is much more than loving one’s neighbour, because we are asked to love each other the way Jesus loves us. That is a ‘big ask’, so to speak.
Henry has an excellent interpretation of this commandment:
1. The command of their Master (John 13:34; John 13:34): A new commandment I give unto you. He not only commends it as amiable and pleasant, not only counsels it as excellent and profitable, but commands it, and makes it one of the fundamental laws of his kingdom; it goes a-breast with the command of believing in Christ, 1 John 3:23; 1 Peter 1:22. It is the command of our ruler, who has a right to give law to us; it is the command of our Redeemer, who gives us this law in order to the curing of our spiritual diseases and the preparing of us for our eternal bliss. It is a new commandment; that is, (1.) It is a renewed commandment; it was a commandment from the beginning (1 John 2:7), as old as the law of nature, it was the second great commandment of the law of Moses; yet, because it is also one of the great commandments of the New Testament, of Christ the new Lawgiver, it is called a new commandment; it is like an old book in a new edition corrected and enlarged. This commandment has been so corrupted by the traditions of the Jewish church that when Christ revived it, and set it in a true light, it might well be called a new commandment. Laws of revenge and retaliation were so much in vogue, and self-love had so much the ascendant, that the law of brotherly love was forgotten as obsolete and out of date; so that as it came from Christ new, it was new to the people. (2.) It is an excellent command, as a new song is an excellent song, that has an uncommon gratefulness in it. (3.) It is an everlasting command; so strangely new as to be always so; as the new covenant, which shall never decay (Hebrews 8:13); it shall be new to eternity, when faith and hope are antiquated. (4.) As Christ gives it, it is new. Before it was, Thou shalt love thy neighbour; now it is, You shall love one another; it is pressed in a more winning way when it is thus pressed as mutual duty owing to one another.
2. The example of their Saviour is another argument for brotherly love: As I have loved you. It is this that makes it a new commandment–that this rule and reason of love (as I have loved you) is perfectly new, and such as had been hidden from ages and generations. Understand this, (1.) Of all the instances of Christ’s love to his disciples, which they had already experienced during the time he went in and out among them. He spoke kindly to them, concerned himself heartily for them, and for their welfare, instructed, counselled, and comforted them, prayed with them and for them, vindicated them when they were accused, took their part when they were run down, and publicly owned them to be dearer to him that his mother, or sister, or brother. He reproved them for what was amiss, and yet compassionately bore with their failings, excused them, made the best of them, and passed by many an oversight. Thus he had loved them, and just now washed their feet; and thus they must love one another, and love to the end. Or, (2.) It may be understood of the special instance of love to all his disciples which he was now about to give, in laying down his life for them. Greater love hath no man than this, John 15:13; John 15:13. Has he thus loved us all? Justly may he expect that we should be loving to one another. Not that we are capable of doing any thing of the same nature for each other (Psalms 49:7), but we must love one another in some respects after the same manner; we must set this before us as our copy, and take directions from it. Our love to one another must be free and ready, laborious and expensive, constant and persevering; it must be love to the souls one of another. We must also love one another from this motive, and upon this consideration–because Christ has loved us. See Romans 15:1; Romans 15:3; Ephesians 5:2; Ephesians 5:25; Philippians 2:1-5.
MacArthur echoes Henry in saying that the Jews in that era had fallen far away from loving their neighbour:
This is really critical. Now, notice this new commandment. That’s how it starts. A new commandment. You say, wait a minute. New? To love people? That’s not new. Isn’t that in the Old Testament? Yeah, Leviticus, the law of Moses. Leviticus 19:18. Love your neighbor as yourself. And lots of things about love in the Old Testament. God’s love, love for people, love for strangers, love for family. Yeah, this isn’t new. Deuteronomy 6. Love the Lord with your heart and your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then, love your neighbor as yourself. That’s the law and the prophet’s first and second great commandment.
So why is it new? Well, let me tell you why it’s new. It’s new, first of all, because they haven’t figured it out yet. It’s got to be new to them because tall they’re doing is arguing with each other about who’s going to sit in the primary place in the kingdom. So, I’ve got to teach you something new, something that as of now, you don’t demonstrate that you know. It was new to them. They were always quibbling about their positions and prominence. That is exactly why none of them would wash the feet of the rest in the earlier passage.
Secondly, to the Jews, it was new, ‘cause Judaism was filled with animosity, bitterness, strife, conflict, separations. There were all kinds of factions within factions. The Pharisees, who set the course for the dominant religion looked down on anybody who wasn’t a Pharisee, wouldn’t interact with anybody who wasn’t a Pharisee, had nothing but scorn for anybody who was an outsider or an outcast or a sinner. But for the Jews, this is new. If you’re Jewish, this is new. And even if you’re a disciple, this is new.
