Bish Bash

The Daily Mail has a big scoop today with an article written by Lord Carey - the former  Archbishop of Canterbury and former head of the Church of England.

In essence Lord Carey weighs into some of his fellow bishops - by giving them a metaphorical 'boot up the arse' - in the style of that great TV hero Father Ted.

Here's an extract of what the Daily Mail has to say about Lord Carey's article: 

"Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey today launches an astonishing attack on the five bishops trying to derail the Government’s £26,000-a-year benefit cap.

In an article for the Daily Mail, Lord Carey insists the sheer scale of Britain’s public debt – which yesterday hit £1trillion – is the ‘greatest moral scandal’ facing the country and warns the welfare system is rewarding ‘fecklessness and irresponsibility’.

He is scathing about all opponents of the proposed limit on benefits – who include Labour peers and Liberal Democrat rebels – but reserves his most outspoken criticism for the Anglican bishops, who led the rebellion in the House of Lords.

He said they encouraged the culture of welfare dependency which led to ‘poverty of aspiration’, and warned them that they could lay no claim to the ‘moral high ground’.

‘If we can’t get the deficit under control and begin paying back this debt, we will be mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren,’ he writes.

Lord Carey hails Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith as a ‘committed Christian’ who is trying to reform a welfare system which is ‘fuelling vices and impoverishing us all’.

Downing Street insisted last night that its plan to impose an annual limit on welfare payments would be implemented ‘in full’ despite the dramatic defeat in the Lords. Labour leader Ed Miliband’s decision to try to derail Government plans for a cap, designed to ensure workless households cannot receive more than the average working family, was branded a ‘total disaster’ by his own shadow ministers."

Now this is an interesting development to say the least.

Because the moral authority of the church is being challenged by one of its own leading figures - who no doubt has an impressive track record - in standing up for the poor and dispossessed.

Yet on this occasion the former Archbishop of Canterbury says it's not so simple - people have got to look at the big picture - the mountains of debt being passed on to future generations.

While on the same subject I also listened to a TV programme the other day featuring the former Labour MP Chris Mullin - whose diaries I have quoted with approval before on the blog site.

Now Chris was all over the place on welfare reform - refusing to say whether he and the Labour party supported the government's proposals - Chris took the easy option by saying that the best way to reduce the welfare bill - was to get people back into work.

Yet I seem to recall a previous post on the blog site - taken from Chris Mullin's diaries - in which Chris identified the problem as significant numbers of his own constituents not really wanting to work - ever.

Even during a period of relatively full employment.

To my mind there is a world of difference between people who are prepared to spend years - or even a lifetime on benefits - and those who fall on genuinely hard times.

And the challenge for welfare reform in the UK - is to devise a system that treats the two groups very differently - because they are not one and the same.

If that's what Lord Carey is trying to say - then I agree with him wholeheartedly.