2nd March 2011

St David's Day seemed a good day to travel to Edinburgh to have lunch with my friend Michael.

A chance to catch up with what we were doing. What was occupying us. What initiatives and projects we were giving time to supporting.

It seemed that we were both keeping pretty busy despite being of a certain age.

As I walked through Edinburgh to Michael's office for our meeting I noticed how the streets that were once full of small shops and galleries were now full of restaurants, it seems that we have given up shopping for eating.

But there were some galleries still displaying the works of young artists and before catching the train back to Carlisle I bought a lovely papier mache figure of a brown trout.

I hope that it brings me luck when the season opens later this month. But I don't just while away my time fishing, (wish I could!)

Still I am sure that the young ambitious businessmen in the restaurant making their deals over their expense account lunches just saw two older folk having lunch but in today's FT an article based on research undertaken by SQW an economic consultancy made the strong assertion that over 65's boost society by some £30 billion annually.

This is made up of taxes, and we are both tax payers, so we tick that box, our spending and other contributions, again we paid for our own
lunches, although Michael generously treated me to mine, but I paid for the rail fare and car parking in the station, no expense account for
me to claim against!

The article goes on to make the calculation that against the £136bn cost of welfare overall the net benefit of the contribution of older people including their role as carers (another tick for us both), their volunteering (again a tick for both of us) and their contribution to charities (tick
again!) takes the total contribution of older people to society to £176bn.

So the elderly are pretty much a small to medium sized business in their own right and more crucially sit right at the heart of the big society.

Another friend asked my opinion about how the church should be contributing to the debate about the Big Society. when I was in paid work my advice cost about £500 a day now its pro bono (another tick!).

When I was appointed to work as the adviser to the Bishop of Newcastle in 1978 the issue was pretty clear, Unemployment: and I worked on that pretty exclusively taking up the related issue of poverty leading to Faith in the City in 1984.

So over a nine year period there was a pretty sustained focus which was I believe important in both gaining credibility and being able to build up a significant data-base.

Now with the emergence of the coalition Government it is difficult to see where the main policy focus is going to be other than the wholesale dismantling of the Welfare State, in its widest sense, which is now becoming clearer.

This was of course beginning under New Labour and gave opportunities to Charities to enter the market place but it is unlikely that even the big charities will be able to compete with Serco or Capita, so we will increasingly see wholesale privatisation of Welfare.

Despite this, the Churches in partnership with community organisations cannot and must not abandon the Public Square. This is what I was doing meeting Michael yesterday as we talked about the work we were doing, some paid for, some voluntary, some like this blog attempting to be part of the wider debate about what kind of society we want to see our children and grandchildren inherit.

But where best to deploy our energies? where best to focus? and which issue will be the touchstone that will allow the churches to influence the debate in the Public Square?

Methodology will be important and I would see the churches contribution to the debate arising from the pastoral experience of the clergy. A diocesan public policy committee should be strongly weighted in favour of parish priests, community workers etc and the contributions should always have a human element arising from pastoral engagement, this will be where the authority to speak will come from as the work of David Jenkins former Bishop of Durham always reminds us.

A re-active agenda will be a weak agenda, so the church should develop a clearly articulated view on a significant issue be it Education, The Economy, Foreign Affairs, Immigration etc. and you need to drill down into the sub-strata so that it is known to have real expertise in a key area of the debate.

Finally, there is a moral vacuum at the heart of the coalition, this is being effectively critiqued by social commentators. Health, Education, the rise in NEETS, changes in Welfare, Housing Benefits are all now biting deeply and can be seen for what they are. So a christian commentary on the morality of politics leading to a public statement from the Bishops helping people to understand what should be in their minds as they choose a Government, but not advising them on how to vote, could be a good start in building our way back to a fairer society with justice at the centre of our public policy.