According to news reports, David Cameron has cancelled a deal to supply prison services to Saudi Arabia.

Frankly, I don’t believe it. At least, I don’t believe that Cameron has stood up to the Saudi regime. If the prison deal has been cancelled, I am sure the Saudis have been offered something else instead. My experience of campaigning about UK-Saudi relations over the last decade has taught me never to underestimate the willingness of the UK establishment to submit to the desires of Saudi princes.

The prison controversy is not the only Saudi-related issue to appear in the British news today. A 74-year-old British man has been sentenced to 360 lashes for possession of home-made wine. The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has pointed out that the Cameron-Clegg government licensed £4bn worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia between 2010 and 2015. Recently, it was reported that UK officials played a major role in helping Saudi Arabia to retain its absurd position on the UN Human Rights Council.

The Saudi regime remains the biggest buyer of British-made weapons. They have almost certainly been used by Saudi forces against civilians in Yemen and Bahrain.

Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote that, under Tony Blair, the chairman of BAE Systems had the “key to the garden door at Number Ten”. It dosen’t look as if Cameron has changed the locks.

The UK’s loyalty to the Saudi dictatorship makes a mockery of almost every announcement the government makes about human rights, democracy and terrorism.

Ministers denounce dictators such as Assad in Syria, but bow to the wishes of an equally vicious dictator in the same region. They express horror at beheadings by ISIS, but don’t mention that beheadings in Saudi Arabia have doubled in the last year. Tony Blair stated that one of the reasons for invading Afghanistan was to improve the status of women; as the comedian Mark Steel put it, perhaps Blair thought that his ally Saudi Arabia was a feminist paradise. Cameron accuses Jeremy Corbyn of being “terrorist-sympathising”, but when it comes to the terrorists running Saudi Arabia, Cameron goes far beyond sympathy: he sells them weapons.

I had always known that the British establishment was subservient to the Saudi regime, but I did not realise the extent of this until I saw it first hand.

In 2006, I was working for CAAT when Tony Blair interfered in a criminal investigation and pressured the Serious Fraud Office to drop its inquiries into arms deals between Saudi Arabia and BAE Systems.

The decision followed an intense media campaign by the pro-BAE lobby, with certain papers making wildly inaccurate claims about the number of jobs dependent on a new arms deal with Saudi Arabia (their inaccuracy was demonstrated when the deal went ahead, creating almost no new jobs in the UK). The Saudi regime had said they would cancel the deal if the investigation went ahead. Blair claimed that he had accepted this demand for the sake of “national security”, as the Saudis had also threatened to abandon intelligence co-operation that would help in the fight against terrorism. In other words, Britain was faced with a terrorist threat – and simply backed down.

CAAT, along with The Corner House, took the government to court. In 2008, the High Court ruled that the authorities had acted illegally by cancelling the investigation. There was outrage in the right-wing media (“Judges blow to war on terror” ran the headline in the Sun).

The impact of this was brought home to me when a Conservative MP angrily told me and a colleague that “If you knew half the damage you’ve caused to UK-Saudi relations, you’d be shocked”. I was not shocked; I was delighted.

Such damage could have been caused only if the Saudis were used to getting everything their own way in their relations with Britain. Sadly, the government appealled to the Law Lords who overturned the court’s ruling. UK-Saudi relations apparently returned to normal – but public awareness of the problem was growing.

British subservience to Saudi is the nastiest aspect of British foreign policy and it urgently need to become a major political issue in the UK. Let’s not just end one prison deal, but this whole foul and subservient relationship.

I am delighted to report that my third book is now available to order. It will be published in November. I’m very grateful to everyone who has helped me with the writing process – both practically and emotionally.

It’s called The Upside-Down Bible: What Jesus really said about money, sex and violence. It will be published by Darton, Longman & Todd.

The book explores the teachings of Jesus in short chapters that can be used for personal reading or group study. It is “upside-down” because each chapter begins by drawing on the insights of non-Christian readers who are new to the text in question. It also seeks to challenge interpretations that have grown out of Christianity’s links with wealth and power. Instead, it  emphasises that Jesus spoke with people about their everyday lives.

You can order the book, priced £9.99, by clicking here and visiting the publisher’s website. Of course, you can also request it at your local bookshop.

For the last two years, I have been teaching for the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) and I’m looking forward to doing so again from September. Please click on the links below for more information:

Britain’s Overlooked History – Thursday evenings in Oxford, September – December 2015

Ethics in the World Today – Monday afternoons in Finchley, September – December 2015

Britain and the Wider World – Wednesday mornings in Ruislip, September 2015 – April 2016

Religion in the World Today – Thursday evenings in Oxford, January – April 2016

The courses are open to almost any adult, although it’s advisable to book in advance in case they get full. They are free to people on income-related benefits.

