Archbishop of Canterbury Condemns ‘Gig Economy’, Tories Go Berserk

More hypocrisy from the Tory party. This week, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, gave a long speech attacking Universal Credit and zero hours contracts. He described the ‘gig’ economy the Blairites and the Tories have created, in which workers in insecure jobs are only called in if their bosses decide there’s work for them to do, and go without pay if there isn’t, the ‘return of an ancient evil’.

He made the speech after Labour had outlined its commitment to empowering workers, which included a comprehensive attack on the gig economy. Zero hours contracts will be banned, and employment benefits like sick pay and maternity leave will be extended to cover part-time workers. The party also pledged to end the ruse in which many firms seek to dodge their obligation to provide their workers with proper rights and benefits by making them officially self-employed.

The Archbishop mentioned Labour’s John McDonnell in his speech, who in turn praised the Archbishop. McDonnell said

“The Archbishop of Canterbury has set out a bold vision for a different society, one without the evils of the gig economy, the exploitation of workers and tax dodging of the multinationals.

“I welcome his speech, and the growing movement against the failures of austerity and neoliberalism. Labour will end zero hours contracts, clamp down on the tax avoiders, and ensure everyone has access to sick pay, parental leave and protections at work.”

The Tories, however, immediately went berserk, and showed their own hypocrisy when it comes to supporting the political intervention of religious leaders. They were more than happy when the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks claimed that Corbyn and the Labour party were anti-Semitic. However, they were outraged that the Archbishop had dared to criticize the wonderful Thatcherite capitalism they’d created.

The Tory MP, Ben Bradley, tweeted

‘Not clear to me when or how it can possibly be appropriate for the Archbishop of Canterbury to be appearing at TUC conference or parroting Labour policy.’

He added: ‘There are a diversity of views as to what is best for the economy, but [he] only seems interested in presenting John McDonnell’s point of view.’

Simon Maginn tweeted his response

Rabbi Sacks: “Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite.”
Tories: “Listen to the holy gentleman.”
Archbishop of Canterbury: “Tories have increased poverty.”
Tories: ‘Must keep religion out of politics.”

Mike in his article notes that Archbishop Welby was unapologetic, and observed that ‘The Bible is political from one end to the other’.

Mike concludes

His intervention is to be welcomed.

The Church of England is often seen as a haven for Conservatives and it will be interesting to see what happens to those Tories’ attitudes, considering this new direction from the pulpit.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/09/13/tory-hypocrisy-over-archbishops-intervention-in-employment-politics/

This has been going on for decades. The Anglican Church has been described as ‘the Tory party at prayer’, and the Tory party itself was set up back in the 17th century by supporters of the aristocracy and established church against the more liberal Whigs.

However, the Church has also contained passionate reformers working against social evils. Archbishop Temple in his book, Christianity and the Social Order, published in 1942, pointed to reformers like William Wilberforce and the others in the ‘Clapham Sect’, who campaigned against slavery; John Howard and Elizabeth Fry and prison reform; and F.D. Maurice and the Christian Socialists in the 19th century. These latter wished to see businesses transformed into co-operatives, which would share their profits with their workers. This strand of Anglican social activism continued into the 20th century, and in 1924 the Anglican church held a conference to examine the question of how the Church should tackle the poverty and injustices of the age. Temple also pointed to the example of the pre-Reformation Church in attacking some of the economic and social abuses of the times, and particular Protestant Christian leaders and ministers, like John Wesley, after the Reformation.

He also quotes the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament to show how property rights, while certainly existing and respected in ancient Israel, were also limited and intended to ensure that each family had their own portion of land and that great estates held by single individuals, did not develop. He writes

In the days of the Kings we find prophets denouncing such accumulations; so for example Isaiah exclaims: “Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and yet be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.” (Isaiah v.*8); and Michah: “Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields and seize them; and houses, and take them away; and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage” (Micah ii, 1, 2). And the evil here was not primarily economic, though that may have been involved. The evil was the denial of what Tertullian (c.160-230) would call ‘fellowship in property’ – which seemed to him the natural result of unity in mind and spirit. (p. 38).

