27th February 2011

Preaching again this morning.

The drive out to two small village Churches in the countyside outside Carlisle was pleasant. The back road has been re-opened after the flood defences have been built but I went the long way round.

It gave me a chance to think about what I would say.

The challenge was how to respond to the challenge in the Gospel: Matthew 6 vv 33'Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness'.

The obvious thought was to develop a hermeneutic of the Big Society building on Polly Toynbees' article in the Guardian on February 21st.

As the Carlisle country side rolled past I reflected on the article: 'David Cameron' introduced 'his preview of the long-delayed white paper on public services' ... 'For the first time he explains the full scope of his ambition to roll back the boundaries of an overweening state'.

Toynbee comments 'This is indeed the eureka moment for the country. Nothing like this was ever breathed before the election'.

According to Toynbee the veil has been ripped away. The narrative is no longer we must do this because Labour spent all the money. We're doing it to replace the overweening state; but the Big Society is not an alternative it is not even a substitute, it is an ill thought out adventure in making public policy, it is presented as a silk purse but it is a sow's ear.

Some years ago I bought a book of Graffitti, one example in particular from 1947, in Norwich I believe it was, caught my eye:

Repent for the kingdom of Bevan is Nigh!

We need an equivalent for today's messianic visionaries in the Tory party.

Rejoice the Kingom of Bevan is to be abolished!

But no-one will rejoice other than a few Tory MP's and folk who have grown up in the upper echelons of society protected by inherited wealth, private education and privilege.

Given that most of the world holds up the Welfare State as an example of governing with the interests of the whole society at heart, why has this coalition Government decided that it should be abolished? What does it hope to gain? And, more critically, what will we have to fear?

The Welfare State is not just about Benefits. The whole structure of British post-war society, including Taxation policy, Pensions, Health, Education, Care for the Elderly and Disabled were bound up in what we meant by welfare. Welfare was for me, a working class kid from inner city Manchester the escalator by means of which I was able to rise above my station, my class of origin was working class but over time I became middle class and enjoyed the benefits of a self-sufficient life, now as a pensioner, I dread the future.

That great social reformer William Beveridge once described : squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease, as great evils and the welfare State was in large part instumental in eradicating them within a generation.

But now it is to be broken up, privatised and that privatisation will in effect become compulsory, everything will and can be tendered for.

The Welfare State is to become the Big Society. But the Big society is by no means the kingdom of heaven and it is certainly not the Kingdom of Bevan. In Matthew 6 vv 33 33 Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, or as some translations have more preferably, Justice; so people need to demand the fairness that is missing, as a Government that wasn't elected, presses forward with policies that were not in either of the coalition parties manifestos.

Justice is the missing ingredient in the Big Society.

Where is the justice or righteousness in depriving communities of child care or elder care? Where is the justice in allowing the numbers of young people not in education or training to increase exponentially? Where is the justice in reducing housing benefit and creating more homelessness? Where is the justice in creating unemployment and then standing back and waiting for the private sector to miraculously create more employment?

If you are young or old, if you have a family or are single, if you are disabled or in poor health, the end of welfare will herald the end of fairness and opportunity, trading security for insecurity and confidence in the future with fearfulness about what will be.

The big society is not the kingdom of heaven it is legerdemain, smoke and mirrors, tricks played with words.