Robert Stewart Culbard

In a previous blog I commented on the continuing development of Israeli housing settlements on Palestinian land. Despite United Nations resolutions and opposition from within Israel itself, this settlement expansion continues unabated.

Now there comes the news of an Israeli government plan to forcibly remove up to 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins from their historic desert land – an act that has been condemned by critics as ethnic cleansing. An Israeli parliament bill for the removal of the Bedouins is soon to get final approval.

If, as expected, the bill is passed, it will mean the eviction and destruction of about 35 “unrecognised” (by the Israeli government) villages in the Negev Desert. At a time when the expansion of Israeli settlements into Palestine continues undiminisahed, there is also “the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes and land, and systematic discrimination and separation”.

Of course, the Israeli government justifies its activities by saying that the purposes of what is called the “Prawer Plan” are “economic development of the Negev Desert and the regulation of Palestinian Bedouins living in villages not recognised by the state”. The rub is that, whilst the present residents of these villages will be removed to (government) designated towns, there are plans being enacted to replace them with new Jewish settlements!

The Bedouin villages have lacked basic services, for example, water, electricity, telephone services and schools, which services will, no doubt, feature in the new Jewish settlements. Statistics are telling. The Bedouin comprise about 30% of the Negev’s population, but only 2.5% of the State of Israel’s population.

Before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Bedouin roamed freely and widely across the desert. Now, under the new plan, two-thirds of the desert region has been designated as “military training grounds and firing ranges”. Much of the remaining Bedouin population, people who became Israeli citizens in the 1950’s, “will be moved into seven over-crowded, impoverished, crime-ridden state-planned towns”.

The Israeli government is of the view that this will provide the Bedouin people with the opportunity “to live in modern homes, take regular jobs and send their children to mainstream schools”.  This is, of course, foreign to the Bedouin way of life and none of this has been specifically requested. As is to be expected, there is on offer an incentive in the form of compensation for the Bedouin to leave their villages.

There has been opposition to the government’s action from outside of Israel.

One voice raised in protest has said that “Citizenship counts for nothing in Israel if you happen to be an Arab…, at the same time, there are Israeli government advertisements that promise you funding as a British immigrant to come and live in a ‘vibrant community’ in the Negev – if you are Jewish. This is ethnic cleansing.”

There are echoes of the Israeli relationship with and maltreatment of the Bedouin in the ill-treatment of the indigenous Americans in the United States, black and Indian peoples in South Africa and, as the Australian journalist John Pilger has recently shown in his “Utopia” investigation, the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia.

Ultimately it is for the citizens of the aforementioned countries to call their governments to account for allowing these situations to continue. Nevertheless, support for their endeavours is most necessary.

As a citizenship of the United Kingdom, I would stand in solidarity with those who demand that the British government holds the state of Israel to account over its human rights record and obligations under international law. At the same time, I would call for the British government to ensure that justice is given to those persons marginalised by all forms of discrimination in this country.

Our common humanity is the tie that binds.

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Mel Greig, a DJ with the Australian radio station 2Day Sydney, has resigned her position. Greig, along with her co-presenter, Michael Christian, had played a prank on a British nurse. The nurse later took her own life. The reader may recall the incident and the following acknowledges the The Guardian newspaper’s reporting of the incident.

Greig and Christian made a hoax call to London’s King Edward VII hospital last year and, posing as the Queen and the Prince of Wales, got through to a ward where the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was being treated. A nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, 46, a mother of two teenage children, was the member of staff who had answered the call at 5.30 a.m.

Jacintha Saldana put the call through to a duty nurse, who then divulged intimate medical details of the duchess’s condition to the presenters. Three days later Jacintha Saldana was found dead at her lodgings close to the King Edward VII hospital.

In a statement, St James’s Palace said that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were “deeply saddened” at the news of the nurse’s death. A St James’s Palace spokesman added that the palace had “at no point” complained about the hoax incident.

