It's right to challenge Christian ideas of purity but wrong to deny the virgin birth

Some years ago, the BBC chose Christmas time to create a documentary arguing that Jesus was the result of Mary being raped. They did not bother to clarify the sources and only did so when responding to my indignant letter of complaint that, at the one time of year our faith takes centre stage, they felt it appropriate to question some of the most fundamental areas of belief for us – that Jesus, born in human flesh in the brutal and humiliating setting of a lowly stable, was the son of God, born to Mary as a miraculous intervention by almighty God above, beyond and outside of the norms of nature.
The BBC argued to me that, if Jesus were the son of a Roman soldier, or indeed the son of St Joseph, it didn’t necessarily alter his fully divine nature. Except, of course, that it would have, for as St John’s Gospel reminds us during the Christmas lectionary, he came about through the will of God, not the will of the flesh.

Fast forward over a decade, and it’s not the BBC airing such insensitive nonsense, but a man of the cloth: Rev. DR. Giles Fraser, who wrote a robust attack on the virgin birth narrative in his Guardian column this Christmas.

Cinema ban on Lord's Prayer advert is deeply offensive – here's why

I’m just trying to imagine what it might say and who might indeed have written the letter of complaint that the Digital Cinema Media agency expected to receive when it decided to ban in all major cinema groups the screening of a 60-second advert from the Church of England, showing groups of people in different circumstances, praying the Lord’s Prayer – a prayer that believers and non-believers alike will, undoubtedly, know so well from their school days.

Doctors' strike: it's patients who come a distant last

Forget greedy tube drivers striking despite being paid a small fortune and having the kind of holiday entitlement the rest of us can only dream of. Now, it’s one of the most respected groups in society that, under the leadership of militants, is set to strike – junior doctors.

I'd rather be a red Tory than a wet Tory

Every party is a coalition. No party is illustrating that more explicitly at the moment than Labour, though commentators, journalists and politicians alike have ideologically categorised the British Conservative party’s different wings in a lot more detail and with a much wider degree of specificity. I’m the kind of Tory sometimes pejoratively but, I’d like to think, nonetheless affectionately labelled ‘red Tories.’ Others describe themselves as “Ken Clark Tories.” Whatever!

Lords, tax credits and those point-scoring Lib Dems

Confused as to why a debate on tax credits has become one centred on the very British constitution itself? You’re in good company, so here’s a rather excellent guide to help you understand it.
With that out of the way, we should be absolutely clear that if a fatal motion succeeds against the statutory instrument through which the Conservative government seeks to implement its tax credit changes, it will raise serious questions about the political legitimacy of the House of Lords.

This hard-working mother shows us why changes to tax credits are fair

This is the moment a mother-of-4 confronted Tory minister Amber Rudd on the BBC’s Question Time last week, and she turned away in shame.

The equality-obsessed left will never understand grammar schools like poor, bright pupils do

As a Sevenoaks resident, I am simply relieved that the grammar school campaigning has now been put to bed after considerable dithering and delaying on the part of Nicky Morgan, Education Secretary. Today’s announcement might be headline news for most, but for us locals this row has dragged on for years. Notwithstanding the obvious political difficulties of sanctioning the creation of some 450 extra grammar school places, irrespective of whether the school calls itself an ‘annexe’ or not, Morgan dragged this on long enough before doing the right thing.

Conservative Party: an inspiring conference and a vision for the future

The pictures couldn’t have contrasted more. On the one hand Conservatives young and old, smartly dressed, filed in to a packed venue in Manchester. On the other, a mob of spitting, bottle-throwing louts shouting “Tory scum!” One 18 year-old eruditely described on last night’s Question Time how she was called a “paedophile and child murderer” as she attempted to enter the conference. This is the last gasp of a political left that has truly and utterly taken leave of its senses.