Our Wankers this Week are the Bishops of Bath and Wells, Blackburn, Bristol, Chichester, Derby, Exeter, Gloucester, Guildford, Leicester, Lichfield, London, Manchester, Norwich, Oxford, Ripon and Leeds, St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, the Archbishop of York, and Catweazle.
These reverend gentlemen are attempting to use their positions within a non-elected, unrepresentative minority faith organisation to interfere with the decisions of our elected government and counter the lawful wishes of the majority of working people in this country.
They have condemned the coalition government's welfare reforms by making the outlandish claim that thousands of children could be pushed into poverty and even made homeless. They carefully do not explain just what they mean by “poverty”; we imagine it might mean only having one Playstation between two, or even not having a television in their bedroom at all, which would of course be very serious.
The government spends £192bn a year on welfare and wants to get adults back into work by limiting benefits for out-of-work households to £500 per week for couples and families with children. However in an open letter to The Observer the bishops warn that the proposals could have a ‘profoundly unjust’ impact on society’s poorest children.
They said: ‘While 70,000 adults are likely to be affected by the cap, the Children's Society has found that it is going to cut support for an estimated 210,000 children, leaving as many as 80,000 homeless. Catweazle is President of the Children's Society. This does not suggest that he made these figures up himself; perish the thought. And if the idea seems extraordinary, that the streets of our major cities may soon be flooded by 80,000 homeless children, we can no doubt console ourselves with the thought that the Children's Society must know best because that's their job.
Some newspapers pointed out that the bishops' criticism comes immediately after a humiliating internal row within the church about its stance on the St Paul’s Cathedral anti-capitalist protests, which led to two high profile resignations, so the open letter may be seen as an attempt by the church hierarchy to grab back the moral high ground.
£500 a week, the level at which the government proposes to cap the benefits a family may receive, equates to £26,000. The national average wage in this country is £27,000. A father working full-time would need a salary in excess of £33,000 in order to take home the same amount of money that a benefit claimant can receive for sitting on his, if you'll excuse the expression, arse. It's very doubtful if most employers would give that father a little pay rise each time he has another baby, but that's just what the benefits system does at present.
We have a practical suggestion for anyone who feels that he and his family will suffer because of the government's reform to their benefits: just pop along to the nearest bishop and ask him to make up the shortfall. The Church of England is one of this country's largest landowners, thinks nothing of screwing hundreds of thousands of pounds out of householders who have the misfortune to own a house that belonged to the vicar at some time in the remote past (see here), and every church congregation, however small, is required to donate or collect hundreds of pounds each year to support the bishop in his palace and his cathedral in its pomp.
So let's see these useless Wankers putting some of their money where their mouths are.
Oh, and while we're moaning about money, can we spare a thought for those teachers (a minority, we're pretty sure) who are so determined to strike next week in defence of their pensions? A teacher retiring on £37,000 a year can currently expect a pension of about £25,000. PLUS the state pension, of course. In other words, they're striking to defend their right to get well over the national average wage for the rest of their lives, for doing nothing.
Nice work if you can get it.
Lucky bastards.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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