"Heaven help us" were my final words last week! The election brings the dawn of a new era in which everything will be all right, as we were promised, but many people may now be praying for heavenly guidance - as if there are not enough world problems needing the attention of the heavenly host!

Divine inspiration is real - at least I believe in it. However, it is "we the people" who guide affairs, while the heavens rely on us to play our many parts by inspiring each other to steer events in a positive direction.

Now that dominant election coverage has stopped, we are learning that most of the world has serious problems. Wild weather, wild fires and life threatening high temperatures show how the planet is unhappy. The horrific death toll in Gaza, Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine, wars in Sudan and elsewhere, show the inhumanity of people.

We do have significant British problems needing attention, but on balance we are much better off than many in the world. We are all on this planet together and can only succeed if we work together. The Christian Bible invites us to love the Creator and treat our neighbour as ourselves "on those two commandments all the laws and the prophets depend" (Matthew chapter 22). Another verse in the Bible (John chapter 10) tells that Christ is the good shepherd, and that "I have other sheep too, which do not belong to this fold." So, we really are all in this together, Christians, Jews, Moslems, and others from different sheepfolds, plus many who simply follow the spirit of humanity.

The Heavenly Host is a literary subterfuge created to merge different beliefs. The idea started with angels having a conference; Archangel Michael keeping order while Gabriel projected alternate views with his trumpet! The concept of a heavenly host also fits the many departmental gods of Buddhism, Hinduism and others, all subordinate, like the angels, to a chief Creator God. Internet research shows Islam has five great prophets including Jesus Christ, with Gabriel as the messenger of Allah - which is Arabic for God.

Humanists won't accept any of that, so maybe the "Heavenly Host" should be rephrased as the "Spirit of Humanity". The boat club at university brought together a wide mix from different academic disciplines, so my own philosophy and beliefs already had mixed roots from discussions in the boathouse many years ago!!

The Labour party is now dominant, but it is a gathering of left wing activists and right wing opportunists brought together by the desire to get elected. Sub groups may soon split off and mix with the opposition of Tories and Liberal Democrats while Nigel Farage provides the vocals. Our parliament allows the chance to change Prime Minister, our Chief Executive, while many countries are stuck for a full presidential term. So our governance can shift gear mid term if necessary. In the last five years we had three prime ministers!

We need to shelve partisan feelings right now to correct the many things which are wrong at home and encourage our government to throw our international weight in support of Ukraine and other positive directions. That is the strength of our democracy, which will hopefully allow the best plans to bubble to the top because all of us will be working together, unselfishly … won't we?