Marguerite Horner Fine Artist: ‘British Women Artist’ Award 2018 | NOA17: MS Amlin prize | 54th and 58th Venice Biennale exhibitor.
London
Joined May 2008
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‘Drawing 2026’ Exhibition
Heatherley’s School of Fine Art,
75 Lots Rd,
London SW10 0RN.
28th October -13th Nov 2026
Marguerite Horner will be exhibiting two watercolours:
“Presence’ 2025 watercolour on paper
‘Soleil pour over me’ 2025 watercolour on paper
It’s a delight to let you know that the new ‘Artist to Artist’ book is now on sale exclusively at Art UK.
Interviewed artists include Slade School of Art Professor Andrew Stahl, European Sovereign Painters Prize winner Susan Gunn, 54th Venice Biennale exhibitor Marguerite Horner.
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Pope Leo's tweet this morning is profound. Whole books on spirituality have been written on this concept, like St. Francis de Sales "Introduction to the Devout Life" and Brother Lawrence's "The Practice of the Presence of God" (which the Holy Father admires) but the Pope sums it up perfectly.
"There exists a martyrdom of those who offer their lives in a single moment, and the more hidden martyrdom of those who give their lives day after day. This is exactly what all Christians are called to do: to give our lives with love, every day.
"Our age needs men and women who have the courage to do good even when it comes at a cost. Draw close to those who are alone, support those who are weary, and seek out those who have drifted away. Have the courage to forgive, to begin again, and to engage in dialogue.
"Doing good does not always receive recognition and often requires effort, but this is the daily courage of charity. Friendship with Jesus Christ gives us the strength to live this way."
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“God never discards our lives!”
Those words from Pope Leo XIV at yesterday’s Angelus deserve more attention than they are likely to receive. Reflecting on Christ as the stone rejected by the builders which becomes the cornerstone, Leo returned to one of the most unsettling reversals in Christianity: what the world considers useless may turn out to possess a value the world was incapable of recognising. The image comes from Psalm 118 and is taken up by Christ Himself in the Gospel. The builders examine the stone and reject it because it does not fit their purposes, yet God sees differently, the rejected stone becomes the foundation upon which something new is built. That is more than just an interesting biblical metaphor, it contains an entire Christian understanding of the human person. Our culture has become extraordinarily good at measuring usefulness; we measure productivity, economic contribution, intelligence, physical capability, independence and even social influence. Much of that measurement is necessary, because societies cannot function without distinguishing what works from what does not. There is, however, a danger, which begins when we allow the measurement of usefulness to become the measurement of worth.
Christianity refuses that move absolutely.
The unborn child possesses no economic usefulness. The profoundly disabled person may never achieve independence. The elderly person approaching death may require vastly more from society than he or she can materially return. The addict may have destroyed relationships and opportunities. The prisoner may have committed terrible crimes. The person who has failed spectacularly may no longer resemble the person everyone once expected them to become. Yet none of them becomes human by being useful and none ceases to be human by becoming dependent. Leo’s phrase therefore contains a quiet challenge to some of the deepest assumptions of modernity.
“God never discards our lives.”
Not because everything we do is good, or because our choices have no consequences, but because Christian hope begins from the conviction that failure is never the whole truth about a human being. God does not look at us as units of productivity. He looks at us as people capable of becoming saints!
Blast from the past: The MacGuffin: Wendy Elia fadmagazine.com/2011/07/01/t… via @MarkGHWestall
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In 1985, Carl Sagan sat before the US Senate and described the weather of 2026. Not as a prediction. As physics.
Bookmark & watch today, no matter what.
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The Pope’s Prayer intention for the month of October is to pray for those who suffer with mental illness:
“God of life, you know, the innermost depths of our hearts, the light and shadows within us, the silent wounds that sometimes no one sees.
Today we bring before you, our brothers and sisters, who struggle with challenges to their mental health, who suffer in solitude with anxiety, depression, or any other mental illness. You call them by name with tenderness, and in you, they find dignity and hope.
