As the Stop the War Coalition holds its annual conference, ANDREW MURRAY warns that Britain’s alignment with US foreign policy is fuelling global instability and diverting billions from welfare, wages and public services
ABUSE in the British Roman Catholic Church is in the news again. The country’s most senior Catholic cleric Cardinal Nichols apologised for withholding evidence of abuse allegations made against JRR Tolkien’s son when he was a priest.
He said he was keener on settling legal action against the Church quickly when, in 2002, he chose not to disclose a key document to a complainant. Cardinal Nichols said: “My main purpose, I must admit, was to try and avoid civil action in court.”
The priest, John Tolkien, who died in 2003 aged 85, had been accused of twice sexually abusing the 11-year-old Mr Carrie in the mid-1950s, explaining his actions as a blessing.
After a ruinous run at Tolkien, the streaming platforms are moving on to Narnia — a naff mix of religious allegory, colonial attitudes, and thinly veiled prejudices that is beyond rescuing, writes STEPHEN ARNELL



