The Archbishop's Grotesque Failure of Judgement

 

You really couldn't make this up. On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, the Archbishop of Canterbury handed a prestigious Church of England award to a Muslim cleric whose past comments about Osama bin Laden were already a matter of public record. Then, when someone finally noticed, she took the award back.

This is not a minor PR embarrassment. It is an astonishing failure of judgement and due diligence at the very top of the Church of England.

Dame Sarah Mullally presented the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation to Pakistani cleric Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi on 11 September — the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The award was supposedly recognition of his “outstanding work as an ambassador of interfaith harmony in Pakistan”.

There was just one rather significant problem.

In 2007, Ashrafi publicly said that Osama bin Laden should be given the Islamic title Saifullah — “Sword of God” — describing him in the context of fighting for Islam. The remarks were reported internationally at the time by Reuters and AFP.

So how on earth did the Church of England not know?

This was not some obscure comment whispered in a mosque 20 years ago and uncovered by an internet sleuth. The remarks were public, reported by major international news agencies and concerned one of the most notorious terrorists in modern history.

Yet somehow nobody at Lambeth Palace appears to have thought: perhaps we should Google the bloke before giving him an award.

That is not a minor administrative error.

It is a colossal failure of due diligence.

And the timing makes an already extraordinary decision almost surreal.

This wasn't an award presented on some forgotten Tuesday in February. It was presented on 11 September, the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, including 67 British citizens.

Of all the days in the calendar, this was the day the Church of England chose to celebrate a man whose past comments about bin Laden subsequently forced it to withdraw the honour.

The symbolism could hardly have been more glaring.

The Church of England then compounded the humiliation by initially defending the award. Lambeth Palace said it recognised Ashrafi's “longstanding support for religious minorities in Pakistan, particularly the Christian community” and stressed the importance of interfaith engagement.

Fine.

Interfaith engagement matters.

Supporting persecuted Christians matters.

But neither requires the Church of England to hand out honours without first checking the public record of the person receiving them.

The Palace eventually folded after the controversy erupted, saying that “previous comments” had come to light and confirming that the award had been withdrawn.

That raises the obvious question:

Why did those comments have to “come to light” after the award had been presented?

They were hardly buried.

The National Secular Society has described the episode as evidence of “appallingly poor judgement and inadequate due diligence”. That criticism goes to the heart of the matter.

And this is not simply about whether Ashrafi's 2007 remarks should ultimately be characterised as an endorsement of bin Laden. His representatives dispute that interpretation. The Church itself clearly decided that the remarks were sufficiently serious to withdraw the award.

So why weren't they considered before the award was given?

That is the failure for which Dame Sarah Mullally must answer.

An Archbishop of Canterbury is not some junior administrator who accidentally put the wrong name on a certificate. The Church of England describes the Archbishop as its most senior bishop and as the figure who leads the Church's vision and direction across much of England.

With that office comes responsibility.

And when an organisation gives a prestigious award to someone, it is not merely honouring the recipient. It is putting its own name and reputation behind that person.

The Church of England did precisely that.

Then, once the embarrassing facts became impossible to ignore, it took the award back.

That is not accountability. It is damage limitation.

The most charitable interpretation is that Lambeth Palace was spectacularly careless.

The less charitable interpretation is that it was so desperate to demonstrate its commitment to interfaith dialogue that it forgot the most basic rule of institutional responsibility: know who you are honouring.

Either way, the Archbishop has a problem.

The Church of England cannot demand trust from the public while displaying such extraordinary carelessness over one of its own honours.

And it cannot credibly preach responsibility, discernment and moral leadership while expecting everyone to forget that it had to discover the recipient's record after putting a medal in his hand.

Dame Sarah Mullally should therefore resign.

Not because every controversial judgement requires resignation. Not because interfaith dialogue is wrong. And not because a person's past remarks can never be understood in context.

She should resign because the buck has to stop somewhere.

