Us & Them On So Many Levels

June really hasn't been a good month.

This is a picture of Stanford rapist Brock Turner: white, wealthy, privileged. When he found an unconscious women rather than helping her he began to rape her.

Some people came along and caught him so technically I suppose he is an 'attempted rapist', but he got far enough that the woman reportedly had dirt and grass inside her when they treated her in hospital.

He was sentenced to just six months in prison, reportedly reduced to four, by a judge who shared his background, and he and his family are appealing that as too harsh. His victim, once she had been treated, was articulate enough to ensure the case came to wider notice: a shocking example of 'them & us' in US society.

Melissa Etheridge's song, at the top of this post, was written in response to the mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando this month.

A deeply homophobic man shot dead 49 people and wounded 53 others. Behind him lay a deeply homophobic family, living in a deeply homophobic culture, surrounded by deeply homophobic churches (and presumably mosques).

Homosexuality has been a divisive issue across the world in recent years. My question on such things is "where are the haters?" Those who spread hatred of others are not God's people; and those who would divide Christ's body are nothing to do with Jesus.

Then we come to the UK's EU referendum campaign. The picture shown was probably the low point of a generally negative campaign. 

Both the Leave and Remain official campaigns focused on fear-mongering and negative propaganda. Both the official and unofficial Leave groups hammered away relentlessly at immigration and at people's fear and resentment of 'the other'.

Now the result is out and it seems the Leave campaigns worked - at least among older voters. The picture below, in many variations, is widely shared on social media by younger people angry at what they see as a betrayal of their future by those who won't have to live with the consequences. I suppose 'us & them' across generations is nothing new, but the anger is real.

I was going to put up picture of those utterly stupid politicians whose response to a crisis is to play politics and ignore the needs of the country. In many ways it was the Conservative party's internal politics, especially the ambition of Boris Johnson, which created the crisis, now Labour's MPs have decided they'd rather play leadership games than help rebuild the unity this country desperately needs to face a challenging future. The us & them of a broken political system.

In my view the most apposite comment was used as a headline by the Guardian newspaper: "If you've got money, you vote in ... if you haven't got money, you vote out." Subheading: "Brexit is about more than the EU: it’s about class, inequality, and voters feeling excluded from politics. So how do we even begin to put Britain the right way up?"

So much of the anger, so many of the divisions, arise from the deep and increasing inequalities within our society. A lot of the Remain campaign was based around fear of losing what we have got; to many that means nothing. A lot of the resentment of immigrants and minorities flows from insecurity, uncertainty, and a feeling someone must be to blame.

I'd like to come up with a nice 'Christian' solution to all this: "love one another," perhaps, "then everything will be wonderful." Meaningless! If we loved one another we wouldn't have the problems anyway. "Jesus Christ died to bring reconciliation," is at least apposite, but lacking in how and when.

At the moment my feelings are more in line with Habakkuk: how long, O Lord, is this unholy mess going to continue? When will there be justice and peace and cleansing?

IDS & Welfare Reform

I detect a spin machine.

On Friday evening Ian Duncan Smith (aka IDS) resigned because the government's budget had made huge cuts to the money spent on the poorest in society, supposedly to 'balance the books' as part of 'austerity', yet simultaneously cut taxes paid by the wealthiest people in the country.

No sooner had the word spread about this than suddenly speculation appeared that maybe his resignation had nothing to do with benefit cuts but was instead about the EU referendum.

I wonder who planted that idea? Surely not the embarrassed government, caught with their hands in the till giving the country's wealth to their millionaire buddies?

Although IDS is known  as a euro-sceptic, his main apparent passion for the past decade or more has been social policy. In particular he has displayed a burning desire to end what he saw as welfare-dependency: the tendency of the welfare state to institutionalise poverty, simultaneously giving people just enough to live on whilst blocking their ability to improve their lot through working.

