Minister rejects Badenoch's claim that fine for man who set fire to Qur'an revives blasphemy laws
Date: 2025-06-03T08:28:39.000Z
Title: Kemi Badenoch
Content: Good morning. Public spending is still the dominant issue at Westminster, with the spending review taking place a week tomorrow, and debate still raging about how the government will fund its defence and welfare plans (although the debate is now not so much whether there will be tax rises, rather how big they will be). But the Conservatives are now trying to revive a culture war issue, accusing Labour of in effect using blasphemy legislation to protect legislation.
has been responding to the case of Hamit Coskun, who was found guilty and fined £240 yesterday for a religiously aggravated public order offence after he set fire to a Qur'an outside the Turkish consulate in London. Sammy Gescoyler has the story here.
As Sammy reports, the judge, John McGarva, said that Coskun's actions were 'highly provocative' and said he was 'motivated at least in part by a hatred of Muslims'.
But, in comments written up supportively by the Daily Mail in their splash, Badenoch said the case should go to appeal. She said:
De facto blasphemy laws will set this country on the road to ruin. This case should go to appeal.
Freedom of belief, and freedom not to believe, are inalienable rights in Britain. I'll defend those rights to my dying day.
Not for the first time, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has pushed this even further, telling the Daily Telegraph:
This decision is wrong. It revives a blasphemy law that parliament repealed.
Free speech is under threat. I have no confidence in Two-Tier Keir to defend the rights of the public to criticise all religions.
John Healey, the defence secretary, was on media round duty for the government this morning. Asked about the Tory claims by Sky News, Healey did not want to talk about the case itself, saying this was a matter for the courts. But he rejected the claim that blasphemy laws were coming back, telling Sky:
We don't have blasphemy laws. We don't have any plans to reintroduce blasphemy laws.
The National Secular Society is backing Coskun, and Humanists UK have also said they are concerned about yesterday's verdict.
But, in his ruling, the judge said that burning a religious book and making criticism of Islam or the Koran are 'not necessarily disorderly'. McGarva went on: 'What made [Coskun's] conduct disorderly was the timing and location of the conduct and that all this was accompanied by abusive language.'
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
10.15am: Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Treasury committee.
11.30am: Shabana Mahmood, justice secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Yvette Cooper, home secretary, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.
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Some grandparents I speak to say that being around young children at an older stage of life gives them the space they didn't have with their own children. Maria, a retired childminder in Manchester, says: 'We don't have the added stress or pressures we had when our children were growing up. We have more time to just enjoy being with them.' Wendy, 77, who lives in Guildford and looks after her two grandsons once a week, says: 'Grandparenting is better than being a parent. There is less anxiety.' Of course, when grandparents are so deeply invested, it can lead to friction. There may be disagreements about values. After all, even the basics of how children are looked after now differ, sometimes drastically, from the way many in this generation brought up their own children. In a 2021 study of British grandmothers, some participants were taken aback by the expectation that children be constantly supervised. In my home, as well as many others, the consumption of sugar is a common source of tension. 'She's eaten well today,' my mum has reported on occasion, before listing off a cheese toastie, cake and 'a bit of Grandad's Twix bar'. Occasionally, screen time can be a jostle – just how many episodes of Bing is too many? Several grandparents report finding the prevailing style of 'gentle parenting' tricky. Take this example, from an anonymous Guardian reader: 'I have no issue with telling them if they have done something wrong. The four-year-old pushed her friend out of the way. My response was to make her say sorry to her friend straight away; her mum would rather talk to her and ask why she did it.' If grandparents are providing free childcare, is it reasonable to expect them to follow their own children's ideals when it comes to care? They aren't, after all, professional childcare workers. Despite this, the benefits outweigh any costs for all parties, says Anna Rotkirch, a Finnish sociologist who studies population ageing and families. 'If you have a strong, close relationship to a grandparent compared with those who don't, then you have fewer problems.' In times of upheaval – when parents divorce, for instance – 'if you have at least one strong bond to a grandparent, that will be a kind of resilience booster'. An older relative's home can be a raft of stability during difficult times with your parents. Denise Burke runs the thinktank United for All Ages with her husband, Stephen Burke. She does this as well as picking up her eight-year-old grandson, Ardy, from school once a week and having him overnight. 'It's not just about the childcare, it's what Ardy gets out of it,' she says. She cites trips to the local Indian restaurant or the pub. 