The Archbishop presented the award. The award was made in her name. Her institution failed to conduct — or at least failed to act upon — the most basic due diligence. The controversy became public. Only then was the award withdrawn.

If the Archbishop is ultimately responsible for the Church's most senior decisions, she should be prepared to accept responsibility for this one.

The Church of England has spent years telling everyone else about accountability. It is time for the Archbishop of Canterbury to practise it.

Resign.

Bus Conductor in Chief and Nosferatu Plead Ignorance Over Labour’s Financial Shambles

 

🚨NEW: Chancellor John Healey's team claims that he and Andy Burnham didn't realise how bad Britain's fiscal position was before they got inside the Treasury

[@FT]

— GB Politics (@GBPolitcs) September 15, 2026

Which party was running the country before them then? 

Burnham and Healey are Fucking Useless!

 

Even if they did not have Treasury briefings before taking on their roles, they surely would have been aware of what the markets and finance professionals have been saying about the UK economy!

Or did they simply ignore the warnings?

Tourist Tax: Another Rip-Off That Will Drive Visitors Away

 

Ministers call it a 5% levy. Tourists will see it as yet another tax on an already sky-high hotel bill — and the Treasury will even take VAT on the tax.

Britain has a tourism problem.

So naturally, the Government's answer is to make holidays more expensive.

Ministers want to hand local mayors the power to impose a new tax on overnight stays — dressed up in the soothing language of an “Overnight Visitor Levy”.

Don't be fooled by the jargon.

It is a tourist tax.

And the consequences could be disastrous for the very towns and cities it is supposed to help.

The great 5% con

We're told the charge could be around 5%.

Five per cent.

Sounds harmless, doesn't it?

It isn't.

Take a hotel room costing £100 before VAT.

Add a 5% tourist tax and the bill becomes £105.

Then comes the sting.

VAT is charged on the higher amount.

At Britain's standard 20% VAT rate, that means £21 VAT rather than £20.

The visitor therefore pays £126 instead of £120.

That's a 6% increase, not 5%.

So the Government takes a tax.

Then it takes VAT on the tax.

Tax on tax.

And somehow this is supposed to make Britain's tourism industry more competitive.

You couldn't make it up.

Britain's hotels are already taxed heavily

Here's the real scandal.

Britain already charges 20% VAT on hotel accommodation.

Across Europe, many countries recognise that tourism is highly price-sensitive and apply reduced VAT rates to hotels and accommodation.

Britain doesn't.

So a hotel in Britain can already face a 20% VAT burden while a rival hotel elsewhere in Europe may operate with a much lower rate.

Now politicians want to pile another percentage charge on top.

What happens next?

The hotel room gets more expensive.

The visitor thinks twice.

And the money that doesn't get spent in Britain gets spent somewhere else.

The tourist doesn't just buy a hotel room

This is where the Government's thinking falls apart.

A tourist isn't a walking hotel bill.

They spend money everywhere.

Breakfast in the café.

Lunch in the pub.

Dinner in the restaurant.

A taxi to the theatre.

A ticket to the attraction.

A few drinks.

A bit of shopping.

Maybe another night in the hotel.

That spending supports thousands of local businesses.

So when you make the hotel room more expensive, you aren't simply taxing hotels.

You're putting a tax on the entire visitor economy.

And visitors have choices.

If Britain becomes too expensive, they'll go elsewhere.

If one British town adds a 5% levy and the town down the road doesn't, why wouldn't the visitor compare prices?

Mayors get a new tax lever

And here's another nasty little detail.

There is no national cap on the proposed levy.

The Government may talk about 5%, but today's 5% could become tomorrow's 6%, 7% or more.

Once councils and mayors become dependent on the money, do we really believe they will voluntarily give it up?

Of course not.

A new tax has a remarkable habit of becoming a permanent tax.

And once the spending commitments are made, removing it becomes politically almost impossible.

“But other countries have tourist taxes!”

Yes.

And many of them have something Britain doesn't:

much lower VAT rates on hotels.

