Much of the discussion about Brexit is fixated on the economics of the change. This is undoubtedly important, especially if there is no agreement at all – latest estimates reckon half a million job losses under that scenario, although that compares to some four million jobs created in the UK since 2010. I also wonder how many jobs are at risk through things like automation and robotics, in other words, what is the ‘churn’ of jobs and how significant an impact will Brexit have upon that. Then there are the questions of how far we can re-orient our economy to different patterns of investment and working and I end up thinking that this is simply a moderate shock to the economy, which will not mean very much over the next ten and twenty years.

In any case, all these discussions ignore the question of sovereignty, which remains the most important issue for most Brexiters. On that point it would seem that the relationship between the EU and the UK can now be seen in all its naked glory, or lack of such. This, I believe, will help Brexit in the long run, as I can see public opinion solidifying against the EU if they remain recalcitrant on things like opening discussions on a Free Trade Agreement. I would still expect there to be an agreement – it’s the closest to the maintenance of the status quo – but I’m not as confident as I was.

What I am most struck by, however, watching these negotiations, is the assumption that the EU will continue to exist in something like its present form for those next ten and twenty years. I am rather sceptical of that. I think the EU is facing some deeply unsettling and existential questions, and I do not see any sign of those problems being addressed.

Just today there are striking images of the crisis in Catalonia. The situation in Greece continues to destroy any claim for moral credibility on the part of the EU. The visegrad group continue to defy Brussels, in accordance with popular democracy but against the Commission’s wishes. Most fundamentally the Euro continues to destroy southern european economies in order to give Germany a helping hand as they break the law on economic surpluses. I believe it to be true that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation – and there is obviously a great deal of ruin in the EU – but I am pretty sure that the future for the UK, even without a free trade agreement, is much brighter than for the EU. I think there is a very real possibility that the EU in its present form will have ceased to exist within five years. If it has antagonised the UK in these negotiations, to the extent that opinion in the UK tends towards letting the Europeans look after their own defense, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see an EU that is mired in internal violent conflict and economic dislocation, vulnerable to power-supply diplomacy from the East and lacking any means to integrate or solidify their own internal political cohesion.

If I was Theresa May I would say rather explicitly – given the cool reaction to her Florence speech – that if discussion hasn’t started on the potential free trade agreement by Christmas then we shall proceed to trading on a WTO basis immediately on our exit in March 2019 – and we won’t pay a single penny after that. Germany will have to meet the bill, but for how long?

So the main reason I preferred Trump to Clinton was that I believed he wouldn’t get involved militarily in Syria.

That didn’t last long.

I am now very worried.

(for a different take, see here)

Well that was a fun year.

Highlight has to be the trip to Cuba with friends which was fascinating and restorative.

Came back to the Brexit result – yay.
Also in politics this year, Trump won – yay again.

Married life seems to be treating me well – I have managed to be simultaneously better fed and much fitter than I have been for ages (have lost a stone and half in weight) – much further to go in every sense.

Work has been immensely good in very many ways, lots and lots of positive developments, with a few strange curve-balls along the way. 2017 will see a new start in many senses (one step back, two steps forward). Helped not a little by my starting some doctoral research – I’m exploring a theological critique of psychiatric diagnoses. There will be more about that on the blog next year.

Family has had fun moments, but overall is a source of sadness, as all my children are now in Wales, and I see them for half-terms and holidays. My faith in the system is not what it was – but my faith in Exodus 14.14 abides.

Did hardly any sailing this year, but a) we’re very close to buying our own boat at last and b) we’re half way through our next sailing qualifications (even passed the ColRegs exam the other day!).

Had a smaller role in the panto this year – and there wasn’t a May play – but I’m dame again in a couple of weeks, and taking great pleasure in it all.

I am going to take the unusual step of posting some resolutions. My intentions are – to lose weight and get properly healthy again; to write much more, especially on the blog – I am hoping to get back to my first rhythms; and – to sail to Amsterdam in the summer. There is a lot to be done – and I am very much looking forward to doing it!

Previous years: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015.

I came under some criticism following my last article on “one land, one law, one language”. In particular I was challenged to identify what the classical British values look like.

Sometimes this sort of questioning is nihilistic – a request for some sort of conceptually pure vision that can then be academically picked apart endlessly, as a way of not engaging with the presenting issues themselves. It is a way of muddying the waters and avoiding discussion.

Yet answering the question about values is also an opportunity to spell out a little more about what the “one land, one law, one language” vision acutally looks like in practice.

So I want to talk about women, specifically British women, and even more specifically the idea in British society that women have rights, rights to determine their own paths in life in order that they might be enabled to become all that they might be.

These rights have been built up over many years, through progressive political battles – the rights to property, to vote, to be educated and so on. One key right is the ability that women in our society have to make their own decisions over their sexuality and fertility. That is, they have the right to make decisions about what to wear, who to associate with, who to have sex with, when and how to conceive a child and so on.

This is where the sort of cultural clash that concerns me manifests itself clearly. For there are other cultures that deny these rights to women; where, for example, what clothes are worn, what men are associated with, who to marry, whether to have children and so on – these are matters decided by the dominant relative male, normally the father.

