Democracy is under threat around the world from the politics of hate peddled by the far-right. In political terms, the opposite of hate is care, and the problem is that care's gone missing in the mainstream political narrative.
This is the audio version:
And this is the transcript:
Why don't politicians care? That is a fundamental question when we are considering why it looks as if so many of the world's democracies are in trouble.
And they are in trouble. South Korea has had a coup run by the president, but nonetheless intended to overthrow parliamentary democracy, which he said was supposedly opposing the will of the state.
It was opposing his will. He decided that his will and that of the state were one and the same. He got it wrong, and within hours he had been told that the military coup was over, and I suspect he's going to spend some time in prison as a consequence. But we're seeing the same sorts of crisis developing in governments all around the world.
France no longer has a government. Its three-month-old government collapsed after a vote of no confidence this week.
Germany is facing elections where the far right are expected to do very well, and quite what the outcome will be is certainly unknown.
In the UK, we face a government that is frankly clueless as to what it is going to do, and any number of reboots, relaunches, or anything else that Keir Starmer wants to deny he's doing, but is nonetheless trying, will not save him from the fate that his government has already destined for itself by not caring.
And I think that this point is really important. Governments around the world are managerial in their tone. Michel Barnier, as French Prime Minister, was the archetype of the person who reached the top of politics and became the French Prime Minister because he was a manager, a technocrat, a person who could wheel and deal in the corridors of power, but had very little idea of what happened beyond them.
He could negotiate Brexit for the EU with the UK, and hold all the whip cards and do a great job. But when it came to managing a government, he didn't know what to do.
And he didn't know what to do for the same reason that Keir Starmer doesn't know what to do, and the Chancellor of Germany didn't know what to do, and onwards, because they haven't been listening and they didn't care because their primary concern was keeping finance happy.
And finance is not all about people. Finance is about keeping bankers happy and bankers have always had totally different interests from the people of a country.
If a government cared, it would, for example, take note of what the SNP, the Scottish National Party, has done in its budget in this last week in Scotland.
It said that it would end the two-child benefit cap in Scotland.
It said that it would provide more breakfast clubs for children in Scottish schools, to make sure that no child went to school hungry.
It's increased social security benefits.
It has protected the NHS and provided it with a bigger budget.
It is making sure that Scottish civil servants have enough to live on and don't have to go to food banks to make up their salaries.
It has reduced the tax bills for people on lower income but not for people on higher income to indicate its concern for inequality.
It's investing more in social housing and in climate change.
It is, in other words, showing that it cares.
Those are issues that are high on almost every person's agenda. And if you don't think they're important, it's done something else as well, which was guarantee that pensioners in Scotland will not suffer the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance or its Scottish equivalent, which is slightly differently named, which is going to be suffered in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, because people care about pensioners.
And this is key. When John Swinney, a man of remarkably little charisma, became leader of the SNP for the second time in the last year he said that his priority was relieving poverty. In particular, he was concerned about relieving child poverty. The agenda that he set out was to was one of caring. And caring is fundamentally different to the agenda which is threatening most of the governments that I've mentioned who are at risk of failing.
And they all face far-right agendas. And those are agendas of indifference and even hate.
The hate that we see and hear when politicians talk about the ‘other.' groups in society.
I did, for example, listen to Richard Tice, the Deputy Leader of Reform in the UK Parliament, this last week, when he talked about the UK being a Christian state. Now that's nonsense. Because the UK is not a Christian state. Most people in the UK do not subscribe to a religion. Those who say that they are Christian very rarely go to church. There is no evidence to support his claim that we are a Christian state anymore. But he used the language deliberately. He was using it to say we are not a Muslim state, or we are not any other state, or we're not some other culture, which in fact we are, because we are not Christian.
But he was using it to divide and that's the language of division which leads to the language of hatred.
The language of care is the opposite of that.