After the prank, it was reported that Prince Charles appeared to brush off the incident, joking with reporters when he arrived at an event at HMS Belfast: “How do you know I’m not a radio station?” The hospital, which is the medical institution of choice for the royal family, was, however, deeply embarrassed by the incident.

The hoax made international headlines and, delighted with the success of what they had called “the easiest prank call ever”, Greig and Christian had been replaying the call on the radio station. But, as news of the Jacintha Saldana’s death broke, the duo, said to be “deeply shocked”, took down their Twitter accounts and the station announced they would not return to their radio show until further notice.

Mel Greig had apparently been in dispute with Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), the company responsible for the radio station programme on which Greig and Christian worked. She had filed a claim alleging that the company had “failed to maintain a safe workplace”.

Greig wanted it “made clear” that she was not responsible for the decision to broadcast the call, and that before it was aired she had suggested changes. SCA said the company had “at all times taken complete responsibility for the hoax call and the company maintained its view that the recording and broadcasting of the call was not unlawful”.

Mel Greig is to give a statement to the UK coroner’s inquest into nurse Saldanha’s death. SCA added it would also be cooperating with the inquiry.

In the event the DJ that perpetrated the hoax does not take responsibility for broadcasting it. So, morally it was OK! SCA takes responsibility for broadcasting the hoax but not for its perpetration and believes it was not unlawful. So, legally it was OK!  It is further reported that Greig and SCA had “amicably resolved all aspects of the dispute”. Charles Windsor had contrived a lamentable piece of humour out of the tragedy. So, everything’s alright, then!

In the meantime, the coroner’s inquest into the nurse’s suicide as a consequence of the hoax goes on.

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Every now and again the question is raised as to why Ed Miliband, the current leader of the British Labour Party, stood against his older brother, David, for the leadership of the party.

Apparently, the issue was raised during Ed’s recent appearance on radio’s Desert Island Discs, so that what should have been an exploration of his taste in music became a more personal family matter – as if his recent defence of his father, the esteemed sociologist Ralph Miliband, had not been enough.

Of course, we may be aware of situation with British royalty (as are, I would hazard a guess, William and Harry) that the line of succession flows through the eldest male – hence the British have a clear idea of who will be their monarch for the next inordinate length of time and about which they can do little to modify or eradicate the situation.

It seems to have been the historical understanding with British royalty that, where three or more sons were in the family, the first became the monarch (as will, barring a republican revolution, William), the second took a primary role in the military (as did, much to his apparent satisfaction, Harry), and the third entered the established church (Charles, with his desire to be “the champion of all faiths”, would have appreciated this, but alas…).

However, do all matters affecting male siblings have to reflect this reversion to an earlier period of human evolution?

Did Ed commit a crime against the gods and, in consequence, be daily sacrificed for his misdeed? As in the biblical story of Cain and Abel, did the younger brother steal the older brother’s birth-right and is, therefore, to be forever judged for the impertinence?

Of course, the reasons as to why Ed defeated his older brother for the leadership of the Labour Party may have more to do with the fact that David did not enjoy the support of the Labour trades unions, or he took his election too much for granted..

Or it may simply have been the fact that Ed is different to David and that those who elected the Labour Party leader, conscious of what had gone before (the New Labour leadership of Tony Blair  and Gordon Brown) wanted something different and preferred what the younger Ed had to offer.

I have an older brother. He is quite different to me in many respects – and he is probably quite thankful for that! Fortunately, whilst we have shared a life-long interest in sport, with just a little competition along the way, in most other areas our lives have taken differing directions.

It was not naturally the case that he would become the successful business man (though he did), or that I would enter the church (which I did). My brother has always been generally more practically-orientated than me; I have probably aspired towards more academic pursuits. So, our two lives and their proclivities have not been naturally inclusive, nor, for that matter, have they been mutually exclusive.

Neither of us had an innate right to become what we have become, nor always had the luxury of choosing what we would become.  Yet, I feel sure, we both celebrate the successes we have each enjoyed in the spheres of life in which we have participated, without wishing to take each other’s place or diminish each other’s accomplishments. So too, there has been a mutual appreciation of each other’s disappointments.

