Eighteen UK Church of England bishops have signed an open letter having a go at the current Con–Dem government for its draconian, not to say evil, plot to ensure the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
I refer to its plans for welfare, and its naïve* belief that, in a country where jobs are disappearing and at any time up to five people are chasing one job – and, even then, some are not “proper jobs”, but part-time or on short contract or no contract at all – people can just go out and find work.
So these 18 bishops have signed an open letter criticising this plot, and there’s backing from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Their main concern seems to be for children – because the government wants to limit the amount any given household can claim in benefits, no matter how big the family, and, they say, it’s not the fault of children that they’re in big families.
And the Children's Society claims the policy will cut support to around 210,000 children and make as many as 80,000 homeless.
OK, so far, so good. Bishops walking the talk.
But there are 44 diocesan bishops and archbishops in Britain, so where are the other 26? (By coincidence, 26 bishops sit in the House of Lords as of right, but, without checking them all out, I doubt it’s the 26 who haven’t signed the letter, although there’s bound to be some overlap.)
I assume the invitation to sign the open letter, which is in today’s Observer, went out to all bishops. I don’t know that to be the case, but it seems likely that they’d all be invited to sign it.
Just wondering . . .
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* No, I take that back about "naïve". These monsters know exactly what they are doing.
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