I'm not devoid of morality, David Cameron tells church leaders - lol

[blacksunday]

Tory leader’s Easter message in Christian magazine urges Church of England not to assume coalition’s austerity policies have been amoral

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David Cameron has used an Easter message to hit back at criticism of the coalition’s policies from church leaders, urging them not to dismiss him as “devoid of morality”.

The prime minister, whose government has clashed with the Church of England over the direction and severity of policy, said the changes it had made since the last election should likewise not be seen as “amoral”.

Writing in the magazine Premier Christianity he said that the economy had been the area of government most in need of political leadership in the past five years, and was proud of having made “clear choices to help the poorest paid and most vulnerable in society”.

In a swipe at his ecclesiastical critics, he wrote: “I know that some disagree with those policies – including a number within the Church of England. But I would urge those individuals not to dismiss the people who proposed those policies as devoid of morality – or assume those policies are somehow amoral themselves.

“As Winston Churchill said after the death of his opponent, Neville Chamberlain, in the end we are all guided by the lights of our own reason. ‘The only guide to a man is his own conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.’”

The church has recently voiced its disquiet over government reforms to the economy and welfare. In an unprecedented intervention in February the House of Bishops published a joint open letter warning that “our democracy is failing” and attacking the “growing appetite to exploit grievances” and “find scapegoats” in society.

The letter outlined its hopes for political parties to discern “a fresh moral vision of the kind of country we want to be” before next month’s general election.

The prime minister’s Easter message may quote Winston Churchill, but the piece does not mention Jesus once.

In it Cameron admits he is “hardly a model church-going, God-fearing Christian” and that he is “a bit hazy on the finer points of our faith”. But he added that his faith had helped him in tough times and reminded him “about what really matters and how to be a better person, father and citizen”.

He added that Christian values “are the values on which our nation was built” and describes himself as an “unapologetic supporter of the role of faith in this country”.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/02/im-not-devoid-of-morality-david-cameron-tells-church-leaders

hahahahaaaa!!!

Blacksunday ….. I suspect with that name, that you don’t attend church, and spend your pre Mondays following the black arts (of ignorant spin).

The church has every right to be concerned for their flock, but similar to Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, they seem to have been in complete denial of the enormity of a £157 billion 2010 government budget deficit (overspend) – that Mr Brown and his team passed to Mr Cameron - the cutting of which they call “austerity”.

The problem was that by May 2010, like any responsible company that for 13-years has kept throwing money from earnings (taxes) at problems with NO REFORMS, even when it hadn’t occurred to them prior to the financial/crash they needed to look after shareholder (taxpayers) money – it would have been corporate incompetence NOT to have ANY reforms/plans in place, when by May 2010 they were overspending by £157 billion a year, far higher than ANYWHERE in Europe.

• So how ‘Christian’ would it have been to PRETEND all the UK spending, debt, economic, immigration, unemployment, housing, education, defence, NHS etc etc etc problems DID NOT EXIST, when you’d been in power for 13-years and had ‘the UK’s books’ – but had not implemented ONE solid plan to sort out your own mess, even in your 2010 General Election manifesto (below)?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8615297.stm

• How ‘Christian’ is it to keep borrowing for ‘jam’ today, so that with even more compounding interest on that ever larger “non austerity” national debt, there is even less ‘bread’ to put any jam on for the flocks of the future; tell me who has the MORAL right with no firm ALTERNATE plan to screw their brethren at a later date?

www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/

• Tell me how ‘Christian’ was it with so many hundreds of £billions of ‘money-lender’ proceeds of a debt ‘bubble’, not to give the poor the MEANS to look after themselves WITHOUT having to compete with a secret ‘multicultural’ government agenda, a dumbing down of education, a lack of private sector jobs, tax rises on the way and unforgivably NOT giving the vulnerable a HOME as a platform for personal growth – having SPENT/WASTED ALL THAT MONEY on their fat, quangocrat, non job State, instead.

