Has the Archbishop of Canterbury lost the plot?

[gus horsley]

The Government has proposed that certain people on benefits should be made to go out and do a bit of litter picking, gardening, sponsored cave clean-up, etc a few hours a week in order for them to "earn" their benefit.  The Archbish, in his role as the moral guardian of the world, reckons it will lead to a cycle of despair and despondency which will drive people to commit unspeakable acts, eat children, and generally lead to the end of civilisation as we know it.

Oh, and he's lost a few other lesser Bishops who can't handle the thought of women being ordained as Bishopesses or whatever they're called.

Is the old buffer out of touch with reality or is he supported by the last several thousand hundred years of righteousness?

 

[dunc]

Mad... Just banish all religion to the dustbin as it's probably the biggest cause of problems the world over!

 

[cap n chris]

Indeed!

God or nothing

 

[nickwilliams]

I am no defender of religion, by any means, but I do have considerable respect for Rowan Williams, and not just because he has a great surname! He is a man of considerable intellect and integrity and he is also one of very few people at his level in public life today who is prepared to try to express complex and difficult concepts and principles  with a depth of thought and language which they genuinely require.

The downside of this is that his thoughts are rarely properly represented by the tabloid press (which these days means pretty much the entire press) since they (the press that is) are incapable of maintaining the attention required to understand more than ten syllables strung into a sentence.

There have been previous occasions when what Dr Williams has said has been grossly misrepresented by the press, and although I have not looked in detail at his comments on this occasion, I would not be at all surprised to find that the problem here is not what he said but that some of his words have been quoted in a context which renders them either largely meaningless, or so as to appear to say pretty much the polar opposite of what he actually meant.

My advice is to read his own words in their entirety before you leap to judgement.

Nick.

 

[tony from suffolk]

Quite so Nick. I'm beginning to move from hating certain parts of the news media to detesting them all. Apart from the Daily Mail of course.

 

[kay]

It's all in the detail, isn't it?

If you've been working for years, lost your job, and have been trying for months to find a new job while at the same time coming to terms with the general loss of self esteem that many people feel when they are no longer working, and you start reading proposals to make you work 30 hours a week (which may mean you are working for considerably less than the minimum wage) at the sort of jobs which are routinely given to those who are doing community service as an alternative to prison, with the threat of having any source of money cut off for three months,  it's not likely to improve your feelings of self-worth, is it?

And it probably won't make you feel much happier that it's been mooted for those who have lost the habit of work and are making no attempt to find any, which means that it's not aimed at you.

So you can see where he's coming from.

 

[graham]

The ABC is right, for a change. This policy stinks.

If a job is there to be done, then pay a proper wage, even if it's the minimum wage. If not then it's not a proper job and you are just after putting people into some form of servitude.

 

[owd git]

Secondarily, what about those who would have done such 'menial' jobs ( probably just to make ends meet) or do (they now have to sign on!!!!! 
politicians eh?  :chair: :chair: :chair: :chair: :chair: :chair:
o.g.

 

[playoutside]

I see both sides of this and i can't offer no answer.
I have friends and acquaintances who Make me sick always moaning how little they get in social benefits but all added up get more than me and i work 40 hours a week for it.

On the other hand I know there are people who are happy in there job and take pride in what they do even tho it's really low pay and sometimes seeming de moreling to others and as Owd Git says they now have to sign on. Maybe to go do the same job as they where doing but for far less money than the little they got before????

What is the right answer?

 

[AndyF]

I'm all for the policy....

I see no issue in a shift in policy from "if you are out of work the government will just give you money to do nothing" to "if you are out of work the government will employ you" (which is what doing work to maintain a benefit actually is)

How can people be against a fair exchange of "society is helping you out, in return you have to help society out" ? Seems entirely equitable to me. They have been doing this for decades in Spain....

Great, No problem. Good thing. Gets my vote. 

...as for Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm sure he's a decent, thoughtful man, just with principles out of kilter with this century.

 

[whitelackington]

In the last dozen years several million people have been allowed to enter the U.K. jobs market,
nothing wrong with that
apart from, they have come from abroad.
Apparently there are a million people in the U.K. who have been out of work for more than a decade.
These two things seem at odds.
We ought to run screaming from the E.U. before it tottally screws us.
For the sixteenth year in a row no auditors will sign off their accounts.

 

[graham]

I'm all for the policy....

I see no issue in a shift in policy from "if you are out of work the government will just give you money to do nothing" to "if you are out of work the government will employ you" (which is what doing work to maintain a benefit actually is)

How can people be against a fair exchange of "society is helping you out, in return you have to help society out" ? Seems entirely equitable to me. They have been doing this for decades in Spain....

Great, No problem. Good thing. Gets my vote. 

...as for Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm sure he's a decent, thoughtful man, just with principles out of kilter with this century.

So you've no problem with people being sacked because we allegedly have no money to pay them and then being taken back on to do the same work for ?1 an hour.

Wonder if you'll feel the same if it happens to you.

 

[khakipuce]

Also, a number of the unemployed are carers in one way or another, so if they have to do 30 hours work, they will have to pay for care which they can't afford, so should the state pay more for stand-in care while the "unemployed" go out and do other menial work.

Once you get beyond the tabloid rhetoric, you will find that the majoirty of the unemployed want to work but where are the jobs coming from?

