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Although it has been widely noted that Lord Liverpool was the last prime minister before Boris Johnson to marry while in office, the more apposite precedent is Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton. In even shorter time than Johnson 253 days against 675 he managed to combine the duties of high office with both divorce and marriage.

Grafton was a notorious gadabout who, before he entered Downing Street, was caught in flagrante delicto in his box at the opera with a tailors daughter and courtesan called Nancy Parsons. His brief premiership (October 1768 to January 1770) was undistinguished. He lost Corsica to the French, which wasnt as disastrous as his successor Lord Norths loss of America, but still a blow to national pride.

A persistent critic, writing under the pseudonym Junius (probably Philip Francis, a Dublin-born MP), observed in a public letter to Grafton that the genius of your life carried you through every possible change and contradiction of conduct, without the momentary imputation or colour of a virtue; and the wildest spirit of inconsistency never once betrayed you into a wise or honourable action. If only Keir Starmer were so eloquent.

[See also:How Boris Johnson escaped the blame for Tory austerity and what Labour can do about it]

Johnson has never made a secret of his wish to appoint the former Daily Mail editor and pro-Brexit warrior Paul Dacre as chair of the media regulator Ofcom. Now, after the interview panel declared Dacre not appointable, the Prime Minister has ordered a rerun of the contest.

The four-person panel was reportedly unanimous. It is headed by Paul Potts, a journalist who is a director of Rupert Murdochs Times Newspapers Holdings and a close associate of John Whittingdale, minister of state at the culture department, who, like Dacre, is a long-standing critic of the BBC.

The others comprise a former Tory minister (albeit a Remainer); a civil servant appointed under Johnsons government to a senior role at the culture department; and a recent deputy chairman of the financial auditor KPMG. If even these people find Dacre not up to the job possibly because about 90 per cent of Ofcoms work involves smartphones, broadband and the internet, technologies with which Dacre has only a nodding acquaintance it seems likely any sane group of men and women would reach a similar conclusion.

Johnson is entitled to overrule them and appoint Dacre anyway. But that isnt enough apparently. He wants them to consider the error of their ways and repent. Will he also demand public confessions?

[See also:Can Matt Hancock survive? Here are two reasons why he might]

The resignation of the National Trust chairman, the business executive Tim Parker, is greeted as a victory for anti-woke campaigners. A group called Restore Trust, which wants a return to the Trusts apolitical ethos, had circulated a motion for this autumns annual general meeting calling for Parker to go. Parker, who has already served more than six years in the unpaid post, planned to step down anyway, but readers of Tory newspapers are told he leaves because he presided over a report last year that detailed links to slavery and colonialism among the Trusts properties.

Under Parker, no houses or gardens were shut (except temporarily due to the pandemic), no statues demolished, no paintings removed, no individuals cancelled. But with noisy commentary from self-styled libertarians such as the columnist Toby Young, Tim Parker himself has been well and truly cancelled.

[See also:Gordon Brown on vaccinations, poverty and the climate crisis]

As the end of all measures against Covid-19 approaches (perhaps), I suddenly realise there will be a very large downside. No longer can I look forward to all Leicester City football and Leicester Tigers rugby matches being brought live to my home by Sky and BT Sport.

Once more, I shall have to explore dubious, malware-infested streaming services and join betting websites. I may even have to decipher impenetrable railway timetables and pay exorbitant ticket prices to attend matches in person. Come the autumn, I wonder how many of us will be crying Can we have our lockdown back please?

Originally posted here:
First Thoughts: The culture wars reach the National Trust, Dacre and Ofcom, and lockdown longings - New Statesman

A view of the telescope domes on the roof of the Vatican Observatory, at the Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo, in 2015. Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A view of the telescope domes on the roof of the Vatican Observatory, at the Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo, in 2015.

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy At a time of growing diffidence toward some new scientific discoveries, the one and only Vatican institution that does scientific research recently launched a campaign to promote dialogue between faith and science.

It's the Vatican Observatory, located on the grounds of the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, a medieval town in Alban Hills 15 miles southeast of Rome.

The director, Brother Guy Consolmagno, is giving this reporter a guided tour of the grounds. We drive along a cypress-lined road, admiring majestic gardens and olive groves nestled near the remains of a palace of the Roman Emperor Domitian, before reaching a field with farmworkers and animals.

"This is the end that has the papal farm, so you can see the cows the papal milk comes from," Consolmagno says as he points out the working farm that provides the pope at the Vatican with vegetable and dairy products.

