'I have sat with a farmer in my constituency who has been brought to his knees by Bovine TB and I do not mind admitting that I cried for the first time in 20 years'

As chairman of the all party Parliamentary group for dairy farmers I am devastated at the news on Bovine TB announced first by the BBC. Early reports claimed that on Monday 7 July the government would announce, as they did, that they intended to ignore official expert advice to have a limited cull of badgers and would not be issuing licenses for a cull.

Predictions across the country are [...]

Growing old as a member of an eco-village has its perks, writes Findhorn resident Rhiannon Hanfman.

Following on with the theme of the ageing population of Findhorn and (everywhere else, really) I would like to approach it from the perspective of one of 60s generation who is now in her sixties. Since it was we who instigated the cult of youth and coined the phrase ‘don’t trust anyone over thirty’, we can hardly complain if there are those who now feel that there are way too [...]

Priest and academic Giles Fraser hails the progress towards consecrating women as bishops in the Church of England - an end to an unjustifiable discrimination lasting centuries

And about time too. Of course, we won’t have women bishops in the C of E for several years yet. But the momentum of the Synodical process is now decisively in the direction of consecrating women and the whole idea of women free zones for traditionalists has gone down in smoke. Those of us who had fought hard for this, quietly celebrated with a few beers in the student bar [...]

Reverend Father Marcus Hodges, an army chaplain currently stationed in Iraq, gives his take on the the importance of his ministry to those who depend on him for guidance

The all-pervasive fog of desert dust notwithstanding, there is a clear and powerful chaplaincy vision out here in the Iraqi desert. Of course, a vision of ministry, whether on a home unit or away, must in some sense be the same for all who labour in the rich harvest of the Church’s ministry; yet here in Basrah, it is, perhaps, in some senses simply more undiluted, more vital and more [...]

Simon Barnett, diagnosed manic depressive in 1981, writes on direct action, Madpride and this year's Bonkersfest, the annual arts and mental health festival...

I have been a mental health service user since 1981, when I was diagnosed, aged 21, with manic depression - now known as Bipolar Affective Disorder. Naively I thought a diagnosis would lead to a cure, that’s how medicine works right?

Unfortunately that’s not the case for about 40 per cent of people with this condition. The drugs don’t work and we continue to experience extreme mood swings. Until [...]