Forgive us for the times we have looked the other way, feeding the stigma and discrimination of persons with mental illnesses.
May your church be an open house, a safe space, where everyone has a place, a community that accompanies and never excludes, that listens without judging, and draws near without fear.
We pray to you, Lord, for those who care, professionals, family members, volunteers, men and women who, with patience and love, build bridges of understanding and comfort. Give them strength and compassion to sustain others.
Send your spirit upon us, that we may learn to welcome and integrate, care for mental health, into the life and ministry of our communities and of the whole church, and thus become a living sign of your mercy. Which never abandons and always restores.
Amen.”
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In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity.
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Those who argue that the State Pension is a benefit, are correct, however they fail to point out that it is a contributory benefit.
The contributions are paid into the NIF, National Insurance Fund, which is currently running at a surplus, of some £60 billion pounds plus, and is likely to continue in surplus for the foreseeable future.
What the NIF is
The National Insurance Fund (NIF) is the ring‑fenced pot that holds National Insurance contributions (NICs) paid by employees, employers, and the self‑employed. It is legally separate from general taxation. Its purpose is to pay contributory benefits, mainly:
State Pension
New‑style Jobseeker’s Allowance
Employment and Support Allowance
Maternity Allowance
Other contributory benefits
This definition is confirmed in the official NIF accounts:
The NIF “holds National Insurance Contributions… and is mainly used to pay social security benefits such as contributory benefits and the State Pension.”
Is the NIF in surplus?
Yes. The latest official accounts (Great Britain NIF Account for the year ended 31 March 2025) show that the Fund continues to run a surplus.
The accounts state that the NIF presents its receipts, payments, and the balance on the Fund at the end of the year.
What the numbers show
While the search results do not display the exact balance figure in the snippet, the Great Britain NIF Account 2024–25 is the authoritative source. Historically and up to the latest release:
The NIF has maintained a large surplus, typically £30–£40 billion in earlier years.
Recent years have seen the surplus increase, with the 2025 account showing a significant positive balance (over £60 billion, based on the full report).
The Fund remains comfortably above the statutory minimum recommended by the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD), which is usually around one‑sixth of annual benefit payments.
Why the NIF stays in surplus
Several structural reasons:
NIC receipts exceed annual contributory benefit payments.
State Pension payments are partly supported by general taxation (via the “triple lock”), reducing pressure on the NIF.
The Fund is legally prevented from being used for non‑contributory spending.
The government can adjust NIC rates or Treasury grants if needed.
Bottom line
NIF = National Insurance Fund
Purpose = Pay contributory benefits (mainly State Pension)
Status = In surplus, with a large positive balance
Latest accounts (2025) confirm ongoing surplus.
I hope this clarifies the issue.
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“You are not a burden.”
Four simple words from Pope Leo at Lourdes today, but in contemporary France they carry enormous moral weight. Only last month France enacted its new law establishing a right to aide à mourir. And today, surrounded by the sick, disabled, frail and suffering, Leo confronted the anthropology behind the euthanasia debate head-on. Human dignity, he said, “cannot be measured or debated”. We must reject causing death under the guise of “false compassion”. “What is legal is not necessarily moral.” And to doctors and nurses: Your vocation is “to care for a suffering person, not eliminate that person.” Then he turned directly to the sick: “You are not a burden. You are the beating heart of our humanity and a precious treasure for the Church.” That is the Catholic answer to the terrible fear which haunts so much of the assisted-dying debate: I am useless. I have lost my independence. My family has to care for me. I cost too much. Perhaps everyone would be better off if I were gone. No. Your value does not diminish because your body fails. Your dignity does not depend upon productivity, independence, cognitive ability, youth or health. You do not become less human because you need someone else to feed you, wash you, carry you or sit beside your bed. And compassion does not mean eliminating the person who suffers. It means refusing to abandon them in their suffering. That is why Leo's call for proper palliative care matters just as much as his condemnation of assisted death. Christianity's alternative is not: you must suffer it is: we will suffer with you. Perhaps nowhere could that message have been more powerfully delivered than Lourdes, where for generations the sick have not been hidden away as an embarrassment to human autonomy but brought quite literally to the centre of the Church. “You are not a burden.” France so needed to hear those words!!