The opposite of hate is not love in political terms, because that makes no sense at all. The language of care is the language of inclusion, of responsibility, of making sure that everyone can be on the journey that we all are enjoying, we hope, through life. And which many are excluded from by simply having insufficient resources to partake of the life that they should enjoy. So, care is about bringing people into opportunity. The language of hate is about denying people opportunity.
The language of hate is working. The language of hate is what has brought down, at least in part, the French government. It was a left -right coalition that brought it down. But the far right are the people who hope to get power as a consequence.
It is the far right who are hoping to get power in Germany in a way that they haven't enjoyed since 1945.
It is the far right, represented by the Conservatives and Reform in the UK, and I see very little difference between the two now, that are hoping to win from Keir Starmer's failure as a manager to deliver anything that looks like care in this country.
We need politicians who care if democracy is to survive, if our society is to survive, if the divisions that divide where we are and create the stresses in our society are to be cured.
Do we care? I do. It's pretty much everything that this channel is about. But I'm not convinced that most of our politicians care in the slightest, because they don't even know what to care about. And that is truly worrying. Our politics has to be about care, or democracy itself is at threat, as are all the people it serves.
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Well said, and thank you for saying it.
Now: how to get this statement the widest possible circulation?
I don’t know
It’s not working on YouTube
Across the globe, the general public in developed countries are becoming concerned with the extent of immigration taking place.
That’s not racism, that’s not facism, that’s not division, that’s not lack of care, that’s just recognition of an extended period where the populace have been told by politicians that they know best.
Quite the opposite of what you are claiming, this is democracy in action, with the general public wanting to be listened to about immigration.
The fact that an old man living in East Anglia can’t appreciate the genuine concerns of those people much more closely affected by the impact of excessive immigration is of no surprise. That you refuse to open your mind to the many negatives of immigration and simply accuse people of being uncaring facists just shows a lack of awareness and empathy.
What are those negatives?
Why not stop the abuse?
Why not explain precisely what you are worried about? And no racism, please. If your argument is credible it does not need it. Please also take into account that this country is full of migrants and their offspring, me and most of my extended family amongst them, and make clear what has changed since we added value.
The floor is yours, but only if you have an argument.
The only with abuse is you.
Immigration can add value – I speak 4 languages, work globally and have colleagues from across the world, based in ‘London. That doesn’t mean that all immigration is good, all immigrants add value or there are no downsides from immigration.
The amount of immigration, and the types of immigration are crucial, otherwise it puts huge strains on public resources which are often concentrated in particular areas of the country, with massive adverse impacts on those communities.
To pretend otherwise is naive. Likewise, to suggest that anyone with concerns about immigration is racism is lazy and ignorant nonsense, which is what lost people like you to Brexit vote.
Why then do all rational analyses of immigration show net post e contributions to society, in areas that are fundamental to well-being like care, health, building and more?
Why is it that you know that any rational analysis cannot find?
Where is this burden?
I see, Matthew, that you have accepted the language of hate wholesale and unthinkingly. All the actual evidence is that immigration is a significant net positive, both economically and culturally. Don’t fall for the rhetoric of those who say otherwise.
@Matthew Dougan
What is a good plan to “handle” immigration? Neither the governments of the USA or UK have come up with a workable plan and/or a plan that will solve anything.
I will admit the UK and USA immigration problems are different so the solutions may need to be different but it is still basically want of a workable immigration plan.
If you were the PM of the UK, what would be your plan?
I would love to read your ideas.
@ BayTampaBay,
Apart from different numbers, the fundamental problems are the same: rapidly aging populations, combined with low (and trending downwards) birthrates.
By 2050 the UK is projected to have a ~50% increase in people of state pension age (67); in the US it will almost double. Against that the UK has a birthrate of ~1.4 (1.44, recently announced for England, but its lower elsewhere); 1.7 for the US. People are retiring in greater numbers than internal population growth can provide replacements in the workforce.
