Best Of

St Mary's church in Ince was demolished in 1978 due to mining subsidence. The school remained but closed due to lack of attendance due to having a thoroughly shit reputation.
The derelict school is now a Mosque and community centre.
So not quite as Reform would have us believe.

Shocked, I tell you, shocked.

A couple of caveats, though.

As with the "four star hotels turned into asylum facilities" thing, it's also about people's memories. Indeed, the people who go to church most tend to be least cross about churches closing. It's sad, sure, but it's also a relief to put down the burden of trying to keep an unviable church open. (Been there, done that.)

Also, the CofE did a pretty drastic reorganisation of its churches in Wigan a few years back, to try to match the number of services and buildings to the number of parishoners and resources. (Even if you can find enough money, it's a struggle to find enough clergy.) Oh, and to grow the church.
https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/transforming-wigan/

Although it's got nothing to do with the government, or the Muslims, I wouldn't be shocked if there were some discontent to mine here.

But the bottom line is what it's always been. About ten percent of those who describe themselves as Church of England turn up each Sunday (see https://tswyatt.substack.com/p/half-empty-or-half-full for some fun figures). That's not enough to keep this much show on the road. For those who are really keen on Preserving England's Christian Heritage, there's a pretty obvious action to take.

No we aren't, I go to Church every Sunday and am a member of Save the Parish. We now have members on General Synod and will continue to pressure church commissioners to put more of their billions of funds and investments into parish ministry and churches and clergy

Historically, CoE clergy was the profession of last resort for unemployable young men. Nowadays women are muscling in, cutting off this vital lifeline, when they could just as easily become social workers. No wonder we have this problem with NEETS and a masculine identity crisis. What's an unremarkable young man supposed to do if he can't become a vicar or a soldier?

Follow PB like the rest of us.

Oh, sorry, I missed the word “young” in your post.

This afternoon's grift.

Trump has pardoned Trevor Milton, a man convicted of stealing $695 million from investors.

This pardon came after Milton donated nearly $1 million to Trump's PAC.
https://x.com/GOP__Ls/status/2060172399530717344

He's selling so many pardons that it's depressing the market price.

Imagine how bad things would be if the US Constitution didn't codify a robust set of checks and balances.

If the Dems get control of both Hoises they need to amend the rules on Pardons PDQ so that they can go after the Trump family and associates if they have proof of grift etc. There seriously needs to be a robust limit on why and who and how many can be pardoned by a president - the latter is important as it will ensure future presidents have to think carefully about using up their tokens on people in case they need them later.

The crazy thing is that the concept of a pardon is so tied up in Monarchies of the old order that most monarchies wouldn’t have anything like these powers nor would their governments.

They would have to be utterly shameless to do so, given the pre-emptive pardons Biden handed out, including to his own family.

Nothing Biden did compares to Trump’s mass pardons, and the multiple times a hefty donation has preceded a pardon.

St Mary's church in Ince was demolished in 1978 due to mining subsidence. The school remained but closed due to lack of attendance due to having a thoroughly shit reputation.
The derelict school is now a Mosque and community centre.
So not quite as Reform would have us believe.

Shocked, I tell you, shocked.

A couple of caveats, though.

As with the "four star hotels turned into asylum facilities" thing, it's also about people's memories. Indeed, the people who go to church most tend to be least cross about churches closing. It's sad, sure, but it's also a relief to put down the burden of trying to keep an unviable church open. (Been there, done that.)

Also, the CofE did a pretty drastic reorganisation of its churches in Wigan a few years back, to try to match the number of services and buildings to the number of parishoners and resources. (Even if you can find enough money, it's a struggle to find enough clergy.) Oh, and to grow the church.
https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/transforming-wigan/

Although it's got nothing to do with the government, or the Muslims, I wouldn't be shocked if there were some discontent to mine here.

But the bottom line is what it's always been. About ten percent of those who describe themselves as Church of England turn up each Sunday (see https://tswyatt.substack.com/p/half-empty-or-half-full for some fun figures). That's not enough to keep this much show on the road. For those who are really keen on Preserving England's Christian Heritage, there's a pretty obvious action to take.

No we aren't, I go to Church every Sunday and am a member of Save the Parish. We now have members on General Synod and will continue to pressure church commissioners to put more of their billions of funds and investments into parish ministry and churches and clergy

Although I’m no longer a practicing Christian (Church politics rather than a loss of faith), churches of all denominations, including mosques, gudwaras, etc, or, more particularly, their adherents, provide more social support than many other, better funded, organisations. They deserve our, and government, support.

Evening all

For those suddenly interested in the NEET issue because of the Alan Milburn report, this is some work from late last year which is of interest:

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2025/12/10/three-myths-about-neets-in-the-uk/

Interesting to note 8% of NEETs are aged 16-17. I certainly remember when I was in local Government a lot of time and effort went into ensuring EVERY 16-17 age old was either in education, employment and training. Have Councils been able to continue this work given spending pressures elsewhere?