(Pope Francis, known for his frugality and habit of not taking vacations, decided not to use the papal summer villa, which he considers too luxurious. But he ordered the estate become a museum open to the public.)

For most of its history, the Catholic Church rejected scientific findings that conflicted with its doctrine. During the Inquisition, it even persecuted scientists such as Galileo Galilei.

In the Middle Ages, it became apparent that the Julian calendar, named for Julius Caesar and established in 46 B.C., had accumulated numerous errors. But it wasn't until 1582 that the Vatican Observatory was born with the reform of the Gregorian calendar (named for Pope Gregory XIII) that, based on observation of the stars, established fixed dates for religious festivities.

Consolmagno takes pains to rebut the anti-science image of the Catholic Church. He cites the 19th century Italian priest Angelo Secchi as a pioneer in astronomy and the 20th century Belgian priest Georges Lematre, known as "father of the Big Bang theory," which holds that the universe began in a cataclysmic explosion of a small, primeval superatom.

Astronomical text books in Latin are displayed at the Vatican Observatory. Sylvia Poggioli/NPR hide caption

Astronomical text books in Latin are displayed at the Vatican Observatory.

Run by Jesuits, the Observatory moved to this bucolic setting in the 1930s, when light pollution in Rome obstructed celestial observation.

One domed building in the papal gardens houses a huge telescope dating from 1891. It's called Carte du Ciel map of the sky and it stands under a curved ceiling that slides open. Consolmagno says, "It was one of about 18 identical telescopes that were set up around the world to photograph the sky, and every national observatory was given its own piece of sky to photograph." He adds, it was "one of the first international projects of astronomy."

A native of Detroit, Consolmagno studied physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, volunteered with the Peace Corps in Africa and taught physics before becoming a Jesuit brother in his 40s. He has been at the Observatory for three decades. His passion for astronomy started with a childhood love of science fiction.

"I love the kind of science fiction that gives you that sense of wonder, that reminds you at the end of the day why we dream of being able to go into space," Consolmagno says.

A passionate Star Wars fan, he tells this reporter proudly, "even Obi-Wan Kenobi came to visit" the Observatory, pointing to the signature of actor Alec Guinness, who played the role in the original movie trilogy, in a visitor's book from 1958.

Top scientists teach at the Observatory's summer school. And scientists and space industry leaders have come for a United Nations-sponsored conference on the ethics and peaceful uses of outer space. It cooperates with NASA on several space missions and it operates a modern telescope in partnership with the University of Arizona.

Left: A visitors' book signed by actor Alec Guinness in 1958. Right: A photo of a prelate decades ago reclining to view the telescope. Sylvia Poggioli/NPR hide caption

Left: A visitors' book signed by actor Alec Guinness in 1958. Right: A photo of a prelate decades ago reclining to view the telescope.

"But where we still need to work is with the rest of the world," says the Observatory director, "the people in the pews, especially nowadays. There are too many people in the pews who think you have to choose between science and faith."

To reach those people, the Observatory recently launched a new website and podcasts exploring issues such as meteorites hitting the Earth or how to live on the moon.

And an online store sells merch hoodies, caps, tote bags and posters of the Milky Way.

In just a few months, says the director, visitors to the website have doubled.

As to how the faith-versus-science culture wars can be resolved, Consolmagno says what's most important is that he wears a collar he is a devoutly religious person who also considers himself an "orthodox scientist." "That fact alone shatters the stereotypes," he says.

Another American at the Observatory shattering stereotypes is Brother Robert Macke, curator of the collection of meteorites rocks formed in the early days of the solar system.

Holding a dark rock a few inches long, he says it was formed 4.5 billion years ago providing clues on how the solar system was formed.

"In order to understand the natural world," he says, "you have to study the natural world. You cannot just simply close your eyes and ignore it or pretend that it is other than it is. You have to study it and you have to come to appreciate it."

Consolmagno asked how the study of the stars interacts with his faith says astronomy doesn't provide answers to theological questions, and scripture doesn't explain science. "But the astronomy is the place where I interact with the Creator of the universe, where God sets up the puzzles and we have a lot of fun solving them together," the director says.

And he believes the recent dark period of the pandemic has weakened the arguments of those who are skeptical of science.

"Because people can see science in action, science doesn't have all the answers," he says. "And yet science is still with all of its mistakes and with all of its stumbling is still better than no science."