Judaism was loveless. They loved only those that they chose to love because they saw them as equals. It was new also because they had seen an example of it that was new. Love had come to another level with Jesus. It was new because rabbis didn’t wash feet. And the Son of God washing feet took love to another level. And now, He’s on the brink of offering His life as sacrifice for sin, and that’s love at the pinnacle. Greater love has no one than this, than a man lay down His life for His friend. So it was new to them in their argumentative attitudes, self-promoting desires, it was new to the Jewish culture because they had no place for love, and it was new in the level that had been set and would be set by Christ. And it was also new because now, for the first time, they had a new capacity to love. Because the love of God is shed abroad in your hearts, Romans 5:5, right? Now you have a new capacity to love. Now you can love in a way that only you can love, and only believers can love. Walk in love, Ephesians 5:2. Be imitators of God, His beloved children. Walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, a sacrificial, selfless, self-giving love. That’s how you love. That’s how you walk in love.
Jesus said that obeying the new commandment would mark the Apostles out as His followers (verse 35).
MacArthur explains:
First John 3:11. This is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. That’s what marks us. And by this love, all men will know that you are My disciples. And I say it again: we’re known by our love. The extent of this love, how far does it go? Love one another. The example of this love? Christ, as I have loved you, sacrificially, humbly. The effect of this love? All men will know that you’re My disciples if you have love for one another. And in order to love, you have to humble yourself. Only humble people love. Only humble people love. The disciples weren’t humble. This was all new to them.
MacArthur has an interesting insight into this from Matthew 18, an instruction from our Lord for the Church which did not exist at that time, having come into being later at the first Pentecost:
We love enough to serve and we love enough to sanctify. What does that mean? Go to Matthew 18. In Matthew 16 we have the first time in the New Testament where the word “church” is used, Matthew 16. Chapter 18, we have the first time there’s instruction given to the church, down in verses 15 and following. The church is mentioned. “Tell it to the church,” verse 17. So, the Lord is now talking to His people. The church doesn’t start until the Day of Pentecost. This is preliminary instruction for the church. This in chapter 18 is the first instruction given to the church before the church came into existence. This is a sub-floor, if you will. This is footings for life in the church. Before the foundation is laid at Pentecost, the rest of the apostles’ doctrine is established.
What is the point of Matthew 18? The disciples come to Jesus. They’re arguing again about who is the greatest in the kingdom. “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” They all wanted to be the greatest. “Can we sit on your right and left hand?” John and his brother asked with their mother helping them, to kind of illustrate that. So Jesus is going to give them a lesson on life in the kingdom, okay? So He calls a little baby to Himself. Some think this was actually Peter’s house and one of Peter’s relatives had a little baby, but whatever. Jesus has a little baby in His arms as an illustration. He sets the little child before them, and then He begins to speak to them, and what He has to say is so very important.
Remember now, these are the footings for the church. This is the first instruction given to the church. “Unless you are converted,” verse 3, “and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom.” That’s the humility, the lowliness, the abject recognition of having accomplished nothing, achieved nothing, produced nothing. You come empty-handed, bankrupt into the kingdom. You come like a child. Children have accomplished nothing. They have to be cared for. They can’t even care for themselves. They can’t achieve anything. They don’t have any history of accomplishments. That’s how you come in. You come in with nothing. You come in bankrupt. You enter the kingdom. “You humble yourself,” verse 4. You humble yourself to come in the kingdom. Then in the kingdom, you’re all the greatest, right?
... Greatness is just being in the kingdom, and it’s not relative. It’s absolute. It’s absolute.
I shall close with MacArthur’s insight on being a pastor:
“Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me.” Wow. When you open up your heart, open up your life, open yourself up to fellowship with another believer, you are receiving Christ. Christ comes to you in that believer. You got that? That’s the foundation. That’s the footings of life in the church. Every true believer is literally Christ coming into your life. That has a lot to do with how I think about how I’m going to treat everybody. That’s a pervasive reality as a pastor.
When I look out at you, I can honestly say I don’t – I’ve known a lot of people, and I guess it says in there I’ve been here 46 years. I’ve known a lot of people. I don’t have some kind of relative scale in my mind. Everybody is Christ to me. Everybody is Christ to me. You are Christs, and when you come to me, Christ comes to me. When I minister to you, I minister to one in whom Christ lives, for whom He died, whom He called, and with whom He will live forever in glory. This just changes everything about human relationships for believers.
Amazing.
