UK News

from FaithWorld:

Excerpts from Pope Benedict’s speech to British society

Pope Benedict addressed British society on Friday in a speech in Westminster Hall and argued that faith and reason are not in conflict.

Here are excerpts from the pope's speech:

"...I recall the figure of Saint Thomas More, the great English scholar and statesman, who is admired by believers and non-believers alike for the integrity with which he followed his conscience, even at the cost of displeasing the sovereign whose "good servant" he was, because he chose to serve God first. The dilemma which faced More in those difficult times, the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God, allows me the opportunity to reflect with you briefly on the proper place of religious belief within the political process...

"...Britain has emerged as a pluralist democracy which places great value on freedom of speech, freedom of political affiliation and respect for the rule of law, with a strong sense of the individual’s rights and duties, and of the equality of all citizens before the law. While couched in different language, Catholic social teaching has much in common with this approach, in its overriding concern to safeguard the unique dignity of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God, and in its emphasis on the duty of civil authority to foster the common good.

"And yet the fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident - herein lies the real challenge for democracy.

"The inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex social and ethical problems has been illustrated all too clearly by the recent global financial crisis. There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world. Just as "every economic decision has a moral consequence", so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore...

Third-world voting system in UK? No, not really

The airwaves have been filled with comments from furious voters who were unable to cast their ballots last night. We Brits think we can go around the world lecturing other countries on how to hold democratic elections, they say. But we can’t do it ourselves! We’re no better than those third-world countries!

I certainly wouldn’t want to minimise the frustration of the hundreds of people who wanted to vote and were not given a chance because of administrative mess-ups. I would be absolutely livid if it had happened to me.

Still, it’s worth putting things in perspective. Despite the hitches, Britain’s election was extraordinarily well-run compared with what goes on in so many less fortunate countries around the world.

The last time I covered a major election was in Nigeria in 2007. Now THAT was a truly awful election.

In many parts of the country, polling stations failed to materialise altogether. Even the president of the senate, the third most important person in Nigeria according to the constitution, was unable to vote in his home state of Enugu for lack of a functioning polling station.

A friend of mine who was acting as an independent observer in the state of Kogi said she arrived at a polling station at 11am to find there were no ballot papers in sight. When she queried this, she was told that every single person in the ward had already voted. There was no one in sight and the result, giving a huge win for the ruling PDP, was already agreed.

In Delta state, the number of people reported to have voted for the PDP was greater than the total number of residents of the state.

from The Great Debate UK:

Jack Straw cites trust as top issue for UK democracy

In a wide-ranging lecture in London on Monday hosted by Brunel University's Magna Carta Institute, Justice Secretary Jack Straw outlined his thoughts on the state of democracy in Britain and beyond.

After the talk, Straw told Reuters that the most pressing issue in UK democracy is the need for politicians to restore public trust following an expenses scandal that forced the main political parties to work together to resolve the crisis.

"People feel a bit detached from the political system," Straw said, adding that it is important to work out ways to "get people back into connection."

Disclosures earlier this year that MPs claimed on their expenses for everything from manure to porn films triggered public outrage. The controversy led MPs to oust parliament's speaker for the first time in 300 years.

Time for the people to decide on Britain’s democratic future?

Britain’s embattled political class are falling over themselves to modernise parliament, but given we have fully embraced the Internet age the proposals have a rather tame feel about them.

Gordon Brown’s latest proposals for “democratic renewal” — the reform of MPs expenses and an elected House of Lords to name but two — could hardly be described as Parliament 2.0.

Maybe Brown should take his cue from Barack Obama, whose U.S. presidential election success had much to do with the way his campaign embraced the Web and mobile phones to mobilise American voters.

If it worked for Obama, why not go one step further and allow voters to cast their votes in local, general or european elections by texting or via the click of a computer mouse.

Obviously an electronic vote raises the issue of electoral fraud, especially given the difficulties that have been encountered in the past with postal voting.

And on a similar theme why is Britain so coy about the use of referendums? Switzerland has a long established tradition of direct democracy which provides its citizens with the right to vote on the big political questions of the day.

Given how few people voted in the European elections last week in the United Kingdom and the low esteem our political representatives are held in by the public, has the time come for people to be allowed to vote electronically in elections and for Britain to explore the idea of a more direct democratic system?

Should Pakistan return to the Commonwealth?

Foreign Secretary David Miliband says Pakistan has made democratic progress and should be re-admitted to the Commonwealth.

He has pointed to the extension of press freedoms and the re-establishment of constitutional rules. New Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), whose leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December, was sworn in last month.

He has promised to cut back on ministers’ perks and re-establish student and trade unions.

Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth in November 2007 because of President Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule. It had previously been suspended in 1999 as well, after Musharraf seized power in a coup.

Do you think the time is right for it to be re-admitted? Could it be that the organisation — and much of the West in general — has failed to appreciate the dangerous security reality in which the country lives, with large areas of its border regions sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda?