Thursday, July 16, 2026
Dan The Man Is Spot On. This Is Why Christians Never 'Need' To Be Leftwing!
By DANIEL HANNAN
Years ago, my wife took our two little girls into the Oxford Union to show them her picture as an undergraduate.
They feigned polite interest until they saw the photograph of a young Ann Widdecombe. It set them squealing with delight.
They reminisced excitedly for the rest of the morning about her performances on Strictly Come Dancing.
Ann had that effect on people. Yes, her public persona was severe. She leaned into being the nation's disapproving maiden aunt. But her natural warmth and playfulness shone through despite her best efforts.
She was a traditionalist in every sense – she never really accepted the idea of divorce, for example – but it never had the slightest effect on her friendships.
While she was one of the last figures in public life to reject same-sex partnerships, the gay people who knew her were devastated by her death. The Daily Mail's Andrew Pierce and the broadcaster Iain Dale were among those who gave public voice to their grief, and many others without platforms expressed similar feelings.
Ann Widdecombe was a traditionalist in every sense – she never really accepted the idea of divorce, for example – but it never had the slightest effect on her friendship.
Peter Tatchell, the long-standing equality agitator, was not among them. His immediate response to the news of her death – for which he later apologised – was to list various LGBT causes she had voted against and to call her a 'BIGOT!'
It was a bizarre way to respond to the sudden death of a 78-year-old lady, even if, at the time, he was not aware that she had died violently.
Yet he was far from alone.
'Good riddance', declared the Socialist Worker, claiming that Ms Widdecombe had 'dedicated her career to attacking migrants, LGBT+ people and the working class'.
Even in its own terms, it was an odd line of attack.
The former Home Office minister had argued that trans convicts who had undergone operations should go to the prisons of their new gender. Even if she had been the politician that the Trotskyists imagined, though, who celebrates a sudden death.
Quite a few people, it turns out. Bluesky, a haven for the self-proclaimed #BeKind crowd after Elon Musk bought Twitter, became a cesspit of hatred. 'No tears here', 'Irredeemable monster', 'Rest in piss', 'The only good Tory…' etc.
An employee of Aberdeen University is being investigated for posting that she hoped Ms Widdecombe had suffered 'an extremely painful death', adding: 'I hope she was handcuffed to the bed as she screamed in agony.'
(For what it's worth, I don't believe that she should face disciplinary action. Coming under pressure from your employer for doing or saying something unrelated to your job is the definition of cancel culture.)
What, though, prompted her to react in such an inhuman way? I don't use the word 'inhuman' lightly. There are moments that prompt us, as social primates, to react in natural ways. We smile at contented babies. We feel a warm glow when people get married. We respond with due solemnity to news of a death. 'Send not to know for whom the bell tolls' and all that.
What makes some people respond so differently to the rest of us? And why does it tend to come from one side of the political spectrum?
Yes, you can find unpleasant people espousing all manner of views, but the glorying in the death of opponents is asymmetric.
Reform MP Lee Anderson, home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf and deputy leader Richard Tice pay their respects to Ann Widdecombe near her home.
Recall the delirium with which the hard-Left greeted the death of Margaret Thatcher. Trade unions organised festivals. Leftist agitators sold T-shirts declaring 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead!'
Or glance across the Atlantic at grisly celebrations of the sudden death of the Trumpian Senator Lindsey Graham. I was not on Senator Graham's page politically, but it would not occur to me to explain why, let alone disparage his character. 'De mortuis nil nisi bonum,' said the Ancients. If you can't find nice things to say about the deceased, say nothing.
Why the political one-sidedness? Why is it unimaginable – literally unimaginable – that Rightists will respond to the eventual and (I hope) distant deaths of, say, Gordon Brown or Sir Keir Starmer, as Leftists did to that of Margaret Thatcher?
The short answer was given by the late conservative philosopher Roger Scruton. Conservatives could be friends with socialists, he said, because they simply thought they were mistaken. But socialists struggled to reciprocate, because they thought conservatives were evil.
Most of us know from experience that Scruton was right. But where does this difference originate?
To find an answer, we must plunge into the field of behavioural psychology. Are Leftist brains wired differently from Rightist brains? Does their wiring enable the paradox whereby people who think of themselves as empathetic and inclusive struggle to extend those feelings to their political opponents?
In short, yes. Your political opinions are a lot more emotional than you like to imagine. Two people can look at the same event in very different ways because they are unconsciously primed to see what they want.
Person A sees a brave policeman defending himself from a criminal; person B sees a racist copper abusing his powers.
If I know enough about where you stand on a series of apparently unrelated issues – tax, immigration, abortion – I can make a pretty accurate guess as to whether you will be A or B. Psychologists call it social intuitionism.
What makes Left and Right-wing brains different is that, while conservatives let a series of different intuitions inform their views – concerns for freedom, fairness, sanctity, loyalty and so on – Leftists are driven overwhelmingly by just one, namely sympathy with the underdog.