I wish Church of England bishops had that same outlook on pastoral care. That, however, is another subject for another day, coming soon.
To follow this series, it is helpful to read parts 1 and 2.
We left off on Sunday, May 8, 2022. That day, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had cancelled an appearance at an Institute for Government event on Monday in advance of the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday.
Labour’s campaign beer and curry event took place on April 30, 2021. The Sun made it public soon afterwards, but it did not get traction from other papers, namely The Telegraph and the Mail, until January 2022. Durham Constabulary only decided to really investigate it on Friday, May 6, 2022. Starmer took legal advice and cancelled his public appearance on Monday, May 9.
Journalists and pundits noted the length of time between the event, its wider coverage, the internal memo about the event leaked to the Mail on Sunday and Starmer’s reaction to the press coverage it received. No one forgot Starmer’s spending from December 2021 to May 2022 calling for Boris Johnson’s resignation over Downing Street events:
With the shoe being on the other foot, Labour supporters wanted Starmer’s event, held in Labour MP Mary Foy’s Durham office, to disappear from the public consciousness. Didn’t we know there was a war on in Ukraine? Didn’t anyone care about the cost of living crisis? Suddenly, breaking coronavirus restriction rules was something no one should care about unless it had to do with Boris and Downing Street.
Mail on Sunday journalist Dan Hodges noted the hypocrisy:
A YouGov poll published on Monday showed that the public thought Starmer should stand down if he gets a fine:
Guido Fawkes has YouGov’s breakdown of the public’s opinion on both Starmer and Boris. Not surprisingly, more people think that Boris should resign. That said, Conservative voters are more forgiving of Starmer than are Labour voters. That’s because most Conservatives believe in repentance.
Guido says a majority of the public think that Starmer broke the rules:
The general public is firmly of the view that Starmer should resign, at 46% agreeing versus 32% opposing. They also comfortably believe Starmer either did definitely or probably break the rules (54%) to probably didn’t or definitely didn’t (21%).
Guido conducted his own poll on Monday, May 9. Just under 50 per cent thought that the Labour leader — and Leader of the Opposition (LOTO) — should resign using the same standards that he applied to Boris:
Earlier on Monday, Starmer decided to issue a short statement to the media at 4 p.m. that day. By the time Guido closed his poll, there was a half hour left before that small, select event took place.
Guido’s post on the poll says (emphases in the original):
With Sir Keir expected to make a statement on Beergate at 4pm today, Guido asked co-conspirators how they’d advise Starmer if they were by his side in the LOTO office over the weekend. Resign right away? Wait for the police investigation? Tough it out…?
Thousands voted, and it turns out readers are divided. Half (49.6%) think Starmer should resign at the podium today – given he called for Boris’s resignation the moment the police launched their inquiry – 28.9% think he should resign only if fined, with a further 21.5% saying he should tough it out regardless of the police outcome. Guido’s own view is that the latter choice is politically impossible given his approach to Partygate. Demanding Boris and Rishi resign over a birthday cake set the bar incredibly high for his own behaviour – a bar he hasn’t met. If he’s not going to resign today, then his only real option is to promise he’ll go if Durham Police whack him with a fine…
Starmer invited only three journalists to hear his statement.
He said he would resign if fined.
Guido analysed that statement and said there was more to it than one might think:
Seeing as Charles — now Lord — Falconer is advising Starmer, Blairite tactics could come into play:
Sir Keir has just confirmed he will resign in the event of being given a fine, an unprecedented announcement from a Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition … Guido can see another obvious tactic at play from the pound shop Blair wannabee…
In 2007, when under investigation for the Cash For Honours scandal, Tony Blair’s team warned the Metropolitan Police that the PM would have to resign if interviewed under caution, forcing them to back off under such immense political pressure:
Sources close to the inquiry said that there were difficult discussions before a political intermediary made senior detectives aware of the serious implications of treating the Prime Minister as a suspect.
“Make no mistake, Scotland Yard was informed that Mr Blair would resign as Prime Minister if he was interviewed under caution,” said a source. “They were placed in a very difficult position indeed.”
On Saturday, when Guido exclusively revealed Lord Falconer has been tasked with putting together out Sir Keir’s legal defence, he didn’t expect Blair’s Justice Secretary to copy the tactic used by his old party boss so like-for-like. Unfortunately for Starmer one of his team accidentally explained the quiet bit out loud to ITV’s Daniel Hewitt, briefing “it puts some pressure on Durham Police who are being leant on in one direction”. Former DPP [Director of Public Prosecutions] Sir Keir knows a thing or two about letting police forces fudge an investigation and letting the culprit get away…
Hmm:
It will be interesting to see how a campaign team can justify alcohol at a notional working event, especially as a few overdid it:
Guido was referring to a Politico article by Alex Wickham, who wrote that he received no denials of the following account containing mentions of drunkenness:
On Tuesday, May 10 — Day 13 of Beergate — the Mail led with Starmer’s alleged piling of pressure on Durham police:
That day, fallout followed Starmer’s cosy Monday afternoon session with only three journalists.