Why are people obsessed with the fact that Ed Miliband stood against his big brother?

Perhaps it is because the two brothers share common elements in life that encourage strong competition, or perhaps they are both seen as being too dependent on the legacy of their father. The answers may go very deep.

Of course, it may also be that the Ed and David are more at ease with each other than people are capable of observing or for which the critics are prepared to give them credit.

Public obsessions do not always reflect private confessions.

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As a regular reader of newspapers (and, so that I am quite transparent, The Guardian in particular), I occasionally come across snippets of information that never seem to make it to the front pages or editorial columns. Yet, it seems to me, this information often is more illustrative of what politics and social life is about, what is believed and what is done to convey that belief, than are many of the major articles written on social and political topics.

In what follows I have selected a number of these seemingly unheralded, yet personally important, pieces of information in order to reveal the depth and diversity, as well as the complex and confusing nature, of socio/political research and discourse. They are all from The Guardian newspaper, not because I wish to display bias, participate in journalistic evangelism, or change the reading habits of those wise persons now reading this article.

Where desirable, you are free to agree or disagree, as may be the case or as is your personal bias. The newspaper is only one amongst many and, whilst it has its own editorial viewpoint, it also has the reputation of being one with journalistic integrity and objectivity.

The purpose of regurgitating the information is to make known what is relatively or completely unknown; to bring to the surface what lies beneath; to ask, by implication, for an explanation for what remains unexplained and the belief that, behind every headline, there is a story. The snippets of information are given a dateline but presented without commentary.

HS2 was never the only rail game in town. The fiasco began in 2008 because the Tory shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers, backed Birmingham to Euston to get her party of the hook of (then) opposing a third runway at Heathrow. (30.10.13)

He (Charles Farr, the head of the office of security and counter-intelligence at the Home Office) told the Commons home affairs select committee there was “no doubt” disclosures about GCHQ’s capabilities based on Edward Snowden’s leaks had made them less effective but refused to provide any evidence, arguing that to do so would make a bad situation worse. (13.11.13)

Scientists have found in the Tibetan Himalayas the fossil skull of the oldest known big cat, the precursor to the modern lions, tigers and leopards, pushing back the fossil record of these animals by at least 2m years…The species, named Panthera Blytheae, would have lived between 4-6m years ago. (13.11.13)

However, 9 November (Kristallnacht) also marks the date on which the German monarchy was abolished (1918), Hitler was defeated in his first attempt to take over power in Germany (1923), and on which the wall separating East Germany from the west came down (1989). All of these are major events in history, all of them are positive, but the one thing that appears to be associated with Germany is, yet again, the Nazis. (13.11.13)

John Kerry (the USA Secretary of State) caused astonishment when he told NBC earlier this week that he suspected Oswald (Lee Harvey, the  alleged assassin of John F Kennedy) had help or inspiration, possibly from Cuba or Russia, “To this day, I have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.” (16.11.13)

“We are an advanced economy, a first-world country, and we have been one for longer than most”, said Sentamu (Anglican Archbishop of York). “But we suffer from blight – increasing poverty in a land of plenty.” (20.11.13)

Justin Welby (the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury) is bringing a new realism about finances. And if the church can think like a voluntary organisation, rather than part of an imperial state that no longer exists, it may just have something to attract the children and grandchildren of the generation that abandoned it when Carey was archbishop. (20.11.13)

Freedom of information requests have revealed that the biggest private college, which last year took up around one fifth of the Department of Business’s (BIS’s) alternative provider spend, is Greenwich School of Management, which is owned by a private equity firm co-founded by the education minister Lord Nash. However, since becoming a minister, Nash no longer has an interest in the company. (23.11.13)

Sir John Stanley, chairman of the arms export control committee, said the (British) government has a “questionable” approach on arms exports to Sri Lanka. The senior Conservative MP said it was “not credible” for ministers to claim the £8m of weapons exported to Sri Lanka last year were all used to combat piracy. (23.11.13)

Bits and pieces…and the list could go on. The above is selected from limited sources and a short time span. But the extracts, implicitly or explicitly, ask further questions, encourage enquiry, probe for answers and, by implication, are not satisfied with existing interpretations, an uncritical mind or a closed file.