 

[ttxela]

He's spot on 

Isn't it now called jobseekers allowance cos you're aupposed to spend all your available time looking for a job rather than cleaning up the local park?

Surely any other sort of benefit is paid because you can't work for some other reason  :-\

 

[AndyF]

I'm all for the policy....

I see no issue in a shift in policy from "if you are out of work the government will just give you money to do nothing" to "if you are out of work the government will employ you" (which is what doing work to maintain a benefit actually is)

How can people be against a fair exchange of "society is helping you out, in return you have to help society out" ? Seems entirely equitable to me. They have been doing this for decades in Spain....

Great, No problem. Good thing. Gets my vote. 

...as for Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm sure he's a decent, thoughtful man, just with principles out of kilter with this century.

So you've no problem with people being sacked because we allegedly have no money to pay them and then being taken back on to do the same work for ?1 an hour.

Wonder if you'll feel the same if it happens to you.

Who said that was the policy... I must have missed that bit. 

But you have answered your own question. We have no money. There is no "alledgedly about it. Take a look at the figures for national debt and deficit. I'd say judging from your use of "alledgedly" you are one of the many "in denial" about the problem the country faces. Refusing to accept the situation and think we can just cary on printing money like Labour did. Put the issues off. No problem

This goverment is tackling the issues. Nobody likes it. There will be pain, in all quarters. And if some of that pain falls on benefit recipients, well that is just their share of burden.

But the scheme details aren't announced yet, so we'll have to see who and how it affects people.

As for it happening to me, well I've lived through about three recessions and never been out of work, though I've had to take wage cuts and do manual work on low pay in paint factory at one point. But  I always got work. If someone doesn't like earning ?1 an hour, well I hear McDonalds are hiring...

 

[graham]

Who said that was the policy... I must have missed that bit. 

It's what happened in New York in the 1990s when they tried similar policies.

But you have answered your own question. We have no money. There is no "alledgedly about it. Take a look at the figures for national debt and deficit. I'd say judging from your use of "alledgedly" you are one of the many "in denial" about the problem the country faces. Refusing to accept the situation and think we can just cary on printing money like Labour did. Put the issues off. No problem

"Printing Money" meaningless phrase, printing Money, or as the Treasury calls it "Quantitative Easing" is what all governments do. It's the reason that many people did not want us to join the ?, so that our government would retain the ability to manipulate our currency in such ways. The country will not go bankrupt.

This goverment is tackling the issues. Nobody likes it. There will be pain, in all quarters. And if some of that pain falls on benefit recipients, well that is just their share of burden.

"We're all in it together! The hell we are, you've just fallen for their spin.

But the scheme details aren't announced yet, so we'll have to see who and how it affects people.

Indeed, and I'm sure all the half a million public sector workers about to lose their jobs are waiting with keen anticipation.

As for it happening to me, well I've lived through about three recessions and never been out of work, though I've had to take wage cuts and do manual work on low pay in paint factory at one point. But  I always got work. If someone doesn't like earning ?1 an hour, well I hear McDonalds are hiring...

Are they? got 470,000 vacancies have they?

 

[ChrisJC]

In principle, I am for this policy. Why should my taxes support people who can't be arsed to work?

No policy is perfect, so there might be some side effects, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Maybe it will cause some deflation in living standards, which would be a benefit too.

Chris.

 

[nickwilliams]

The country will not go bankrupt.

You are right, it won't. But that's not to say that there will be no impact, nor is it to say that is is actually impossible for the UK to go bankrupt. It's unlikely, but not impossible. Countries have gone bankrupt in the past and there is nothing which makes it impossible for them to do so in the future.

What I find astonishing in the entire debate over the government's spending proposals is that no-one has pointed out that the effect of the cuts not being implemented will be higher interest rates. If you don't pay the government now by an increase in taxes or reduction in benefits, you will pay in the longer term with an increase in what you pay to your lenders. Or, more likely, our children will pay.

All of which is OT, and I still have not read what Rowan Williams actually said yet.

Nick.

 

[graham]

Of course there will be an impact, it's just that I am not certain that Osborne has any real idea what it will be. As for our children paying (well, yours as I don't have any ) well,  we only paid off our last debt to the US for WW2 only a couple of years back - last payment of $83m on 31st Dec 2006. In fact we still owe them for WW1

And while the UK dutifully pays off its World War II debts, those from World War I remain resolutely unpaid. And are by no means trifling. In 1934, Britain owed the US $4.4bn of World War I debt (about ?866m at 1934 exchange rates). Adjusted by the Retail Price Index, a typical measure of inflation, ?866m would equate to ?40bn now, and if adjusted by the growth of GDP, to about ?225bn.

However we are also owed money from that time.

OUTSTANDING WWI LOANS

Britain owed to US in 1934: ?866m

Adjusted by RPI to 2006: ?40bn

Other nations owed Britain: ?2.3bn

Adjusted by RPI to 2006: ?104bn

These loans remain in limbo. The UK Government's position is this: "Neither the debt owed to the United States by the UK nor the larger debts owed by other countries to the UK have been serviced since 1934, nor have they been written off."

It really is time that politicians stopped trying to claim that a country's economy can be compared with a household economy, or even that of a business. they are very different things and work very different ways.

 

[Rhys]

Graham: Source?