Messrs Dougan and Batten need to explain how fewer younger people, without help from economic migrants, can simultaneously: replace greater numbers in the workplace; pay the additional state pension burden; accommodate the increased health and welfare needs of an aging population, and so on, whilst also dealing with their own needs and obligations.
Thanks
Care to do the next S.N.P political broadcast Richard? Very impressive.
I don’t do party politics
I will say when people are doing well. I don’t get many chances.
Thank you Richard. You are spot on.
People who don’t care have no place in government and the failure of our political system to ensure that caring is a quality central to being selected to stand for office is deeply worrying.
As you say, for democracy to survive we need caring governments. The outlook is currently very worrying.
The very definition of a party that doesn’t care is one which purges long-term supporters who supported what the party originally stood for; and one which rejects locally selected candidates and parachutes in unknowns and wannabes who are connected to the leadership but not to the area they come to represent.
They showed us who they were as candidates for government, it’s no surprise that they now govern accordingly.
I enjoy reading and reflecting on Richard’s articles. I think today’s piece might be Richard’s most important: mass media outlets have been running articles (written and video) discussing why western liberal democracies are failing and succumbing to autocratic influences for some years now. I think (in this article) Richard has very accurately described what has been going wrong and how democracy could be rescued.
As ever, the bottom line is do those people in power have the political desire to make the necessary changes that will improve the lives of most people (which will come at some cost to the wealthiest) which would turn them away from the empty promises and bigotry of demagogues and plutocrats? I agree with Richard for the case of the UK: the Labour Party do not possess this desire whether they’re simply ignorant of its need or cognizant but indifferent.
“As ever, the bottom line is do those people in power have the political desire to make the necessary changes that will improve the lives of most people (which will come at some cost to the wealthiest)”.
@Chris W
In the USA this referred to “Direct Tangible Household Benefit” even if most people do not understand what this is.
The Biden Administration did a lot to help to help the country as whole ($1.2 Infrastructure Bill and expanded Veteran Programs) but these “acts” did not trickle down to provide direct monetary benefit to each and every every household. Trump got elected because some people believe Trump will provide “Direct Tangible Household Benefit”. Trump’s immigration plan, tariff scheme, and Anti-Woke crusade will not provide this. With regards to the Anti-Woke crusade, people cannot live very long on entertainment and rhetoric alone because at some point they have eat (immigration labor), seek medical care (immigration labor again), fill their cars with gas (Trump has no control or limited control) and and buy a new big screen TV (tariffs).
In two years when Trump has failed to provide “Direct Tangible Household Benefit”, the Republican Congress Critters will be thrown out of office in the Congressional Mid-Term elections. This has happened before to both parties and it will happen again.
Thanks
Let’s hope so TampaBay. As your recent election showed a lot of the American electorate believe Trump will somehow make them better off in a way that Biden didn’t.
As you point out, fat chance of that. Of course , whether you get to those mid term elections without Trump and his cronies fixing the voting system, or successfully putting the blame for all his failures on ‘them’ (China, immigrants, Europe etc) remains to be seen.
Or of course a ‘nice’ war has always been a great way for bad leaders to distract attention from their own failures.
War with China by 2026? Wouldn’t discount it.
What is happening in Germany and France and will in the UK with the growth of reform is a consequence of democracy. People are voting in a way you disagree with and you call it fascism. Bizarre..
You do realise I am arguing for PR which will give those opinions a bigger voice, don’t you?
I am recognising people can vote for fascists and that is their right. Being voted for does not mean a person is not a fascist. Why do you think it does?
Maybe PR would not result in right-wing opinions being stronger, Richard. PR would make each vote count- and if people felt their votes had power, thy would be less likely to resort to fascistic nihilism?
I think so
The protest vote would not be needed
Being concerned about immigration is not facism. Only a fool would pretend otherwise and pretend legitimate concerns have no value.
I have never did being concerned about immigration is fascist.
I have said ‘othering’ migrants is fascist.
Can you spot the difference?
“I have never did being concerned about immigration is fascist.
