disarm.org.uk

May they live peacefully by Virginia

2007-09-26T18:28:00.000Z

Who can fail to be impressed and awed by the demonstration of nonviolent resistance we are seeing in Burma? The steadfastness of the monks in the face of the real fear of death and injury is remarkable. Yesterday's pictures of tear gas and bloodied monks were shocking and horrifying enough, but today's news that 9 people have been killed is even worse. But I take heart from that other great movement of nonviolent resistance, the salt marches organised by Gandhi in India. Then it was the brutality of the British Empire that the world condemned, an empire that has long since collapsed. Today, as we witness the awesome power of a new peaceful revolution, our hope is that Burmese military junta will go the same way.

On the BBC website there is a poster from a protestor that sums it up for me,

"May all beings well and happy;
May they be free from danger and enmity:
May they live peacefully"

Amen to that.

New blog by Virginia

2007-08-09T22:03:00.000Z

My witterings on about my training were taking up a lot of space on this blog. So to spare all those who are completely uninterested in that sort of thing I have set up a new blog at http://peacerunner.blogspot.com/. But if you would like to follow my progress I'll keep you updated there on a weekly basis!

Remember the hostages by Virginia

2007-07-30T11:43:00.000Z

Yet again, we have seen that those bringing aid into a war torn country have been taken hostage. The Taliban captured 23 South Korean aid workers last week, threatening to kill them all. Sadly they have already killed one person, Bae Hyung-kyu on his 42nd birthday, but it is not too late for the others. The campaign group avaaz.org are running a petition to save the others. They are appealing to the Taliban to recognise that kidnapping foreigners is against the Afghan Pashtunwali code, a principle requiring 'hospitality to all, especially guests and strangers'. Please go to http//www.avaaz.org/en, if you wish to support.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the hostages, their families and their kidnappers and we pray for their speedy release

Resisting the natural impulse by Virginia

2007-07-30T11:12:00.000Z

I made the mistake of looking at the route of the half marathon yesterday, oops it looks a bit hillier than I thought. So I hope my hill run last week will help when it comes to the day. I ran to the mantra, "Run on Peacemakers" which was a great rhythm for going down and up, down and up. The coming up was really hard on some occasions, I got tired, not getting as far as I had at first; I got distracted and overshot my time for turning back. But once or twice I put some welly in it and got further than I meant to. The running down was an essential part of it, helping me restore my energies for the upward climb. And it felt like a good metaphor for our campaigning work, we need the downhill to keep us going to the top. Sometimes it feels more difficult & we feel like we have failed;sometimes we get distracted from the task; and every now and then we get a whole lot further than we ever thought possible.

I didn't manage 3 runs this week but did get out again for 90 minutes on Saturday. "Run on you Poor" and "Run on those who Mourn" were background thoughts. As I ran, I reflected that we cannot be physically present to comfort those who mourn, or to build the justice of kingdom of heaven for the poor. However we can help by our prayers, our solidarity actions and of course by our fundraising. At the end of the run I had a nasty encounter with 2 young lads on a motorbike who were zooming up and down the cycle path, nearly knocking me and two children flying. I was so furious I shouted angrily at them. They shouted back and deliberately tried to frighten me when they turned round and passed me the other way. I think I was right to confront them, but I realised afterwards being so angry could have created a more dangerous situation. It made me think that an angry violent response,so often a natural impulse, is one that leads us to worse trouble in the end.

That's why we need projects like Wi'am in Palestine, a small beacon of hope, suggesting that violence is not the only answer. There is an alternative way to live in the face of great oppression. We were privileged to have the Director of Wi'am, Zoughbi Zoughbi, as a guest in our home last night. Listening to his stories of life in Palestine reminded us how much easier it is to be a peacemaker in the tranquillity and safety of England. The hills of that half marathon feel a little less daunting when I think of the good work Wi'am is doing. If you feel equally inspired to donate to this sponsored run, please contact nick@for.org.uk for more details.

