Talking About Stuff

I have spent this early morning (when perhaps I should have been training or doing something else) reading a few blog posts and tweets. There have been a couple of good ones today.. talking about why we don't go for exponential growth in churches.. this tweet.. "So many write on principles for successful churches. Hardly ever do they mention intimacy with Christ, dying to self & loving the unlikely." I have a dilemma. I want to write about some of these things. I sort of feel that I have something to say about church with people who aren't like me, or in fact who are not like each other. I want to talk about the difficulty for my ego of having a church which is bursting with potential and yet not quite there yet. But its really hard when the people you are talking about are real. Its really easy to tweet into the ether about loving people who aren't like us until this people are concrete real people with ether unique smells and sounds. Maybe this stuff was easier when all we had was books. Things only got written after a modest amount of time and editing- reflection and space were possible before committing accounts of interaction with real people. In these instant days it feels like there is no appropriate pause. And so I am left with a dilemma, do I say things that might hurt the very people I love, or do I say nothing and leave the writing to those who perhaps don't have the privilege of doing the living?

Early on the last day of the week..

I did this:
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Bradford West: Labour needs to get its local councils in order

George Galloway won using the somewhat unhelpful term of Bradford Spring. He now says that the Respect Party will run in all council seats in Bradford and other similar places (do they have that many people?). Meanwhile the EDL are going political ready for local elections. Its a moment for British Politics. For what its worth I'm not sure that this is all about the war. Bradford West has many local intricacies which may be about berardari (sp?), long memories of Blair's war.. but may also be about the burgeoning gap between national Labour and its Northern councils. The reality is that the council in Bradford has not been wholly truthful about what is going to happen with a major piece of regeneration in the City Centre. Bradford's roads are a mess. People cannot afford to insure their cars in parts of Bradford. And presiding over the ineptitude is a Labour Council. I don't wish to be personal, but the Labour lead of council could have been dragged straight out of 1980's news footage. Its not just in Bradford either: my take is that across West Yorkshire there are politicians whose priority is to fight age old political wars whilst the place they are to serve misses out. I have personally witnessed a school get royally messed around by such politicking. And the Labour Party has to get its house in order. It has to have some progression across the party- not just in the affluent south. General elections might continue to mask this issue but there is a problem which needs to be addressed.. And either the Labour Party gets hold of that or we will start to see real fragmentation.

Fixing Alcohol

So: it is to be a minimum price. 40p per unit. In many respects I applaud the Government's attempt to tackle our national preoccupation with pickling ourselves in the name of fun. However, I am interested that this free market loving bunch of politicians, are stepping in as nanny state. Thats a side point in many respects, but does raise this issue of why the government attacks individuals but not corporates. It seems sensible to me that we have to tackle the issue at the point of manufacture. When my dad learned to drink the average alcohol amount in beer was about 3%. Its now 5%. Wine has gotten stronger, vodka is now the base of a whole host of things that are sugary. Why not tax the manufacture of anything outside of a sensible parameter? Beer can be up to 4%, then it gets whacked with a huge manufacturing tax. We have to make it unfeasible to make the alcohol that is killing us. Yes, lets encourage people to cut down, but why make the stuff.. Anyway- I'm done..