Shelter (2009);The housing crisis in numbers – and the need for spare bedrooms, never mind homes.
england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/why_we_campaign/the_housing_crisis/what_is_the_housing_crisis
.
• Over 1.7 million households (around 5 million individuals) are currently waiting for social housing
• 7.4 million homes in England fail to meet the Government's Decent Homes Standard
• 1.4 million children in England live in bad housing. [3]
• In 2008/09, 654,000 households in England were overcrowded. [4]
• The number of new households is increasing far faster than the number of house builds.
• The UK is now more polarised by housing wealth than at any time since the Victorian era.

• How can any political party or leader(s) NOT be called 'Christian' for addressing the social problems his halfwit brother in ‘the House’ caused, that through electoral cowardice and lack of initiative, were unable to address themselves?

What did Cameron recently call Labour, ‘snivelling and holier than thou’, well what a shame they (socialism) still don’t acknowledge their own record and lack of alternate ideas back in 2010 - and the lack of substance within their rhetoric for 2015-20, pretending that there are short cuts to a sustainable society and services, from the chaos before.

Amen.

Blacksunday … Is it REALLY ‘moral’ (or political moral fibre) to pretend that you are the leader of a party that has solutions to the problems of the poor, working poor and homeless, when you CAUSED those problems with POLICIES before/after the financial crash (policies also made WORSE) – and having left a £157 billion annual overspend to sort out those problems, then BLAME those that at least tried to fix them?

Laugh that one off, sweet cheeks.

The socialist policies are all about gratification now. If we get a socialist government everything will be peachy for a couple of years then things will bite. Three years later we will get the Tories back and it will be thirty years of austerity. Failing that a second socialist term will lead to our grandchildren still paying for it.

Sorry, but when you come out with nonsense like this, I'm not going to take the rest of your post(s) seriously.

The church has every right to be concerned for their flock, but similar to Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, they seem to have been in complete denial of the enormity of a £157 billion 2010 government budget deficit (overspend) – that Mr Brown and his team passed to Mr Cameron - the cutting of which they call “austerity”.

The financial deficit which was inherited in 2010 was the result of the financial crisis and depression. In a depression, you tend to lose tax receipts, whilst your social security spending increases.

The deficit was not the result of an 'overspend' on public services and social security. Prior to the crash, the deficit was about £35 billion, which was about the same as the previous Tory government:

www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/oct/18/deficit-debt-government-borrowing-data

I'm not going to waste my time on here debunking your tedious and long-winded Tory propaganda posts every day.

This is a final warning. Either you stop propagandising for the Tories and debate like a human being, or you'll be ignored.

You are questioning Cameron's morals for inheriting an economy with huge social problems in 2010, that bore NO resemblance to the one the Conservatives handed to Labour in 1997 - TRUE OR FALSE?

Labour inherited an economy that Brown accepted to follow, budgeted to erase the budget deficit (from the 1990's recession) by 2001/2, which it did - 'the UK books balanced' by 2001/2 - TRUE OR FALSE?

Labour then instead of paying down our National Debt (the accumulation of previous annual deficits), started to BORROW around £35 billion a year (taking us back into a nominal deficit, increasing the National Debt) DESPITE hundreds of billions of extra tax credits from the financial 'bubble' economy - TRUE OR FALSE?

Labour made the financial crash WORSE by overly lite banking regulation from 1997 via the FSA Brown formed, do you want the links with Brown admitting it and the FSA admitting liability AGAIN, which is why the UK had to part nationalise UK banks at a time when no other country had to - TRUE OR FALSE?

There was no depression, it was the great recession, and the reason we have the huge budget deficit is having built a very expensive public sector with heavy inefficiencies/waste, Labour refused to make any government spending cuts as the tax receipts from the private sector/jobs AND the proceeds of an economy built on debt, fell away.

If Labour did make ANY pre 2010 meaningful government spending cuts 'to balance the books', when the Public Sector trade unions were FUNDING their 2010 General Election campaign, then where were they - and answer why in nominal terms our annual budget deficit/overspend was far higher than anyone else in Europe by 2010?