The DESO Backlash Starts Here- by Chris

2007-07-26T19:12:00.000Z

The Daily Telegraph (suprise, suprise) leads the backlash against the closure of DESO. A tad too late boys!

PM Announces Closure of DESO by Chris

2007-07-25T18:51:00.000Z

After recent leaks from the Treasury, Gordon Brown today announced the closure of the governments arms promotion unit, DESO. The news came as something of a shock as we were not expecting any news until the autumn. It was obviously a shock to BAE Systems and SBAC according to Defencenews! FoR has been running a specific campaign on DESO for the past 12 months but arms trade campaigners have been working on the issue for - well, decades. I think tonight particularly of our old friend Mary Ann Ebert who vigiled outside DESO's offices in Soho Square for many years until her death.

Of course this doesn't mean the end of the arms trade - the work of promoting UK arms exports is being moved to the UK Trade and Industy body but it is hugely signifcant. Perhaps one could say the beginning of the end?

Run on Peacemakers by Virginia

2007-07-23T18:59:00.000Z

Well I have just completed my first month's training. The upside has been that the runs I have done have sort of achieved what they were supposed to do. I am trying to follow a programme that I can squeeze in with work and childcare, of 1 long run, 1 hilly run, and 1 changing the tempo run. I managed this 2 weeks out of the 4, and have pretty much enjoyed the experience. The hill runs are probably the hardest as they consist of running up and down a stretch of hill as fast as you can for a set period, having a recovery period then starting again. The gruelling thing is that you increase both the time going uphill and the number of sessions each week, so what started out quite comfortably is now making me puff and sweat. The idea of this is to increase my body's ability to breathe more efficiently helping me eventually run faster. The same can be said of the runs that change the tempo which are slightly easier because we tend to do that at my running club. The long runs are supposed to be taken slow to build up stamina. I am trying to be disciplined about this as when I trained for the Marathon I did them too fast and kept getting colds as a result. But now I think I have been doing them a bit too slow as it took me ages to get anywhere the day I ran for 75 minutes. (And if you are wondering why I a nice non-competitive peace activist want to run faster, well it's just one of those running things. I don't want to beat anyone else, I want to beat myself.)

The difficult bit has been the toll on my body. I suffer from sciatica which means I have to be careful to do lots of back and stomach exercises, and I don't do them enough. I am used to managing this but now seem to have some on and off problems with my shins and right foot. I am hoping that these will be sorted by my fab new birthday running shoes (which will be winging their way to me soon, I had to send the first pair back because I foolishly told Chris the wrong size!)But in the meantime I have taken a little break, partly to rest up and partly because we went to the National Justice and Peace Conference at the weekend. There wasn't much time for running but plenty of time for thinking about peacemaking, particularly because of the powerful messages from our two key note speakers. The first, Fr John Dear, a long term activist and writer from the US, gave us an inspirational address which was so rich it will take me a long time to process. However, one thing that stood out immediately was his reflections on the Beatitudes, which have transformed my understanding of what was already a wonderful piece of scripture. The Beatitudes were a theme that ran through his talk and rightly so, for as he pointed out they are the core of Jesus' message on peacemaking, so much so that Gandhi read them twice a day. This was a revelation in itself. But the news that there is a recent translation which if I understood him right suggests that rather than being passive "Blessed are the poor, those who mourn" etc, the message is meant to be far more active, "Walk on you poor in spirit, Walk on those who mourn" blew me away. I am taking this one step further to inspire my running, "Run on you peacemakers, for you shall be called children of God" and I will be using the Beatitudes as meditation when I go on my long runs. Thanks John for this new understanding and for the great story of the chapel of the beatitudes.

Our other speaker was also important in a different way, and I was particularly glad to meet him. Zoughbi Zoughbi, an Arab Palestinian Christian happens to be the Director of the Wi'am community, which is one of the projects supported by the International Peacemakers Fund. In a community that is hemmed in on all sides, where children and adults live with daily trauma, Wi'am offers the chance for people to find ways to resolve their conflicts peacefully and nonviolently. Zoughbi told us many stories of living under occupation, and the fact that he does so without rancour and bitterness, despite having been jailed, despite facing regular humiliations to travel short distances in his own country, gave me an insight into what true peacemaking looks like. To remain nonviolent in the face of such provocation with your only hope to bring others "to their senses, not their knees" is a challenge that Zoughbi more than lives up to. The work that his community does is vital in that it gives young Palestinians a hopeful alternative than the immediate (understandable) thirst for revenge that leads nowhere and creates more violence in it's wake.