For them, society is a hierarchical pyramid, and all that matters is backing the group designated as oppressed.
It leads them into all sorts of apparent contradictions. They might favour indigenous rights in Canada or New Zealand while recoiling at the suggestion that ethnic Britons have an equivalent prior claim to the UK. And it causes them real difficulties in understanding the other side.
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt ran a series of political questionnaires which people were invited to fill in sincerely, and then as they imagined that a typical Leftist and a typical Rightist might. He found that conservatives had no difficulty imagining themselves as socialists, but that the reverse was not true.
Boiled down, the Left-wing take on the world goes something like this: 'I am a good person. I care about poor people, minorities and underdogs. You disagree with me, so you must dislike all these groups, which makes you a bad person.'
If you have only one moral axis by which to judge things, you struggle to see how someone could want to end poverty and make underdogs better off while disagreeing with you.
If you have read this far, the chances are that you are a conservative. And the chances are also that you will sometimes find your Leftie friends ascribing the blackest of motives to you. Other than giving them Haidt's 2012 book The Righteous Mind, there is not much you can do.
Still, I keep being struck by one thought. Margaret Thatcher won three elections. Ann Widdecombe was the best known and most popular woman in politics in more recent times.
If they really were as terrible as their detractors claim, what would that say about the country as a whole? Answer me that one, comrades.
Daniel Hannan is Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs
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Colosssians 3. These Matters Matter: They Are NOT Optional Extras!
5) Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6) Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7) You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8) But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9) Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10) and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
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Oooh - Is That All?
Andy Burnham leaves Manchester £1.34bn in the red.
‘Big-spending instincts’ of PM-in-waiting should concern taxpayers, opponents warn
CitizenGO.
Dear All,
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Imagine going to work in the morning, doing your job faithfully, and by the end of the day, being told to leave and never come back.
This is exactly what happened to Sarah Morse.
Sarah is a Catholic history teacher with 20 years of experience in England, Canada and Scotland. On 19 November, she was covering a class at Arbroath High School in Angus when pupils began asking her about life in America, food, schools, and lockers.
Then one pupil asked what she thought about abortion.
Sarah answered honestly and calmly: "I am a faithful Roman Catholic, and I am against it."
She didn't preach. She didn't push. She told her pupils it was okay to disagree with her, that respectful disagreement is part of a free society.
Les, we all know that is exactly what a good teacher should model.
Hours later, she was summoned to an office and summarily dismissed. No hearing. No right of reply. No chance to give her account. The head teacher wouldn't even see her. She was told only that she had "talked about religion and abortion", and that "the head teacher is not having it."
In a single afternoon, a blameless teacher's career was destroyed because of her faith.
Sarah's beliefs are legally protected. Yet she was treated as a danger to children simply for stating them when asked. If we stay silent now, no teacher of faith in Scotland is safe.
Sign now! Tell Angus Council that answering a question honestly is no ground for dismissal.
Government guidance on classroom impartiality does not forbid a teacher from mentioning her own protected beliefs, only from trying to persuade pupils. Sarah did the opposite: she explicitly invited her pupils to disagree.
And still she was fired on the spot. Worse, there was even a veiled threat to record her pro-life views in her employment file, a quiet warning to every teacher: stay silent, or pay the price.
This is how a climate of fear is built. Tomorrow, it could be any teacher, of any faith, asked any honest question.
I remember in my S6 School Year, some of my teachers were disgusted because I decided to publicly defend my pro-life convictions, and then again at University, our Catholic Society faced a full investigation for promoting our pro-life beliefs.
This is why it is urgent to act now; schools and Universities should be places for critical thinking and open, honest debate, not indoctrination camps where there is only one acceptable view.
Sign the petition: Stand with Sarah Morse!
Here is the good news: Sarah is fighting back alongside the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).
Her case goes before an employment tribunal on 24 August, just weeks away. She is challenging Angus Council for discrimination, and she is ready for her day in court.
Angus Council needs to know, right now, that thousands of citizens are watching this case.
We have seen how Sarah was treated. And we will not accept teachers being purged from Scottish classrooms for their beliefs.
Your signature does two things. It tells Sarah, who says this ordeal has been "an absolute nightmare", that she is not standing alone.
It tells Angus Council to acknowledge that she was denied a fair process, to resolve her case fairly and lawfully, and to guarantee that no teacher is ever again punished for giving an honest, respectful answer to a pupil's question.
Sarah told her pupils the truth. Now it's our turn to defend her for it.
CitizenGO has teamed up with SPUC to fight on your behalf to ensure Sarah receives justice.
Sign now before Sarah’s tribunal on 24th August.
Thank you for standing with Sarah and working together to defend free speech!
With good faith,
Tobias Bailey
P.S. A teacher answering her pupils’ questions should never lead to dismissal. Sign now.