This is the bit supporters of a British tourist tax conveniently leave out.

You cannot compare one tax in isolation.

You have to compare the total price paid by the visitor.

A country can charge a tourist tax and still offer cheaper accommodation because its underlying VAT rate is lower.

Britain already starts with a 20% VAT rate.

Adding another tax and then charging VAT on that tax is hardly a recipe for attracting international visitors.

Who pays?

The Government will say the levy is paid by visitors.

But businesses know better.

The cost will either be passed on to customers or absorbed by hotels and guest houses.

If it is passed on, the room becomes more expensive.

If it is absorbed, margins get squeezed.

Either way, someone pays.

And when margins are already under pressure from wages, energy, food, insurance, business rates and other costs, telling hospitality businesses to absorb another hit is simply unrealistic.

The great economic irony

The Government says the money will be used to support local economies.

But what if the tax damages those economies?

What if visitors stay one night instead of two?

What if they choose a different town?

What if a family decides to holiday abroad instead?

What if a conference organiser chooses a cheaper destination?

What if a restaurant loses the customers who never made the trip?

The Treasury may collect a few pounds from every taxed room.

But the local economy could lose hundreds of pounds in spending that never happens.

You cannot tax your way to prosperity.

There is a much simpler answer

Want more money flowing into local economies?

Get more visitors.

Want more visitors?

Make Britain competitive.

Want Britain to be competitive?

Stop piling taxes onto the cost of visiting.

A lower rate of VAT on accommodation and hospitality would be a far more sensible starting point.

It would allow businesses to cut prices, improve facilities, invest and employ more people.

It would encourage visitors to stay longer.

And longer stays mean more spending across the local economy.

That is how you grow tourism.

Not by putting a “5%” sign on the hotel bill and pretending it doesn't matter.

Don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg

Britain's tourism industry is an enormous economic asset.

Hotels, guest houses, restaurants, pubs, attractions, theatres, shops, taxi firms and countless other businesses depend on visitors.

They don't need politicians to find another way of taking money from their customers.

They need politicians to get out of the way and let t

Advice To The Bus Conductor in Chief

 

Without effective national security, you won't have social security!

Moronic Powell Posts Moronic Tweet

 

The Education Secretary’s latest tweet is pure sloganeering dressed up as wisdom.

Lucy Powell, the UK Education Secretary, posted the other day: “I think education should be about what you can do, and not what you can’t do.” It was tied to her Observer piece pushing reforms that soften the focus on exams, expand practical elements in GCSEs, and shift away from what she and allies call a “one-size-fits-all straitjacket” or “exam factory.”

It sounds warm and inclusive. It is also utterly moronic as a guiding principle for education policy.

Education has always been about both. You cannot meaningfully expand what someone can do without rigorously identifying, confronting, and closing the gaps in what they cannot do yet. Reading, writing, arithmetic, scientific knowledge, historical understanding, and the ability to construct a coherent argument are not optional extras or elitist impositions. They are the foundations that make genuine agency possible. Pretending otherwise is how you get systems that celebrate “potential” while leaving large numbers of children unable to access proper further study, skilled work, or independent adult life.

The soft framing,“what you can do, not what you can’t”, is a classic progressive rhetorical move. It reframes high standards and honest assessment as negativity or exclusion. In practice it risks lowering the bar so that fewer people feel like failures, rather than equipping more people to clear a high bar. Countries and systems that actually deliver strong outcomes for broad groups of pupils do not pretend knowledge and skills are in conflict, or that rigorous testing is the enemy of talent. They insist on mastery of core knowledge and practical application. England’s relative strength in international comparisons did not appear by accident; it came from a sustained (if imperfect) push toward knowledge-rich curricula and higher expectations after years of drift.

Powell’s version risks the opposite: diluting academic content in the name of “relevance,” “belonging,” and “pathways for all,” while talking up vocational routes as if they magically solve the problem of weak foundational skills. Vocational and technical education is valuable. It is not a substitute for literacy, numeracy, and disciplined thinking. Students who leave school without those basics are not liberated by “what they can do”; they are constrained by what they still cannot.

