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In the News

  • Guardian: Trojan horse row – governor banned from involvement with schools
    September 8th, 2015
    A Muslim school governor at the heart of the Trojan horse controversy has been banned from having any involvement with schools after being accused of “undermining British values”.
     
    The Department for Education (DfE) issued the ban on Tahir Alam, former chair of governors at Park View Educational Trust in Birmingham – the first time an order of this kind has been used.
     
    Hardip Begol, director of assessment, curriculum, qualifications and accountability at DfE, said Alam had engaged in conduct “aimed at undermining the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths or beliefs.”
  • Telegraph: Baby boy trapped in legal limbo after family judge rules father has no legal rights over his son
    September 8th, 2015
    A baby boy conceived as part of a commercial surrogacy arrangement between an American woman and a British man has been left trapped in legal limbo after a British court refused to recognise the man as his father because he is single.
     
    The boy, who is now just over one year old, was born in Minnesota last year after the man, who cannot be identified, paid £30,000 to become a father using his own sperm, a donor egg and a surrogate mother.
     
    Although he is genetically the child’s father and an American court has already recognised him as sole parent, with the full agreement of the surrogate mother, the arrangement cannot be formalised in a British court.
     
    It means the boy has effectively been left without a family and is currently a ward of court – a situation the most senior Family Judge in England and Wales, Sir James Munby, said could not be a permanent solution.
  • Times (£): Assisted dying bill 'puts elderly at risk'
    September 8th, 2015
    Elderly, ill and vulnerable people will be put in significantly more danger under proposed changes in the law to allow assisted suicide, the former president of the High Court’s family division has said.
     
    Baroness Butler-Sloss came out strongly against legislation to go before MPs this week, warning that proposed safeguards in the Assisted Dying Bill will provide no protection to the vulnerable.
     
    Referral of each case to a High Court judge “simply will not remedy the weaknesses in these safeguards,” she wrote in a letter to The Times, because judges were not well placed “to discern whether subtle coercion or pressure has been applied” to encourage a vulnerable person to end his or her life.
  • TIME: Kentucky Clerk Appeals Jailing Over Gay Marriage Licenses
    September 7th, 2015
    Attorneys for the Kentucky clerk who was jailed last week because of her refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples said Monday they have filed an emergency motion with a federal court that they hope will result in Kim Davis’ freedom.
     
    The filing seeks to have Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear accommodate Davis’ “religious conviction,” and not compel her to grant licenses to gay couples, Liberty Counsel said in a statement.
  • Mail: How hundreds of Muslim migrants are converting to Christianity to boost their chances of winning asylum in Germany
    September 7th, 2015
    Muslim migrants are converting to Christianity in their droves in the hope it will greatly improve their chances of winning asylum in Germany.
     
    Hundreds of mostly Iranian and Afghan asylum seekers have changed faiths at the evangelical Trinity Church in a leafy Berlin neighbourhood alone.
     
    Many claim true belief prompted the move, but the decision undoubtedly boosts their chances of being granted asylum by allowing them to claim they would face persecution if sent home.
  • Committee News: First evidence session of transgender equality inquiry
    September 7th, 2015

    The opening evidence session of the Committee’s inquiry into equality for trans people starts with two discussions: health issues, followed by hate crime and transphobia.

  • Independent: David Cameron links British jihadist killed in Syria drone strike with series of UK terror plots
    September 7th, 2015
    Two British jihadists have been killed in the first air strike carried out by the RAF in Syria in a significant escalation of the UK’s role in the war against Isis.
     
    Announcing the attacks in the House of Commons, David Cameron directly linked one of those targeted, Reyaad Khan from Cardiff, with a series of terrorist plots which were foiled in Britain this Summer. The second Briton to die was Ruhul Amin, from Aberdeen.
     
    The Prime Minister insisted that the killings, using Reaper drones flown from a base in Lincolnshire, were “entirely lawful, necessary and proportionate” and that Government had exercised Britain’s “inherent right to self-protection”.
  • BBC: Prayer film War Room tops North American box office chart
    September 7th, 2015
    A movie about the power of prayer, made by Christian film-makers with an all-Christian cast, has gone to the top of the North American box office chart.
     
    War Room, about a troubled family who meet a lady with a prayer room, cost $3m (£2m) to make and earned $9.3m (£6.1m) between Friday and Sunday.
  • Times (£): Abortion law devolution may damage rights
    September 7th, 2015
    Women’s rights could be damaged irreparably if abortion law is devolved to Scotland, Labour warned last night.
     
    Jenny Marra, Labour’s equalities spokeswoman, appealed to the UK government not to hand over control over abortion in Scotland to Holyrood.
     
    She said that a large number of human rights and women’s groups had publicly called for abortion to remain a UK-wide responsibility and urged ministers to take their advice.
  • Mail: David Cameron privately attacked Tory opponents of gay marriage as 'Neanderthals'
    September 6th, 2015
    Opponents of gay marriage were privately branded ‘Neanderthals’ by David Cameron, his biographer has revealed.
     
    The Prime Minister defied opposition from his own advisers and hostility from the party to push through same sex marriage in 2013.