That great English patriot, Rudyard Kipling, who wrote ‘If’, and ‘Kim’, and ‘the Jungle Book’, once suggested that we cannot know ourselves as a nation until we have seen what we look like from the perspective of others.
When you’re stuck in a traffic jam in Ghana’s capital, Accra, the last thing you expect to see is a street trader wearing a West Ham shirt.
The remarkable campaign of the ‘Focus E15 Mothers’ is a reminder of something that has been all-but absent in public policy in recent years: The importance of family ties. For if this brave band of young mums is defending anything, it is the aspiration of mothers with small children to live close to the people who love them and will support them in times of need, rather than being shipped out to far-off places.
Back in the Stratford of the 1960s, I remember a shop where they kept a box of tins of food that had been damaged. Some had lost their labels, some were dented and some had just got a bit scuffed. There was a sign on the box, saying ‘Damaged goods. Cheap!’, but not many people bought those tins, They preferred the perfect-looking ones on the shelves.
The news from the Middle East in recent weeks has been disturbing. When we see pictures of the children of Gaza, or of refugees fleeing from ISIS in Iraq, it is right to feel deep sympathy for those who are suffering, and natural to feel anger towards those who are causing it.
I’m a big fan of Alastair Cook, the cricketer and son of Essex.
Cycling around the amazing Olympic Park in the sunshine recently, I was reminded of three great names from a past age.
East London – a taste of Paradise? When I moved back to east London, having lived in Essex for seven years, one well-meaning friend said I was ‘‘very brave to be going there’’.
In two months, we will be marking the centenary of the start of the First World War.
East London’s churches are celebrating! Believers from every part of the world are finding a welcome here. A growing number of people in the capital are exploring their faith, with enquirers groups springing up in churches all over London. And now, in this part of London, following the recent announcement, we are looking forward to the arrival of a new Bishop of Barking, Peter Hill.