The Sun‘s political editor Harry Cole was left out in the cold. ‘Lobby’ refers to the media:
Guido said this was but another episode in a long-running period in which Labour have not been transparent with the media:
Guido has been tracking this issue for some time:
Guido’s campaign to get Labour to publish their shadow cabinet meetings with media proprietors and editors, as pledged following Leveson, seems to be going nowhere, despite repeated promises from Labour HQ to pull their finger out. Yesterday Labour’s relationship with press transparency got colder, when Sir Keir invited just three tame broadcasters into the room, blocking any hacks who may have asked difficult questions from attending. GB News’ Tom Harwood was told this was due to “limited space”. Guido is old enough to remember when the Lobby was collectively outraged when only selected broadcasters were invited by Lee Cain [Boris’s former Downing Street Director of Communications] for a briefing…
Now Guido’s spotted another press frontier on which Labour’s dropping the ball: publishing press releases. Labour’s website hasn’t published a press release in over 40 days, the most protracted period of policy publishing paralysis since Starmer took over …
Perhaps not a good look when even the Labour-supporting press is starting to suggest Sir Keir needs some policies to win, not just claims of personal sainthood…
That day, YouGov published a new poll taken on May 5 and 6 that shows the Conservatives were one point below Labour. Other polls still show Labour in the lead, but here is YouGov’s take:
Guido wrote:
Margin of error territory as the public no longer perceives Sir Keir as “Mr Rules”. One poll so far so will be intrigued to see if this is a trend…
Prince Charles delivered the Queen’s Speech that morning for the State Opening of Parliament.
In the afternoon, both the Commons and the Lords began separate debates on the 38 proposed bills in the Queen’s Speech.
In the Commons, at least, the week-long debate, called the Humble Address, begins jovially, and it is an honour to be the MP selected to open it.
The lucky MP was Graham Stuart (Conservative), who represents Beverley and Holderness.
He cracked a joke about Keir Starmer as he reviewed Labour’s dominance in the North of England prior to the Conservatives’ breaking through the Red Wall in 2019 (emphases in purple mine):
Robert [Sir Robert Goodwill], of course, won selection in Scarborough. He then went on to overturn Lawrie Quinn’s 3,500 majority, and was, I think, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), the only Conservative candidate in the whole of the north of England to take a seat from the Labour party at that election. The Leader of the Opposition must wish it was so today. Instead the only thing opening up for him in the north is a police investigation. [Laughter.]
Guido has the video. Look at Starmer’s painfully forced smile:
Stuart had another go when discussing the corruption in his constituency in the 18th and 19th centuries:
Obviously the law did change. Free beer and cash inducements were the electoral controversies then, rather than, say, beer and curry today. Never in the history of human conflict has so much karma come from a korma.
Some time later, it was Boris’s turn to speak, introducing the important bills. Labour MPs intervened until he put a stop to them.
Of the energy bill, he said:
The energy Bill will create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs, taking forward this Government’s energy security strategy—it is about time this country had one—with £22 billion—[Interruption.] Labour did not want a single nuclear power station. Come on, be honest. Look at them, the great quivering jellies of indecision that they are. Our £22 billion UK Infrastructure Bank is supporting the transition to net zero and vast new green industries, in which our United Kingdom will again lead the world.
Boris quickly moved on to the economy and the Channel crossings of illegal migrants, during which he added a quip:
We are using our new freedoms to control our borders, with a new plan for immigration so that we can fix our broken asylum system, tackle the illegal immigration that undermines the legal immigration that we support and crack down on the vile people smugglers. I know that the Leader of the Opposition—perhaps I should, in deference to his phrase, refer to him as the Leader of the Opposition of the moment—likes to claim he opposes these plans …
Guido has the video, which is much more entertaining than reading the transcript. Boris was at his best:
That evening, The Guardian reported that Labour MPs were already talking about a change in leadership. Speaking personally, so far, Wes Streeting is the strongest candidate they have:
The majority of shadow ministers said they were grimly resigned to Starmer’s pledge – but said there were likely to be internal consequences. “I think once you start talking up the prospect of your own resignation you are on dangerous ground,” one said.
Another veteran MP, a Starmer loyalist, said they suspected ulterior motives from some shadow cabinet members. “If you fancy Keir’s job, this is win-win,” they said.
