It was MSF that I turned to when I decided to help Haiti, I thought to myself that they'd put the money to best use out of the options.

You've touched on some interesting stuff that I'd like to see fleshed out regarding the sort of people who work for "aid" organisations- do they become jaded & power-hungry over time, are some groups more likely to succumb than others, or what... but not just before I head out on a bender. Bye! :)

I've barely "met" Thompson, & what little I've seen of him suggests that it's merely an intra-Christian squabble that they have between them.

I have, however, a pal who is a right-wing Catholic called "The Anchoress". I have linked to Heresy Corner from there a couple of times, when I thought you articulated something I was trying to say, or generally put up something worth reading. I remember you saying you've had people wash up on this blog. I hope they liked it but they've never commentated.

Anyways- I'm just glad to have expressed my dissent from the "Cranmer" fan club!

Am I the only person who finds "Archbishop Cranmer" repulsive? There's just something about him that I find self-satisfied & deeply offensive in ways I can't articulate. It isn't a recoiling from the faithful because I have no objection to other believers, as much as I don't share their stance, but I've always found him objectionable.

Someone help me out here, there must be others!

Can't come soon enough for me. But the people I've spoken to, young & old, are against it- they KNOW that what the tabloids say is true, without tedious details like evidence or logical thought.

I find that there is, in real life, a kind of conformist centre which anyone who goes against, for example by being a fervent humanist & having little of the "respect" we're meant to show towards religion, is seen as an oddity. I've pretty much given up taking part in any real-life discussions. I've been sneered at & dismissed from a position of total ignorance one too many times.

I don't know if it's like this everywhere. But I am thinking, from what I've seen, that Obama's views on drugs are relatively liberal so we might just get there, particularly given the federal nature of the USA, meaning that the more advanced states are more likely to pioneer liberal laws.

You're right, but I was led to believe that the proportion of working-class students has incresed only modestly, & the main motor of expansion was letting just about every middle-class child into university, regardless of ability or lack thereof.

It probably is an unstoppable force now. You'd have thought that if ever there was a time to restrict access to the well qualified it would be now, when we face the prospect of spending cuts. Well, why not simply cut spending on those least likely to respond? To be brutally honest the dole costs less. Having them do some kind of voluntary work (doesn't need to be coordinated- just have the job centre inform new signers as a matter of course about what they can do in this department) would be more use.

When we hear about culturally valuable courses being cut because they don't make money, but we still have any old tit going to university, it's not exactly inspiring stuff.

"I am not a vindictive man but, in this instance, that day cannot come too soon. And when your murderous idiocy is exposed, I shall enjoy accepting your tearful apology."

Is that going to be when your party wins an election then? Do you say this sort of thing on the doorstep?

Yes, I wondered when you & your pals would show up. Is your mate Julie going to join us?

I have not done this topic justice, I know, but as I say it is a huge affair with a lot of components that whole books could be written about. I am aware that a lot of people couldn't care less.

Are we not, now, suffering from the fact that there are few working-class leadership roles? Gone are the days when a good craftsman could get himself into management, or when a union rep could be chosen from amongst his fellow workers & promoted to a high position. If you go & get a job at Bargain Booze warehouse in Crewe, you're going to be in similar jobs or on the dole for life.

There are still some ways up but it has become more the case than ever that graduates of certain universities, usually from private schools, dominate. They are often brought in from outside without experience of workplace culture & given high positions from day 1.

Yes, there's a massive thing here. I remember reading a text by Orwell in which he asked why some youth fresh out of public school could be commissioned as an officer, but an intelligent mechanic couldn't. The answer to that is that only one had been taught from an early age how to wield authority.

The obvious retort to this, which I'd make, is that it wasn't meritocratic. An elite education went to any old clown so long as he was from a certain family, while more deserving scions of the working class went without. This to some extent changed after the war, but seems to have been thrown into reverse.

I have not done this topic justice, I know, but as I say it is a huge affair with a lot of components that whole books could be written about.