The Rt Reverend David Hawkins, The Bishop of Barking pictured with Hope not Hate staff, Sam Tarry, Campaign Organiser, and Caroline Alabi, Faith Communities Organiser
The Rt Reverend David Hawkins, The Bishop of Barking, Sam Tarry and Caroline Alabi, with a group of passing students, who asked to join in the photo shoot when they discovered it was to promote considered and informed voting!
The Rt Reverend David Hawkins, The Bishop of Barking, urges all registered voters to get out and vote on 6 May.
Bishop David’s Episcopal Area covers the London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Newham, Redbridge and Waltham Forest, together with Epping Forest, Ongar and Harlow in Essex. Parties of the far-right are fielding candidates in nine of the fourteen parliamentary constituencies and this part of east London and Essex is a key target of the extreme parties hoping to get a foothold in Parliament.
Bishop David says: “Racist ideologies, seeking to divide people on the grounds of ethnicity have no place in mainstream British politics and I encourage people to vote in such a way as to prevent racist political parties making any electoral gains.”
The Bishop adds: “This election is arguably the most important General Election in a generation. I urge all those who are registered and ready to vote to think carefully about where they place their cross on 6 May. The result we wake up to on 7 May will influence and shape life in our country for the next four or five years and I emphasise the need to carefully examine consider party policies before voting.”
The Contextual Theology Centre writes that:
"David Cameron and Nick Clegg have agreed to attend a 2500-person Citizens UK assembly at Methodist Central Hall on Monday 3rd May at 2.45pm (Gordon Brown is still to confirm).
The Contextual Theology Centre (CTC) is sponsoring this event, and has a limited number of tickets for church leaders who are considering joining the Citizens movement.
The candidates will be responding to an agenda determined by Citizens UK's member institutions, including: The Living Wage; A cap on interest rates; Community land trusts; Ending child detention for sanctuary seekers; and Earned citizenship for long-term migrants.
In advance of the election, CTC has launched two books on Christian teaching and community organising - more information is online at http://www.theology-centre.org/resources/books:
Crunch Time: A Call to Action is a collection of essays by John Milbank (Nottingham) and CTC Fellows Luke Bretherton (King’s College, London) and Vincent Rougeau (Notre Dame) on a Christian response to the credit crunch. This is also available as a free PDF. Faithful Citizens is a book on community organising and Catholic social teaching by organiser, journalist and CTC Fellow Austen Ivereigh.
To keep up to date with the increasing impact of citizen organising on the election campaign, you can follow CTC's Jellicoe Blog at http://jellicoecommunity.blogspot.com
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