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In 1955, my family left Cardiff, South Wales, for Melbourne, Australia. I was ten years old. Prior to leaving the UK, as a primary school student I sat for and went to interviews about the Eleven Plus examination.

The examination determined the type of secondary school to which a student would go. I passed the examination with sufficient merit to be allocated to one of the limited number of grammar schools, as differentiated from secondary modern or technical schools, then existing in Cardiff. The reason for the interviews was that I was still several months short of my eleventh birthday when I sat and passed the exam.

I can only speculate as to what my future, academic or otherwise, would have been had I remained in Cardiff. As it was, when I arrived in Melbourne I attended another primary school for six months in order to serve out the remaining time as a primary school student to fit-in with the Australian school year. From there I went to an all-boys technical school, where I remained until I left school at the age of fifteen to pursue the first of my eventual three major careers. The grammar school became a distant, if not fond, memory

I was reminded of the above when reading a recent newspaper article on Grammar schools and the delusion of mobility (to which I am grateful for the inspiration for this article). A main thrust of the article was to show that… “Selective institutions entrench inequality rather than help the poor. They should all be scrapped”.

The background to the article is, of course, the way in which educational provision, especially in the secondary sphere is expanding, particularly under this present Coalition government, to include the present-day mixture of schools types – including the comprehensive, private, grammar, academy, faith and free school versions. A motive for such expansion is the atmosphere of mistrust surrounding the idea of comprehensive education.

There is a constant voice that proclaims the need to rewind the educational clock to the mid-20th century and bring back selection at eleven, thereby ushering in a new age of ‘exacting meritocracy’. An argument put forward by supporters of this approach to education is that selection affords social mobility to those fortunate enough (as I would have been) to be given a grammar school place.

Where this view lacks transparency is the fact that such social mobility for the few entrenches privilege for the same chosen few – privilege akin to those who have attended fee-paying private secondary schools or those whose parents can afford to pay for subject coaching or prep schools (both of the latter have the expectation that students from such backgrounds will have little difficulty in passing the entrance examinations for state-funded grammar schools).

Evidence that selection at eleven enhances the social mobility of bright students from less-wealthy backgrounds and is, therefore, ‘socially worthy’ (sic), is often supported by reference to those students in grammar schools who are eligible for free school meals (FSMs). Such a view is seriously called into question by a recent report from the Sutton Trust educational charity about who exactly goes to England’s 164 remaining grammar schools.

Three  of the main conclusions of the report were as follows:

*     2.7% of the pupils of state-funded grammar schools are entitled to FSMs, as against 17.5 % in other state schools;

*     13% of entrants to English state-funded grammar schools come from fee-paying schools – more than double the proportion 0f 10-year-olds in private education;

*     in areas that have continued with selection, 66% of high-achievers at eleven who are not on FSMs get places at grammar schools – among those who are entitled to them, the figure is 40%.

So, grammar schools as the ‘turbo-chargers of social mobility’? This would seem to be one more delusion. As the Sutton Trust educational charity would seem to suggest, a bright child on FSMs and, therefore, by social definition from a poor background, is much less likely to make it to a grammar school.

Politicians of all colours claim that they wish to raise the attainment level of all students and narrow the class-based attainment gap in education. If so, then perhaps they should re-emphasise the place and value of contemporary comprehensive education, phase-out the remaining grammar schools, more firmly establish the secular nature of English education and phase-out faith schools – including the traditional Church of England establishments. Whilst they are at it, they should also return the oversight of state-funded schools to local education authorities and democratic accountability, rather than be subject to the diktats and vagaries of  a government Minister for Education.