The first chapter of the book, ‘What Right has the Church to Interfere?’, gives the reasons Temple believes that the Church indeed possesses such a right. It’s too long to list all of them, but one of them is that the economic structure of society is immensely influential on the formation of its citizens’ morals. Temple writes

It is recognized on all hands that the economic system is an educative influence, for good or ill, of immense potency. Marshall, the prince of orthodox economists of the last generation, ranks it with the religion of a country as the most formative influence in the moulding of a people’s character. If so, then assuredly the Church must be concerned with it. For a primary concern of the Church is to develop in men a Christian character. When it finds by its side an educative influence so powerful it is bound to ask whether than influence is one tending to develop Christian character, and if the answer is partly or wholly negative the Chu5rch must do its utmost to secure a change in the economic system to that it may find in that system an ally and not an enemy. How far this is the situation in our country to-day we shall consider later. At present it is enough to say that the Church cannot, without betraying its own trust, omit criticism of the economic order, or fail to urge such action as may be prompted by that criticism. (P. 22)

Temple was also very much aware how some politicians resented the Church speaking out on political issues. For example, Queen Victoria’s first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, is supposed to have said after hearing an Evangelical preacher that ‘if religion was going to interfere with the affairs of private life, things were come to a pretty pass’. Temple added

(L)ater prime ministers have felt and said the same about the interference of religion with the affairs of public life; but the interference steadily increases and will increase. (P. 15).

And the friction between the Tory party and the Anglican and other churches has been going on ever since Thatcher set foot in 10 Downing Street. She got very annoyed when the-then Archbishop, Robert Runcie, issued a report detailing the immense poverty that had been produced by her policies. Norman Tebbitt, her attack dog, made comments casting aspersions on the good clergyman’s sexuality, on the grounds that he had a sing-song voice and the slightly camp manner of many churchmen. He was soon showed to be very wrong, as Runcie had been an army chaplain, whose ferocity in battle had earned him the nickname ‘Killer Runcie’. A friend of mine remarked about him that the really hard men don’t show it.

The Church has gone on issuing reports and holding inquiries into poverty in Britain, and other social issues. And the Tory response has always been the same: to attack and criticize the Church’s interference. There have been comments of the kind that the clergy should stick to preaching the Gospel, and then they might have larger congregations.

But if Thatcher and the Tories didn’t feel that the Church had any right to interfere in politics, they definitely believed that they had the right to interfere in the church’s ministry and pastoral theology. And that this right was absolutely God-given. When Thatcher was on the steps of Number 10, she started quoted St. Francis of Assisi’s famous prayer, ‘Where there is darkness, let us bring light’ etc. She also took it upon herself to lecture the ministers of the church on the correct interpretation of scripture. I can remember her speaking to a conference of the Church of Scotland, in which she explained to the assembled ministers and faithful her own view of charity and the welfare state, based on St. Paul’s words, ‘If a man does not work, he shall not eat’. Needless to say, the guid ministers were not impressed, and showed it in the massed ranks of stony faces.

Temple was absolutely right in stating that Christians had a duty to examine and criticize the economic structure of society as the major force affecting people’s morals and character. But Thatcherism goes far beyond this. I’ve read pieces that have stated that Thatcher’s whole outlook was based on her peculiar right-wing religious ideas. Thatcherism isn’t simply an economic system. It’s a political theology. Thatcher was strongly influence by Keith Joseph, who was Jewish. It’s why she prattled about ‘Judeo-Christian values’ rather than just Christian values. I have no doubt that the Jewish readers of this blog will have their own views about proper Jewish morality, and that these may be very different from Joseph and Thatcher’s interpretation.

Thus in Thatcherism the free market is absolutely virtuous, and any interference in its operation is an attack on a divinely sanctioned system. But from the standpoint of a left-wing interpretation of Christianity, Thatcherite theology is like its economics, profoundly wrong, bogus and harmful. And her celebration of the free market turns it into an idol, an object of false religious worship.

More and more Christians both here and in America are turning against this idol, just as left-wing Jews are turning against right-wing politics as incompatible with the liberal politics of traditional Judaism. The Church has every right and, indeed, a duty as a moral body concerned with people’s spiritual welfare, to attack Thatcherism and its destructive legacy.