'He gets on well with our friends … and I think it really does children good to be mixing with all ages.' For grandparents, taking care of children brings the possibility of stimulation, cognitive sharpening and structure in a potentially amorphous life after retirement. John Perry and his wife take their 10-year-old granddaughter, Eva, to and from school, a 10-minute drive from where they live in the Nottinghamshire town of Bingham, most days. He says Eva has helped demystify supermarket self-service checkouts. ''Oh, Grandad, just give it to me,' she'll say. She'll scan it all and then go: 'Grandad, give me your card.'' John L Bazalgette, who lives in south-west London, is 89 and has 13 grandchildren. He puts the benefits of looking after the children in terms of wisdom 'mutually developed between the different generations … Discovering that we may have similar feelings, triggered by trying to belong in a shared fragmented world, can lead to deep experiences of attachment and love.' While there have been suggestions that caring for grandchildren keeps people young, a 2022 study suggested that any 'rejuvenating effect' from looking after grandchildren is a myth. The idea of whether care feels like a burden is central. Carole Easton, a psychotherapist and the chief executive of the Centre for Ageing Better, says that, among her grandparent friends, 'there is a sense of obligation: 'I'm not sure how they would manage if we didn't do this''. It's not, she says, a complaint as much as 'an acknowledgment that there isn't a genuine choice in this'. Many grandparents will still be juggling their work lives, too. Olga Grünwald is a researcher based in the Netherlands who looks at the positive and negative experiences of grandparenting. She says that for this new 'sandwich generation' of grandparents balancing work and childcare, 'everyone says: 'Oh, it's gratifying,' but then there is a lot of burden and obligation as well'. An English teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, says she suggested having her three grandchildren round every Friday night, as it means getting to have regular time with them. 'My job is very demanding and sometimes I am very tired at the end of the working week,' she says. 'But my grandchildren are just such a joy that they really lift me up – before I eventually collapse on the couch!' According to a small survey of grandparents by the childcare app Bubble in 2022, one in four reported retiring earlier to provide childcare. 'That's not a choice,' says Easton. 'We are losing older people from the workplace, which is causing damage to our economy and to the workplace in terms of experience and knowledge.' Many grandparents I speak to report frustration at slipping boundaries and supposedly part‑time arrangements becoming full-time. I'm sure I have sometimes over‑asked my parents and they have been too kind to say no. One anonymous retired grandmother says of her daughter: 'I have enabled her to earn a good wage. I received no payment of any description.' Frances Stadlen, a 76-year-old writer, gardener and baker in west London, had a discussion with her eldest son as soon as he said he was starting a family, explaining what her boundaries would be regarding childcare. Having been a stay-at-home mother when her children were growing up, she says: 'I was not willing to enter into any regular childcare commitment.' That is not to say she doesn't welcome her grandchildren into her home – her house is filled with toys and books – and she gives them her undivided attention when they are there, which, for each set of grandchildren, generally works out at one afternoon a week. However, she says: 'I see this phase of my life as a significant opportunity to achieve things I put to one side at an earlier phase. In society as a whole, I observe an undervaluation or active devaluation of the legitimate aspirations of older women to live disentangled from the domestic sphere, should they so wish.' Some grandparents report not having time for their own interests, or feeling selfish when they take time for themselves. Perry and his wife, Veronica, often travel to their static caravan in France. 'Rather than going for a long period, because of these commitments, we'll just go for a week at a time.' Not in the school holidays, though. 'We're just around to help out, you know, as and when we're needed.' Of course, grandparents wouldn't need to be so heavily involved if childcare costs weren't so prohibitively expensive. The cost of childcare in the UK is among the highest in the world. According to the children's charity Coram, summer holiday clubs this year cost parents an average of £1,075 a child – an average increase of 4% on 2024, with some areas seeing rises as high as 13%. If grandparents are backed into a corner because of the lack of affordable childcare, is something lost? Perhaps. While Paula Carter, a 59-year-old retired nurse, adores her grandchildren, 'and all the care means I have a close and loving relationship with them', she also feels that she misses out on 'just being the granny'. In Finland, where childcare is subsidised based on income and family size and capped at about €300 (£260) a month, 'there's this expression that grandchildren are the dessert of life … the benefits without the burden', says Rotkirch. 'Very intensive grandchild care is not always ideal for the grandparents or even a grandchild. When we talk about caring for grandchildren in the Nordics, it's an evening, or it's when the child is ill for a few days, but it's not every day for four hours.' High-quality, affordable childcare would mean that the older generation could swoop in with their stickers, sweets and stories about life before the internet out of choice rather than obligation. It would allow them to enjoy time with their grandchildren rather than being called upon to plug the gaps of a system not fit for purpose – which, according to most of the grandparents I speak to for this piece, can be very tiring. I know my parents love hanging out with my daughter and get something different and rewarding from taking care of her without her parents around. But they are no doubt glad that we now have more of an ad hoc arrangement than the previous one, which involved regular, full days: scrambling eggs at 8am and keeping a toddler amused until past 6pm. Easton, who regularly cares for her grandson and loves to do so, says she often jokes with her other grandparent friends that 'a woman shouldn't be allowed to have a baby until she's checked with the grandparents first'. The serious point here is that grandparents are now so often part of the caring package for young children that perhaps this should be a consideration. When Labiche-Robinson's daughter and granddaughter eventually move out, she will still be getting involved, she says: she is invested in raising Nia. 'She's my granddaughter. So I'm very attached her – to all of them, my children and my grandchildren … while I'm here, I might as well help the family.' Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