If you have any questions about the course content, please feel free to drop me a line at symonhill@gmail.com.

Yesterday, the Methodist Church in Great Britain released a report about allegations of abuse – of both children and adults – going back over sixty years. You can read my comment piece about it on the Guardian website. While I welcome the report, I call for a major change in church culture and Christian attitudes.

The far-right UK Independence Party (UKIP) have this week launched a “Christian Manifesto” as they target Christian votes. I’ve written about this for the Huffington Post, referring to UKIP’s history of links with right-wing Christian lobby groups. You can read my article here.

I’ve written a couple of articles lately about the role of Trident in the general election campaign.

One was for Waging Nonviolence, an international website about nonviolent activism, based in the US. It’s written with a non-British audience in mind. Given the nature of the site, it assumes that most readers will be anti-Trident. It is a discussion of strategy and tactics in resisting Trident.

The other was on the Huffington Post and was a more general reflection on the role of Trident in the election campaign, particularly as it affects the Labour Party.

Trident is trending on Twitter. At present, it is the Number One trending topic in the UK.

Opponents of Trident have been hoping for years that Trident would become an election issue. It is ironic that it has hit the headlines because the Conservatives have decided to talk about it.

In saying this, I’m not downplaying the efforts of thousands of activists who have stepped up anti-Trident activism in recent months, blockading bases such as Aldermaston and Faslane and spreading opposition to Trident in their local communities. Nor am I dismissing the efforts of anti-Trident parties, such as the Greens, the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru.

However, it is worth noting that the Conservative Party would not have sought to make Trident a headline issue today if they did not consider it an opportunity to gain support.

This is rather bizarre, given that opinion polls consistently show that a majority of the British public are opposed to Trident renewal, especially at a time of austerity and spending cuts.

The situation with Russia and Ukraine may have affected this figure to a limited extent. Michael Fallon’s rhetoric this morning may gain the Conservatives a few votes from the “defend our nation” tendency. Such people talk as if everyone in the UK had the same interests and the same concerns, whereas it seems to me that the British and Russian people have more in common with each other than with their own governments. It is the global super-rich who are robbing and threatening us all, as more people are coming to realise.

However, issues of “defence” feel like safe ground to Conservative politicians such as Michael Fallon. Both Tory and Labour members look back to the 1980s, when Labour’s opposition to nuclear weapons was blamed for its election defeats.

A good many voters going to the polls this year – those aged under 32 – were not even born at the time of the Conservative landslide in 1983. Many more of us – those between 32 and 50 – were born but not old enough to vote. The very youngest people who will vote on 7 May were born in the week after Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997.

Please don’t get me wrong: I’m not dismissing those voters over 50 who did vote in 1983. They make up a sizeable chunk of the electorate. But many of them have moved on from the 1980s, whereas the Tory and Labour leaderships seem not to have done so. The Conservatives think they can gain support by banging out about “defence”. Labour are frightened and are desperately pleading that they too will retain Trident and defend Britain.

When I say “Labour”, I mean the Labour leadership. It was recently discovered that three quarters of Labour candidates oppose Trident. The question, as a friend of mine put it, is whether three quarters of them have backbones. Will they simply give in to the Tory pressure?

In 2013, Ed Miliband showed real guts by leading his MPs to vote against bombing Syria. In recent days, he has made strong progressive points about “non-doms” and other forms of tax dodging. Why will he not have the courage to say what the majority of the public believe and commit himself to scrapping Trident?

It’s great that Trident has become an election issue. Let’s not leave it to politicians and the mainstream media to decide the way it is discussed. We need to increase the pressure on Labour candidates to take an anti-Trident position. Let’s not forget for a minute that we must put pressure on SNP candidates to ensure that they really do make Trident a red line issue. And we need to be out on the streets, in our communities, our faith groups, our trades unions and online, making the case against Trident.

Parliament is due to make a decision on Trident renewal next year. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to stop it going ahead, making the world safer, leading the way on disarmament, and spending £100bn on something worthwhile at a time of spiralling poverty and imminent climate chaos.

Lindsay Northover, a Liberal Democrat junior minister, began her remarks at a Quaker-organised hustings event yesterday by commenting on how few people go to hustings these days. Leaving the event an hour an half later, my main thought was “I’m not surprised”.

The Religious Society of Friends had done a good job of organising the event, the first of three to be held in Friends House, the Quaker central offices opposite Euston station. While the Green and UKIP candidates stood out, the representatives of the three traditional parties blurred into one, their views largely indistinguishable. No wonder so few people go to hustings if the message you hear is “Vote for me! I’m slightly better than the others!”.

If you had shut your eyes at this event, it would at times have been difficult to guess which party you were listening to. For example, have a guess at placing the following quotes:

• “We’re an internationalist party.”
• “We’re a strongly internationalist party. We look outwards.”
• “We’re a generous nation and a generous people.”