The radical globalists and woke elites want to erase our values—but together, we stand strong. CitizenGO is a movement of millions around the world, fighting every day to defend life, family, and freedom against those who seek to undermine them. We are faithful, so we will never quit.
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British 'Justice' Fails AGAIN!
Cat killer who microwaved kittens freed from prison after one day.
DISTRESSING CONTENT Thomas Martel, 25, pleaded guilty to animal torture and aggravated cruelty to animals.
A man who admitted to torturing and killing kittens has been freed from prison just one day into his four-and-a-half-year sentence.
Last month, Thomas Martel, 25, entered a guilty plea to animal torture and aggravated cruelty to animals after prosecutors claimed he severely injured and killed several kittens at his flat in 2023. Authorities allege that he drowned, mutilated, and even microwaved the kittens.
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
At Least, They Apologised!
Amnesty International UK expresses 'regret' over report that branded Christian groups 'anti-rights.
Amnesty International UK has expressed "regret" over the publication of a report that labelled dozens of Christian, pro-life and gender critical organisations as "anti-rights".
The report was hastily removed from Amnesty's website last week after it triggered a huge backlash, with JK Rowling and John Cleese among the high profile figures denouncing it.
At the time, Amnesty said the report had been temporarily withdrawn so that an internal review could be carried out.
In a further statement addressing the furore on Monday, Amnesty International UK said the report had not gone through the proper internal checks before being published on its website.
"We regret that this briefing was uploaded to our website without going through the established internal review processes that are in place to ensure consistency, accuracy and alignment with Amnesty International UK's positions," a spokesperson said.
"Its use of language does not reflect the position of Amnesty International UK which is why it was promptly removed.
"We remain committed to defending human rights, including both the rights of women and the rights of trans people.
"Human rights protections are strongest when they apply equally to everyone, and no community should be singled out for unfair treatment or denied their dignity and rights."
The report had claimed that the UK faced a "growing threat" from an "anti-rights movement" which it alleged was "fostering moral panic" and working to "roll back human rights protections”, especially for women and LGBT+ people.
The report called on the Charity Commission to review the charitable status of an extensive list of organisations that supposedly formed this "anti-rights movement".
Numerous Christian and pro-life groups were listed, including The Christian Institute, the Evangelical Alliance UK, the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, Christian Concern, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), and CARE - all of which are socially conservative.
They rejected being labelled "anti-rights" and expressed regret over Amnesty's drift from its roots, having been founded by a devout Christian to be a voice for religious and political prisoners of conscience.
Ciarán Kelly, Director of The Christian Institute, said: “Amnesty has fallen a long way from its origins defending prisoners of conscience. Now it has a pick ‘n’ mix approach to human rights.
“Tragically, this doesn’t include the right to life for babies in the womb, the rights of women being exploited through prostitution, or the rights of freedom of conscience and speech.”
Many of the organisations on the report's blacklist were pro-life and crisis pregnancy centres.
Pro-life advocate Fleur Elizabeth Meston said: “It is rather sad to see Amnesty International, founded by a devout Christian to defend prisoners of conscience, now branding people with the ‘wrong’ consciences as ‘anti-rights’.
“Its founder, Peter Benenson, built Amnesty around freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression. Today, Amnesty treats disagreement on abortion and sex-based rights, and even belief in Christian teachings, as though they were a threat to humanity.
“Saying biological sex matters is not anti-rights. Campaigning to protect unborn children is not anti-rights. In fact, those of us who hold these beliefs just want human rights for women and babies too.
“Amnesty can waste its time creating these reports, rather than helping those in real danger around the world, but smearing lawful, mainstream organisations as ‘anti-rights’ is completely unworthy of its founding mission.”
Amnesty faced particularly strong criticism for including on the list Beira's Place, a service for female victims of sexual assault that was founded by JK Rowling.
Also accused of being "anti-rights" was For Women Scotland, which secured the landmark Supreme Court ruling declaring that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. It was among the groups demanding an apology.
Sonnet: Our Saviour's Love.
Upon that tree of grace, the Saviour bled,
A boundless love for all mankind He bore.
He wore the crown of thorns upon His head,
And opened wide salvation’s sacred door.
He wore the crown of thorns upon His head,
And opened wide salvation’s sacred door.
No soul too lost, no heart too far away,
For in His unending mercy, all are found.
He turns the darkest midnight into day,
Where sin is deep, His streaming grace abounds.
For in His unending mercy, all are found.
He turns the darkest midnight into day,
Where sin is deep, His streaming grace abounds.
He calls the weary, bids the heavy rest,
And gently wipes the weeping eye of grief.
A shepherd’s heart, embracing every guest,
Who comes to Him in faith and sweet belief.
And gently wipes the weeping eye of grief.
A shepherd’s heart, embracing every guest,
Who comes to Him in faith and sweet belief.
O perfect love, poured out for all to see,
That whosoever will, may be set free.
That whosoever will, may be set free.
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