Church and State: Two institutions to be feared by vulnerable citizens

WHEN you have the privilege of writing an opinion column, you try as hard as you can to be fair. By inclination and temperament, I’m always inclined to take sides and I can get emotional about some things.

But it’s important, if you have the opportunity to express your opinions on an important page like this one, that you try to apply some reason to your argument, that you try to hear both sides of the story, that you recognise that some things aren’t as simple as they might be.

But there’s one area where it’s impossible to be impartial. When you see the way big, powerful institutions always move to protect themselves, we should always be willing to shout about it from the rooftops. Especially when powerful interests, with unlimited resources, start to hide behind the law and use it to crush anyone who disagreed with them.