November's Fifth, Parliament's Pith, Babies' Grith

The fifth of November: the date enshrined in our national calendar and mental consciousness, recalling when several persons attempted to blow up Parliament back in 1605. Much as I love that ancient institution and would strive to defend its honour, some of the stupid laws it is pleased to churn out sometimes stretches even my sense of affection. 'Abortion Buffer Zones', for instance.

Last month, an army veteran called Adam Smith-Connor was convicted and sentenced on 16th by Bournemouth Magistrates and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £9,000. As a JP, I would typically require a thug convicted of Common Assault to pay prosecution costs of £85. But for praying? £9,000. For praying, a man is taken to court. For praying in his head, on a street corner, the forces of the law have been martialled against him. And what is to blame for this horrible, dystopian state of affairs in twenty-first-century Britain? The British Parliament, which in November, 2022, created ‘Safe Access Zones’ in a cross-party show of support for 'reproductive rights'. Or more accurately put, Unsafe Zones for people inclined to talk to their God, and Particularly Unsafe Zones for unborn babies.

It will not be some plotting terrorist which destroys the Mother of Parliaments, and certainly not some northern pastor who seriously begrudges his legislature's forbidding of prayers in any part of the land. Rather, it is the God of Justice Himself who shall hold this sordid, decayed institution to account:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people murmur in vain.

The kings of the earth band themselves, and the Princes are assembled together against the Lord, and against his Christ.

“Let us break their bands, and cast their cords from us.”

But he that dwelleth in the heaven shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision…

Be wise now therefore, ye kings: be learned ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice in trembling.

From Psalm 2, Geneva Bible