Priestly guide to elections

When Christ said that his kingdom was not of this world, he must have anticipated the need to keep our Anglican hierarchy a safe distance away from this world.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have issued a letter, guiding 16,000 parishes to the right electoral choices. Since the letter doesn’t say what such choices would be, parishioners must be perplexed.

The letter manifestly lacks evangelical absolutism. It’s like tagging the phrase ‘on the other hand…’ to each of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not steal, but on the other hand…”

Their Graces start by exhorting Christians to live according to Christian principles. This is unassailable, but then truisms always are – that’s why they are truisms. The difficulty arises when Christian principles are related to political realities.

Theology is ‘the queen of all sciences’ because it reigns supreme in making intellectual demands on its practitioners. Only the deepest and subtlest of minds can grasp theological intricacies – and put political, economic and social realities on a theological footing.

I hope no one will take umbrage if I suggest that Justin Welby and John Sentamu aren’t in the upper tier of the world’s thinkers. In fact, if this letter is anything to go by, they’re closer to the basement.

Their Graces stress the importance of “urgent and serious solutions to our housing challenges”, flag the need for a “confident and flourishing health service” and decry “the exclusion of the poorest groups from future economic life”.

On the other hand, they warn that “there are dangers of an economy over-reliant on debt”. Really? And I thought Christ was in favour of borrowing: “Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”

Then again, Jesus wasn’t laying down responsible fiscal principles for our Chancellor. In this world one wonders how Their Graces propose to reconcile the huge increase in public spending they seem to have in mind with reducing reliance on debt.

For a huge increase in government spending is exactly what it would take to meet “our housing challenges”, make our pathetic health service “confident and flourishing” and include “the poorest groups” into “future economic life”.

Where’s the money going to come from? Especially since Their Graces praise the pledge by the Conservatives and Labour to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid? It’s that sacramental phrase ‘on the other hand’ that’s implied here.

The issue of immigration also has two hands in the episcopal body of thought. On the one hand, we must extend “a generous and hospitable welcome to refugees and migrants”. But on the other hand, “We should not be deaf to the legitimate concerns that have been expressed about the scale of population flows.”

So which is it? Listening to ‘the legitimate concerns’ or extending ‘a generous and hospitable welcome’? Since ‘the legitimate concerns’ centre around keeping outsiders out or at least down to a bare minimum, the two are mutually exclusive.

Anyway, which party is more likely to uphold the virtues extolled by Their Graces, provided we understand what they are? Oh well, these “are not the preserve of any one political party”.

Now I’m really confused. Labour is a party of cosmic indebtedness (as opposed to the merely stratospheric kind favoured by the Tories). Moreover, when in government, it demonstrated its inability to solve our housing problems, sort out the NHS or include the poor into economic life in any other than a freeloading capacity. On the contrary, they made all those problems far worse.

They’re sound on generosity and hospitality to migrants, but not on listening to the legitimate concerns about this generosity tearing our social fabric to tatters. I’d say that leaves the Tories in the driving seat by the process of elimination.

Their Graces then broach the subject of foreign trade, which ought to be “effective and just”. Meaning what exactly, other than another vapid bien pensant generality? Britain, they say, must remain an “outward looking and generous country”. It’s that G-spot again. Does this mean that we should continue to give money to the EU? Or do foreign trade at a loss? Or turn foreign trade into foreign aid?

Then they talk about “historic failures” of our educational system, which Their Graces ascribe to overemphasising academic subjects. Here we’ve left the area of meaningless circumlocution to enter one of ignorance and fatuity.

Some 80 per cent of our school leavers have problems reading, writing and adding up. Against that backdrop it’s sheer lunacy to talk about our schools being too academic. “Historic failures” have been caused by turning schools into social engineering labs, which project was animated by exactly the socialist ideology Their Graces really espouse.

What else? Oh yes, “the greatest burdens of austerity have not been borne by those with the broadest shoulders”, and it’s all Mrs Thatcher’s fault.

This is leftie waffle at its most soaring. Austerity means cutting government spending, not slowing the tempo of its growth from suicidal to merely promiscuous. Since public spending has been steadily growing, talking about austerity is simply ignorant. And yes, when public spending grows more slowly, recipients of government largesse will notice the change more than those who pay their own way.

There’s a hint at wealth redistribution here, but again Their Graces don’t come out and say it. By the same token they only talk about “re-examining” the Trident deterrent, when what they really favour is unilateral disarmament.

It’s only inadvertently that they said something that rings true. The election, according to Their Graces, is an opportunity to “…reimagine our shared values as a country”.

What’s only imagined (or ‘reimagined) isn’t real. Their Graces live in an imaginary world governed by imaginary, not real, ‘values’. Hence they’re outside the reality of both the United Kingdom — and that other one that is not of this world.