Although the welfare state has long been a bugbear of the far-right, there are also people from other traditions who have been very critical of the way it is applied in practice: tending to reinforce poverty rather than eliminating it. One high profile critic of welfare dependency has long been John Bird, co-founder of The Big Issue, from a very different background to Ian Duncan Smith.

The trouble with IDS's ideas about welfare reform, it seems to me, has been that he seems to be singularly politically inept, that either he or his department have been callously uncaring about the effects of the changes they have introduced, and that the widespread scale of the reforms he was advocating require more funding in the short term, not less.

At a time when Britain was massively in debt that was unlikely to happen; under a conservative government committed to cutting taxes it was a non-starter. So IDS was trying to bring in changes requiring more money whilst repeatedly cutting costs ("salami slicing" as he put it). No wonder he failed; no wonder government policies created such suffering.

To me it looks as though he had bought into the need to try to keep doing this, hopefully whilst wrestling with his conscience over the human cost of doing so. Then George Osborne made it completely clear that the government is only interested in cutting taxes for the rich, not in improving the lot of the poorest. I may be naive, but I think that is what finally forced IDS into resignation.

I also think this is a government of liars and hypocrites. Just my opinion, of course.

Immigration & Wages

Last week several of us had a chance to meet together with a group of Romanian worshippers at a local church, and to enjoy their hospitality. This week I had an interesting chat with a local Caversham man who was commenting on the way that immigrants are driving down wages for skilled labourers, and wondering how youngsters would manage in the future.

Many of our Romanian hosts were skilled workers over here on short-term contracts, concerned about their families and the lack of stability which goes with that lifestyle. I could sympathise with that having been a 'forces kid', moving every three years during my childhood; although I do think that there is a huge benefit to travel. Some years ago I had a next-door neighbour in her late seventies who had never been further than Tilehurst, just the other side of Reading, and only went there once because it was too strange! Their worshipping community (they don't have their own church building) has been steadily growing over the years, as more Romanians have moved over here to work.

A problem in Caversham seems to be that people are coming over from the poorer parts of Eastern Europe (such as Romania) who are skilled labourers, have no market for their skills in their home country, come to Caversham where there is work, but offer silly rates for jobs just to get some of that work (I was told some are quoting £60-£70 per day for skilled building work, which isn't sustainable).

In spite of some of the scummier parts of our press, I see no sign of Eastern Europeans coming over as 'benefit tourists'. Employment rates are generally not too bad around Reading, so I don't think there's any real problem with recent immigrants picking off the baseline, minimum wage jobs, shutting out unskilled locals.

As a small business myself, though, I can see the point about unfair, unsustainable competition; although I would point out that there is probably a lot more unfair competition to small businesses coming from multi-nationals who don't pay either fair wages or fair taxes (Amazon and Starbucks spring to mind).

What to do? I would start by saying these are all good people: Romanians and local. There is no place for language and attitudes which dehumanise or degrade fellow human beings. Some of the British press fails dismally there, and one or two of our political parties are irresponsible in the way they manipulate this issue. I would also point out that there are a lot of British skilled workers working overseas, in Europe and beyond, on both short and long term contracts - it's a two-way street.

That said, what can be done? It seems to me that this is a problem which is real but not sustainable. Family accommodation around here is ludicrously expensive - owned or rented - so no-one can continue charging uneconomic prices for long. Essentially it looks to me like a classic 'market entry': you start with low prices to build a clientèle then put them up to realistic levels as you become established.

The problem really is a lack of stability. The EU has grown too fast in recent years; it needs to take time to digest what it has already got before growing any more. The various restrictions on movement after some of the Eastern European countries joined merely had the effect of drawing out the pain. We need to give society, and businesses, time to settle down.

So my suggestions would be to block EU expansion, encourage free movement within the EU (to stop the build up of suppressed demand), put effort into enforcing payment of taxes and fair wages by large businesses and small, locals and foreign workers (not necessarily a popular move with local small businesses, but important to level the playing field), and unblock the building of the houses needed for the unmet demand (thereby both growing the demand for skilled labour and moving housing costs to a more manageable level).

