When I spoke on Wednesday at the Union of Jewish Students’ lobby on the rise of anti-Semitism in British higher education, the nature and scale of the bigotry which too often scars student’s lives was brought home to me.  

Our Universities are among the very best in the world. They are the space where ideas take ground, flourish and are subjected to the rigour of academic scrutiny. Many of the people who will go on to shape society form their political views and identities at Universities. Higher education is where the very nature of that society itself is questioned and where changes for the better are devised and refined.

But not all ideas are good ideas. It is part of the poisonous inheritance of moral relativism that we cannot recognise that some ideas are absolutely wicked. 

We must face the fact that, as the Social Affairs Unit recently revealed, University campuses in the UK are “increasingly – if inadvertently – playing host to extremist groups”. These groups spring from across the political spectrum. Disparate zealots from Hizb-ut-Tahrir to the BNP, are defined by common hatreds. In particular, a virulently expressed anti-Semitism – hardened by the reaction to recent events in Gaza – is disgusts me.

The spiteful bile that many extremists spew has absolutely no place on University campuses. No form of baseless hatred, whether rooted in Islamism or Nazism, has ever had worth. As the great pianist Daniel Barenboim said – “anti-Semitism has no historical, political and certainly no philosophical origin. It is simply a disease.”

We know that this disease is steadily growing again. From the 27^th of December alone, there have been 220 anti-Semitic attacks across the UK. Many of the students I talked to on Wednesday were feeling increasingly intimidated and threatened. In the sanctity of their universities, some are even going so far as to take off the kippah to disguise their identity for fear of attack. 

In the face of this it is my pledge that while we must not stifle academic debate, equally we should not allow this despicable evil to fester unchecked. We simply cannot afford to have our Universities, the very spaces in which ideas mix so freely, corrupted by the hatred of extremists. I am only too aware that, if we let the seeds of hatred germinate, they will grow, until we reap a bitter harvest of division and destruction. I am unequivocal about this: we must confront any form of bigotry head on, only they can we build the social cohesion, the social justice we surely crave.

That is why on Wednesday I called on the Government to recognise the urgency of this threat, and to counter it with speed and vigour. As a first step, ministers should follow the recommendation of the All Party Parliamentary Group on anti-Semitism and set up a working group on Antisemitism in HE. It is the very least we can do to ensure that the future is marked by what we share, not by that which divides us.

The BBC is once again in the news, this time for censoring an appeal for Gaza. They claim portentously that they have to be ‘impartial’. But are they? They are certainly manipulative. Last week the World at One rang me to ask for my reaction to Ken Clarke’s appointment. Actually, I’ve always got on very well with him, and even voted for him once to be leader. But when I said I was relaxed about it and thought it a sound idea to get good people like him into the Shadow Cabinet, the researcher immediately lost interest and made to end the conversation. I said to her that if I had been prepared to criticise the appointment I would have been on the programme quicker than greased lightning.

They had had their morning conference and said to themselves ‘Let’s ring round all the right-wingers in the Conservative Parliamentary Party, and when we get one critical of Ken, we’ll put him on.’ They couldn’t find one, and had to make do with an ex-MP. How manipulative. And how typical of an organisation that is so puffed up with pride and deceit that it seems to make the news, not report it honestly.

It reminds me of an incident many years ago in the early 1990s. I was asked by a Newsnight researcher what I thought of a Catholic Bishops’ Conference document which was mildly critical of the then Conservative Government’s Inner Cities policy. I could spot their game immediately, but also criticised the document to the researcher. When they put me on that evening, I defended the Church. I could see Bishop Vincent Nichols (as he was then) relaxing opposite me perceptibly.

It was obvious that Newsnight had tried to do what they often do with Anglican MPs: ring round till they find someone prepared to criticise their own Church.

By the way, have you noticed that Muslim and Jewish MPs never criticise their own religion? Wise.