I have did say being concerned about immigration is fascist.
There! I fixed it for you!
Give me a chance
I write more than a million words a year, apparently.
Keir ‘clueless’ Starmer, hated by the right, despised by the left and distrusted by the ‘third-way’ centrists is in no-position to recognise ‘Care’ or bring an approximation of it about. Care is not a product that BlackRock or Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman actively commodify yet.
So, to Starmer it is merely a managerial concept, a bit like ICC arrest warrants, democracy, decency or fairness.
It’s all Greek to him. His job (managerial priority) is to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic (and there’s no evidence he can do that either). I despise him. From the point of view of democracy, he is the wrong man at the wrong time.
” I despise him”
Actually, I pity him as he is way over his head and this will not end well for him or the people of the UK.
The above comment is straight out of the nazi playbook….’ politicians ignoring the general public’s concern about immigration ‘.
Badencoch, Braverman … and all the other politicians right back to Cameron have been fog-horning and dog whistling the immigration card non stop.
Its why they didnt process asylum seekers, why they dreamed up the Rwanda scheme , headlined ‘small boats’, promoted Brexit It was all to try to ensure the ‘general public’ continued to be ‘concerned ‘ about immigration – and to keep it in the headlines.
He really gives himself away – an ‘old man in East Anglia’ – straight divide and rule ageist, geographist fascist.( Polls often show older demographics are more ‘worried’ about immigration than younger.)
Capital accumulation impoverishing half the population, asset stripping running amock – making accommodation unaffordable – energy and food conglomerates extracting super profits and rents , lower taxes for the wealthy etc etc.
But no – its all the fault of immigrants who weve asked to come here on visas now we cant benefit from free movment in the EU – when the rate of immigration was three times lower than it is now.
You were surprisingly mild towards him Richard.
He has not come back….
It’s always good to call people that don’t agree with you Nazis, that’s a really credible challenge and definitely a way to convince people of your point of view.
Just a Richard fails to understand, it seems you suffer from the same issue, although it’s certainly one of those areas where Richard is very good at understanding the issue of ‘net’ benefit when it suits him and ignoring it when it doesn’t.
The country is ‘net’ better off now than at any point in the last – however, Richard has argued for many years that the upside has gone to the ‘rich’. This is the problem with the word ‘net’ , it describes the average position, but not all people benefit equally.
It should not be hard to see that while immigration might be ‘net’ positive for the country, it certainly does not benefit equally, and plenty of people have lost out and re poorer because of it.
Once again, to pretend otherwise it just a basic lie.
I am going to ignore your abuse, because I am feeling generous.
And let’s separate the problem of neoliberalism – which guarantees gains go to the wealthiest – which no one on the right is willing to challenge and which Trump, Badenoch and Farage are clearly intent on reinforcing – from immigration since they are very obviously separate issues.
So, why, then is migration bad? It is not migration that has forced wealth up. Right wing politics did that. So, what are you claiming it has done?
‘Happy Gilmore’
You fail to acknowledge what has actually been going on and in doing so are merely perpetuating what is producing the negatives you justifiably mention.
So, we’ve had immigration but as a back drop to that we have also had a long term withdrawal of funding for state institutions such as health, housing and schooling that has seen budgets squeezed particularly since 2010.
All these sectors have failed to deliver simply because the governments that have been voted in (by people like you perhaps?) have not supported them financially but still allowed immigration to take place.
Yet you and others today come here concentrating on immigration only.
Your position is untenable if you cannot accept that it is austerity that has caused your problems and not immigration by itself. Allowing a load of needy people into the country to compete with already needy people made needy by unnecessary austerity is one of the cruellest things I have seen a British government do. Yet that is EXACTLY what has happened.
Your refusal to acknowledge this is at the heart of your problem as well as others talking like you today, never mind accusing Richard of reverting to the facist trope.
You and those immigrants have more in common than you think. If you joined up with them, you might even be able to form a popular front and get the funding you need for the services you all need. How about that?