It's also worth noting a quarter of NEETs are not seeking work due to sickness and disability so again the myth about a generation of "malingers" or "scroungers" fails to survive contact with reality (along with a series of other crass generalisations).

Yes but Labour ducked the welfare reforms needed to try and get those on sickness benefit and capable of some work into the workplace

Though that depends on what they are doing. The more interesting/alarming people are the ones not on benefits- those who (as OKC suggested) are very probably doing odd cash-in-hand work/side hustles but basically not engaging with the system at all. Macroscopic system stuff like changing benefits rules or the minimum wage, aren't going to affect them, because they're not engaging with the system.

It's lazy to think that the issue is one that is solved by Whitehall or Westminster changing numbers. It's probably almost as lazy to think that changing numbers the other way is causing much harm. It's much deeper-rooted than that;


https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief/2025#section-trends-in-neet-rates-by-age

Looking at that chart, it's not about Starmer Labour. It's not about the Conservatives, either. Or Blair/Brown Labour. It's something that has been filed as "too difficult" for ages.

People not claiming benefits are not a problem for the taxpayer, those who are should be helped to find some work, even if on sickness benefits unless paralysed or with with a terminal illness then claimants should be assisted to find work they can do

Assisting people to find work largely died out many years ago.

And needs to be brought back

https://x.com/robkenyonreform/status/2059955153172631613

St Mary’s Church in Ince once served the people of Makerfield. Now it’s a mosque.

Our Christian heritage is being erased. Reform UK will ban the conversion of churches and protect Britain’s traditions.

Oh goody onto Muslim bashing

I'm an Athiest.

But even I can see the merits of a place of worship remaining a place of worship rather than rotting and decaying.

No God could argue with that.

Farage is the devil on earth.

Or they can actually be put to a worthwhile use as architecturally interesting housing

There's obviously a huge excess of churches because the rate of church attendance has collapsed.

If the people of Makerfield still wanted churches to go to, and still went to church, then the churches would all still be open as churches.

Fun fact time.

I'm Britain, about 930,000 Muslims will attend a mosque each week, while about 702,000 Christians will visit a church each week.

There are about 40,000 churches in Britain, while there are just under 2,000 mosques.

Thus the average weekly attendance at a mosque is 465, and at a church is 18.

I don't think that's true.

It appears true if you ask Muslims how often they go to Mosque. But if you ask the Mosques themselves what their attendence is, you get a much lower number. It turns out that lots of Muslims who only go for Eid and the like, report going every week.

It’s like people in new relationships telling their new partner they go to the STI clinic regularly when in fact they went once after a stag do in Magaluf twelve years ago.

Think I'd be more concerned if a new partner felt they needed to go to the STI clinic monthly.

On the other hand you could be fairly certain they had been treated, while someone who never goes...

St Mary's church in Ince was demolished in 1978 due to mining subsidence. The school remained but closed due to lack of attendance due to having a thoroughly shit reputation.
The derelict school is now a Mosque and community centre.
So not quite as Reform would have us believe.

Shocked, I tell you, shocked.

A couple of caveats, though.

As with the "four star hotels turned into asylum facilities" thing, it's also about people's memories. Indeed, the people who go to church most tend to be least cross about churches closing. It's sad, sure, but it's also a relief to put down the burden of trying to keep an unviable church open. (Been there, done that.)

Also, the CofE did a pretty drastic reorganisation of its churches in Wigan a few years back, to try to match the number of services and buildings to the number of parishoners and resources. (Even if you can find enough money, it's a struggle to find enough clergy.) Oh, and to grow the church.
https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/transforming-wigan/

Although it's got nothing to do with the government, or the Muslims, I wouldn't be shocked if there were some discontent to mine here.

But the bottom line is what it's always been. About ten percent of those who describe themselves as Church of England turn up each Sunday (see https://tswyatt.substack.com/p/half-empty-or-half-full for some fun figures). That's not enough to keep this much show on the road. For those who are really keen on Preserving England's Christian Heritage, there's a pretty obvious action to take.

https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/2060441806181896440

🚨 NEW: Andy Burnham would end all Government contracts for asylum accommodation and hotels if he becomes Prime Minister

The responsibility for providing accommodation would instead be given to local authorities

Local authorities controlled by Reform.

That'll end well.

Vote Reform in your local council elections and can get rid of your asylum seekers - that really doesn't work out..

Put the lunatics in charge of the asylum seekers?

Oddly enough, youtube recommended to me this just the other week :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on-y9Pv-CJA

Fun Boy Three - The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum

Hadn't thought of it since it was actually in the charts. But it felt quite appropriate given what was going on. So ... well done google?

The target of that song was Reagan. One wonders what (the late and much-missed) Terry Hall would have made of Trump?