UK: Calendar: UK Christians are badging themselves individually to register the existence of our communal reality, our existence, our faith identity

UK campaign for Christian self-identification 
'I am not ashamed' Day, today December 1

Action Points

• Please wear your Not Ashamed badge / merchandise, wherever you are. Every person that stands for their faith today counts.
   
• There has been a huge media response to our campaign including coverage in national and local newspapers and radio stations.
  
  You can read the BBC News story here, the Daily Telegraph story here and the Daily Mail storyhere. You can listen to Gary McFarlane’s appearance on the Radio 4 Today programme here. We will be adding much of the media onto our website here including Radio 5 and other media. Please watch, listen and read the stories. Leaving comments helps to raise the profile of the campaign.

• Please sign the declaration here if you haven’t already.

• Please pray that this campaign will continue to find favour and that Jesus would be glorified.

• Let us know the details of any initiatives that you have started due to this campaign.

• Please support the Not Ashamed song - further details here. We would love this song to enter the charts this Christmas. The song will be released on Monday 6th December and will be available on iTunes and other download sites. You can also pre-order it here.

For details of the Not Ashamed launch day please click here.

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PoliticsEU: UK Tories: France says Conserv leader Cameron "autistic," some EastGermans pine for old days of Communism

Pierre Lellouche, considered pro-Brit in Sarkozy-era cabinet (France), blasts UK's Tory leader, David Cameron, "France: autistic Tories have castrated UK in Europe" (by Nicolas Watt, Patrick Wintour, and Allegra Stratton, Guardian, Nov4,2k4). The piece reports the furious response of European leaders to yesterday's letter of Cameron to the President of the EU, acknowledging the very recent full adoption of the EU's Lisbon Treaty. And therefore the appropriate but reluctant dropping of Cameron's previously proposed referendum for lessened UK involvement with Europe, altogther. Cameron, then -- in his mentioned letter to CzechRep's Klaus (presently head of European Parliament) -- went on to build a new moat, closer to the castle, so to speak, that woud set impregnable barriers, thus containing European sway over Britain.

On the man initiating all these wordy reverberations, see: David Cameron, for a profile and a survey of recent event's involving this newmaker.

Meanwhile, Germany is undergoing a longterm reappraisal of the "split over the past" that divides the former West Germany from its soulmate the former East Germany which was Communist-dominated for some decades -- until precisely the fall of the Berlin Wall. This page in Washington Post, "In unified Germany, split over the past" carries a photo gallery feature "Tearing down the Wall in 1989."

Recall the USA's President, Ronald Reagan's appeal, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall." And the wall came tumblin down.

Apparently some regions and movements in Europe are feeling claustrophobic just now, around the time of the closing of the mechanisms that allowed meandering from the Eurofold, closing down around the Treaty of Lisbon which had been held in abeyance for a number of years, until Klaus affixed his signature the other day, Cameron wrote his letter accepting the basis for his promised UK referendum on European relations, shoud he be elected Britain, UK, England's new Prime Minister.

-- Politicarp

Politics: UK: Scottish National Party (SNP) wins a plurality, becoming Scotland's largest party under proportional representation

BBC reports Scotland's election thru the prism of how the winners will form a coalition in the multi-party outcome of the vote, breaking Labour's 8-yr hold on the realm. "SNP begins coalition discussions" (May5,2k7).

The table of results looks like this:

Scottish National Party......47 seats
Labour Party.................46 seats
Conservative Party...........17 seats
Liberal Democratic Party.....16 seats
Green Party...................2 seats
Independent...................1 seat

The Electoral Commission has launched an inquiry after the election was marred by technical problems, delays and a high level of spoiled ballot papers.

Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he had concerns about the complexity of the voting system when he was Scottish secretary [in Westminster, London].

Most likely, it seems to me, SNP will make a written promise not to hold a Quebec-style referendum of separation from the United Kingdom (altho the Queen and her Heir would still be the successive monarchs of an independent Scotland, if I understand the constitutional situation correctly). The written agreement with the Liberal Democrats would permit the latter to enter the governing coalition, with the Greens then being all too happy to fill in the final 2 votes to secure the government's majority. Otherwise, it would have to be SNP + Tories + Greens + Independent. Is the math there? Perhaps, but not the poitics, it would seem.