Honestly, you need to think more and react less. There is less housing, less schooling, less health care which is causing your problems and has a lot less to do with there being ‘more people’.
Please have a think about it and try to see in broad daylight what is that is actually making your life worse.
Well said Andrew. The cynicism and dishonesty of right wing politicians about this is revolting.
The concept of your rulers caring about you goes way back into antiquity where the ruler would need the cooperation over the ruled to get things done – labour for big projects, to man armies, to help create markets and wealth. If the ruler did not think about these things, then what was there to rule? So the rulers would issue debt jubilees or intervene in the prices in markets of key commodities to ensure some sort balance was maintained. There is also evidence to suggest that where the ruler failed to do this, violence may have ensued and people just moved somewhere with nicer rulers (David Graeber – The Dawn of Everything – 2021).
So I think Richard’s appeal is a sound one.
Big finance – albeit under-controlled by politicians – has broken that relationship and along with extreme wealth sits like a cuckoo in the nest growing fat whilst the others grow thinner and will die. We know what the answer is – we just need some politicians who will do it. In the long term, some of us might need to do this for them.
And one of those politicians BTW is not Richard Tice. If this was really a Christian country, then we would ban usury and annul debts that cannot be paid – even the supposed debt of the government – which is just a ‘money out’ ledger really, whose ability to claw back its investment is hindered by a tax system that gives away money to those who already have enough.
Much to agree with
Perhaps this lack of care in politics (or a lack of humane politics) and the move to the authoritarian right, is a symptom of the western/global collapse of civilisation foreseen by Prof Jem Bendell in his book Breaking Together (https://jembendell.com/2023/04/08/breaking-together-a-freedom-loving-response-to-collapse/).
On one level it’s a very depressing thought (which is perhaps why I haven’t finished reading the book) but I think Prof Bendell is hoping for a better future on the other side, if we can work together to get there. I find it very difficult to envisage that future.
I don’t find the destination depressing
The route is going to be hard to find
Welcome to modern Dickensian Britain.
Politics used to be about care. Now it’s about money, specifically the profits of global corporations.
Neoliberalism: Profits before people.
Professor Bendell is facing up to reality that the present trajectory of climate change and almost total lack of any appropriate response/mitigation over the last 30 years since climate science has pointed out that collapse that is now almost inevitable and so we have to adjust our personal lives to this major emotional tragedy.
I am concerned about immigration Richard. but unlike “Matthew Dougan”
I am concerend that we may not get enough immigrants to come to this country.
To give one small example the NHS employs some 265,000 people who were not born in the uk and according to the nuffield trust the NHS has 125,000 vacancies.
In short we have some very valuble immigrants doing some extremely valuble work for our society and we could do with many more.
49% of people working in the City of London are first generation migrants.
I wonder what our commentators have to say about that? Would they like them to leave, and with it end London’s role which they are usually very excited by? How does this work?
Richard , I’m the last person to comment on the merits of this article but I know you are .
What is your take on this .
https://obr.uk/box/the-impact-of-migration-on-the-fiscal-forecast/
I think the message is unambiguous
Did you actually read the article?
The message is clearly unambiguous – no adjustment is made for the requirements of additional public services, hospitals, schools, doctors, transportation etc.
No allowance is made for increased benefits payable to the existing population who may no longer be able to find work.
No allowance is made for the increased cost of goods and services as a result of increases in demand versus supply.
So the conclusion is that if you ignore all of the associated costs of immigration, then immigration as a whole is a net benefit for the country.
I’m not sure if that is the message you were hoping to read?
Sure, I read the articles.
The assumptions stated were clear and fair.
Thje probloem is your assumptions.
It is you who is ignoring everything, not me or the OBR.
Where is the evidence made unemployed?
Where is the evidence of material additional cost?
Where is the evidence of inflation?
Why are you ignoring these people’s output in your arguments?