So I have returned from the conference with a rested foot, a new meditation to aid my running and the knowledge that I have seen most powerfully why we should be supporting communities like the Wi'am community.

This week then I hope to complete a long run of up to 90 mins, a hilly run that involves 3 lots of 7 minutes continuous up and down, and a tempo run of about 45 minutes. My foot and back are a bit better so I am going to try and do some of those pesky exercises too.

Wish me Luck

Running for Peace by Virginia

2007-07-23T17:15:00.000Z

I took up running again 3 years ago after a long break from the sport. At the time we were living in FoR's former home in Clopton, Northamptonshire, and one of our nearest neighbours was the US base of Molesworth, a key intelligence gathering centre for the US military. I used to see Molesworth on my runs and so my running often became a meditation and a prayer for peace. It was also then that I had the idea of running to raise funds for peace projects. In September 2004 I did a 5K run for CAAT, and I applied to the London Marathon in the hope of doing the same for FoR. I didn't get a place so did that event on behalf of another charity, but the idea has stayed with me. My Marathon experience was a bit of a struggle as I succumbed a lot to injury and colds. So for the last two years I have been concentrating on doing shorter runs and building up my muscle strength.

This September I have decided to try a longer run again and I have entered the New Forest Half Marathon, which takes place on the 16th September 2007. And I have decided to take the opportunity to raise funds for international peacemakers at the same time. Since 2005, the Fellowship of Reconciliation has been raising money on behalf of peacemakers working to find alternative solutions to violence, often in the most difficult conflicts. The International Peacemakers Fund
supports the work of the Wi'am community that provides conflict resolution in Palestine, the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado in Colombia which promotes peace amidst extraordinary violence from state and guerilla forces, as well as projects in Sudan, Zimbabwe and Uganda. I am hoping to raise £500 for the fund which will go directly to the projects supported.

If you are interested in supporting this effort, you can do so in two ways. The first is the obvious one to sponsor me, and I hope to have a link to my fundraising website shortly. The second is to keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Training for a long distance event is hard work, particularly when your body doesn't always do what you want it to do. It always helps to know people are thinking of me.

Thanks for the support, I'll keep you posted as to how I get on, starting with my next post.

Surprise, Surprise! - by Chris

2007-07-10T20:41:00.000Z

As predicted the Daily Telegraph today reports 'Defence' industry anger at plans to close DESO. The report also discloses that CAAT and FoR (ahem!) have met with Treasury ministers and officals about the issue. I'm sure this is the beginning of a summer-long propaganda campaign over the future of the department. Our friend Paul Ingram has a fine piece (and photo!) on the Guardian 'Comment is Free' site on all this.

DESO to close? -by Chris

2007-07-09T20:33:00.000Z

The Guardian front page today ran the news that The Treasury is considering closing the Defence Export Services Organisaton (DESO). Fantastic news if true. I suspect that its a little too early to celebrate as no doubt the 'defence' industry will undertake a tough rear-guard action but still, who would have thought it??

A riposte to the myth of redemptive violence by Virginia

2007-07-05T19:49:00.000Z

"Why are there no children's writers challenging the myth of redemptive violence?" bemoaned a friend the other day. I didn't have an answer at the time, but on reflection guess the reason is that it is easier to make a more exciting tale if you have weapons and explosions. So I was delighted to see that the season finale of Dr Who, written by Russell T Davies, subverted the genre and did it so well he had me fooled. For those of you who don't watch, the Doctor's arch enemy the Master had enslaved the world,killed millions of people, held him prisoner and tortured him for a year. The Doctor had sent his companion Martha on a long journey across the world, and a hope had arisen that she was the one who would kill the Master. She even showed people a gun she was developing that needed a fourth solution to do the trick.

