Question: your wife is away for two nights and you have a whole day for yourself. What does a bloke do? Answer: you go on a circuitous train journey, finishing that evening precisely where you started that morning! This is how I spent this Tuesday, with Jacqui away with old friends at the remarkable Capenwray Hall. So I took trains from Preston through to Carlisle, then to Leeds, Manchester Piccadilly and finally back to Preston on a day ranger ticket, some 296 miles in j

Who would be a politician? As Barack Obama observes: “What I'm asking for is hard. It's easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn't possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don't matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.” But it strikes me that so many problems today facing our elected representatives appear intractable. Not least immigration. We’ve witnessed the hard line on illegal immigration taken

"Resume your seat! Resume your seat, young man!" For a moment I thought Sergeant at Arms would have to frogmarch Ian Blackford out of the Chamber as the leader of the SNP held his ground. But only for as long as necessary to make his point. Then he strode out of the Commons and out of my sight. As it happens Jacqui and I were in the Strangers’ Gallery for this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, courtesy of our MP, Rosie Cooper. We were certainly given value for mo

“The Council collapsed. Groups like St Helen’s Church, The Clement James Centre, and The Westway Centre, ‘became’ the local government, as people lost trust in the Council. But people don’t lose trust suddenly, it was lost before.” A fascinating report on the Grenfell tower tragedy was published this week by Theos, the religious and society think tank. It seems that one of the key lessons from this calamitous tower fire this time last year was the remarkable response of th

History matters. Just ask any supporter of Everton Football Club. How we see ourselves today depends to a large part on how we understand our past. In this we need to be realistic and above all, honest, not always an easy exercise. And looking back what now seems to have been inevitable was not inevitable at the time. Far from it. As I preached at my final service at Christ Church, I wonder how my life would have developed if on Saturday, 6 October 1962 Roger had no