I’m very much aware that we now live in a post-Christian society, where only a minority attend Church and most people profess to have no religious beliefs. Just as there are also sizable non-Christian communities, such as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and the various neo-Pagan groups, who also have every right to make their voices heard politically. Temple also advances other reasons why the Church should speak out on more rational, non-religious grounds, such as morality and common human sympathy for the victims of suffering. I hope, however, that regardless their religious views, people will support Welby on the issues of employment rights as an entirely justified attack on an iniquitous situation, which desperately needs to be corrected.

Book Review: G.D.H. Cole’s A Century of Co-Operation

(George Allen & Unwin Ltd. for the Co-operative Union Ltd 1944).

Many of us of a certain age still remember the Co-op before it became a regular supermarket chain. It was a store in which regular shoppers – the co-op’s members, were also it’s owners, and entitled to receive a share of the profits. This meant that you were paid a dividend. This was later issued in the form of ‘Green Shield’ stamps, which could be used to buy further goods in the stores. The co-operative movement was founded way back in the 1840s by the Rochdale Pioneers, former members of Robert Owen’s socialist movement. After this had collapsed, the Pioneers then went on to apply his socialist principles to running retail stores. The movement rapidly caught on and expanded, not least because, unlike ordinary shops, the co-ops sold pure food without the poisonous substances added elsewhere. For example, many bakers added arsenic to their bread to make it whiter, and more attractive to the purchaser. The co-ops didn’t, and so their food and goods was healthier, and thus more popular. Unlike their competitors, you could be fairly sure that what you bought from the co-op wouldn’t kill you in the name of making it appear more tasty. By 1942 there were 1,058 co-operative retail societies, with a total membership of 8,925,000 – just shy of 9 million people.

I found this book on the history of the movement in one of the charity bookshops in Bristol. It’s by the great socialist and writer, G.D.H. Cole, who was one of the leading members of Guild Socialism, a British form of syndicalism, which recommended the abolition of the state and its replacement with a system of guilds – trade unions, which would include all the workers in an industry, and which would run industry and the economy. Instead of parliament, there would be something like the TUC, which would also have administrative organs to protect the consumer.

The book’s chapters include:
I: “The Hungry ‘Forties'”,
II: Co-operation before the Pioneers
II. Rochdale.
IV. The Rochdale Pioneers Begin.
V. The Rochdale Pioneers to 1874.
VI Christian Socialists, Redemptionists, and Trade Unions
VII. Co-operation and the Law.
VIII. The Origins of the Co-Operative Wholesale Society
IX. Co-operative Growth in the ‘Sixties and ‘Seventies.
X. The Second Revolution.
XI. The ‘Eighties and ‘Nineties.
XII. The Women’s Guild.
XIII. Co-operators and Education.
XIV. Co-operation in Agriculture – Ireland: The Beginning of International Co-operation.
XV. Co-operation before and during the First World War.
XVI. From War to War.
XVII. Guild Socialism and the Building Guilds
XVIII. Co-operative Development between the Wars.
XIX. Co-operators in Politics.
XX. Co-operative Employment.
XXI. International Co-operation.
XXII Co-operation Today and Tomorrow
I. the Growth of Co-operation.
ii. The Development of Co-operative Trade.
iii. Large and Small Societies.
iv. Democratic Control.
v. Regional Strength and Weakness.
vi. Co-operative Education.
vii. The producers’ Societies.
viii. The Wholesales and Production.
ix. The Next Steps.

Appendix: Who Were the Pioneers?

Cole notes that some forms of what became known as co-operation existed in various trades and businesses before the Rochdale Pioneers. Some of the capital used to set up businesses in the early 19th century, came from the workers. They tended to invest in other businesses’ than their employers, so that if their wages were cut during a recession or dip in trade, the dividends they would receive from their shares would not also suffer. Although not remarked on in the book, you could say that this shows how the working class has been disinherited. In many cases, they contributed their savings and money to the development of capitalism, but despite the existence in some firms of profit-sharing schemes, they have been and are being excluded from the profits of the modern, industrial economy.