The first of those was from Lindsay Northover for the LibDems. The second was from Jeremy Lefroy, speaking for the Tories (insert your own joke here). The third was from Gavin Shuker, Labour’s Shadow International Development Minister.

When it came to issues of war and peace, comments included:

• “We will meet our obligations… our obligations on defence.”
• “NATO has kept the peace in Europe for sixty years and beyond.”
• “We need to defend the country. We’ve provoked the Russian bear.”
• “We are committed to retaining nuclear weapons.”

The first and second of those were from Tory MP Jeremy Lefroy, the third from UKIP’s Pete Muswell and the last from Gavin Shuker for Labour. Shuker began his answer by saying that the Conservatives, Labour and the LibDems were “all committed” to nuclear arms, as if this unanimity meant it wasn’t an election issue. In reality, it shows the distance of mainstream politicians form public opinion, shown consistently in opinion polls to be anti-Trident.

Lindsay Northover said that the credit for delaying a decision on Trident renewal lies with the LibDems, which is probably true. She said vaguely that the LibDems are “coming down the ladder” on Trident. But as the Green Party’s Sharar Ali was quick to point out, Northover failed to say that the LibDems would vote against Trident renewal, let alone oppose the building of nuclear weapons generally.

When it came to immigration, the questioner focused on asylum-seekers in detention, particularly children. Can you match the comment to the party?

• “It’s abhorrent to me that children should be detained.”
• “The system doesn’t take into account that these people are human beings.”
• “[Ending child detention] would have my vote every time.”
• “Nick Clegg is strongly opposed to child detention.”

The first comment was from UKIP’s Pete Muswell (does Nigel Farage know about this view?). The second was from Jeremy Lefroy (he’s right, but has he told his leader David Cameron?). The third was from Gavin Shuker (this was a glimmer of hope; let’s hold him to it). The last one, of course, was from Lindsay Northover for the LibDems, who seemed to be missing the point (if only Nick Clegg held a position where he could do something about it; Deputy Prime Minister, for example).

This frustrating evening of political uniformity would have been even more unbearable were it not for the different perspectives offered by the Greens’ representative, Sharar Ali, the party’s joint deputy-leader. Ali began by framing progressive ideas in relatively mild language, and to be honest was a bit rambling, but he seemed to become emboldened as he realised that he had a largely left-wing audience. He was soon drawing applause for condemning Trident and poverty. One of his last comments was an attack on the invasion of Iraq, when, he said, “We should have brought the country to a standstill!” The more radical audience members clapped vigorously as the UKIP candidate frowned severely.

UKIP’s Pete Muswell is the party’s candidate for Islington South. He described himself as “working class” despite owning his own business. He seemed to represent the more humane and rational wing of UKIP, by which I mean that his views were extreme, irrational and jingoistic, but slightly less so than some of his UKIP colleagues. He struck me as someone who is genuinely compassionate on a personal level. The  ability of some people to combine personal decency with support for the nasty, vicious and murderous policies never ceases to amaze me.

Muswell said he was nervous because it was his first big hustings, but I thought he stood out on the panel for the quality of his delivery, as he sought to address questioners directly and by name in a way that the others largely didn’t. Nonetheless, his views were abhorrent.

The most outrageous moment came when Muswell talked about the overseas aid budget, a UKIP hobby horse. He began by saying, “I consider myself to be, as a Christian, a good Samaritan”. He said that the aid budget should be for going “to the aid of innocent people” but that the needs of British people should take priority. No-one pointed out that the point about the Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable is that he was a Samaritan, who was racially and religiously different.  Jesus told the parable in response to the question, “Who is my neighbour?”, implying the very opposite of the idea that charity begins at home. If UKIP had been in charge at the time, the Good Samaritan would not have even been there, as he would have been arrested at the border as an illegal immigrant.

Muswell then went on to say that the aid budget should be lowered because people are going hungry in Britain. He added that spending on aid “is frankly leaving old ladies starving in their flats”. This from a man who wants to spend £100bn renewing Trident nuclear weapons.  You might have thought that our money was being swallowed up by tax dodgers, banks that got bailed out or arms companies receiving massive contracts. If we follow UKIP, it seems that the people who are really to blame are Ebola victims in Liberia. This is a party that has turned victim-blaming into a political philosophy.

As Sharar Ali pointed out, “We have the vote and we can act beyond the vote.” A general election is an event in democracy. But it is only one small part of democracy, only one way in which we can influence the world and seek to make things better. After my experience yesterday, I’m extremely grateful for that.

It’s five days since top Christian singer Vicky Beeching came out as gay. Evangelical Christianity in Britain is still shaking with the impact of this earthquake, whose effects will be felt for years and probably decades.

