The battle for freedom and opportunity
is never finally won.

Having cleared my correspondence, I now intend to be comprehensively offline for a few days.

And moreover, having traversed a wide range of issues which go wrong in people’s lives, with which the state seems incompetent to help to varying degrees, I am ever more confirmed in the view that I expressed in an article on ConservativeHome:

The change we need is a change within. From a belief that human relationships should be based on class conflict and mutual plunder mediated by the State, to a reliance on mutual cooperation. From the view that business is somehow bad, to the realisation that all enterprise is social. From condemnation of profit, to an understanding that it is a measure of the value created for others. From fear of bearing risk, to the truth, that the search to create value for other people is the foundation of worthwhile community. From waiting for the State to decide and provide, to energetic, innovative mutual support.

See also John 15:9-17 or even Galatians 3:21-29.

Merry Christmas. It’s still a time with profound meaning for society.

As I reflect on returning to Parliament after Easter, it seems a good moment to publish the prayers said every day in the Commons as the House sits:

PSALM LXVII.

GOD be merciful unto us, and bless us: and shew us the light of his countenance, and be merciful unto us.

That thy way may be known upon earth: thy saving health among all nations.

Let the people praise thee, O God: yea, let all the people praise thee.

O let the nations rejoice and be glad: for thou shalt judge the folk righteously, and govern the nations upon earth.

Let the people praise thee, O God: yea, let all the people praise thee.

Then shall the earth bring forth her increase: and God, even our own God, shall give us his blessing.

God shall bless us: and all the ends of the world shall fear him.

¶ After the Psalm, these Suffrages, and the Prayers following, shall be used.

THE Lord be with you.
Answer. And with thy Spirit.

¶ Let us pray.

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

OUR Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, for ever and ever. – Amen.

O LORD our heavenly Father, high and mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily we beseech thee with thy favour to behold our most Gracious Sovereign Lady Queen ELIZABETH, and so replenish her with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that she may alway incline to thy will, and walk in thy way: endue her plenteously with heavenly gifts, grant her long to live, strengthen her that she may vanquish and overcome all her enemies; and finally after this life she may attain everlasting joy and felicity, through Jesus Christ our Lord. – Amen.

LORD, the God of righteousness and truth, grant to our Queen and her government, to members of Parliament and all in positions of responsibility, the guidance of your Spirit. May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals; but laying aside all private interests and prejudices keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind; so may your kingdom come and your name be hallowed. – Amen.

GO before us, O Lord, in all our doings, with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help, that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy Holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting Life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. – Amen.

THE Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. – Amen.

My favourite line is undoubtedly, “May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals; but laying aside all private interests and prejudices keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind; so may your kingdom come and your name be hallowed.”

AV? Wrong question.

This morning, I was delighted to attend the opening of Biblefresh in High Wycombe. The programme for the day looked superb and I was sorry I could not stay for it.  Wycliffe Bible Translators set out a tremendous display which was a powerful reminder both of how many languages humanity has invented and of how many still do not have a Bible translation.

Before leaving, I agreed to hand-write Job 1:6-12 as part of the Handwritten Bible Project, which celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible.

The Book of Job is a beautiful poetic allegory which seeks to address the problem of evil.  It’s from Job’s response to the misadventures which befall him that we derive the expression, “the patience of Job”. The book introduces Behemoth and Leviathan:

“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs, its strength and its graceful form.

Who can strip off its outer coat? Who can penetrate its double coat of armor?

Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth?

Smoke, flames, snorting and so on and so forth: it’s not a comforting image.

Simply as a piece of ancient literature, the Book of Job is well worth a read but, for a contemporary account of Leviathan, I recommend David B. Smith’s excellent Living with Leviathan: Public Spending, Taxes and Economic Performance:

New Labour’s so-called ‘third way’, and the prevalent economic paradigm in much of ‘Old Europe’, appears to correspond to none of these categories [free market, socialist and 'Butskellite' mixed]. Instead, it appears to be a system under which the private sector maintains a nominal legal control over its capital and labour, but the returns on these factors of production are so heavily influenced by tax and regulation that the public sector ends up effectively controlling such returns. This sham form of mixed economy, which needs to be distinguished from the British mixed economy of the 1950s, has traditionally been associated with fascist regimes – for example, the gelenkte Wirtschaft (supple or ‘joined-up’ economy) that Goering implemented in Nazi Germany in 1936. Such systems represent an obvious intellectual attempt to reconcile a socialist-inspired desire for a powerful interventionist state with the wealth-creating force of ‘bourgeois-liberal capitalism’, and tend to be popular with politicians and bureaucrats, because they force all sectors of society to kowtow to the state and its functionaries if they are to remain in business. This means that such ‘third way’ systems can easily generate a rich harvest of corrupt favours, and maximise the opportunities for the political and bureaucratic class to acquire plunder and reward their supporters, and seems to explain why politicians who can slip free of democratic control tend to independently rediscover and gravitate towards the fascist model of economic organisation. It is certainly not being suggested that New Labour economic policy is consciously modelled on pre-war fascist precedents but rather that a combination of the Marxist- inspired New Left ideas of the former student radicals of the 1960s and 1970s, who now compose so much of the Labour Party establishment, when combined with an intense nanny-style authoritarianism, and the practical need to get elected, produced a synthesis that ended up with an economic approach that was functionally hard to distinguish from that of fascism.

Leviathan has always been a terror, but the contemporary version seems to me the far greater danger.

This morning, I visited High Wycombe’s Cash Converters, where I learned how this firm provides a valuable service to some of the people who struggle most locally. I arrived with a predictable range of questions about fees, fraud and the avoidance of handling stolen goods and, I have to write, I was impressed by the answers.

Next up was SAS, in Medmenham, who produce business analytics software and services. SAS is a privately held and extremely impressive company with a product suite of astonishing capability. The firm’s values-based care for its staff was uplifting, and their pragmatic attitude to sustainability across their expansive site seems standard-setting.

I met some inspiring local people in my advice clinic and I’ll leave shortly for a dinner where I am speaking to around 170 people about faith and politics…

Since it is Sunday and I am off to church, something from Ayn Rand seems excusable:

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Rand detested religion of course. Me too: it tends to spoil faith.