Rule changes pushed through at last year’s Labour conference mean a fifth of MPs must nominate any candidate for the party leadership in order for them to be put to a members’ postal vote – a higher threshold than under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and a move that was seen by those on the left as intending to disadvantage their candidates.
One MP said a snap leadership contest would put ascendant shadow cabinet ministers such as Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, in an advantageous position. “[Starmer’s] disappearance now would obviously benefit the Blairite right – [the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy] Burnham couldn’t stand, Sadiq Khan [the London mayor] couldn’t stand, Angela would be out of the picture for the same reason as Keir because if he goes on this she has said she will go too.”
If both Starmer and Rayner are forced to resign, there is no obvious interim leader. The most senior members of Starmer’s shadow cabinet – Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor; Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary; David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary; Streeting; and Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary – are all potential candidates in a contest. The party’s national executive committee would have to vote to designate an alternative member of the shadow cabinet.
A source close to Starmer said he was relaxed about the ambitions of his shadow cabinet. “I don’t think anyone is actively trying to undermine him. It says a lot about our party that there are so many potential candidates – look at the contrast again with the Tories. If people are ambitious, let them be.”
An ally of Streeting said: “Wes was on the media batting for Keir three times over the weekend and into Monday. He’s one of Keir’s most loyal and vocal supporters. After a great set of a local election results there is everything to play for at the next general election thanks to Keir’s leadership. This is no time for introspection.”
Senior figures in the Labour leader’s team are understood to have felt reluctant to advise Starmer he should raise the prospect of his own resignation.
On Wednesday, May 11, The Sun criticised Keir Starmer’s response to the Queen’s Speech. When responding to Boris on Tuesday, Starmer had no Labour policies to present. He merely criticised the Government at length and ended with this:
It does not have to be this way; it will not always be this way. A Labour Government would tackle the cost of living crisis head on, get Britain growing again after 12 years of failure, and improve public services so that they deliver for the people paying for them. A Labour Government would rise to the moment where this Government have badly failed.
The Sun‘s editorial, ‘Holey agenda’, said (bold in the original):
IS Keir Starmer chasing the wrong job?
He has no ideas anyone can detect, as his vacuous response to the Queen’s Speech proves. He clearly thinks it’s enough to be ‘decent’ and ‘honourable’.
Tribal Labour voters may lap up his preening sanctimony. Millions of others prefer leaders with vision and drive.
You’re auditioning for PM, Mr Starmer. Not Archbishop of Canterbury.
That day, digging around, Guido raised the matter of an early pandemic violation in Durham: that of Boris’s then-adviser Dominic Cummings at Barnard Castle in the Spring of 2020.
Durham Constabulary said at the time that there was nothing to investigate. They also stated that they did not issue retrospective fines.
As punishment, Boris made Cummings hold a lengthy televised press conference to explain himself. It lasted well over an hour and was most peculiar. At the end, after having asked many questions, one by one, reporters and broadcasters walked up individually to Cummings’s table to tell him what they thought of him.
Cummings’s press conference was his public penance.
Then again, parts of it were theatre for the public, most of whom didn’t know he is friends with many of those journalists, as is his wife. He addressed only one by his full name: Gary Gibbon from Channel 4 News.
Two years on with Starmer — and other Labour MPs in the frame — the Party’s ire was rising in Durham.
Mary Foy MP, who hosted the Durham gathering in 2021, had written a lengthy letter to Boris on May 28, 2020 about Cummings, who is pictured below in the background. The letter beneath it is recent. It is from the leader of Durham’s Labour Party to Red Wall Conservative MP Richard Holden, who had written to Durham Constabulary a few weeks ago to enquire as to whether they would investigate the 2021 Starmer event:
Mary Foy’s letter would have been better addressed to Durham Constabulary. It was up to them, not Boris, to take action against Cummings.
However, Foy took issue with Boris’s refusal to sack Cummings. In the event, he resigned a few months later for other reasons and was gone by the end of 2020.
Guido wrote about Foy’s letter, which can be viewed in its entirety on his post:
Now that Sir Keir is feeling the heat from his boozy lockdown curry night, Labour MPs are bending over backwards to explain why their leader’s Covid rule-breaking is somehow completely different to Boris’s, and why it’s right that Starmer remains in post provided he isn’t fined. One particular MP who might have some trouble with this is none other than the Honourable Member for Durham, Mary Foy…
Foy is probably best known for hosting the Beergate bhuna session in her constituency office, laughing and drinking merrily with her colleagues while the country was still in stage two of lockdown. She then went on to scream at Richard Holden for his asking Durham Police to reinvestigate the event. It turns out, however, that when Durham Police announced they wouldn’t fine Dominic Cummings over the infamous Barnard Castle trip, Foy had a few ideas about what should happen next. None of which involved Cummings keeping his job…
Here’s what Foy wrote in a public letter to Boris after the Cummings story:
The vast majority of constituents who have contacted me have expressed the view that Mr Cummings’ actions have been insensitive and unacceptable at best, and many feel that they warrant further investigation by the police.