I admit to being slightly embarrassed about my own response to the revelation. I knew of Vicky Beeching mainly as a religious commentator. She delivers Thought for the Day and appears on religious discussion programmes. I was only vaguely aware that she was also a singer. Basically, I had no idea how well-known she is, in the US as well as the UK.

My ignorance was in part due to my being so un-musical. Also, I’ve not belonged to an evangelical church since I was in my early twenties, pre-dating the popularity of Vicky Beeching’s songs. I dare say I’ve occasionally heard (or even sung) one of her songs in church, but to me she was still primarily a religious commentator.

So last Thursday, while many people were saying “Vicky Beeching’s gay”!, I was thinking “Vicky Beeching’s a world-famous singer! I had no idea.”

But many evangelicals, especially in the UK but also in the US, are used to singing Vicky’s lyrics and looking up to her. True, she has become more liberal recently on some issues. She is also a great proponent of Christian feminism, which no doubt puts off some evangelicals but by no means all.

I am cautious about attributing too much to the actions of individuals, however exemplary or heroic. Vicky Beeching is inspiring, but – as I’m sure she would be the first to acknowledge – similar struggles to hers are faced daily by other Christians trying to come to terms with their sexuality and the responses of others.

What’s so good about the Beeching revelation is that it appears to have given many other Christians the confidence to come out as gay or bisexual, or to acknowledge that they have been wrong to oppose same-sex relationships. A gay friend of mine who grew up in a conservative evangelical setting has been texting me over the last few days to tell me how many of her friends, former friends and acquaintances have either come out or apologised in the wake of Vicky Beeching’s coming-out.

This may all sound as odd to liberal Christians as it does to many non-religious people. I’m sure many are wondering what all the fuss is about. But as Peter Ormerod points out in the Guardian today, Beeching’s coming out will help to “shift the centre of gravity” in Christian attitudes to homsexuality.

The reality is that a few prominent evangelicals coming out as gay or bisexual are likely to make a bigger impact than a well-argued academic argument in favour of Christian acceptance of same-sex relationships. This is for the same reason that people are less likely to be homophobic if they know gay and bisexual people personally. Here are people leading faithful Christian lives, valuing the Bible, who are OK about their attraction to people of the same gender, and whose sexual relationships would be regarded as ethical by evangelicals were it not for the gender of the people involved. As Jesus said, a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. The goodness that comes from these people and their relationships makes it hard for many Christians to accept that they are wrong.

The often overlooked reality is that evangelical views of same-sex relationships have been shifting for some time, albeit gradually. There are now several pro-LGBT evangelical groups. They range from Accepting Evangelicals, which campaigns vigorously for change in churches, to Diverse Church, which supports LGBT+ young people in conservative churches. Last year, the Baptist minister and writer Steve Chalke became the most well-known British evangelical cleric to back same-sex marriage. Beeching has now become by far the most prominent evangelical to come out as gay.

Al of this makes the attitude of the Evangelical Alliance (EA) all the more questionable. The Alliance includes evangelicals with contrasting views – for example, creationists and evolutionists, evangelical pacifists and evangelical members of the armed forces. It is meant to be an umbrella body so naturally these differences exist. But when it comes to sexuality, the umbrella disappears. Groups such as Accepting Evangelicals are not allowed to affiliate. Steve Chalke’s Oasis Trust (with which I have major problems, but for other reasons) was thrown out after Chalke backed same-sex marriage.

The day after Vicky Beeching came out, the EA posted an article on its website by Ed Shaw, a pastor in Bristol who experiences sexual attraction to men but who believes same-sex relationships are wrong. Despite starting off in apparently gentle tones, he then declares that Vicky is wrong because “we are simply not at liberty to change what the Bible says”. He goes on to make several similar statements about the Bible without acknowledging for a moment that different readers might sincerely interpret it in different ways.

Thankfully, many evangelicals know very well that the Bible can be interpreted in various ways when it comes to sexual ethics. When I was a homophobe, I suppressed my doubts about the shoddy biblical interpretation that backed up opposition to same-sex relationships. I am no longer an evangelical, and I no longer believe that everything in the Bible is true, but I love the Bible as much as I ever did. It remains very important to my faith.

In my experience, there are numerous evangelicals who are struggling with their views on same-sex relationships, having been brought up to oppose them but now finding themselves conflicted. Many of these people are genuinely open to dialogue and are appalled by the behaviour of extreme homophobic groups such as Christian Concern. Those of us who support equality and inclusion should be engaging with these people, honestly listening to them and explaining our views.

As evangelicalism slides into its own division over sexuality, the Evangelical Alliance is on the brink of losing any credibility in its claim to represent British evangelical opinion. Call me an optimist, but I believe that it is Vicky Beeching, and not the EA, whose views represent the future of evangelical Christianity in Britain.