I was completely suckered by this, thinking, yes they need to do this, it's the only way. So I was bowled over by the revelation that the gun was a set up, what Martha had done was talk to people about who the Doctor was. As the Master sneered, "hope and prayer is that all you've got?", billions of people came together and their joint thoughts broke his network and enabled the Doctor to become free. It was a slightly OTT storyline but as a metaphor for hope in the face of terrible oppression I thought it was a wonderful. And when the Doctor had the Master in his power, he not only forgave him but accepted that it was his responsibility to look after him and redeem him. It wasn't a perfect non-violent ending - the Doctor managed to talk one person out of shooting the Master but someone else got the gun (although being Dr Who this was probably a set up to allow the character to return later). But to have the main part of the story being done like this on a major children's programme was quite extraordinary. And it was great to watch it with the kids.

In a world where too many people want to rush to the gun or the bomb to resolve their problems, we have a responsibility to teach our children there are alternatives. Dr Who has shown it is possible to do this in an entertaining and thought provoking way. Wouldn't it be nice if more writers were brave enough to try it?

Great news by Virginia

2007-07-05T19:40:00.000Z

We were delighted by yesterday's news that Alan Johnston was released yesterday. Kidnapping innocent bystanders seems to be an unpleasant feature of war situations these days, and so we are pleased that this time there was a happy ending. We hope that Mr Johnston will be able to return to his reporting once he has recovered, the world needs more journalists like him.

But whilst we celebrate we remember all the kidnap victims in Palestine, Iraq,Nigeria and elsewhere who don't always make the world headlines, and who suffer as much. May they have a similar happy ending to their stories.

And Welcome Gordon by Virginia

2007-06-27T21:23:00.001Z

With Tony gone, Gordon Brown finally has the job he has been dreaming about all these years. I am sure Mr Brown would like us to think this is a new dawn, a new balance sheet and time to put the Blair years behind us.

But the trouble is Gordon, we can't quite do that. Tony Blair could not have gone to war without assistance from the Treasury. As I've said before on this blog, my biggest frustration over the last 10 years has been seeing the public sector coffers dwindle, whilst the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan get a blank cheque.

I'm afraid my optimism was lost 10 years ago, I can't think we are getting anything different with our new leader. But a small part of me would like to see me proved wrong. So please Mr Brown, please do us a favour, and try and live up to your heroes. If you really do admire Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Aung San Suu Kyi so much, please try to live up to their ideals and beliefs and ask yourself:

Who would they bomb?

So Farewell Tony Blair by Virginia

2007-06-27T20:50:00.000Z

After 6 weeks of self indulgent touring the world, Tony Blair finally left Downing Street today. I can't say I'm sorry to see him go. I was foolish enough to vote for him in 1997, desperate to see a change after 18 years of Tory rule. I was even more foolish to think that Labour actually might make a positive difference to the world. It was an optimism I soon lost. My first disillusionment was when Robin Cook's ethical foreign policy (remember that?) was quickly dispensed by Blair's continued friendship and support for those fine arms traders at British Aerospace (BAe). It was downhill all the way from there.

A year later, as I experienced the first contractions for the birth of our eldest child, we woke to the news that Blair had joined in US air raids on Iraq. 3 weeks after her birth we sat down in Downing Street in protest at the killing of the innocent. Ever since then our family life has been caught up in resisting Blair's wars. From Iraq, to Kosovo, Sierra Leone to Afghanistan, and back to Iraq, Tony Blair has peddled the lie that you can right an injustice with tanks and bombs. We are all aware of the mess that lies in Iraq, but are things any better in Kosovo or Afghanistan since he agreed to go to war? I don't think so.

Tony Blair freely admits to knowing nothing about history, yet he wants history to judge him as a great leader who resisted terrorism by taking firm action. I believe history will be less kind. My pet theory is that he is the little boy who never quite grew out of the myth of being the Boy's Own action hero. Being of the generation after the Second World War he felt cheated by not having the opportunity to fight himself, so he did it by proxy. All the warmongering he has done has just created conflict elsewhere and made British citizens targets for terrorism.

