Jonathan Clatworthy The point of it all Would you trust a Tory?
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Simon Butler ViaMedia.News LGBT Stories: It’s Time for Action!
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church The John Smyth Case Review commissioned by the Scripture Union
Madeleine Davies Church Times Is the C of E still a class-riddled act?
Kelvin Holdsworth Sev’n Whole Days
Michael King Religion Media Centre Factsheet: Conversion Therapy
Wow! Well on the subject of ‘Time for Action’… Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool: . “I want to see a church that is no longer institutionally racist. I want to see a church where people with physical or mental or emotional disability are honoured and accommodated and learned from and loved, and whose love is received as a gift … . “I want to see a gender-neutral marriage canon, such as they have in the [US] Episcopal church or in the Scottish Episcopal church. And as a necessary but not sufficient first step, I want to see conscientious freedom for… Read more »
This speech by Paul Bayes is now reported in a separate TA article.
Jonathan Clatworthy nails the Welby deceit: “it looks as if he is bending over backwards to appease those with the most money… Would a ‘never trust a Communist’ tweet have provoked the same response?”
I think we all know the answer to that one. No need to canvass for voter intentions at Lambeth Palace in the run up to the next election!
Right because being a Tory and being a communist are comparable?
No, really, the church does not need more Penberthys.
I must admit to a degree of scepticism about Mr Clatworthy’s defence of the bishop of St Davids: in my view she was tweeting to excess instead of working on her day job (where there is much to do), and yet was drawing her stipend in full. Governments of all stripes are inherently untrustworthy because they are generally composed of trimmers for whom the attainment and retention of office are the primary motivators; if the Tories are at fault in this regard, it is only because the coalition that permits them to hold office has been relatively less unstable, at… Read more »
If I were the Chairman of the local Conservative Association, Froghole, I would be sleeping much more soundly in my bed having read your post. Who needs Welby’s servile relationship to this Government when we’ve got you? Keep up the good work!
Thank you for your remarks, Mr Broadhead. However, as you have probably surmised, I am none too bright. You have suggested that my attitude towards the present government is even more servile (as you perceive it) than that of the archbishop. This is something of a surprise to me, since I have – since childhood – regarded the Conservative party with the same affection a mongoose reserves for a snake. So I need your help, as you are evidently so generous in your praise. Please could you let me know which part of the views I expressed above – such… Read more »
I’m surprised that Jonathan Clatworthy finds it easy to be so partisan in his piece. It is, of course, quite right for him to be concerned about growing disparities in wealth, but this is not the exclusive fault of the Tory party. As he himself says “For 45 years, in the UK, the rich have been getting richer and the poor poorer,” and in that time that disparity grew under New Labour as much as it has under the Tories. Peter Mandelson famously described New Labour as being “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. Later on, the quantitative easing… Read more »
Indeed, as I have suggested, the root cause of the mounting disparities in wealth in the UK is a function of the treatment of the capital gains derived by owner occupiers, who traverse the partisan spectrum. Land was taxed from 1692 (or 1671) until 1963. From 1802 to 1963 owner occupiers were also taxed on the ‘imputed rent’ of their own homes (Schedule A of the income tax), which was the Revenue’s biggest earner. Prior to 1935/36 a surveyor would visit every freehold every five years and fix the imputed rent for the next quinquennium. This ceased in 1940 as… Read more »
Sorry – the secondary banking crisis and associated lifeboat arranged by the Richardson Bank was in 1973, but the bubble occurred in 1971-73. Also, as Martin Chick revealed recently – https://global.oup.com/academic/product/changing-times-9780199552788?cc=us&lang=en& – the Thatcher government did consider the reintroduction of Schedule A in 1980, but a committee of civil servants and ministers decided against it on the grounds that it would be politically impossible. The relief on capital gains for owner occupation is the most expensive of all for the Treasury, costing more than £26bn in 2018 – note how closely that figure correlates to current expenditure on housing benefit… Read more »