Spot on, as you invariably are Richard. And, at it’s most basic level, this govt would do more than simply “endear” itself if it put forward a truly revolutionary proposal to bring the NHS and nationalise Care services in a totally integrated National Health, Mental Wellbeing and Care Service. Impacrt assessments on the nations wellbeing should be at the heart of all government policies. It’s worked in places like Norway, it would have an immense impact here.
You are right
I totally agree with your stance on politics and how it should be about caring. And you did pick up on the SNP’s caring agenda. This is not political, it’s real. As a long-time member of the party, I can assure you the reason I joined (back in 1990) was not overwhelmingly because it stood for Scotland being an independent country (which I do totally agree with, by the way) but because I watched their party conference broadcast almost in its entirety on BBC2 (those were the days!) And I realised, watching the debates, that here was a party whose caring aims and ambitions were exactly what I wanted to be part of. I joined up shortly thereafter, and have been a member (both active and now not so active, due to age.)
Back then, I had the pleasure of working on a committee chaired by the then very young John Swinney. And I was so impressed by his quiet, but determined and diplomatic presence that got things done. He still carries that presence with him, and is able to engage with people, explain complicated topics in an accessible way, and get people to work together …without being a pushover himself.
So was it absolutely necessary—after listing all the things the SNP is doing right as a caring government—to then take a sideswipe at John’s supposed lack of ‘charisma?’ I was quite taken aback, reading that. And not very impressed, to be honest.
Boris Johnson has ‘charisma.’ So does—reputedly—Vladimir Putin. And some claim Donald Trump has a kind of charisma as well. So maybe charisma-lacking John Swinney is in better company, by not grandstanding all the time?
John is exactly the kind of politician the country needs right now. Diplomatic, approachable, genuinely caring, astute, creative, and capable. He’s firm when firmness is called for. And gets angry when anger is the appropriate response. When he needs to demonstrate his authority, he doesn’t miss and hit the wall. The rest of the time he is his diplomatic and diligent self. He is our First Minister, doing the job that has fallen to him (that he did not seek) …managing Scotland’s affairs.
I, for one, trust him, his sense of purpose, the fact that he does truly care about the people he is governing, his work ethic, and his judgement. To me, that is what charisma is all about.
Thanks Jan
Hi Richard,
As far as I can tell, the German government collapsed because, to help the economy, Olaf Scholz wanted to look at ways of getting around the statutory restriction on how much debt the country can have whereas his finance minister Christian Lindner of the Free Democrats did not, so he felt he had no option but to sack him. I’m wondering therefore whether Scholz wanted to protect or favour the finance sector as much as his more right wing erstwhile colleagues.
Good question
“Richard Tice, the Deputy Leader of Reform in the UK Parliament, this last week….. talked about the UK being a Christian state”
I’m a believing, observant Christian, and have been for over half a century (at the non-conformist end of the spectrum) and this religious hypocrisy from the far right continually enrages me, and whenever I encounter it, I take time to counter it, both out on the street and within my own Christian community.
Jesus, while on trial for his life, accused effectively of sedition, and facing Pontius Pilate, the military governor of the then occupying power in Palestine, was, after a thorough beating by both the religious police, the puppet civil power AND the occupying Roman soldiers, questioned about his political leanings and aspirations. He was quite blunt – with words that should shut Richard Tice up for good, “my kingdom is not of this world”.
It is no part of traditional Christian teaching to set up a Christian theocratic government and compel people into the men’s interpretations of Christian morality. Of course, the last 2,000 years have seen plenty of politicians and religious leaders ignore that, and set one up anyway. Not that the far right are particularly interested in morality. Their “Christian state” pronouncements are total hypocrisy. Perhaps it is because we don’t really believe in the power of God, that we take out the insurance of worldly power whenever we are offered it, and we can be so easily bought, either with money or privilege or position and respectability.