And yet the sad thing is, he does have qualities that could help make peace if he had used them better. All the energy that he (& many others, including the fabulous Mo Mowlam) put to creating peace in Northern Ireland is not energy wasted. If only he had used that energy more creatively in all the places in the world where he chose to go to war. Perhaps we would be seeing an end to the war on terror and a more stable situation in Iraq. Instead we are seeing conflagration everywhere and the threat of ongoing war in the Middle East for generations. The idea that he can now go out there and create peace in an a region where he has caused so much turmoil would be laughable if it wasn't such an insult to people who live there.

So Tony, I am not sorry to see you go. I hope that when you join the Catholic Church you will take the sacraments seriously, confess your sins and spend the rest of your life in repentance for your actions when in office.

But somehow, sadly, I doubt it.

Release Alan Johnston by Virginia

2007-05-09T21:51:00.000Z

Alan Johnston the BBC journalist was kidnapped in Gaza on the 12th March. He has reported from Gaza for the last 3 years when most Western journalists had already left the country. He has done a great deal to ensure that the suffering of the Palestinian people has not been forgotten.

Having been through the experience of our friend Norman Kember being kidnapped last year, we can imagine a little how Mr Johnston's family and friends are feeling. We hope the tape shown on Al Jazeera today is a sign that he is still alive and that he will be released soon.

Remember the suffering of the people of Palestine.

Remember Alan Johnston.

BAE Systems AGM - by Chris

2007-05-09T19:08:00.000Z

Once again the annual general meeting of BAE Systems (or British Aerospace as it used to be back in the day...) comes around - a regular event on our calendar - I have probably been about 15 times over the past twenty years! Its the one opportunity to go head-to-head with the board of directors of Europe's largest arms company and ask them 'pertinent questions'. This year the hot topic is corruption and time and time again the Chair and Chief Executive are pressed on the issue. After being regular shot hateful looks by Mike Turner for over an hour (whilst being artfully ignored by Chairman Dick Olver) I finally gets in a question (which is of course dry, witty, erudite and barbed) and manage to wrestle out of Dick Olver the revelation that he has met, and will no doubt meet Gordon Brown again in the future. Mike Turner suddenly becomes inscrutable.

I find myself torn between between on the one hand marvelling that these occasions actually happen - we can walk up to, shake hands with (if one is so inclined) and talk to the senior management of one of the worlds largest arms companies (does this only happen in Britain?) and on the other hand reeling and railing at how people can talk in such a bland and matter-of-fact way about 'products' whose purpose is to main, destroy and kill. Only 364 days to the next one - see you there.

Something to Celebrate by Virgina

2007-05-08T19:51:00.000Z

Well it doesn't happen very often does it? But today we have something to celebrate. Powersharing restored at Stormont, the bitterest of enemies sitting down together in devolved government, and Ian Paisley LAUGHING with Martin McGuinness. Who'd have thought it? It seemed as if the violence and anguish of Northern Ireland would always be with us. The killings from all side of the conflict, the collusion of the British government, the sectarian hatred, it could have gone on for ever.

But it didn't and it hasn't because people took a risk for peace. The IRA initiating talks, John Major agreeing to them, all the parties sitting down to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement, the people of Northern Ireland for voting on that agreement. Tony Blair, Mo Mowlam, John Hume, David Trimble, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuiness, Ian Paisley and many more have argued, listened, shifted position, compromised and learnt to live with their differences.

We salute their courage tonight and we wish them well. Shared government will not be without it's problems, but if Ian Paisley can sit down with Martin McGuiness after all these years of bitter violence - well anything's possible.

Fr. Martin Newell Jailed

2007-05-01T18:07:00.000Z

Our good friend Fr, Martin Newell was imprisoned today for 14 days for non-payment of a fine relating to the same action that Chris was sent to prison for in January.