Anyway, after the programme Jeremy Paxman stormed into the Green Room and openly criticised me for leading astray his young researcher. I told him I would never criticise my own Church in public. From that day to this, fifteen years ago, despite the fact that I have been fairly vocal over the years and chaired a committee of the House etc, I have never been allowed back on Newsnight for a live interview. Occasionally in the early years I would be asked , but it was always cancelled by 10.30. Now I don’t bother responding.

These people have long memories. Do I care? No. Appearing on Newsnight is a bore. I want to be tucked up with a glass of wine by then. The great majority of the audience know their opinions already and won’t change them as a result of watching. It’s mainly a programme for show-offs, presented by show-offs.

I have just had another letter from a sound small business whose bank will not extend a loan to them to facilitate normal operations. Trading is difficult, but what makes conditions worse is the unwillingness of many banks to lend to businesses, where there is any risk at all. Some bank managers have even been treating their customers aggressively, for instance by changing the terms of their loans or overdrafts at a moment’s notice and without any consultation.

The Government has paid out tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to bail out many of our banks. But traders are reporting that they are still waiting for signs of improved liquidity from the banks. Such reluctance to lend threatens the livelihood of many in the small business sector. Banks must behave responsibly and help prevent a large number of small businesses from becoming insolvent or they will lose their customers and recession will turn into a slump.

The problem is that the Government’s huge package has been constructed in such a way that banks have an incentive to pay off their debts as quickly as possible and so get their loan books down rather than up. A quick examination makes it obvious why. The government money has been lent at 12%, when interest rates are on the floor, so banks are focusing on paying off the government, not lending to customers. (The equivalent US package was priced at just 5%)

Ironically one of the Treasury ministers, in a question session in the House, tried to head off the argument by praising a new initiative by Barclays to lend to small businesses. The initiative is welcome but small scale. The key point is that Barclays is one of the few banks that kept out of the government scheme.

That is why David Cameron has proposed a government-backed small business loan guarantee scheme and George Osborne has said we must look again at the structure of the bailout package. The latest government announcement remains unclear. It is all very well to provide an emergency transfusion to prevent the financial system from collapsing but there is little point if the lifeblood does not reach small businesses.

And they say they don’t treat business with distain! So why introduce a further tax to hit small businesses at a time when companies are struggling simply because the Labour Government doesn’t understand business culture and only sees the sector as a milch cow.

We are already seeing a frightening deterioration in the economy and small businesses are falling like dominoes. And that is not just my view. You only have to read the reports of the small business trade groups to show that confidence is at its lowest level since records began. The British Chambers of Commerce last week described the situation as “awful” and the worst since they started their surveys in 1989.

Time and again I have asked the Government how they monitor their previously, much publicised actions to get credit moving again. Time and again we receive fine words but no real insight into effective action. And what do we now get? A Bill which actually gives local government, one of the most inefficient organisations in the country, the right to extort further taxes from the small business sector, which includes some of the most efficient organisations in the nation. What a time to add to their burden! You couldn’t make it up!

The BBC broadcaster JeremyVine complained last Sunday that it is now ‘almost socially unacceptable to say you believe in God’. In an interview with Reform, a  magazine published by the United Reformed Church, Mr Vine, an Anglican, said he believed that ‘Christ is who he said he was’, but that he wouldn’t say so on his Radio 2 show.

His fellow BBC broadcaster Ed Stourton, a Catholic, echoed Vine’s comments, saying active believers feel ‘ignored’ by society.

It is understandable that broadcasters on mainstream secular programmes should be chary of making explicit professions of faith on air. But in the context of Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor’s recent remark that Britain is now an ‘unfriendly’ place for religious people, and of the relentless tide of secularisation in the mainstream media, I think it is important that we shouldn’t leave religion entirely in the hands of the professionals – bishops, priests and other people of the cloth.  Many people switch off or switch over at the sight of a dog-collar.  