Whilst a parent has the right to pay a fee for a child’s education, such parents should be persuaded against private, fee-paying educational institutions. In this regard, the anachronistic charitable status should be removed from private, fee-paying schools. This is an unjustifiable form of state aid.

As a 10 year-old boy emigrating to Australia from a working class background and, as a consequence, maybe feeling deprived of the future social mobility that would have been personally expected as an outcome of a grammar school education, I was obviously unaware of the self-evident nature of the above educational principles.

However, delusions exist to be dissipated. The passage of time enables this process to take place. Nearly six decades on,  not only do I strongly subscribe to these principles, I also live with the hope that, one day – perhaps not in my lifetime, they will be more widely acknowledged and realisable, if not universally practised.

Therefore, I have complete agreement with the main thrust of the newspaper article Grammar schools and the delusion of mobility, that is, “Selective institutions entrench inequality rather than help the poor. They should all be scrapped”.

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At the request of the British Republican movement (of which I am a member), I recently completed an online survey on the provision and presentation of the BBC.

The survey had around eight sections exploring various aspects of the BBC’s radio and television programming. The final section had to do with the personal details of those completing the survey. It enquired about the responder’s ‘Religion/belief’’ and listed an extensive range of religions with which to identify. I put myself into the ‘Other’ category and wrote ‘Secular Humanist’ in the appropriate box.

I avoided the ‘No Religion’ category in the belief that, as with several categories, for example, “Buddhism”, there was no requirement to suppose that religious/spiritual belief involved the acceptance of God or gods. Therefore, to state that one is a ‘Secular Humanist’ is to recognise belief in and acceptance of a philosophical and ethical position that could be termed ‘religious’.

The focus of belief and acceptance of a secular humanist is the human being and, as with Hamlet’s “what a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, the paragon of animals”, to touch the human is to touch the divine.

This belief has profound implications.

It is not, however, the purpose of this article to write a philosophical and ethical treatise on what it means to be a secular humanist. Rather, I want to overview one of the several foci of my post-retirement being. A recent article in this blog, “It’s a no-brainer – really!” returned to the subject of republicanism and an explanation of why I am a republican, that is, why I am fundamentally opposed to monarchies and monarchical rule, royal families and royal institutions.

This article will explore some of the background to my becoming a secular humanist.

In 1996, following several years of working as the Manager for Domestic Programmes with the charity World Vision UK, part-time youth and pastoral work in several Northampton schools and churches, I completed post-graduate studies in education and became a teacher of the Humanities at Campion School, a Northamptonshire rural secondary school.

At the same time and at my request, I was removed from the Accredited List of Ministers with the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. My physical separation from the Christian Church was a quite sudden phenomenon. The intellectual divorce was more of a gradual process. There is no doubt that my changed professional roles and responsibilities assisted this process. So, too, was my link with a network known as the Sea of Faith.

I first became aware of this network in 1985, when a BBC television programme called ‘The Sea of Faith’ was shown on Australian television. At around this time a book of the same name was published. I watched the television programme and bought the book. I have subsequently read this book more times than I have gone through the entire New Testament. It is the most read book on my bookshelf – secular or religious.

Let part of an article in a recent edition of Portholes, the magazine of the network, describe its beginning:

“Our organisation takes its name from the lines in the poem “Dover Beach” by Thomas Arnold in the nineteenth century in which he describes the slow decline of traditional religion as being like the ebbing tide. The movement started shortly after Don Cupitt’s 1984 ground-breaking TV series “The Sea of faith” and his accompanying book, something of an intellectual tour de force with which he explains the historical development of Christianity that has led us to the present situation, and the concept of religious non-realism.

Cupitt claimed that even after we have given up the idea that Christian beliefs can be grounded in anything beyond the human realm, Christianity can still be believed and practised in new ways”.

(N.B. Don Cupitt is a teacher of the philosophy of religion, an ordained Anglican minister, Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and the author of over forty books)

It is worthwhile pointing out that the term ‘non-realism’ essentially refers to the belief that there is no God as believed in by traditional monotheistic religion. God is not real. God is a construct of the human imagination – perhaps the greatest construct, but a construct nevertheless.