Martin gave a good account of his reasons to the magistrate arguing that his work with refugees here in the UK naturally leads him to oppose war and conflict which creates so many refugees. He argued that as Christians we have to take regard for "whatever we do for the lesat of these" as Christ put it and those are the main victims of the war in Iraq.

UPDATE: We have heard that Martin is in Brixton Prison and hopefully will be released on Friday becasue of the Bank Holiday

Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy - by Chris

2007-04-23T18:49:00.000Z

BAE systems have once again admitted to spying on peace campaigners - in particular the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). The company also pay well above the national minimum wage according to The Telegraph (BAE paid 'informers' £2,500 a month)

By co-incidence we are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary this week - all cards and bottles of finest malt whiskey gratefully accepted (OK I admit this is a blatant hint to my lovely wife). Why is this a coincidence? Because the last big revelation about BAE's spying also included details about our wedding. Happy Anniversary!!

Four years and counting... by Chris

2007-03-18T19:35:00.000Z

I took part today in a small protest in Parliament Square to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. A group of about a dozen people organised by Voices in the Wilderness and London Catholic Worker planted 186 crosses to represent the estimated 186,000 people who have been killed in the war.

Each cross bore the name of one person killed and how they died. As I put each of my crosses the brief details were searing. 'Hussain, four years old, killed in Fallujah'. And for each, brief awful story there were 999 others. God forgive us.

Indymedia have more more photos and a report

Trident and the need for Reconciliation by Virginia

2007-03-17T09:42:00.000Z

The Trident debate that was held on Wednesday was in many ways extremely predictable.A Government that has already decided to renew its’ unnecessary nuclear capacity & develop new weapons gets its way as usual. But watching the debate made me think that perhaps, something new was in the air. For a start, the scale of the back bench rebellion was much higher than I could have hoped for, but it was also the level of debate and discussion. To hear speaker after speaker get up and ask, “Just what are these weapons for? What are we being protected from?” even if it was mainly woolly liberals and new labourites fed up with their beloved leader, was immensely refreshing. I doubt that many of their questions made it to the mainstream press, what with Tony and David doing their double act of staking the claim for the necessity of Trident & the BBC News webpage helpfully obliging all day with cheery photos of those brave lads on the subs, and an incredibly biased piece on how important Trident is to the good people of Helensburgh, without a whiff of how the majority of Scotland would like these evil things out of their backyard thank you very much. Still, it did make me think a tiny little step had been taken, that it is no longer beyond the pale for politicians in the Houses of Parliament to actually think possessing nuclear weapons is a bad thing.

It was a coincidence that the debate was on the day that our eldest daughter was making her sacrament of reconciliation. This is an important part of the Catholic faith, by acknowledging our failings, repenting of them and being willing to start afresh we become reconciled with God. Whilst we watched her take this important step in her faith, I reflected that our nation should be repenting wholesale for the sin of Trident.

Trident is sinful because:
It has more firepower in each warhead than was used in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, it is a lethal weapon beyond our imaginings, even possessing such a thing puts us beyond the pale.
Rather than being used as a deterrent, it is used as an out and out threat, Geoff Hoon made it perfectly clear during the run up to the war in Iraq
It detracts vital resources from other more socially useful activities such as teaching our children, healing the sick, providing decent social care service.

It is only when the Prime Minister, and his best friend across the debating chamber, can begin to acknowledge this sinfulness and repent of it, that we as a nation can be reconciled.

Annoying DESO and the Telegraph at the same time. by Chris

2007-03-07T20:01:00.000Z

Its not everyday that you get to annoy the the government agency that promotes arms exports (DESO) and The Daily Telegraph at the same time. Today was DESO's annual 'symposium' (nothing as dull as a conference for them!) which we naturally picketed. Over the past year the organisation that I work for - Fellowship of Reconciliation - has been running a campaign to have DESO closed down and we, along with CAAT have collected over 10,000 signatures on a petition. So today was also a good day to hand it in to The Treasury where the continued existence of DESO is being questioned as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review. Did the Telegraph not like that!.

See Indymedia for further pics and report

life, the universe and ....