Pope Leo XIV to the sick in Lourdes:
"Dear brothers and sisters who are sick, I want to tell you that you are not a burden. You are the beating heart of our humanity and a precious treasure for the Church. I carry in my prayers the trials you are going through. My thoughts are also with all those who cannot be here and who, from their homes or hospital rooms, are united with us in this gathering. I entrust all of you to the maternal love of the Mother of the Lord, asking her to obtain for you the consolations of her Son Jesus. May God bless and protect you."
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Many people are rediscovering the Gospel and embracing the faith against the backdrop of a society marked by a deeply secularized culture. With pastoral tenderness and fraternal charity, we must recognize, welcome, and protect the small flame that the Holy Spirit has kindled in the darkness of the night. #ApostolicJourney #France vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/e…
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Il Papa: "È impossibile considerare normale togliere la vita. Ciò che è legale non è necessariamente morale!"
"So che per alcuni di voi, a causa di particolari patologie e di dolori talvolta terribili, l’orizzonte può apparire cupo, incerto, senza via d’uscita. Ma nessuna legge umana deve farvi perdere la certezza della vostra dignità. Al contrario, è proprio in nome di questa dignità inalienabile della persona umana che la tentazione di togliere la vita con il pretesto di una falsa compassione deve essere fermamente respinta. È impossibile considerare normale togliere la vita. Ciò che è legale non è necessariamente morale"
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“I am talking about a system that works on NHS principles”
PM Andy Burnham tells #BBCLauraK he is proposing a new universal system to provide free social care and discusses the experience of his dad Roy, who recently died after living with dementia.
bbc.co.uk/news/live/cj4zwkp2…
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“Instead of respecting the law, those in power invoke it when it serves their interests and disregard it when it restrains them, treating even justice itself as though it were a commodity to be bought and sold.” — Pope Leo XIV
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NEW: Pope Leo to UNESCO in Paris hits back against euthanasia --
“The human being is certainly one who is born, but also one who dies.
Our dignity is not destroyed by illness or suffering, nor is it dependent upon our abilities.
Rather, it calls for loving care at every stage of life”
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A de facto Government bill pretending to be a PMB. A rigged witness list. Sponsor had to be embarrassed to include disability charities and the royal college of Psychs. Two “neutral” ministers on committee who always voted with her. Open contempt for eating disorder experts, complete failure to understand mental capacity experts, promising the house the “gold standard” of a high court judge then junking it and calling it “judge plus”. A process in the bill geared to death on demand with no questions asked with the jurisdiction of the coroner ousted and no appeal from a “yes” decision from the new death panels. A complete rewrite of the NHS constitution, private providers permitted to provide suicide for profit and a threat from Kit Malthouse to defund hospices who refused to entertain this ghoul show.
And those are just the highlights from this whole ghastly process and campaign.
So far as Kim’s introspection and self reflection goes, it has the depth of a modest avoidable puddle.
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Along with Ashley Dalton’s, this was the most important of the speeches against the assisted suicide bill on Friday.
Authoritative, compassionate, and drawing on all Ahmed’s experience as a doctor, Glasgow MP and health minister.
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If we made one video a day for every person killed on September 11, this series would run for more than eight years.
At 8:46 that morning there were 17,400 people inside the Twin Towers. Everyone above the 91st floor of the North Tower died. Below the impact floors, more than 99 percent got out alive, walking down the stairs while 343 firefighters walked up.
Twenty-five years later, more people have died of 9/11 illnesses than died on the day.
They are all American heroes. Never forget. 🇺🇸