I don't see any party in tomorrow's election whose policies (such as they are) come even close to these. I will vote tomorrow because voting is important, but I - like many others - despair at the lack of real choice in UK elections so far this century.

Politics & The Bible II

"Christianity is an incarnational faith – Jesus Christ lived as one of us, shared the joys and hardships of ordinary life and died a violent and shameful death. Wherever we find ourselves, he has shared our condition. His resurrection is a sign that the sufferings of the world are not the last word and that God’s transforming power can turn the material world – not just the spiritual – to work for good. Christians believe that we are called to share in this responsibility for bringing to birth a new creation."

The above is a quote from the Anglican bishops' pastoral letter (pdf link) published in February addressing the forthcoming general election, under the heading "Who is my neighbour?" Part of the point of the quote is that this world matters because Jesus was born into it, becoming one of us.

Whenever Christians pray "your Kingdom come" we are committing ourselves to doing what we can to help that to happen, and Jesus' life and teaching show us that God's Kingdom is far more about the way we treat others - particularly the sick, the scorned, and the outsider - than about some form of private personal belief system. As James puts it:

"Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?"

Even before the letter was published the right-leaning press were complaining about it, and Tory MPs were, we are told on Nick Baines' blog, criticising it even though they admitted they had not actually read the document. The implication has to be that some right-wingers assume, without needing to check, that their favoured policies are simply unChristian.

The letter itself is careful neither to choose any one party over another, nor to promote specific political policies. What it does try to do is to promote a new vision for political life, and indeed for British society's values. It's a huge document but well worth a read.

My aim in this post is rather more modest: I just want to address a couple of political hot-spots and look at how it is that Christians in different parties may, in good faith, promote different approaches.

Take economic policies. The Bible is clear:

“The person who has two tunics must share with the person who has none, and the person who has food must do likewise.”

For one person to have more than they need, whilst another has less is simply wrong, that's easy. But what you do about it is less so. If the wealthy ignore the call to share their riches, like the rich man with Lazarus at his gate, what is to be done?

One view is that the state should step in, remove some of the excess wealth and pass it on to those in poverty. Another view is that it is down to an individual's conscience what they do with their money and if they choose to spend it on themselves that is their right. Maybe the church should be more persuasive in its teaching?

There is a lot of data to show that inequality is harmful to societies (see The Spirit Level, by Wilkinson & Pickett, for a slightly dated summary of the scientific evidence). There is also evidence to show that excessive welfare can also be harmful to societies, including to the recipients (John Bird of The Big Issue is an outspoken proponent that another approach is needed). Something more dynamic and more balanced is required.

So there are Christians in all the main political parties, all working for justice and to alleviate poverty, but in different ways, using different strategies. Some of them, some of the time, maybe compromise on God's Kingdom in favour of their political ideology, but we should all be wary of casting the first stone.

Health is an area that seems to have been central to Jesus' proclamation of God's Kingdom, so any Christian should be concerned about healthcare for all. In UK politics the argument is then over whether state control or more private/market provision is the best way of delivering that.

I have to say that I personally would find the market approaches more credible if they were not so obviously influenced by the USA's incredibly expensive and inefficient system, which has become a huge moneymaker for the health industry whilst leaving their nation generally unhealthy. There are many nations which do have efficient healthcare systems - both public and private. If the political parties were seen to be learning from them I would find it a lot more credible.

Finally, foreigners. Immigration is a big issue in this election, and it is a tricky one because clearly racism, overt or covert, is a part of the equation. Nevertheless one doesn't have to be racist to believe that there are problems which need to be addressed.

In the Old Testament the Israelites are reminded that they used to be slaves in Egypt until God rescued them and took them to another land. So, in some places, the importance of welcoming strangers and treating them well is highlighted. Other parts of the OT are rather more chauvinistic.

In the New Testament we have Jesus' family finding refuge in Egypt, when Herod was gunning for them. We also see in Acts and in Paul's writings a call for the church to accept people of all races and conditions, all equal in Christ. Racism and racial prejudice are alien to Christian living.

