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Good Morning. I was invited to attend The Cry, a requiem for the lost children of the war in Ukraine. It was heart-rending. The composer, Adrian Snell, opened by quoting Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel: ‘I belong to a tradition in which the murder of one single child is a blemish on the whole of creation.’ The words pierced me. They took me to how, after the Nazi pogrom against the Jews on the Night of Broken Glass in November 1938, the call went out to save at least the children. The Times Newspaper declared ‘Before it is too late, get them out!’ Across Britain, people devoted themselves to this task in an effort of which this country justly remains proud. These connections made me think about children today. The rabbis teach that everyone, without exception, is unique and that every child should be able to say, ‘For my sake the world was created.’ It’s a marvellous ideal. But now, with the threats our planet faces, I wonder how many children can look at the world with eager joy and know they’ve a place in its future. For, though in very different circumstances, the words ‘save the children’ still ring with pain. In Ukraine they’re a day-to-day worry. They must weigh on world leaders at COP 27. Here in Britain, they’re in the hearts of teachers whose pupils are hungry and cold, and of staff at community foodbanks. On Monday I attended a meeting of faith-leaders convened by The Trussell Trust, which co-ordinates the majority of foodbanks across the country, to discuss the grim struggles for housing, food, clothing and warmth which gnaw at human safety and dignity. Only yesterday a coroner in Rochdale concluded that two-year-old Awaab Ishak died because of mould on the walls. At stake is not just the dignity of individuals but of our whole society. There’s a level of inequality which compromises everyone’s integrity, when millions subsist in poverty while others have wealth. Public funds are short, there are multiple demands, and decisions are tough. But maybe by determining together as a base value beyond political divides, and across faiths and communities, that no child, indeed no one, should have to live in abject wretchedness, we will find the collective strength which comes from doing what’s right. No greater task unites humanity than the responsibility to protect the world’s children from war, hatred, foreseeable disasters and destitution. All children should all be able to say, ‘For my sake the world was created.’