While I understand today’s decision by Durham Police to take no further action, many of the constituents who have written to me would like Mr Cummings to resign or be sacked. Clearly, whether you stick by him or not is a matter for you, but the perception from my constituents, and I would hazard a guess that this is a common view across the North East, is that you are currently putting the interests of your chief adviser above that of the people of the region and the country as a whole.
Even though Cummings received no fixed penalty, and the police decided they’d take no further action, Foy still took the time to write a two-page letter informing the Prime Minister how upset her constituents are, and politely suggested Cummings lose his job. Presumably her office is inundated with similar letters now, all demanding Sir Keir does the honourable thing…
Labourites criticised Times Radio’s Lucy Fisher for mentioning Cummings and Starmer in the same tweet:
However, it would be wrong to think that Durham Constabulary never issued any fines — fixed penalty notices — for coronavirus violations.
On Thursday, May 12, The Times informed us of a fine Durham Constabulary issued to a bereaved woman in November 2020:
Some of Starmer’s supporters have assumed that detectives would not issue a fixed-penalty notice because they decided not to take retrospective action against Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former adviser.
However, the force’s approach appeared to harden later in the pandemic and it issued a £10,000 fine to a woman who organised a balloon release in memory of her father-in-law, who died of Covid.
Vicky Hutchinson held the gathering on November 11, 2020, in a field opposite a church in Horden, Co Durham, where Ian Stephenson’s funeral was due to take place a few days later. Her £10,000 fine was reduced to £500, based on her ability to pay, when she attended Peterlee magistrates’ court on April 23 last year, a week before the Starmer incident.
A court report by The Northern Echo revealed that Hutchinson, in her mid-thirties, had urged friends and family to wear masks and stay socially distanced at the balloon release. It said that police did not attend the gathering of about 30 people and there was no disorder.
However, it appears that there was a retrospective investigation after a complaint. Durham police analysed a livestream video of the event before issuing the fine, the report said.
The approach to Hutchinson’s case raises fresh questions about how the Durham force might handle the case of Starmer, who has denied wrongdoing …
Durham police did not respond to requests for comment.
Also on Thursday, Guido returned to Dominic Cummings, specifically what Keir Starmer said about the incident in 2020:
Guido has the quote:
Here’s what he said of Cummings back in 2020 – before the police had even launched their investigation:
This was a huge test of the Prime Minister, and he’s just failed that test. He hasn’t sacked Dominic Cummings, he hasn’t called for an investigation, and he’s treating the British public with contempt… that’s not a reasonable interpretation of the rules, and the Prime Minister knows it. One rule for the Prime Minister’s advisers, another rule for everyone else… If I were Prime Minister, I’d have sacked Cummings.
One rule for the Prime Minister’s advisers, another for Sir Keir…
And finally, London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed that they have now issued more than 100 fines for Downing Street events. Neither Boris nor his wife Carrie received one in this tranche:
Guido wrote:
A month on from their last update on Partygate, paused thanks to the local elections, the Met’s confirmed “more than 100″ fixed penalty notices have now been handed out. Downing Street say Boris has not received another fine…
Later that afternoon, GB News’s Colin Brazier and his guests discussed the Met’s issuing of fines to people who were at Downing Street gatherings.
It’s a bit rich for Brazier’s contributors to say that the Met want to channel their resources elsewhere. There are few police forces these days, including the Met, who want to investigate actual crime. This massive dispensing of fines also looks rather selective:
There is also the issue of double standards which irritate many members of the public:
Personally, I think the way the pandemic was handled was dystopian. I don’t know what to think about these fines. Part of me wants to see all of them refunded and any related criminal record for violations erased.
On the other hand, it seems only right that, if Labour have done wrong, they, too, should be fined.
So far, only the Conservatives have been. The Met have made them look positively criminal. Well, that’s par for the course in Labour-controlled London.
I’ll update this in due course.
End of series
Yesterday’s post reviewed events surrounding Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and other MPs connected with 2021’s campaign meeting, forbidden under that year’s coronavirus rules:
Keir Starmer defended Labour’s indoor beer and korma event by saying that no other venue was serving food.