The rest is here:
The Vatican's Space Observatory Wants To See Stars And Faith Align - NPR

Last week, for the first time in months, the burning eye of the outrage industry pivoted westwards and came to rest upon the city of Bristol. On Friday, the statue of the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston, toppled last June during a Black Lives Matter protest, was put on display. To the fury of some, it was not returned triumphantly to its pedestal in the centre of the city, but exhibited in Bristols M Shed museum.

The debate around Colston in the summer of 2020 was largely conducted in a fact-free zone. So it is surely disconcerting for those determined to defend the memorialisation of a mass murderer that in this new setting Colstons bronze effigy is surrounded by displays that give a detailed history of the slave traders grim career and the strange story that explains why, in the 19th century, a cult was created around him and the statue erected.

For most of the 300 years since his death in 1721, Colston was little known outside Bristol. Few would have imagined that his statue would become the totemic image for Britains 21st-century history wars. Still, the professionally outraged have never allowed Colstons relative obscurity to stand in their way as they rushed to his defence, having first looked him up on Wikipedia.

Yet as Colston appeared on display last week, carefully preserved and presented by conscientious curators, it was not obvious what the source of offence would be. The statue has, after all, been retained and with so much actual history included in the exhibit, there was a danger that those sent to report on Colstons second coming might have to write about the suffering of his victims.

Luckily, two petty grievances were found. The first is that the statue is being displayed at an inappropriate angle. Perhaps there is a perfect angle, as yet unknown to museum professionals, for the public display of mass murderers at which their crimes become more acceptable, perhaps even quaint? The second grievance: that the statue still carries the graffiti sprayed on it during the demonstration of last June.

What the Bristol curators appreciated is what curators anywhere would appreciate that the graffiti is now an integral part of its story, like the graffiti carved into Stonehenge and the pyramids or daubed on the walls inside the Reichstag by soldiers of the Red Army in 1945. Would those who argue that Colston should have been cleaned also advocate that we chip away the historic signatures and poetry of Julia Balbilla carved into the monuments of Egypt? Should we sandblast the graffiti off the hundreds of slabs of the Berlin Wall that now stand in museums and parks across the world? The historical significance of the blood-red paint on Colstons bronze hands will become greater with each passing year.

The art critic Alastair Sooke, who last week compared Colston, a man complicit in the deaths of an estimated 19,000 people, to a disgraced celebrity, concluded that not removing the graffiti was a calculated insult. Colston, not the thousands whose lives he helped snuff out, Sooke felt, was the real victim here. Have we stumbled upon a murder scene? he asked. The answer, of course, is yes and Colston was the perpetrator, not the victim.

London art critics who casually portray mass murderers as victims, like Westminster politicians who fan the flames of cultural conflict, do so from a safe distance and in a consequence-free environment. Since Colstons fall, those of us who call Bristol home have been disturbed by the way that the city has become targeted by those from outside who seek to deepen divisions rather than heal them. At the time, I wrote of the dangers and distractions of the moment. But as a public historian, rather than a public servant, the task of trying to actually defuse those dangers fell to others.

Those fraught weeks of last summer are the subject of a new BBC documentary, Statue Wars: One Summer in Bristol (declaration: I am one of the executive producers). Filmed over the summer of 2020, it is a classic fly-on-the wall documentary, made by the Bristol film-maker Francis Welch. It follows what happened in City Hall as the worlds media, the London artist Marc Quinn and agitators from outside all focused on Bristol.

From the moment BLM went global and statues in the US began to fall, Bristol, a city that has struggled more than many to acknowledge its slave-trading history, was always destined to face difficulties. What made it all the more significant is that it also happens to be the first city in Europe to be run by an elected mayor who is a descendent of enslaved people, Marvin Rees, who has just been re-elected.

The confected battle lines of our confected culture war run through both Bristol and its mayor. Mixed-race, with a working-class, white mother and Jamaican father, Rees was brought up in one of Bristols poorest districts. For him, as for many black people, myself included, the white working class do not belong to a rival group but are family members, friends and members of the same communities.

What comes across in the documentary are the dangers of the road we are currently walking down and the nightmare of division and distraction confronting local leaders.

The culture wars look very different from behind the desk of a city mayor than on the pages of the tabloids or in our social media feed. Not for the mayor the easy gesture: he has to work through solutions, try to balance competing interests, particularly the interplay of class and race.

Anyone thinking of a future in politics might well watch Statue Wars and change their mind. Anyone unconcerned by the dangers of this moment might rethink their complacency.

