The spokesmen of various churches have today claimed that the supposed 'cuts' to welfare being enacted by the Government are 'unjust'; apparently they target society's 'most vulnerable'.
As well as being the expected ramblings of a mish-mash of wholly unrepresentative and ill-informed socialist-minded individuals, one has to wonder what these befrocked people know about what has been, and is, going on in our society. It's only too easy to criticize others from a position of total ignorance and much harder to develop a coherent plan for tackling major economic difficulties.
Most churches are rich in that they own land; they also enjoy charitable status and so avoid paying certain taxes, notably VAT on their purchases, and also enjoy the benefits of 'Gift Aid' whenever any benefactor decides to leave them any asset of value, be it cash or anything else; this measn that they can claim additional amounts from HMRC that are related to the value of the donation and the tax status of the donor. Given this preferential status one has to wonder why these socially minded bodies don't offer the proceeds of these benefits to the least fortunate of their flocks. The answer, of course, is that it's much easier to spend other peoples' money and to try to claim the 'high moral ground' when the other people don't want to play ball.
Our country is all-but bankrupt. For decades, we have spent much more than we have earned and we've led lifestyles that simply aren't supported by the real wealth that we have; far tto much has been based on credit of one sort or another. The chickens are now coming home too roost. All debts have to be repaid eventually, be they credit cards, mortgages or government borrowing; what we are now seeing is start of the repayment of what the Governments of this country have borrowed over many years in order to finance an utterly unsustainable standard of living for most people in our country. This process will go on for many years, perhaps even decades, given the extent of the debts that have been built up.
The beneficiaries of most of the largesse of Governments have been the supposed 'poor'. Compared with the real poor of Victorian times and even with the poor of the the 1930s, these people are, in fact, rich; they have homes of their own, modern appliances of every sort, cars, mobile telephones, computers and regular, often foreign, holidays. These are things of which the real poor of the 20th century couldn't even dream; their predecessors in bygone days would have no understanding whatsoever of any of this.
It is the case that the definition of 'poor' has been subverted to mean anything that its speakers want it to mean. For the most part, 'poor' in 21st century Britain means less well-off than others; it does not mean destitute or on the streets; it does not mean unclothed. More often than not, those who claim poverty can still afford to drink and smoke; their 'poverty' is as much a life choice as anything else.
To return to the theseis proposed by the churches that the Government's approach has been 'unjust', I would have to say that this view is rubbish. Everyone except the very rich, and by this I mean people with wealth of many millions of pounds, has been affected by the current economic crisis. The bulk of the population are those whose assets are massively below this level but many are also the people who have been the recipients of vast government support over many years; the only way for the Government to even to begin to redress its huge financial imbalance is to start to reduce the level of support which it has hitherto offered. This may be painful for those who are most exposed but it's also entirely just; how can it be right that millions live on benefits paid for by those who are frequently not much better off ?
I have said before and I will no doubt say again that churchmen should keep out of politics. They are usually ill-informed and usually speak from a blinkered standpoint. It's bad enough that they profess belief in a deity which cannot be seen, heard, touched or experienced in any other way; that they should also profess belief in an economic system which can support everyone, all of the time, really is a step too far.
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