Well, they were. However, the problem was that service was outdoors only at that time.
The hotel where Starmer was staying, the Radisson Blu, provided room service, but that would have precluded any other persons gathering in an individual’s room.
On the evening of Election Day, Thursday 5, 2022, GB News’s Dan Wootton interviewed Red Wall MP Richard Holden, who had written to Durham Constabulary about properly investigating the event:
Holden said that the students who took the videos and photos offered to give Durham police a statement, but their kind offer was refused.
Holden suggested that evidence was being suppressed. He also questioned the fact that people involved had forgotten their diary details for that day.
As for dining, Holden said that, in order to comply with the rules, he had been part of a group eating a fish and chips supper outdoors in Hartlepool in windy conditions.
On Friday, May 6, Durham Constabulary finally issued a statement saying they would investigate the event held on April 30, 2021:
Labour MP Emily Thornberry dismissed the news and said all would be ‘fine’:
The BBC reported that Durham Constabulary waited until after the election to make an announcement (emphases in purple mine):
The force initially decided that no offence had occurred on 30 April last year, but said it had since received “significant new information”.
It added that it had delayed announcing the investigation until after Thursday’s local elections.
Sir Keir said he was confident he hadn’t broken any Covid rules.
He has faced criticism since he was filmed drinking a bottle of beer while in the constituency office of City of Durham MP Mary Foy.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, he said he had “stopped for something to eat” during meetings, and there was “no party”.
“The police obviously have go their job to do – we should let them get on with it,” he added.
Starmer took no questions on the matter:
Guido Fawkes resurrected a Starmer tweet from January 31:
Priceless:
The Telegraph‘s Madeline Grant made an eloquent observation …
… which received these replies:
Later that day, Guido posted about the concerns that Starmer’s advisers had with the upcoming investigation:
Guido’s post says that a journalist, Ava Evans, heard that Labour MPs would not be doing media rounds for a few days (emphases in the original):
Ava also reports that one Labour MP told her they would not be participating in any media interviews for the next few days, for fear of being asked to defend Sir Keir. His actions were “indefensible” she reports them as saying. Which explains why we are only seeing Emily Thornberry abasing herself in studios…
On Saturday morning, news emerged that Starmer was taking legal advice from Lord Falconer, Tony Blair’s close friend who served as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice from 2003 to 2007:
Guido reported on the development, an exclusive:
An extremely worried Keir Starmer has tasked Charlie Falconer with putting together a Beergate legal defence team. Labour lawyers have told Starmer that there is a 60% chance that he will escape a fine, however the fining of Sunak over a cake has spooked Starmer that he too could be fined over a beer and curry. The irony of the legal and political situation is exquisitely painful for the barrister politician.
Guido later added an update:
UPDATE: In another irony, Falconer has publicly opined on the situation of politicians breaching laws they voted for in the Guardian:
… true accountability means facing justice in a criminal court. But not in this case – a fixed penalty notice does not bring any sense of justice done to those who paid what was very often a high price for obeying the rules.
Which appears to be a demand that Boris be tried in court for his birthday cake….
One of Guido’s readers wondered if Falconer’s involvement presented a conflict of interest, given his strong opinions on the matter:
That isn’t the only conflict of interest, either. There’s also Durham’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Joy Allen. Starmer campaigned for her and she won her election to that post:
The Mail on Sunday was able to obtain a leaked memo, Starmer’s itinerary for April 30, 2021:
This was the paper’s front page:
Glen Owen’s exclusive for the MoS says:
The bombshell document, marked ‘private and confidential’, also calls into serious doubt Sir Keir’s claim that he returned to work after the beers and takeaway curries.
After the entry recording the ‘dinner in Miners Hall’ – which includes a note to ‘arrange takeaway from Spice Lounge’, a local curry house – the document simply says: ‘End of visit.’
Spice Lounge did not supply food for the event. Another curry house, The Capital, did.
The paper received the memo from a whistleblower. The itinerary reveals that Angela Rayner MP was scheduled to be present:
The memo – which was passed to this newspaper by a whistleblower – also further undermines Labour’s claims that it made ‘an honest mistake’ when it denied that Deputy Leader Angela Rayner was at the event: it lists ‘AR’ alongside ‘KS’ as the two senior politicians anchoring the day’s proceedings.
Labour had denied that this was a planned event, but the memo’s existence proves that wrong:
… the note – a forward-planning logistics document which is referred to as an ‘op note’ – makes clear the beer and curries had been planned in advance.
The note says that after a day’s campaigning in Hartlepool, Sir Keir’s team were due to arrive at the Radisson Blu hotel in Durham at 6.31pm, leaving by 7pm to walk to the Miners Hall.
