Martin Meenagh blog

More and more people are waking up to the combination of stagflation and peak oil. It was obvious, and predicted, that we were going to start going through this sort of crisis eight years ago. So, dusting down the proposals from then-- 1) make serious cuts in government that don't remove demand--abolishing the Department for Business, the Department for Education, the Department for Overseas Aid, and the Department of Culture Media and Sport would cumulatively save sixty billion over a parliament 2) abolish the complex tax code for business which penalises small business and benefits big business and bring in one or two lower, flatter, taxes 3) merge NI and Income tax 4) abolish HMRC and replace it with two organisations which are income-friendly 5) allow for tax-free social partnerships in mining areas, so that people who raise or pledge enough can reopen the mines 6) Turn the railways and the BBC into cooperatives with elected commisssioners, which would be anti-inf...

S o, the great Teacher is leaving us with as poignant an Easter message as the one which preceded his own election, though of a very different sort. I will always give thanks to have been around at a time when I could encounter the wonderful mind of Joseph Ratzinger through his works, but it is his example of humility, and frailty which most moved me today. These are things in short supply, as the demented zeal and frenzied, narcissistic delight of Benedict's detractors showed at what they clearly view as his demise. They forget that the Pope is the successor of a man believed to have gone to his death on a cross, in mental payment for that man's love of, and guilt at the denial of, a still greater man. We see the cross and see a symbol of glory coterminous with God; the mystery is that it was intended by its civilised employers as an instrument of torture and denigration. It is through the literal contempt of those mired in the shadows of this world that we become brighte...