The Sea of Faith movement believes that no human being can legitimately speak with absolute certainty on the matter of religion; if they could there would be no need for faith. The important thing is to approach the matter with an open and questing mind and to join the conversation. That seems to be the raison d’etre of the movement.

When I arrived in the UK in 1991, I made contact with the British Sea of Faith network (to my knowledge there was no equivalent Australian network of its kind), but did not pursue any great interest in it. I was still an ordained Baptist minister with a future, as I thought at the time, in the church’s work in urban areas. I duly completed a doctoral dissertation  in this area of study.

However, as briefly outlined above, since the mid 1990’s, both professionally and personally, I have withdrawn from my association with the Christian Church and formal religion of any kind. Prior to my retirement from secondary school teaching in 2012, I formally joined the Sea of Faith network in the UK – as I also did with the British Republican Movement.

These two organisations now form the intellectual and political foci of my spiritual and social being.

(*The title for this article derives from Nigel Leaves’ book, Surfing on the Sea of Faith: The Ethics and Religion of Don Cupitt. Leaves is an Australian academic and Chair of the Perth branch of the Sea of Faith Australian network)

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As I mentioned in my previous article, “It’s a no-brainer really”, in an inspirational address to the Annual Conference of Republic last June, the journalist Tanya Gold cited as one of the reasons she was anti-monarchy was the fact that, at birth, royal babies had no say in their inherited life-style. It was a reason with which I found agreement with Tanya (and which found its way into my personal top ten reasons for being anti-monarchy). It is curious, therefore, that in a recent newspaper article (“A ban on male circumcision would be anti-Semitic. How could it not be?”, The Guardian, 12 October, 2013), Tanya tenaciously defends the practice of male circumcision within the Jewish faith.

Tanya laid down a basis for the argument in her article with the view that, in contrast to the views of many notable British Jews and Jewish organisations, she believed that, in some recent publications of the Daily Mail newspaper,  there was no intended antisemitism in the attacks on the late and esteemed Marxist sociologist, Ralph Miliband (father of Ed Miliband, the current leader of the British Labour Party). The attacks on Ralph Miliband included the view that, in spite of choosing to come to the UK as a refugee, he hated Britain and British institutions.

Having read some works of Ralph Miliband for my university studies in Sociology, I would strongly dispute this assertion by the Daily Mail and would, furthermore, defend the right of any citizen – of the UK or any nation – to criticise the nation of birth or adoption. Of such stuff is democracy developed.

Tanya’s article then proceeds to what amounts to a diatribe against a resolution passed by the Council of Europe which, seemingly tongue-in-check, she refers to as the “continent’s leading human rights organisation”. The resolution was called Children’s Right to Physical Integrity and speaks against the violation of these rights. These violations include, amongst others, female genital mutilation and the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons. The latter is, of course, related to the practice of male circumcision in the religious traditions of Judaism and Islam.

Tanya goes on explain the Jewish rite of male circumcision, giving a context (Jewish religious tradition) and the method employed in circumcising Jewish male babies (she argues strongly, and rightly, for correct medical procedures within Judaism as elsewhere). Her argument intensifies as she expresses the view that to be in favour of a ban on the Jewish religion’s tradition of male circumcision is to be antisemitic. It is at this point that Tanya’s argument seems to be at odds with some of her previously expressed views about the sanctity and dignity of the very young child and warrants a return to her opinions about royal families and monarchy.

 Is a male child born into a Jewish family any different in having his life pre-determined by circumcision than a male child born into royalty? Whether a long established religious tradition or not, male circumcision is also part of a modern Jewish community’s culture and the practice is sacrosanct, for, as Tanya states, it is almost “the only ritual that both progressive and ultra-Orthodox Jews, so often at each others’ throats as to who is the most righteous kind of Jew, agree on”.

