I confess I may be being premature but we must all have begun to wonder how long it will be before we see the fragmentation of our country into separate nation states.
The elections in May brought extraordinary success to the Scottish Nationalist Party, finishing the Labour Party’s 50-year dominance north of the border. Whether he will be able to do it with his wafer-thin majority is debatable, but Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, was looking for a referendum on Scottish independence within three years. Having given regional assemblies to both Scotland and Wales, many would say to Tony Blair as he steps down this month as PM, ‘Well what did you think would happen?’
Later in May saw the re-opening of Stormont and the return of the power-sharing assembly in Northern Ireland. While it was heart-warming to see the faces of old opponents, Dr. Ian Paisley of the DUP and Martin McGuiness of Sinn Fein, smiling out from the front pages of our newspapers, the question is, ‘Can it last?’ We have people sharing power whose long-term aims are diametrically opposed.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …