Yesterday's PASC meeting was witnessed by reporters who rarely attend. The lure for religious correspondents was a clutch of religious leaders.
My aim was to heap a little more ridicule of the Tory Big Society Big Con to discourage anyone from taking it seriously. The two papers obligingly helped.
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Warning against policies that effectively increase “the fragmentation and atomisation of society”, Bishop Stevens called for serious attention to be given to the widening gap between the “poorest of the poor” and those who earn a great deal for what they do. Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, told the public administration committee that the Big Society was viewed by people as a “political gimmick” designed to disguise “savage” funding reductions and “you guys are being used in this”. Bishop Stevens said that there had been a debate on the Big Society at the General Synod last year and they were all aware that the consequences of the deficit reduction programme could be “pretty dire” for the voluntary sector. Telegraph comments |
A bishop, a rabbi and a humanist went into a room. This may sound like the beginning of a joke, but the dignitaries had actually come to give evidence to a committee of MPs about the Big Society.
Some people think the Big Society is a joke. Paul Flynn (Lab, Newport West) claimed it is a bad joke, with the churches lured “cynically by the Government” into “taking part in a stunt to disguise savage cuts”.
The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev Tim Stevens, who spoke for the Church of England, replied in a mild tone: “Well if it’s intended as a disguise, it’s a completely inadequate one.”
Mr Flynn insisted the Big Society had been launched, re-launched, rerelaunched and rererelaunched, “and each time fewer people understand it”. The witnesses regretted that their religions are misunderstood too.
When Mr Flynn said the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, had accused Government ministers of behaving like Pontius Pilate, it fell to the Archbishop’s representative, Charles Wookey, to respond: “He put it in a slightly more nuanced way.”
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