From industry, co-operation also entered politics, with the establishment of a Co-operative Party, which is now part of the Labour party. The movement spread across Europe, to Germany and as far as Russia. Lenin was greatly impressed by the value of the co-operatives as a form of socialism. According to Aganbegyan, Gorbachev’s chief economist for perestroika, before 1950 47 per cent of all industries, including farms in the USSR were co-ops. Industrial democracy and co-operatives were a central plank of Gorbachev’s perestroika. Unfortunately, Gorby’s attempts to revive Communism failed, and Yeltsin turned them into bog-standard capitalist companies through the voucher system. Other thinkers and politicians in other countries saw co-operation as the solution to their countries’ social and economic problems. One of these was the Bulgarian Stambolisky, the leader of a peasant’s party before the First World War. He wished to organise the peasant farms into a system of co-operation, which would modernise the country by allowing them to acquire electricity and improve production and conditions. More recently, the Mondragon co-operatives, set up in Spain by a Roman Catholic priest in the 1950s, has become an industrial giant, involved in just about all areas of the Spanish economy.

Cole’s book understandably concentrates on the history of the co-operative movement from its emergence to the middle of the Second World War, and is an immensely detailed and thorough work of scholarship. Although not as prominent as they once were, co-operative businesses still exist in Britain. They were supported in the 1970s and ’80s by politicos like the great Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone, and may once again become a major force in British society and the economy.

The Principle of Less Eligibility in the Words of the Poor Law Commissioners

Bloggers such the Angry Yorkshireman, Mike over at Vox Political, Johnny Void and very many others have pointed out that the dominant ideology behind the Tory cuts is essentially the principle of less eligibility. This was the idea behind the New Poor Law, which saw the creation of workhouses across the UK, in which the poor were incarcerated. Conditions were made so unpleasant in order to deter what would be known now as ‘welfare dependency’. They were to stop people entering them unless they were in absolutely dire need.

I found this statement of the principle from one of the 1832 commissioners responsible for the ‘New Bastilles’ in Pat Young’s Mastering Social Welfare (Basingstoke: MacMillan 1989).

Every penny bestowed, that tends to render the condition of the pauper more eligible than that of the independent labourer, is a bounty on indolence and vice. But once the condition of the pauper is made more uncomfortable than that of the independent labourer then new life, new energy, is infused into the constitution of the pauper; he is aroused like one from sleep, his relation with his neighbours high and low is changed; he surveys his former employers with new eyes. He begs a job – he will not take a denial, he discovers that everyone wants something done. (p. 71).

This was the principle that saw families split up, husbands separated from wives, and punished if they even kissed each other in the morning. And it resulted in terrible suffering and hunger, such as the scandal which erupted when the inmates in one workhouse were found to be so starving that they were eating the marrow from the bones they were supposed to be cutting for fertiliser.

It’s the principle that Maggie espoused in her wretched ‘Victorian Values’, or as she called them, ‘Victorian Virtues’. It’s the appalling system of values that has seen 590 people die in despair, neglect, starvation and through their own hand, and 290,000 suffer mental problems, through benefit sanctions and the stress of the odious ‘work capability’ tests.

It’s also interesting that tonight, on the regional current affairs programme for the Bristol area, Close Up West, that they mentioned self-reliance as a factor in the high rate of male suicide. Suicide is the leading killer of men under 50. Five times more men commit suicide than women. In Bristol the rate is even higher: it’s six times more. The hospitals in Bristol and Bristol uni are taking steps to counter and treat this. Among the factors cited for the high suicide in my fair city by one of the female doctors interviewed was the current economic climate. Joblessness, and immense debt incurring while studying, which also didn’t give you a job after you graduated, were important factors. Women were better able to cope because they were more open and had more ‘networks of support’, in the sense of sympathetic friends. Men suffered because they tended not to go to the doctor. And part of this was the need to be self-reliant. If you’re a bloke, you can’t be so ready to be weak, or seen as weak and unable to cope. And so it destroys those who need help, and can’t cope. Like one in four British citizens in their lifetime.