After recording clips for the media, the note says a 1hr 20mins slot was set aside for ‘dinner in Miners Hall with Mary Foy’, the local Durham MP. A side note reads: ‘YS to arrange takeaway from Spice Lounge’. YS is the acronym for a member of Sir Keir’s private office.
The Spice Lounge curry house was closed at the time, with callers being referred to the nearby Capital Indian restaurant. Last week, the Daily Mail spoke to one of the restaurant’s delivery drivers, who said he had dropped off a ‘big’ order of food for at least 15 people, including four bags of curries, rice and naan bread …
The Mail on Sunday has established that the Radisson Blu was serving food when Sir Keir and his party checked in at 6.31pm and continued to do so until 9pm …
The document also refers to four members of the ‘MPL’ – Met Police Liaison – who were included in the trip, suggesting they are likely to have information useful to the investigation.
Also included on the op note is the line ‘Covid Alert Level: National Lockdown’, and ‘important note: please maintain social distancing of 2m and wear face coverings whilst indoors at all time’.
The leaked document makes clear that Ms Rayner was to play a central role in the day’s events …
A Labour source said: ‘During a fast-moving campaign, the op note doesn’t always keep up with events so it would be wrong to assume that activities occurred at the times originally planned. For example, it’s been documented that the takeaway was late’.
This was Starmer’s previous denial that the gathering had been planned:
The Sunday Times also had an incriminating article. A source told the paper that some staffers were there only to party and that no work was done afterwards. Pictured below is Mary Foy MP:
It is expected that the investigation will take between four and six weeks:
Allegedly, pictures from the event circulated on Twitter. Those have since been deleted.
Interesting, to say the least:
The aforementioned Sunday Times article said that the Durham Constabulary have opened a major incident room. Angela Rayner’s presence appears to have triggered the investigation:
It was the discovery that Rayner had been at the event, despite Labour’s original claims, that prompted Durham police to open their investigation. A source close to the force said: “It raises the question about what else we might not have been told the entire truth about.”
Officers have set up a major incident room, and up to six detectives will spend the next four to six weeks looking at the potential lockdown breach. They are expected to use questionnaires — similar to the ones used by Scotland Yard to investigate Johnson and the Downing Street scandals — to interrogate those present at the event.
The force said, however, that it did not issue fines retrospectively. When Dominic Cummings was found to have made a 260-mile trip to Barnard Castle in 2020, the force said to take action against him would “amount to treating Mr Cummings differently from other members of the public”.
It is unclear whether Scotland Yard’s decision to issue retrospective fines over the Downing Street gatherings could force a change of stance.
Mary Foy said:
“Me and my team were working during a very busy period, including facilitating the leader’s visit,” she said. “I do not believe either I or my office broke any rules, and I will of course fully engage with any police investigation.”
Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, said:
“It’s the rank double standards that drive people crazy,” Raab told Sky News. “He needs to fess up and answer all of the holes in the account that he gave for that beer-and-curry event in Durham.
“Keir Starmer looks like, I’m afraid, someone who is engaged in complete hypocrisy, complete double standards and I don’t think he is going to get past that until he gives a proper account of what happened in Durham.”
Here’s the video of Raab talking to Sky News:
Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, in charge of Brexit efficiency, told Channel 4’s Andrew Neil that one should be extremely careful with hoisted petards:
He does have a way with words.
Guido took a look at what Lord Falconer might say in Starmer’s defence:
That said, in February, The Mirror reported that Prime Minister Boris Johnson also hired lawyers over ‘Partygate’:
The Prime Minister has hired hot shot lawyers to deal with the Met’s questions on Partygate.
The Mail reported that Starmer had cancelled his appearance on Monday, May 9, at an Institute for Government event in advance of the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday.
Guido tweeted:
Guido’s post says:
The public event was scheduled to have included questions from the press and public. This morning, when door-stepped outside his North London home by journalists, a grim faced Starmer refused to say anything and was bundled into a waiting Range Rover. Keir clearly realises that “the police have already investigated this matter and found nothing” will no longer work as a line.
The Institute for Government is funded by the billionaire David Sainsbury, a former Labour minister under Tony Blair, who has backed centrist Labour politicians financially in the past. A statement on the website says only that the event is cancelled, with no explanation given.
The cancellation made the front page of Monday’s Daily Mail:
It was the start of another tense week for the Labour leader.
Meanwhile, Boris focused on the Queen’s Speech and historic agreements between the UK, Sweden and Finland in case of Russian aggression as a knock-on effect of the Ukraine conflict.
More to follow tomorrow.
Churchmouse Campanologist 