UKIP has its roots in anti-European groups of the past and has leading members today who appear to be out-and-out racists. Whether the current leader and official party policy are part of this or not, it remains part of the DNA of the party, and it will be a long time, if ever, before that is purged, in my view.

Other parties, though, also 'talk tough' on immigration, reacting to a perception that it is a problem in Britain. Given global mobility it is hard to see that completely open borders would work as a policy, so again it becomes a matter of degree.

In my view the questions that Christians should be asking about different parties' immigration policies should address whether they are promoting fear and division; whether they affirm the humanity of all immigrants, established, new and failed; and whether they are accompanied by policies to alleviate conditions which drive these people movements. For example the current government's attempts to keep overseas aid at generous levels is a positive example, whilst the current foreign secretary's warmongering tone has helped encourage the instabilities in Syria and Libya which generate so many refugees.

Ultimately, we live in a fallen world. No political system or party can deliver true peace and prosperity, only God; all parties and party leaders are fallible; all voters and members of our society are also fallible. Part of the judgement we must make as we come to vote includes how the policies and decision makers balance a vision of a better world with a reality in dealing with this one.

However the elections go this Thursday, may God bless and guide all who shoulder the heavy burden of guiding our country through the next five years.

Politics & The Bible I

“When people say that the Bible and politics don’t mix, I ask them which Bible they are reading.” - Desmond Tutu.

I get Tutu's point but - in this run up to the 2015 UK general election - it is important to be a little more nuanced than that, I think.

In Old Testament times, in Israel and Judea, religion and politics were closely intertwined: their scripture was also their legal system (much like Sharia in some countries today), and their rulers claimed to be divinely appointed. It didn't go well, hence the prophets 'speaking truth to power' ... and being persecuted for it.

In New Testament times Christianity was too weak to have political influence. That didn't go well either: Jesus was crucified by those who did have political influence and power, and the early church was heavily persecuted.

Oddly enough that doesn't stop the New Testament's writings from being heavily political. I've spoken elsewhere about the political relevance of terms like 'goods news', 'Christ', and 'son of god'; but it is also true that Paul's letters were, in places, extremely political. As a spokesperson for faith without secular power, Paul could not directly challenge the political 'hot potatoes' of the day, but he could and did challenge the underlying suppositions.

On example is that the whole of Roman and Greek society depended totally upon slavery - it would have ceased to function without it. Nothing Paul could say was going to change that. However, slavery in practice depends upon the idea that slave-owners are superior to their slaves. Paul taught that in Jesus there is no difference, that all are of equal worth: slave or free, male or female, Jew, Greek or foreigner (see for example his letter to the Galatian Church).

This remains political in today's world, nearly two thousand years later! Just think of debates about immigration in Europe and in North America, rights of women in South Asia and the Middle East, domestic and sexual slavery in Saudi Arabia, London, Thailand and many, many other places.

There is an enormous amount about politics in the Bible, but nothing - inevitably, if you think about it - about party politics.

In the 2012 London Assembly elections there were candidates standing for the 'Christian Peoples Alliance', a newish party supposedly representing a Christian viewpoint in politics. Inevitably they didn't actually represent very many individual Christian's viewpoints when it came down to it - they certainly don't represent mine - and they only gained 1.8% of the vote, getting no seats.

On the other hand, all three of the current main parties had MPs in the recently dissolved parliament who are explicitly Christians. Indeed there is an all-party parliamentary group called Christians in Parliament, who share a common faith and common belief in the Bible whilst also holding a variety of political viewpoints. They clearly believe that faith and politics not only can mix, but that they should mix. Yet they mix them in different ways. How can that be?

I'll go into the question of what the Bible says versus the policies of different political parties in the next post, but I just want to finish this one with another quote from Desmond Tutu:

“If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There's nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.”