However, even though something is considered essential to the endurance of a group of people, does that render it immune from criticism from those who are not part of the group and, therefore, may have a different point of view – held with a similar fervour and breadth and depth of rationale? A basis for understanding is surely the acceptance of a contrary point of view and the latter may often comes as a criticism.

In a similar vein,  it could be argued that, irrespective of political or national colours within the UK,  royal birth’s and the accompanying heritage is part of the contemporary British community’s culture. The existence of royal families are, of course, as old as any religion’s “covenant with God” (a major tenet of the Jewish practice of male circumcision), and usually more historically evidenced. Further, much religious tradition, particularly in Judaism and Christianity, has been protected and enunciated through royal families.

In common with religious traditions, monarchies of various kinds have resorted to communion and continuity with their ancestors in order to emphasise their legitimacy and make an appeal for their continuing relevance. Tradition of all kinds tends to be specific  and referenced in its philosophy and selective in its ethical practice.

Therefore, to argue that to oppose male circumcision is to be antisemitic, which, unfortunately in my view, Tanya appears to be saying, is to say that being anti-monarchical is being anti-British! As a republican, and a secularist, I would dispute her logic and find her argument a little disconcerting. Ralph Miliband was critical of some aspects of the British state and its institutions, but it does not follow that he hated Britain. The differences brought to one’s circumstances and outlook  as a consequence of being a citizen rather than a refugee, are quite profound.

To be critical of some aspects of Judaism, be it in reference to religious tradition, historical narrative or community culture,  does not make the critic antisemitic. Perhaps the answer to the enigma of the latter is to be found in other, perhaps more personal and profound,  physical and psychological differences.

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At the time of writing, the Duchess of Cambridge has, it seems, gone into labour with the child expected to be the third in line to the British throne – after the child’s grandfather, Charles Windsor, and father, William Windsor. In line with royal and ancient birth expectations, the event has attracted world-wide interest, with a host of national and international journalists and camera persons encamped on the footpaths outside of St. Mary’s Hospital in central  London.

There are minute-by-minute updates on the royal birth process and progress and the effects of this on the Windsor household. However, it would seem to this writer that the most apposite comment came at the end of one news update. The commentator simply mentioned that, despite the fact there were hundreds of other births occurring at that moment around the nation, few, if any, will occasion the slightest comment.

The differential of news interest and commentary, not to mention the relative medical concern and treatment, between the birth to the royals and that of  any other citizens in the UK points-up the disparity between royals and the other citizens of this nation. Indeed, it personifies the inequality still existing in this so-called democratic nation, and one to which its citizens seem largely inured.

With the above in mind I read with great interest an article in the latest The Guardian: Weekend Edition  in which, under the title ‘In Britain today the rules, like taxes, are for the little people’, the journalist outlines a number of glaring inequalities in British life. I do not often resort to simply reiterating other writers’ information but, with due acknowledgement to Jonathan Freedland and suitable use of the appropriate quotation marks, I would wish to reproduce some of his journalism in what follows.

1.  On the one hand, a man jailed for six months for stealing bottles of water worth £3.50 in the summer riots of 2011 was not given the opportunity to hand back the water and pay a fine. On the other hand, the security firm, G4S (remember the London 2012 Olympic Games security fiasco?), seemingly guilty of overcharging the public purse to the tune of ‘tens of millions of pounds for non-existing services and refusing to submit to a voluntary forensic audit’, has simply promised to ‘reimburse any overbilling’.  No legal action to follow, then, and G4S are not alone in ‘sucking billions from the public teat’, seemingly with the collusion of those who control that source of financial succour.

2.  I recently received advice from HM Revenue and Customs informing me that they had taxed my retirement income for nearly £400 less than they should have. Whose fault was that? Not to worry, without consultation they are going to decrease my personal tax allowances this financial year in order to recoup the loss to the national coffers. Starbuck’s, the ‘milky-drinks giant’, in response to the discovery (revelation?) that it had paid next to no tax on the huge profits it accrues from its British outlets, offered to write a self-determined £10m cheque to Revenue and Customs – to be paid in two or more instalments. I was not given this privilege of choosing what my tax was to be and how I might pay in a manner that may have been more suitable to my circumstances, and certainly I did not expect applause as if I was performing an ‘act of philanthropy’.

