Community trusting the church

 

I was a little wary of some wellbeing provision locally.  How could I tell if it was mainstream or wacky?  Especially as it didn’t display on its website any badges of affiliation to any respectable professional organisation.  As it happens, its counsellors were all so trained and affiliated.

It turned out they were more suspicious of me, and of the church I was representing.  How could they know I wasn’t going to, say, promote gay conversion therapy, or subvert its nonjudgmental commitment to its clients in some other way?  After all, I had no initials after my name indicating my membership of a suitable professional body, and there are no badges on the church’s website which would indicate we are safe to be around.

Meanwhile, I saw a fresh plank of oak in the Cathedral’s workshop the other day, being told it was destined to extend the desk in front of the new Canon Missioner’s stall.  In no time it appeared unstained, carved exactly to match the desk in front of the neighbouring stall.  And yesterday, although there is no third picture to show it, it was stained so that it now nobody would think it wasn’t always there.

The dozen predictions

 

Turnout will be lower even than the average of 39% at the last three by-elections held in October.

Wrong.  The turn out was 39.7%, so the political debacle around this election didn’t actually put additional people off voting.

There will be almost no comment about the democratic deficit of the clear winner being the over 60% who didn’t vote.

Correct.  I did hear one brief reference to this on the radio but the discussion didn’t pick it up.  The Prime Minister’s speech about the democratic problems with the result didn’t reference this at all.

Of the dozen candidates, perhaps half will receive a derisorily low level of support even from those who do turn out.

Correct (although I’d miscounted the candidates – there were eleven not twelve).  Five candidates each polled under 1.75% of the votes cast.

If the remaining votes cast are distributed evenly between the other six, each would receive the direct support of just 6% or so of the registered electors.

Correct.  The top six candidates attracted the support on average of 6.2% of registered electors.

Actually one of them will pull ahead with the support of twice as many, but still possibly nor more than one in eight of the registered voters.

Wrong.  The winner did better than attracting the support of 12.4% of registered electors – he attracted 15.8%.  The point remains that, seen like this, his election is legally secure but his popular support is much smaller than people realise.

He will immediately stand at a microphone and say things which are simply untrue about how his elections proves his political position is, and will now be even more, widely supported.

Correct.  He said no less than there had been a shift in our electoral tectonic plates.

He will not be the MP nine months later.

Too soon to say.

Whatever the result, it will not affect the shameful way many Jewish citizens of the United Kingdom feel less safe than they did a year ago.

We can probably call this ‘Correct’ already.

Nor it will be affect the desperation of those citizens of the United Kingdom who have been predicting famine and epidemic in Gaza.

We can probably call this ‘Correct’ already.

Conservative supporters might well be refining a new plan to hold back some things they might find out about some Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidates until after the deadlines have passed for printing ballot papers for the next General Election.

Too soon to say.

Meanwhile, the diameter of Gaia and of the Dean's Eye Window behind it are approximatly the same.