Democracy, Trust & Voting

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg's recent 'apology', set to music:-

"If we've lost your trust, that's how I hope we can start to win it back"

What, by giving an insincere-sounding 'apology', three years late? Hardly! He could start by resigning as party leader, and the Liberal-Democrat party could then deselect every MP who broke their pledge. That might be a start. This nonsense was just a belated realisation that people actually care about broken promises and that, come the next election, he and his fellow Lib-Dem MPs are likely to lose their jobs.

For those who don't follow British politics, or who have short memories, a quick summary. Back before the last election here, all of the candidates for the Liberal Democrat party (the smaller 'third party' in British politics) signed a clear and unambiguous pledge saying that, if elected, they would vote against any rise in university tuition fees (for more detail see an earlier post). After the election neither main party had enough MPs to form a stable government, so the Conservatives and Lib-Dems formed a coalition. That coalition then came up with proposals to triple university tuition fees. In spite of their pledge, the majority of Lib-Dem MPs failed to vote against this; some voted for, others abstained.

Why does this matter? All sorts of reasons, really. But the most important, I think, is that it reduces trust in our parliamentary system, and in democracy. The Lib-Dems did very well in the last election, particularly among young, first-time voters, and in areas with a big student population. At the time they had an image of being a bit different to the other parties: less cynical, less in it for themselves, more trustworthy. Then, after the election, they particularly betrayed these young voters, and they showed that even a party which appears more trustworthy will sell out its voters as soon as the election is over, given an opportunity of power.

How can we expect those youngsters to have any future trust in a political system which is that cynical? "They're all the same, what's the point of voting," seems like a reasonable response. Except that actually they're not all the same. There are a whole pile of extremist groups waiting in the wings: politically extreme, left and right, and extreme religious parties too. The fewer mainstream voters who bother to go out and vote, the greater the influence of these extremists. That's the way the UK parliamentary system works. And a hypocritical party leader, and his train of power-hungry MPs, in selling out those young voters who believed in him, was hammering another nail into our already damaged democracy. That matters, in my view.

I have my own views about the different mainstream UK political parties, but in one way I would agree that they are 'all the same': they all reflect, more or less imperfectly, the views and ideals of the mainstream of British society. And they are all far, far better for this country than the extremists, with their reflections of the worst of humanity. A democracy which involves most of the population may be horribly flawed but it remains, as Churchill pointed out:

"... the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

Boris: Bucking The Trend?

Muggers beware!

So, Boris Johnson narrowly wins the London mayoral elections, supposedly offering a ray of light to conservative politicians worried about local election losses. To be frank, this is total nonsense.

Firstly, the local election losses for the Tories weren't that bad for mid-term. They had some really good results when these seats were last fought over, now those gains have been partially restored. The results were encouraging for Labour but only to be expected for the Tories, especially since they have just had a run of gaffes and bad publicity.

The party for whom the results genuinely were bad was the Lib-Dems, who - I hope - will continue to get wiped out electorally until they ditch the leadership that led them into betraying their personal pledges after the last general election. A lot of results I looked at didn't just have Lib-Dem candidates beaten, but had them thrashed into fourth place. Here in Reading, if the same sort of thing happens next year, we could find ourselves with more Green councillors than Lib-Dems.

But the other reason that the Boris victory doesn't say anything significant about national politics is Boris Johnson himself. He is a charismatic, controversial, lively, highly-intelligent character who says what he thinks and genuinely seems to try to live out his beliefs. The exact opposite of the political clones in leadership at Westminster. In many ways like the 'Red Ken' of yesteryear.

London seems to like larger than life figures for its mayors; maybe Ken Livingstone could have won again this year if he had been a bit younger and sparkier - he seems more 'Grey Ken' than 'Red Ken' these days, and rather more inclined to toe his party's line.

In summary, I don't think Boris won because he is more 'authentically conservative' than his party's leadership; I think he won because he is seen as being simply more 'authentic'. Maybe London's voters value authenticity rather more than voters across the nation; or maybe national party managers just don't want to give us that option.