The Victorians had a lot of virtues. They were clever, inventive, worked hard, and at their very best had a very strong sense of moral responsibility and social consciousness. Among the men and women, who campaigned against slavery, were people who lived, worked and worshipped with the people they were sworn to champion, and they suffered from it at the hands of the bigoted and privileged. Marxism as a political theory is deeply flawed, but Marx himself was fired by a genuine, burning outrage at the poverty and squalor he saw around him. As were F.D. Maurice and many of the Christian Socialists he disparaged. But ‘less eligibility’ is a vile doctrine, that should have gone out along with the Poor Law and the Workhouse. It should have no place in the 21st century.

Poetry and the Workers in the 19th Century: Byron and Kingsley

The cause of reform and the condition of the working classes in the 19th century also attracted the support of some of the period’s greatest writers. These included Shelley, Byron, and Charles Kingsley, the Christian Socialist and author of The Water Babies. Byron and Shelley’s political radicalism is well-known. Shelley wrote his attack on the government and its brutal treatment of the lower classes, The Masque of Anarchy, after the Peterloo Massacre when hussars charged a crowd that had gathered to hear a speech by ‘Orator’ Hunt. Byron was a staunch supporter of radical movements for freedom. He died in Greece, where he had gone to join their war of independence against the Turkish Empire. In Britain, he declared that ‘poverty is slavery’, and wrote the Song of Luddites, celebrating the Luddite radical attack on the machinery that was depriving skilled artisans of their livelihood.

“As the Liberty lads o’er the sea,
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we boys, we,
Will die fighting, or live free,
And down with all Kings but King Ludd!

“When the web that we weave is complete
And the shuttle exchanged for the sword,
We will fling the winding sheet
O’er the despot at our feet,
And dye it deep red in the gore he has pour’d

“Though black as his heart its hue,
Since his veins are corrupted to mud,
Yet this is the dew,
Which the tree shall renew
Of Liberty, planted by Ludd!”

The Christian Socialists were a group of churchmen, deeply concerned at contemporary conditions for the poor, who wished to Christianise Socialism. Max Beer in his History of British Socialism says of him ‘But for his political principles, which somehow were bound up with Conservatism, he might have been a revolutionary Chartist leader. He publicly called himself a Chartist, although he was ready to eschew a thousand charters for the French cry of “organisation of labour” into co-operative workshops.’ (Max Beer, A History of British Socialism (New York: Arno Press 1979) Vol. 2: 182). He bitterly attacked the aristocracy and the capitalists in poems such as Yeast. This is particularly remarkable for its sympathy towards working class girls, who had children out of wedlock.

“You have sold the labouring man, squire,
Body and soul to shame,
To pay for your seat in the House, squire,
And to pay for the feed of your game.

* * * *

“When packed in one reeking chamber,
Man, maid, mother, and little ones lay;
While the rain pattered on the rotting bride-bed,
And the walls let in the day.

* * * *

“Our daughters with base-born babies,
Have wandered away in their shame;
If your misses had slept, squire, where they did
Your misses might do the same”.

Under Cameron ands his coterie of aristos, the working class truly are being sold for their seat in the House of Commons, as is their health through the stealth privatisation of the NHS. And the last stanza is still a very good corrective to the rants of the Daily Mail and other Conservative rags about unmarried mothers.

19th Century Campaigns for Trade Union and Working Class Representation in Parliament

One of the issues that desperately needs to be tackled is the electoral disenfranchisement of the working class. The existing political parties have, to a greater or lesser extent, adopted neoliberal economics and concentrated on gaining middle class support to the exclusion of the working and lower middle classes. In the case of the Conservative party, this has meant little difference in the way the party fundamentally sees itself. It has always represented industry and the traditional social hierarchy against the working class, although under the influence of Thatcher its policies have become much more extreme. New labour, however, aimed at gaining middle class support while neglecting the very people it was formed to fight for in the first place.

I am planning to write a much longer post about the formation of the Labour party, and how it was explicitly formed by trade unions and various Socialist parties and organisations, such as the Independent Labour Party, the Social-Democratic Federation and the Fabian Society, to represent the interests of the working class in parliament. The aspirations of trade unionists and working people to be represented in parliament goes back long before the official foundation of the Labour party. Many were active in the Chartist campaigns for the enlargement of the Franchise.