3.  For several years now public sector workers have been expected to get by on a 1% pay rise. With inflation being in excess of this, ‘the pay rise amounts to a pay cut’. Not so for some public sector workers, especially those who are members of parliament. According to the independent body that sets the rules, our political representatives (many of whom obviously do not see themselves singularly in such humble roles, preferring the board rooms and lobbying halls and the payments accruing therefrom) should get a pay rise of 11%. It would seem that some public employees, like some British citizens, deserve proportionately more than others – grossly so! When pay differentials are taken into account, this recommendation for members of parliament is obscene. As a former teacher I would have been be most agreeable were parliament to act accordingly and favourably to all ‘independent bodies’ that sought to set pay scales.

4.  Some years ago I experienced job loss from an international charity when, in an international down-sizing process the management position I occupied was made redundant. I was offered three months’ salary in lieu of employment. So, what should be my reaction to ‘BBC management being offered massive sums of tax-payers’ money’ when removed from public broadcasting jobs because of their incompetence or misdeeds?

5.  The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, plans to make the newly laid-off wait longer for welfare help. This from a man who admitted that ‘he had never visited a food bank and had no idea what caused people to use one’.  Perhaps he should make the obvious link between delays in reception of benefits and the need to use a food bank. In a similar way, when Osborne was asked  by the Treasury select committee why it is that ‘the maximum amount of housing benefit that can be claimed for a one-bedroom flat in London is £250 a week,  yet for a flat of the same size in the same city an MP can claim up to £350?’, he had no answer! No idea; no answer; no hope.

6.  These days, it would seem that ‘austerity Osborne’ prefers to talk about his plans for the next parliament. He would envisage that in this future ‘tax increases will not be required’; rather, the deficit will be further reduced by cutting what he calls ‘welfare’. In other words, those who have least will get less.

It is this last example that personifies the rampant inequality that,  increasingly under the present government, besets our nation – a pattern that has become so familiar that we barely recognize it any more. As Jonathan Freedland puts it, ‘the national belt has to be tightened, so we make sure that it squeezes those who are already gasping for breath’. Or, to reshape the metaphor, we are becoming ‘a nation of two-waists’, those who need a belt to hold-in a waist and those who have no need of a belt because they have no waist to hold-in (the metaphor holds good if the word ‘waist’ is replaced by ‘waste’).

There is a parable in the New Testament that speaks of the those who are poor and needy feeding-off the scraps that fall from the tables of the rich. The wealthy continue to ignore the poor at the table, indeed, cannot recognize their presence because of their concentration on their own feasting. The poor can have, even if they are not necessarily welcome to, the scraps. We live in ‘a land of double standards where those with much expect more and believe that the rules, like taxes, are for the little people’ – the latter being those whose place, it is believed by the ‘big people’, is at the feet of the so-called and often self-styled elite.

There is little journalistic reference these days to the word ‘injustice’. Politicians, and others, many of whom pay only lip service to the concept of ‘equality’, prefer the term ‘fairness’. John Rawls, in true liberal style, speaks of ‘justice as fairness’. However, when it seems that we live in a social system where different rules apply to different people, with the very rich all but exempt, it matters little which specific word is used – the outcomes are the same!

I began by speaking of ‘royal babies’ and the glaring inequalities in British life, inequalities that we find hard to see, never mind do anything about. We may believe that the United Kingdom ‘never had it so good’ and is getting better. We refuse to even think about, never-mind to engage politically, economically and socially with, the crude notion of ‘inequality’. Or, as Jonathan Freedland concludes, ‘when we do see it, perhaps we are so resigned we simply shrug. But it’s still there, right in front of one’s nose’.

RSC