Statue Wars: One Summer in Bristol will air on BBC Two at 9pm on Thursday, 10 June

David Olusoga is a historian and broadcaster

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A year on, the battered and graffitied Colston is finally a potent memorial to our past - The Guardian

ExploreLive updates: AJC coverage of the Georgia GOP state convention, Day 2

Though the meeting agenda is unclear, activists expect to pass resolutions that rebuke Raffensperger and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who both disputed falsehoods about systemic election irregularities and cast Trump as the author of his own defeat.

Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a critic of former President Donald Trump, was not invited to speak at this year's state Republican convention. (Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal Constitution/TNS)

Credit: TNS

Credit: TNS

Neither is set to attend the convention. Aides to Duncan and Raffensperger said the two werent invited to speak. Its little surprise. Trump has endorsed U.S. Rep. Jody Hices bid to unseat Raffenspeger and cheered Duncans decision not to stand for a second term.

Raffensperger and Duncan also were certain to get a cascade of boos if they had delivered their message. Duncan, for one, said that any GOP narrative about a stolen election is wasted energy that makes it easier for Democrats to prevail in 2022.

The easy fix is for former President Trump to stand up and dismiss that theres fraud and move on, Duncan said. But our job as Republicans is to walk into every GOP meeting whether its comfortable or uncomfortable and convince them theres no fraud.

Duncan added, Some days its like convincing people hundreds of years ago that the Earth isnt flat.

The bigger question might be the reception awaiting Kemp, who is racing to shore up once-solid support with the partys base.

The states first lifelong Republican governor since Reconstruction is no favorite of some of the activists, who fault him for refusing Trumps demands to call a special legislative session to overturn his defeat.

Gov. Brian Kemp still faces opposition from some grassroots activists in the state GOP because he refused to call a special session of the Legislature to overturned Donald Trump's loss here in the presidential election. But Kemp, who is running for reelection in 2022, thinks he can still win them over. (ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJC.COM)

Credit: Alyssa Pointer

Credit: Alyssa Pointer

More than a dozen county GOPs passed resolutions this year reprimanding Kemp, and one larger gathering of suburban Republicans voted to censure him. A rural district voted this week to express concern about his ability to put Georgia and Georgians first after Trumps defeat.

The governors poll numbers sank following Novembers election but have steadied this year thanks in part to efforts to woo skeptical conservatives, including his support for new voting restrictions and demands for less stringent coronavirus rules.

Yet ahead of an expected rematch with Democrat Stacey Abrams, hes facing pressure from his right flank. Democrat-turned-Republican Vernon Jones, a primary challenger, has led the charge with a call for a forensic audit of election results meant to cast doubt on Joe Bidens victory.

Kemp has repeatedly refused to hit back at Trump, though hes expressed frustration with the narrative that he had power to overturn the election. In an interview, Kemp expressed confidence he could win back their support.

Thats going to be a part of the primary process. A lot of people are still frustrated because they still havent been able to talk to me, and thats kind of what a primary is all about, telling people why youre the best person, he said.

But, he added, we also have to remember there are a lot of people out there, whether they liked what happened in Georgia or not, they want the state to have a good economy, they want their kids back in school, they want to have college football games this year.

Newcomers to Georgia Republican meetings raise their hands last month during the 1st District GOP convention.

Credit: Brandon Phillips

Credit: Brandon Phillips

Even without a top-tier primary opponent, the governor has much work ahead. Brandon Phillips, chair of the 2nd GOP District, said hes heard gripes from activists at the 18 GOP meetings hes attended in the past two months that Kemp is taking the Republican base for granted. He added that he hasnt seen Kemp staffers at any of those meetings.

To the base, especially the influx of new activists, thats concerning because these folks want to make sure were doing everything we can to not have a Democrat win next November, Phillips said.

Others cautioned patience. Former Gov. Sonny Perdue, one of Kemps most powerful allies, predicted Kemp would steady shaky GOP nerves over the next 18 months.

Anytime anybody runs for reelection, they have work to do. I think Gov. Kemp is prepared to do that work, and at the end of the day, people will unite around a candidate they believe will be successful in November 2022, Perdue said. Gov. Kemp will do what it takes.

Democrats, meanwhile, say theyre stunned that the GOP hasnt moved on from 2020.

Instead of feeding into conspiracy theories, we are rolling up our sleeves and working, Augusta-Richmond County Commissioner Jordan Johnson said. And thats what you can expect from the Democratic leadership across the state: getting back on track.

