Oh Lord! Kent County Council

As a Catholic, I think either they should go back to this country’s Catholic roots which were a lot longer than this Henry VIII wanting a divorce nonsense- and have full Latin Mass with all the singing and incense and stuff at the start of council meetings. The only other reasonable alternative I can think of is to start the meeting by saying good afternoon or whatever and asking for apologies and conflicts of interest and letting people get on with prayer and worship in their own time.

And what will the humanists recite?

Having just watched The Pilgrimage shows this could be a good thing.

The people taking part all experience bits of each other's faiths and really enjoy and benefit from it. Of course they're open minded and are seeking greater understanding from the outset. Would the Reform candidates approach it in the same way I wonder?

What a waste of time. And, again, divisive.

They can take turns. That is what the Pickles bill says I think.

I would imagine the council workers can wait outside. And ideally, councilors themselves can recuse themselves if any conflict of interest comes up, in terms of religion ?

Or they could take turns - faiths and denominations on rotation. You could have a lot of fun turning this against the Reformites who are bringing this in.

They will agree not to recite prayers.

What if the councillors convening are a collection of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians? What prayers will they agree on?

A shared sense of purpose through singing the National Anthem - fair enough. But reciting a prayer that is meaningful to less than half of the population is divisive. It serves to emphasise differences. It creates hostility to those who do not wish to participate and excludes from public service those whose faith forbids them from participation in the prayers of other faiths.

The UK may be nominally Christian, but IIRC only about 40% of the UK population identified as Christian in the last census. Would Reform say that every meeting should begin with recitation of Reform slogans or their manifesto? It’s just as reasonable as beginning with The Lord’s Prayer.

Very few!

Given how few people the joining in with the lord's prayer and group singing is at most weddings, baptisms and funerals I can only imagine how straggly, half hearted and pathetic the prayer and anthem will sound at 8.30am in Kent Council's Office.

Half of the councillors will be thinking what a waste of my time, several others will be worrying about their presentation on pot holes and one will worrying journalists have found his old tweet denying the holocaust.

There's nothing unifying about compulsory time wasting prayers and flag waving.

As for schools, I have long thought that the words 'compulsory ' and 'worship' should not coexist in the same sentence, especially not in a democratic and diverse country.

The shared sense of purpose should be the people of Kent, not an imaginary skyfairy.

It’s not supposed to get the bins collected per se. It is intended to engender a shared sense of purpose among the councillors who may come from very different backgrounds. It is that shared sense of purpose that will get the bins collected and the pot holes fixed.
No one can make you say the Lord’s Prayer or sing the National anthem if you don’t want to. Reflect upon that for a moment That is part of our great democracy that allows freedom of expression. Other countries aren’t so tolerant of dissent.

Only faith schools, I believe - so those who made an active choice. And if we’re talking about cohesion, there are more secular/non-faith people than there are Christians in the UK, according to data.

If they said that they were praying for the souls of the corrupt Nigel Farage or the racists within their party, then I think they’d be more convincing.

Oops sorry yes that's true. Although we are talking about Kent!

Brilliant!!

Many don’t do prayers any more, or don’t do them often, even though they are supposed to daily.

I'm quite sure our local reform coincillor (previous tory) doesnt attend church reguarly

Surely it could be a potential conflict of interest ?

Say a Christian Church group or a Muslim group has a tender in to provide a local service. Maybe a Jewish group want to run a community ambulance. A Sikh group want to run a subsidised kitchen.

Sure, if individual councilors ran, and were elected on a religious manifesto, then of course, their electorate should be represented in the way that member votes on issues. But to pretty much openly declare that the chamber as a whole, including council employees, are of that religion, then the whole becomes exclusive.

And there are the employees too of course. They have rights under employment law.

Aye Tommy coke snorting Robinson the Christian.
Aye right church would crumble round about his heathen ears if he stepped in one.
I'm not religious but then again I don't pretend to be.

They couldn’t even manage to fund the fire service, but this they have time for?!

Im actually looking forward to the next 2 years. It’s time for all the idiots who voted for reform councillors to start experiencing what that actually means.

Here's what Jesus had to say on the matter.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others."

Matthew 6:5

Kent Council need to pay heed to the old parable of the town hall roof collapsing because the councillors spent their mornings praying rather than signing off the roofing works.