London Radicals and the Mid-Victorian Campaign for Votes for Working Men

Henry Pelling, in his A History of British Trade Unionism, 4th Edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1987) notes in many areas artisans had held the freeman’s franchise before the Great Reform Act of 1832. This was particularly true of Liverpool in the 1790s, where local politicians were careful to win the support of the Shipwrights Society.

The first time a trade union candidate stood for election to parliament was in 1852 when William Newton of the Engineers Union stood as the Radical candidate for Tower Hamlets. He did not, however, have the support of his union, and only polled a thousand votes, which was insufficient to get him elected. Nevertheless, this marked the entry of working people into parliamentary politics.

Pelling goes on to describe the way the trade unions again became active in the 1860s campaigning for the further extension of the voter to include the working class:

In the early 1860s, however, a number of factors brought union officials into politics. They had already been drawn into an unprecedented public debate about the merits of unionism at the time of the London builders’ strike, which revealed the existence of a number of potential allies of trade unionism among the professional classes. There were, for instance, Christian Socialists such as J.M. Ludlow and Thomas Hughes, who were both barristers, and there were Positivists, that is, adherents of the positive social philosophy of the Frenchman Auguste Comte, such as Professor E.S. Beesly of University College, London, and another barrister called Frederic Harrison. Several of these men had been involved in the preparation of the report on trade unions presented to the 1860 meeting of the National Social Science Association. Contact with such sympathizers, and the desire to reciprocate their support by helping them in any parliamentary elections that they chose to fight, were no doubt factors pulling Applegarth and his colleagues more fully into the political arena. But in any case, the union leaders felt not only that they could benefit from political activity but also that they had a right and a duty to participate. This view was clearly expressed in an Address to the Trade Unions published by a newly founded body called the Manhood Suffrage and Vote by Ballot Association, and actually written either by Applegarth [Robert Applegarth, secretary of the Amalgamated Carpenters] or by George Howell, a young bricklayer who shared his views:

We do not wish you to relax one iota of your efforts in reference to the amelioration of our social condition … Nor do we wish to turn our trades societies into political organisations, to divert them from their social objects; but we must not forget that we are citizens, and as such should have citizen’s rights. Recollect also, that by obtaining these rights we shall be able more effectually to secure our legitimate demands as Unionists. (Pp. 50-51).

Pelling notes that members of Applegarth’s organisation and supporters were in the reception committee which welcome the great Italian nationalist, Garibaldi, when he visited London in 1864, supported the North against the South during the American Civil War, and that a number joined the International Workingmen’s Association. Most of the London union leaders also fully participated in campaign of the Reform League, formed in 1865, to gain the vote for working men. A committee of trade union supporters was formed to assist Thomas Hughes when he stood as a Radical for Lambeth. Other politicians were also assisted by trade union support, such as Joseph Cowen in Newcastle, who was greatly aided by John Kane of the National Association of Iron-Workers. (pp.51-2).

The Bristol Trades Council and the Entry of Working Men into Parliament and on the Council

In Bristol in the 1880s the local Trades Council turned away from supporting the Liberals and started campaigning for the direct representation of working men in politics. David Large and Robert Whitfield describe the campaigns of the trades council in Bristol on behalf of working class representation in their pamphlet, The Bristol Trades Council 1873-1973 (Bristol: Bristol Branch of the Historical Assocation 1973):

Nevertheless, by 1885 the Council had become dissatisfied with the meagre results of this policy. It was well aware that for some time there had been a growing agitation in the city for direct representation of labour on local bodies and eventually in parliament. Consequently it issued a stirring invitation to ‘fellow workmen’ to subscribe 1/- a year to create a great ‘Local Labour League’ to achieve this. The Council urged that the distinguished part played by the T.U.C. Parliamentary Committee in shaping legislation had demonstrated ‘The Royal Right of British Workmen to seats in the British Senate’ and now when ‘the long neglected Tillers of the Soil were about to exercise the vote for the first time, ‘the toilers of the town should fraternize with them and ‘be astir’ to take hold of what was within reach, seats on local bodies even if running a candidate for parliament was still out of their reach. The Council’s call was heeded. The Labour League was established and in 1886 scored its first success when John Fox, a prominent member of the Trades Council, was returned unopposed in the school board elections to the chagrin of the Liberals, who had done all they could to take him under their wing and prevent him standing as a Labour candidate. A year later a more spectacular victory was won when R.G. Tovey, who doubled the role of secretary to the Trades Council and the Labour League, became the first labour councillor by winning St. Paul’s. (p. 6).

