Geoffrey Heath-Taylor

Geoffrey Heath-Taylor is a writer and architectural historian

Today

Geoffrey Heath-Taylor

The Church has forgotten the true meaning of martyrdom

From our UK edition

All Saints’ Day is upon us. Today, Christians throughout the world will reflect on the lives of saints who have – to quote the Apostle Paul – ‘fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith’. But while we still sing William Walsham How’s magnificent hymn ‘For All the Saints’, most congregations will stop short of the stanza that named the martyrs: For Martyrs, who with rapture-kindled eye, Saw the bright crown descending from the sky, And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify. Alleluia, Alleluia. How wrote eleven stanzas in 1864, inspired by the 'cloud of witnesses' described in Hebrews 12.

Tuesday

Geoffrey Heath-Taylor

It’s time for Badenoch and Farage to talk

From our UK edition

Kemi Badenoch has ruled out a pact with Reform. The Tory leader told the Daily Telegraph: ‘Nigel Farage has said that he wants to destroy the Conservative Party. ‘So I’m not…I have been given something very precious. I am the custodian of an institution that has existed for nigh on 200 years…I have to look after this thing. I can’t just treat it like it’s a toy and have pacts and mergers.' Badenoch should think again. The truth is that many Tory voters are being wooed by Nigel Farage's Reform party. Pretending otherwise is not going to cut it. Reform MP Rupert Lowe's rousing recent address at a Reform rally had me and the group of life-long Conservatives I watched a recording of it with, nodding along.