Institutional Christianity has plenty to think about at present (child abuse and a culture of omerta) without getting into party politics. I think we can best be occupied by living out “Christian values” such as loving your neighbour as yourself, and doing as you would be done by. Self-sacrifice is also quite a good one to demonstrate, as is loving your enemies. And then there is Jesus’ teaching on taxes – render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God, what is God’s. Perhaps Tice’s rich friends could practice “Christian values” by lying a bit less, paying their taxes instead of avoiding and evading them, and maybe giving away their wealth so that they can find the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus once exhorted a rich young man. Or maybe they could devote time to working out how camels can be got through the eyes of needles in the hope that their rich donors might make it into the kingdom of heaven?
Religion (especially hypocritical theocratic religion) is a very powerful political weapon. Politicians use it as a moral justification for racism, just look at the way it is, or has been used in theocracies around the world – Hindu nationalism, Iranian Shi’ite theocracy, Saudi Wahabi theocracy, Buddhist nationalism in Burma/Myanmar, Islamist politics in Pakistan, Christo-fascism in Eastern Europe and Russia, Catholic rule in Ireland, (False) Religion, used so conveniently to define who are “us” and who are “them”. “Christian/Islamic/Hindu/Buddhist values” – never really defined, just used as a dog whistle to exclude and control. Even atheist ideologies can be used in the same way, see North Korea, Stalinist Russia and some of the more objectionable out workings of scientific secular atheism (eugenics for example).
Sadly, Christians are often complicit in this charade, because we hope to gain some sort of selective advantage by allowing themselves to be bought politically, at the expense of our integrity. A narrow social agenda usually revolving around sexual matters, is linked with support for a particular political party of the right. The most familiar is the way Republican presidents have dangled the carrot of abortion control in front of their Christian support base, although until now, they have always reneged on the implicit deal once elections draw near – Ronald Regan being the most obvious example. But they never learn.
There is plenty in the Christian scriptures to counter the politics of the far right, if they really want to apply the bible to their political rhetoric and their campaigning behaviour.
Things they might need to avoid… false witness, theft, corruption, bribery, injustice, oppression, avarice, piling wealth on wealth, adding land to land, worshipping wealth, acquitting the guilty and convicting the innocent, ignoring the cry of the poor, mistreating the foreigner, smug self-satisfaction about their achievement as leaders – and that’s just the Hebrew bible, Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvi’im (Law, Prophets and Writings).
Then along comes Jesus upsetting the status quo and challenging entrenched attitudes, giving direct offence in his home town, and in the national capital, upsetting his religious leaders, and even turning over the tables of those trading unlawfully in the space reserved for Gentile (non-Jewish foreigners) prayer in the national Temple.
There is plenty in the bible for the unprincipled and the ill-informed, to misuse and misinterpret – as exemplified by the development of Christian Zionism to justify colonial apartheid and genocide. I regard it as MY responsibility, as a professing Christian, to tackle that whenever I come across it, and I do – and it can lead to uncomfortable conversations. Christians have 2,000 years of failures to repent of, and we are too slow to do it, but maybe things are changing, now that we DON’T have political power (in the UK at least – but I fear for my brothers and sisters in the USA after January as they gain political clout. In a way I hope Trump abandons them at an early stage, before they are irretrievably corrupted by him).
I think Kemi Badenoch will also wield the “cultural Christianity” weapon, and I hope that she too, quickly falls flat on her face, and is disowned by British Christian believers. I want no part of it.
I find that when people talk about “Christian values”, it is usually enough to ask what they mean by that phrase, and where they are sourcing their ideas.
A document that very effectively raises a lot of these issues, in a very practical way, in the context of one of the most egregious human rights atrocities of our century, is this one, from a variety of Christian Palestinian leaders – it is a message to people like me, and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
https://redletterchristians.org/2023/10/21/a-call-for-repentance-an-open-letter-from-palestinian-christians-to-western-church-leaders-and-theologians/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CLearn%20to%20do%20right%3B%20seek,of%20violence%20in%20our%20land.
