The Archbishop once again dips his beard in the political soup

WHEN THE COALITION was elected in May of last year, it invited backroom deals involving changes and compromises to each of the parties election manifestos. This, after all, is in the nature of political coalitions; and this is why the people voted against the Alternative Vote last month so resoundingly. For the people now that the policies that will flow with such an arrangement, would never be advanced in any of the individual political manifestos.

            To this extent the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is indeed right to suggest that we are being served up policies which nobody voted for. But the people who voted knew that we have £170 billion deficit to sought out, and that in order to do so, much pain and hardship would be the consequence - but it seems that only the Archbishop was ignorant of what the rest of us knew.

            Or perhaps he has a series of policies that require no such sacrifice, and at the same time reduces the budget deficit. If so, then I for one would be willing to kick Cameron out of Downing Street tomorrow and give the Archbishop his opportunity to make fools of us all, and save the country in the process.

            All the main political parties (and yes, including Labour) knew before the last election that welfare spending in particular would have to have the axe taken to it - but then, the welfare budget has required close attention from reforming politicians for over two decades now. It has become, not a safety net protecting the individual from the vagaries of the market place, but a fast food drive in with a menu grown so large that Beverage must be turning in his grave. The safety net has become, for hundreds of thousands of people,  the equivalent of a fast food diet. It allows people to become idle and dependent, not just for few weeks, but over a life time. There are today in this country thousands of families, none of whose members have ever worked – this cannot be right.

            Archbishop Williams does his flock little service by attacking, as he does, the main architect of change in this government when it comes to welfare reform - Mr Duncan Smith. Mr Smith will do more for those imprisoned into welfare than ever the Archbishop will accomplish with his rhetoric.

            The Archbishop believes that the Coalition’s actions are an ‘opportunistic’ cover for spending cuts. There is nothing opportunistic about it. This country’s economy demands such cuts if future generations are to be relieved of further suffering.

           

IN HIS PIECE AS LEFT- WING CELEBRITY editor for the New Statesman, Rowan Williams also attacks the cost of higher education. Education, like welfare reform are two of the Coalition’s flagship policies; and so the Archbishop also has the Education Secretary, Michael Gove in his sights.

            The cost  of  higher education stands at a maximum of £9,000 per student, per year, depending upon the university, and the Archbishop deprecates such an amount. Presumably, Canterbury still believes that higher education should be subsidised by the tax payer, like everything else. The trouble is, is that people are facing higher living standards and cannot afford the increased tax contributions that free higher education demands. The government has already promised that NHS spending will not be cut, despite its many wasteful aspects.  At the moment the NHS budget stands at over £100 billion pounds and is expected to double by the middle of this century.

            The government has also ring-fenced oversees aid due to be increased to £12 billion- this, in order to prove that the that the Conservative Party is no longer the ‘Nasty Party’.

            I believe that the oversees aid budget should be cancelled all together until the nation’s finances are once more looking healthy. But instead of having the courage to do this, David Cameron prefers to weaken our nation’s defences without knowing (as with the Falklands) just what is around the corner.

            So I, like the Archbishop, also have my grievances with the Coalition, but mine are about priorities, and I think that this nation’s defence is of higher priority than its oversees aid budget.

ROWAN WILLIAMS was chosen by Tony Blair to represent the Anglican Church, and became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2003. His first foray into controversy was in 2008 when he foresaw as being ‘inevitable’, that parts of Sharia  law, particularly divorce proceedings, would become incorporated into the British legal system.

            In 2009 he attacks the Labour government over Iraq followed up in 2010 by his expression of ‘deep sorrow and regret’, after he suggests that the Irish church had lost ‘all credibility’ over the child abuse scandal. While in the same year he gives ‘two and a half cheers for David Cameron’s ‘big society’. Providing, that is, that they are not an ‘alibi for cuts’.

            In May 2011, the prelate has America on his mind when Osama bin-Laden met his much deserved fate at the hands of US Navy Seals. But, the Anglican leader was not offering congratulations; but rather, feeling ‘very uncomfortable’ at the killing of an unarmed man.

            Finally, on the 28^th May, he finds his sympathy being direct toward those celebrities who take out ‘super injunctions’.

            Cuts are what is needed whether they are an ‘alibi’ or ‘opportunistic’, or delivered in the national interest. We cannot continue on the road marked out by the last government. Today’s economic reality, to the likes of the Archbishop of Canterbury, seems to be a conspiracy of right-wing dogma, without any functioning veracity in the world in which Canterbury lives.

            Our country lives in dire times, times that many have not woken up to, including many of those in government, who are trying to come to terms with the ominous circumstances, the full force of which, are coming up to surprise us.

THE CLERIC OF CANTERBURY is a liberal ecclesiastic. He masterminds tolerance to the point of full capitulation. He believes in the basic goodness of all humanity, and as such will cause much suffering among those who follow his path.

            He has made overtures to Islam that surely many other Anglicans either denounce or must outright censure. To foresee, as the archbishop does, Islamic divorce proceedings being part of English Law, must make his position impossible. If it does not as it apparently has not, then how seriously can the nation take this prelate.

            I, like Canterbury, and speaking as a mere voter, feel outraged at the Coalition. I, for the first time in my life, (I was, at the time of the general election 60 years-old) gave my vote to the Tories after my disillusionment with Gordon Brown after a lifetime of voting Labour. I am as un happy with the Coalition government as is the great Rector of Canterbury. But my concern is not about the need for cuts, for they are indeed needed, but rather about their priorities.

            Rowan Williams has once more delved into the murky waters of politics. He may think he has a part to play in the political debate of the nation. If he feels this urge, as one or two of his predecessors have also done, then let this unelected prelate now enthroned on the leather benches of the House of Lords seek election through popular will instead of presupposing that he has the ear of the nation.