At the moment there is considerable debate over the demographic representation of ethnic and minority groups in parliament. MPs and various political and civil rights organisations outside parliament, like Operation Black Vote, are keen to see more Black and Asians MPs in line with the size of their communities in the British population, along with far more female MPs. However, parliament is still predominantly upper and very middle-class. This should be changed as well. More working people should be voted into parliament to represent the needs and aspirations of their class, rather than the increasing narrow interests of a middle class, neoliberal elite.

F.D. Maurice on the Role of the National Church

In recent years there have been increased demands by secularists in Britain for the disestablishment of the Anglican Church or a reduction in its constitutional position as the national church. The most recent of these was the suggestion in the pages of the Independent newspaper by Frank Field that the bishops should give up their place in the House of Lords. Field is a Labour politician, who also commands considerable respect amongst Conservatives for his advocacy of further reductions in the welfare state. He is also different from many of those demanding the church’s removal in that he is a Christian, who has written books describing the influence of his faith on his political views and activity. The arguments for the removal of religion from the public sphere have been attacked by the British philosopher, Roger Trigg. The Church of England and its role in political life has also been defended by a number of public figures in the book, Why I Am an Anglican. The contributors to that volume include the British High Court judge, Elizabeth Butler-Schloss, and the editor of the satirical magazine, Private Eye, Ian Hislop.

It’s interesting reading the views of the great 19ith century Anglican churchman, Frederick Denison Maurice. Maurice’s framily were Unitarians, and he seems to have come into contact with almost every religious faith in England at the time before he finally converted to Anglicanism. His faith was therefore the result of a long search for religious truth, rather than the kind of simple acceptance so denounced as brainwashing by atheists like Richard Dawkins. Maurice was deeply concerned with the poverty and squalor created by the industrial revolution. He saw its cause as capitalism and laissez faire competition. He criticised and attacked the Utiilitarians, who he viewed as easing the consciences of the upper and middle classes by claiming that the degradation and appalling living conditions of the working classes were their own fault, rather than due to the very nature of capitalism itself. With Charles Kingsley, the author of the children’s book, the Water Babies, launched the Christian Socialists. The great historian, A.J.P. Taylor in his turn has criticised the Christian Socialists as doing little except soothing the consciences of British country squires. Nevertheless, the Christian Socialists influenced several generations of prominent Anglican clergymen, including Bishop Westcott, F.J.A. Hort, Charles Gore, Henry Scott Holland. Maurice’s views were also influential in the several conferences held in the 1920s debating and protesting against exploitation and poor living conditions of the working class. These included the Conference on Politics, Economics and Citizenship held in Birmingham in 1924, the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work, in Stockholm the following year, and the foundation of the Industrial Christian Fellowship.

Maurice believed that the nation was a divine ordinance and that the state was therefore God’s servant. He strongly argued that a National Church should work to raise and improve the national mind, remind both governors and governed of the ultimate source of their laws and guide them in the pursuit of truth, the only guarantee of political stability. He wrote:

‘A National Church should mean a Church which exists to purify and elevate the mind of a nation; to give those who make and administer and obey its laws a sense of the grandeur of law and of the source whence it proceeds, to tell the rulers of the nation, and all the members of the nation that all false ways are ruinous ways, that truth is the only stability of our time or of any time … This should be the meaning of a National Church; a nation wants a Church for these purposes mainly; a Church is abusing iits trust if it aims at any other or lower purpose’.

These views clearly belong to a past age of deference when both the state, the Church and the authorities commanded far greater respect than they do today. Too many scandals have erupted in all these institutions for them to have the same profound respect they commanded in the 19th century. Yet nevertheless, there is much to recommend the view that there should be a national church to raise the nation’s moral standards and the content of laws and institutions. Much legislation is based and expresses a particular moral view. It therefore needs to be remembered that for Christians, all true moral legislation ultimately has its origins in the Almighty, even when the legislator is not a Christian.