The uneasy environment at a GOP convention is nothing new for elected Republican officials.

Then-Gov. Nathan Deal was scolded for vetoing a religious liberty measure and objecting to campus gun legislation. Before that, then-U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss was booed for his stands on immigration. Others have seen their fortunes rise or recede in front of the activists.

The Trump era, however, has only heightened the backlash. Case in point: Veteran Republicans expected incumbent Georgia GOP Chair David Shafer to face stiff opposition after several election defeats.

Some veteran operatives in the Republican Party expected Georgia GOP Chair David Shafer to have trouble holding on to his job following the party's defeats in November's presidential election and January's U.S. Senate runoffs. But support from former President Donald Trump has made his reelection as head of the state party a near certainty. (Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com)

Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com

Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com

Instead, many of the most formidable potential challengers melted away after Trump endorsed Shafer, who played a leading role in challenging Bidens victory in Georgia.

(Former Cobb GOP Chair Jason Shepherd is Shafers highest-profile opponent, but even he expressed second thoughts about a run.)

The Trump influence will also unspool in speeches from announced and possible contenders for higher office, including those jockeying to face Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock next year. The GOP race remains wide open, and patience is running thin among party leaders waiting for former University of Georgia football great Herschel Walker to make up his mind.

The 2022 primary season in Georgia begins in earnest over the next 24-48 hours, said veteran activist Cole Muzio, who leads an anti-abortion group. Lets roll.

Joining the GOP crowd will be many new faces. Alex Johnson unsuccessfully ran several times to lead the state GOP before shifting his efforts to the Georgia Republican Alliance, an outside group aimed at pulling the party further to the right. He sees a more energized party this year, galvanized by election defeats.

Republicans are showing up to be involved this year because they are demanding accountability from elected Republicans instead of simply going along with and believing them as they have in the past, Johnson said. Its a positive awakening.

Staff writer Maya T. Prabhu contributed to this article.

Read the rest here:
Georgia GOP meeting will test Kemp and Trumps influence - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Jonathan Drake/Reuters Former President Donald J. Trump in North Carolina on Saturday. Jonathan Drake/Reuters

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday slammed Big Tech for deplatforming him, accusing Silicon Valley executives of ruining the country.

He also said he wasn't interested in waiting two years to be allowed back on Facebook.

"They may allow me back in two years. We got to stop that, we can't let it happen - so unfair," he said. "They're shutting down an entire group of people. Not just me. They're shutting down the voice of a tremendously powerful - in my opinion, a much more powerful and a much larger group."

The comments came as Trump emerged from his post-presidency hiatus to speak at the North Carolina Republican Party Convention.

He gave a meandering 90-minute speech, speaking to a mostly subdued crowd of about 1,200 seated guests, and touching on well-worn highlights of his political rallies.

Trump said President Joe Biden had been destroying the country "before our very own eyes." He then criticized the country's top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, denouncing him as "not a great doctor."

Trump also said the ongoing criminal investigation into the Trump Organization was part of a "five-year witch hunt" and that dead people had voted in November.

The speech was carried live on C-Span, which tagged it as a "Campaign 2024" event. Despite losing the 2020 election, Trump has a firm grip on the GOP. He told associates he planned to run again in 2024, if he's healthy, Politico reported last month.

"We will break up the Big Tech monopoly," he said on Saturday. "We will reject left-wing cancel culture."

Trump took aim at Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive at Facebook, calling him "another beauty," saying his "human nature" was ruining the country.

"This election will go down as the crime of the century," Trump said. "And our country is being destroyed by people who perhaps have no right to destroy it. Zuckerberg broke the law, spending millions of dollars - don't you think he broke the law? - millions of dollars to get out the vote in highly Democrat areas."

Insider has reached out to Facebook for comment.

The speech came a day after Facebook announced Trump's suspension would last at least two more years. He was removed from the social network the day after the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The company's Oversight Board in early May had extended the ban by six months.

He was permanently banned from Twitter in January.

Without direct access to the billions of social-media users, Trump has struggled to find a way to speak directly to his followers. He launched a blog called "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump," posting statements that could be shared by users allowed on Facebook or Twitter. But readership and sharing floundered. It was also buggy. The blog was taken offline last week.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Friday said: "Feels pretty unlikely that the zebra is going to change his stripes over the next two years. We'll see."

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Donald Trump attacks Big Tech during a meandering speech, in which he accused Silicon Valley firms of ruining the US and demanded their 'monopoly' be...