Finally, a more general statement – this is the apostle James’ definition of True Religion – he was traditionally thought to be one of Jesus brothers: (James 1.27): “Religion that pleases God the Father must be pure and spotless. You must help needy orphans and widows and not let this world make you evil. ”
Try that Mr Tice.
Apologies for devoting this post to Christianity, but I have picked up on an important part of the original blog post, and I want to make it clear that I am in complete agreement with Richard Murphy on this one.
As a Christocentric Quaker I am much closer to your position than that of Richard Tice, which, I agree with you, is utter hypocrisy in Christian terms, and I think I know enough theology to be sure of that.
Coming to this post late and apologies for this long post, but as a retired Professor of Nursing I’m fascinated by the ideas expressed here. I was fortunate to be able to study care in action and the practices of care throughout my academic career. I have long recognised we need an economics of care. While working I searched in vain for an economist who could help with this. I wish I’d come across your work earlier Richard!
What I learnt from studying care is that it is fundamental to health. While medicine can cure the sick, it is easily monetarised, it is care that promotes health and as a society what is becoming increasingly obvious is that we can’t be a productive economy without health. So for me there always was a gaping hole in economic theory and that was the failure to recognise care as a fundamental building block in society. Instead conventional economic theory viewed care as a plentiful natural resource to be appropriated for the production process without the need to invest in it. In society care is plentiful, which is a good thing, it got that right, but over supply makes it cheap when it shouldn’t be.
Many of the problems which make today’s headlines from the resignation of Justin Welby to children starting school while still wearing nappies evidence a societal blindness to care processes. What I learnt about care is it has at best an uneasy and often an oppositional relationship with managerialism. To understand care we need to study care in its natural environment where it is done well and look at what relationships and resources are required to replicate and scale up doing care well. As stated in this blog, managerialism kills such practices. I could go on.
Instead I’m going to refer to the work of Ann Oakley who I feel made a very important contribution to this debate. I hope other readers find her contribution as illuminating as I do. Ann Oakley was the daughter of Richard Titmuss a titan of social policy in the post war period. In 1996 she wrote:
‘Richard Titmuss’ work represented radicalism, of a kind. It was informed by a passionate belief that human beings could only fulfil their potential in a society that offered equality for all. Underpinning his vision was a profound moral sense that an equal society would also be one based on caring and altruism; a ‘good’ society could not be a self-serving one, in which everyone looked after their own interests and ignored those of others’ (Oakley 1996)*
Oakley goes onto to critique her father’s policy analysis, in power relations in social institutions, in tax reform and in health and education policy she argues, he was profoundly blind to the deep fissures created by the different social experiences of men and women. To Titmuss the gendered experiences of men and women were not about power but were raised above politics and located in the private sphere of domesticity. The experiences and contributions of women to domestic life were sacred and not to be contaminated by the grubbiness of everyday politics.
For Oakley, Titmuss failed to recognise the impact politics had on the lives, happiness, fortunes and misery of women and the people they care for. Today we would say carers. She argues that the central concern to segregate the public and private spheres of people’s lives which embodied post war radicalism, provides a powerful explanation of why the ‘social transformatory vision’ of the post war era has ‘fizzled out to become a damp squid of post-modern, post-welfarism – a story of increasing misery, acquisitiveness and social inequality.’
This is difficult stuff which raises so many taboos in a society that values individual liberty while denying the unequal distribution of power. If as argued in this blog politics has to be about care, and we want to avoid falling into the same traps encountered by post war radicalism, it is going to be necessary to address the policy segregation between the public and private spheres of people’s lives. Tax policy, I would argue, as Oakley did, is a very good place to start.
*Oakley A (1996) Man and Wife Richard and Kay Titmuss: My Parents’ Early Years. London, Flamingo.
Many thanks for this comment.
There is much I agree with in it.
I appreciate you taking the time to share it.
Thank you Richard this is a topic about which I am passionate as you can tell.
I can
I like passionate people. So do readers on this blog.