A serious education secretary would say: we will relentlessly raise what every child can do by refusing to lower expectations about what they must master. That means honest diagnosis of weaknesses, high-quality teaching of the knowledge that unlocks everything else, and assessments that measure real competence rather than participation. Feel-good tweets that treat standards as the problem are not bold vision. They are an abdication of the hard part of the job.

Children do not need more slogans about potential. They need adults in charge who understand that the point of school is to close the gap between what is and what could be—through knowledge, practice, and accountability, not by redefining success downward.

The Army’s New Training Regime: Staring Sternly at Russia While Polishing the Barracks Floor

 

In a bold display of strategic genius, the British Army has been ordered to pause “non-essential” training exercises to save a bit of cash. Live-fire drills, tank manoeuvres with Challenger 2s, exercises involving Apache helicopters—all the messy, noisy stuff that actually prepares soldiers for fighting—can largely wait. Units not immediately heading overseas or on standby get to sit tight. The pause is expected to last most of the year. Priority, we’re told, goes to the truly essential: lessons from Ukraine on drones and modernisation. Everything else is a “nice to have.”

This arrives at roughly the same moment the government continues to warn about the threat from Russia. The Kremlin has issued its usual dark mutterings about British targets. Defence chiefs have long flagged the need for readiness against a peer adversary. Yet the response is to mothball large-scale collective training for the Army’s main fighting formations so the books balance a little better this financial year. One source called it “absolutely devastating.” Former senior officers have used stronger language: short-sighted, scandalous, a national dereliction.

Picture the scene. Somewhere in Whitehall a spreadsheet is looking healthier by a reported £30 million or so. Meanwhile, the Iron Division—the unit you’d actually want if things got serious with Moscow—practises the ancient martial art of remaining in camp. Soldiers can still do individual skills, desktop exercises, and selected modernisation work. Just not the expensive business of operating together at scale with live ammunition and heavy metal. Nothing says “we are taking the Russian threat seriously” quite like cancelling the war games.

The official line is prioritisation and efficiency. Training informed by Ukraine continues. Deploying units keep training. The rest can wait until the money situation improves. It is the administrative equivalent of telling the fire brigade that, due to budgetary pressures, they should only practise with the hose when a building is already on fire. In the meantime, polish the engines and read the manual again.

This is not abstract. Armies that do not train collectively lose the ability to fight collectively. Crews get rusty. Commanders stop rehearsing the hard, chaotic parts. Muscle memory fades. When the government simultaneously talks up the threat and trims the preparation, the gap between rhetoric and reality becomes the real story. Russia does not pause its exercises because fuel or ammunition is pricey this quarter. It does not rebrand large-scale training as optional extras.

The political context makes it richer. The government is inching defence spending upward but faces relentless pressure to go further and faster toward 3 per cent. Past rows over the Defence Investment Plan, resignations, and warnings from the Chief of the Defence Staff about dialling back activity if day-to-day funding stays tight all form the backdrop. Cutting training now is the predictable result of treating readiness as a residual after other priorities have been met.

One can almost admire the consistency. If the threat is real, the training should be non-negotiable. If the training is negotiable, perhaps the threat rhetoric should be dialled down to match. Doing both at once—warning of danger while quietly parking the tanks—invites exactly the ridicule it is receiving. Soldiers did not join up to sit in camp for six or seven months practising frugality. Taxpayers did not fund an army so it could discover innovative ways to avoid using the training areas.

In the end, the decision is a masterclass in short-term accounting dressed up as prioritisation. Save the money this year. Hope the threat remains theoretical. And if it does not, explain later that the exercises were only “nice to have.” History is littered with armies that discovered, too late, that readiness is not a luxury item you can switch on when the invoice arrives. Britain appears determined to test the theory again, one cancelled live-fire exercise at a time.