Consider the recent case of Amina al-Jeffery, a girl born in Wales to a Saudi Arabian father. When she was 17 she was taken to Jeddah by her rather, purportedly for a holiday, and then placed under and effective ‘house arrest’. Her father is trying to exercise control over Amina in accordance with his own cultural norms – yet Amina grew up in Wales, has a Welsh accent and follows Welsh norms – she kissed a boy, thus displaying ‘un-Islamic behaviour’, and was taken away into exile as a result.

The High Court has now ruled that Amina should be returned to Britain by 11th September. This is good, but will Boris Johnson actually act in accordance with the High Court? I rather doubt it, simply because we know that the Saudi Arabian government is allowed to get away with all sorts of terrors simply because they pay for large military contracts like Al-Yamamah. As is so often the case, it is not just a matter of the law but of the will to apply the law in particular cases, in particular ways.

This is simply one example of the much wider trend related on the one hand to ‘honour’ killings in this country – that is, those women who choose differently to the dominant male of their families are murdered in cold blood – and the systematic child abuse and rape of white women in this country, in staggering numbers, as with Rotherham. In sentencing some of the perpetrators of the Rotherham case, Judge Gerald Clifton told the men “All of you treated the victims as though they were worthless and beyond any respect – they were not part of your community or religion.” Both forms of criminality arise out of a rejection of the British value that grants women a significant measure of authority and autonomy in their own lives, equivalent to that enjoyed by men.

It is clear that there is a particular strain of South Asian Muslim culture which comprehensively rejects our approach, and which has taken advantage of a politically correct culture to embed itself in several of our cities. So do we actually believe that these hard-won rights are worth protecting? Is a woman born in this country entitled to the protection of the British state when she tries to assert British cultural values? Or do we look the other way out of fear of being called racist?

This is the dilemma of the politically correct – which of these two competing values are worth defending? Do you virtue-signal solidarity with women or with minorities? Reality is forcing the choice. We either say that we must discriminate between different cultures, in order to protect British women from the violent exploitation of these minority cultures; or we say that it is always wrong to discriminate culturally, and condemn those British women to yet more decades of abuse.

For me the choice is clear – I want my daughters to grow up in a place that respects their full humanity and their capacity to make informed choices for themselves. That seems to me to be a ‘British value’. The same thing applies to other questions of gender and sexuality – I don’t want to live in a society where gay people are afraid of admitting who they are, or where trans people are scared of being beaten senseless by morons. Yet if we do nothing, that is a present reality for some and an increasing reality for others.

I want to live in a place which is tolerant and accepting, where every single human being is enabled to make decisions about their own lives in a way that makes it most probable that they will be able to live full and fulfilling lives. That’s a British value worth defending, but if we are to defend it, we need to wake up and realise just how undermined those values have become. We need to discriminate culturally and say – some cultures are worse than others, and we choose the better one.

A Jeremy Creake article for the Courier

“I would plead with the Church to take seriously the need for investing in theological education at all levels — to recognise that there is a huge appetite for theology among so many laypeople, and thus a need for clergy who can respond and engage intelligently. The middle-term future may need to be one where there are more independent centres of theological study outside universities, given the erosion of resources in higher education, and I think it’s time more people started thinking about what that might entail in terms of funding.”

For more on why, see my book.

Apparently comic book superheroes have replaced the different gods of previous mythologies. Where once the imagination of a child was filled with stories of Hercules, now they have Spiderman. Seems plausible to me.

I read comics a lot when I was a child. I read comics a lot now, but they’re rather different. When I was about 9 my hero was the Hulk. Imagined like this:

Then when I stretched into the teenage years, Wolverine took over – he was a sharper character:

And then when I was in my twenties Frank Miller’s Batman was the one I resonated with:

Two things. The first is that what strikes me now is how angry I was. Just look at the expressions on their faces. Rage. I think a lot of men (boys) have that rage, which is why comics are so popular in certain quarters. It might do the world some good to ponder the roots of that rage. But second, the most interesting ‘comic book’ hero that I identify with now is a man called Spider Jerusalem, from Warren Ellis’ series called Transmetropolitan.

Now, a word of warning – this is not for the squeamish, and probably shouldn’t be read by anyone who considers themselves a Christian – it’s rude, lewd, frequently blasphemous and obscene, and frankly I’m worried about myself for enjoying it so much. But I enjoy it because it is laugh-out-loud funny and I think Spider represents something essential about humanity – he’s awful, but he’s dedicated to the truth. And I think that’s important. He is redeemed by his acceptance of the truth. I suspect that applies to me too.

The thing is, he’s a tremendously angry man. His column in the newspaper/blog is “I hate it here” and the one consistent thing that drives him is his rage against the world. But his rage has a productive outlet – blog articles which expose the powers that be.

I’m not there yet.

But I’d like to be.

That’s what heroes are for aren’t they? – they represent those bits of you that seek expression, and the worship of the hero is what enables those bits of yourself to articulate themselves and, hopefully, come out. (Which is why Christ is the ultimate hero who can’t be replaced – but that’s another post).

This is Spider’s philosophy:

“Let me tell you how it is going to be.

I am free to write what I want, when I want. And you have to come to me to read me.

This is not the same deal as picking up a newspaper for the sports and the TV listings and getting a piece of me too.

You actually have to sit down and poke your feedsite reader and come to me.

And I will tell you things that will make you laugh and I will tell you things that make you uncomfortable and I will tell you things that will make you really fucking angry and I will tell you things that no one else is telling you.

What I won’t do is bullshit you.”

I think that’s the only promise a blogger should make. And I shall try very hard to live up to it.