2007-03-05T20:51:00.000Z

Our participation in the anti-war march last weekend as well as a quote from Chris in this week's Universe.

It’s the war stupid..... by Virginia

2007-03-03T19:46:00.000Z

It’s exactly 20 years this September since I started out in my first paid role, working with people with learning disabilities in South London. Coincidentally, the first ten years of my career were spent under a Tory Government and the last ten under New Labour. When I started out, money was tight and got tighter and Margaret Thatcher was pathological in her desire to destroy public services. We lived through spending cut after spending cut, saw our (never very high salaries) kept low and watched helplessly as services were provided for fewer and fewer people and long term preventative work became a thing of the past. 10 years ago saw a new dawn, the Labour government we’d waited 18 years for. The Labour government who would restore all ills, put the money back into development and prevention, restore the public’s faith in us, make us all be proud again.

I have to say that for a little while, that promise seemed good. In the rosy early days of new Labour, I went to a meeting in Camden where local and central government officials met in a spirit of good will, and genuine cooperation that I’d never seen before. There were a plethora of public policy initiatives, some of which were actually aimed at long term solutions. We had it good for a while, the government seemed to be putting the money back in, development seemed to be in, short termism out. For a brief period, there was money to spend, and good services came on the back of that.

But not any more. This week we saw Gordon Brown announcing below inflation pay increases for health staff and NHS trusts struggling to balance their budgets. And recently we heard of the report from the social care commission that local authorities are tightening their eligibility criteria once again. Unless you are in the most need (your family can’t cope, your needs are so extreme that you cannot get by without support), forget getting a service from a local authority, most of them won’t be paying. Dear Lord, I feel like I’m in a time warp, back in the darkest days of Maggie and the death of society.

So what’s happened in the past 10 years to change the government of the future – the government of resourcing public services, encouraging prevention and development, into the cost cutting, penny pinching, last resort service provision of the past? To paraphrase Bill Clinton, “It’s the War Stupid”. I was on maternity leave in 2003 when the war broke out. When I came back to work we were having the first round of discussions about insufficient resources from central government, and council tax freezes meaning cost reductions on services. Each subsequent year, as the mess over there has got worse, so the funding here has reduced, leading us to the situation we are in today. Every time Tony Blair asks Gordon Brown for more money for the carnage in Iraq, he gets it, no questions asked (current estimate - £7billion ) Meanwhile NHS trusts are cutting staff to balance their books, local authorities are struggling to deliver vital services, and the workforce looks set for frozen pay deals for the next few years.

So let me end with a question.

How would you like to have spent that £7 billion?

On a war without end that has destroyed a society, created near civil war, cost the lives of between 55,000-63,000 Iraqis over 3,000 US soldiers over 100 UK soldiers and injured many more.

Or

On making sure every hospital ward is fully staffed; vulnerable people get the support they need to survive; family carers are valued and helped to continue looking after their relatives and public sector workers are honoured for their essential work for society with decent pay rises every year.

If only we really had a choice.

Stop the War - No to Trident March

2007-03-02T16:54:00.001Z

The latest anti-war march organised by Stop the War Coalition and CND also focused on the replacement of Trident. The date also happened to co-incide with a Unite for Peace gathering. Unite for Peace is a small group of families and individuals within FoR who meet together twice a year, to support each other and reflect on peacemaking issues. We decided that we would all go along to the march together.

Chris went early as he was reading at the pre-march prayer service organised by the Methodist, Baptist and URC Joint Public Affairs Group at Hinde Street Church and then walked to the beginning of the march withe the FoR banner (getting soaked in the process!)

After some careful co-ordination we all met up at Hyde Park and had a quick bite to eat before the march set off. The children had made placards and as the front of the march passed us there was a media frenzy of photographers taking the kids pictures!

We saw many friends and colleagues along the march - far too many to mention - but it was like being part of a large community. These large marches may seem to have little point - especially when the almost non-existent press coverage puts numbers at 1000 - 2000 (ridiculous!) however you do realise that there are many many people working for peace in so many different ways on these events.