Across the Atlantic, as President Obama’s inauguration yesterday powerfully illustrated, it is entirely natural for politicians to weave explicit references to God into their public utterances. But historic as was the occasion, as a glorious culmination of the struggles of the civil rights movement, I could not help having mixed feelings when I reflected that for all his invocation of God’s blessings on the nation, Obama’s commitment to lifting a great many restrictions on abortion by passing the Freedom of Choice Act was a sad day for unborn children; particularly so given the fact that a disproportionate number of babies aborted in America are those of African-Americans. But having said that, I wish him well.

Here in Britain I think each of us laypeople in public life who do believe can make our own small contribution. Yes, we may be laughed at or dismissed as nutters by many, but over 70 per cent of people in the UK were still prepared to tick the ‘Christian’ box in the last census, and there are burgeoning shelves of New Age, occult and other vaguely ‘spiritual’ titles on sale in our bookshops. So it is clear that neither the vestiges of our Christian culture nor the human hunger for faith have yet quite vanished from these islands.

Yet even if they had, Christians would still have a duty to awaken and then satisfy that hunger by sharing their faith with their countrymen.

Recently I started a blog of my own on the spiritual life. Anyone interested can view it here Another Country

Yesterday we saw two remarkable events involving the banking sector.  On the one hand, the largest corporate loss ever recorded by a British business was announced by Royal Bank of Scotland.  On the other hand, Parliament heard the Chancellor announce yet another huge pledge of public money to the troubled banking sector.

This batch of proposals follows several earlier packages, none of which have done the trick. The banks are still starving businesses of cash. George Osborne is quite right to say that the details of this new package are a mystery. What Conservatives want is a straightforward loan guarantee scheme to encourage banks to lend.

I’d like to make another point, however.  How did we ever allow ourselves to get to a position where bankers could legally bet the house on risky deals? Answering that question is likely to take a long time and solutions may be slow coming, but part of the answer has to be moral.  Adam Smith wrote a book about the importance of personal ethics before he wrote the Wealth of Nations.  If we continue with the cult of celebrity, where megabucks are worshipped and integrity is sidelined, we will not find our way back to the kind of stability which earlier generations took for granted.

“For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot…”

(Rudyard Kipling: Tommy)

Re-reading Kipling’s poem “Tommy” revealed to me a sad truism: that those who defend us, we later deride or, at least, neglect. Perhaps these attacks stem from misunderstandings, misguided opinions, or ignorance. The recent verbal and physical attacks on uniformed military personnel are borne of all three.

The endeavour to protect our country is the most unselfish of struggles. So when Service men and women return home, proud, defiant and unbowed to face, at best, apathy and at worst, resentment or even disdain from those they served, my reaction is not one of resignation, but anger. For these personnel who are willing to sacrifice everything to defend what is sacred, nothing should be withheld.

That is why it appals me to hear stories of soldiers being refused service in shops, and verbally abused in the street. That is why I despair of Government ministers such as Quentin Davies MP who singularly misunderstand the situation our soldiers face in the Middle East. And that is why I am so disappointed at the Government’s disregard of the Military Covenant. 

Conversely, it is also why I am so supportive of David Cameron’s proposals to increase defence spending and revitalise the Military Covenant. In these turbulent geo-political times, it is our duty as politicians to ensure that we match the commitment these soldiers have made to their country.

The truth is that, across the world, British personnel are involved in a lonely and often desperate struggle to protect values that Britons hold so dear. While we may not sufficiently value the privileges we enjoy, the soldier at the boundaries of order realises only too clearly the fragile nature of liberty and the weight of effort expended in its defence. Their commitment is to protect something much greater than themselves: the way of life with its itinerant freedoms which embodies Western civilisation. It is a commitment we must repay, by ensuring that they return home honoured, rather than marginalised.            

So, if Kipling’s poem describes the moral cowardice at the heart of the mistreatment of our soldiers, it also reminds us that this is a cowardice betrayal that must be fought every day until veterans earn their rightful respect. It is a fight that I have taken up in my Lincolnshire constituency, and one I intend to carry on, until the last echo of “chuck him out, the brute” is dismissed, and veterans are rightly seen not just as saviours of our country, but as the defender of virtue