The truth is the UK's economy under Labour became badly unbalanced between the Public and Private Sector and debt from both, with huge amounts of 'real term' increased in money being spent on the UK Public Sector every year until 2007 (unprecedented in Europe as they were cutting their National Debt), often by PFI debt, with too little getting to the front line._

As to the pathetic notion that as we were 'only' borrowing £35 billion a year during a global boom, so a £157 billion deficit in 2010 with NO LABOUR PLANS IN PLACE TO SORT IT is excusable hahahahahahahahahahaha.

In 2010 was the National Debt being increased each year by a budget deficit of £35 billion, or £157 billion, as that was the 'moral', social and financial cards Labour handed the Conservatives, when in 1997 the Conservatives (as now) handed over a more balanced economy and the UK PLC books to be balanced by 2001/2.

And there we have it, then and now, socialism wants to build a huge, inefficient, and expensive Public Sector first, but don't give a flying fudge of a thought how they'll fund it via the private sector/businesses they ideologically hate.

blacksunday ....where are you on here, MIA?

You talk of "victorian children poverty" when broadcasting the thoughts of a left wing teaching establishment (more 'Lions, led by donkeys') on another thread (apparently ALSO caused by Cameron), YET FAIL to either acknowledge the FACTS of Labour's record in power, or their legacy, why is that?

The point of the TRUE or FALSE was to open your eyes to the facts.

P.S. But you do understand that Labour left a £157 billion annual deficit OVERSPEND, not a £157 billion budget SURPLUS to fix Labour's 13-years in powers mess?

It really is idle to say that it was in any way Christian to take away vitally needed support for the disabled in preference to doing anything effective about tax evasion and tax avoidance. Wittering on about 2010 does nothing to disguise that fact.

Nor does endless use of shouty capitals and different fonts.

Icimoi ..... firstly, wouldn't it have been nice if by 2010, over 2-years after the crash, Labour would have sorted out welfare, as they always TALK a good game.

“Labour will be tougher than Tories on benefits, promises new welfare chief”
“Rachel Reeves vows to cut welfare bill and force long-term jobless to take up work offers or lose state support”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare

NO politician comes to power to cut benefits for the disabled, any more than they SHOULD think we should pay 900,000 for sickness benefits without checks - that we couldn't afford in the boom, never mind the bust.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9963012/900000-choose-to-come-off-sickness-benefit-ahead-of-tests.html

As to tax evasion and avoidance for the rich on anyone else, under the Conservative Coalition the rich are paying more, more evasion money is being collected, corporations will pay more etc etc etc THAN UNDER A LABOUR government - so may I suggest that you check your facts before "wittering on", no matter how inconvenient to Labour, you may find the findings.

He's an arrogant rich boy who doesn't give a fuck about anyone but other rich people. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fucking deluded.

VoyageOfDad ..... wouldn't it be nice if the Public Sector services, all public sector jobs, the NHS, Education, Welfare, our Pensions, could all be paid for by the socialist 'Money Tree'.

Maybe one day when people see through the Labour negativity that all businesses paying all those bills are rich/bad, they may work out what and who pays all the government bills and their private sector salary, and it ain't the anti business Labour Party or the trade unions, who did such a good job of closing companies during the 1970's.

France around 2010 tried to tax the rich, most left, but they STILL have near FLAT economic growth and twice our unemployment, are THEY your blueprint for a sustainable economy - as what 'trickles down' in that economy/ or

In Greece, where the IMF etc say MAKE CUTS to all spending, very rarely do they say say make 'progressive' cuts (or tax rises), because too often by now, either they have 'tapped out' the wealth, and any more taxes are counter productive - like the rise of the 40% tax rate (Labour pledged they'd never do) in their last month of a 13-year term, JUST so they can call a 5p cut "a millionaires tax cut", when Labour had Capital Gains Tax FOR MILLIONAIRES between 10% and 18% over 13-years.

But who are 'the rich', everyone paying 40% tax?

expatinscotland.... what a shame the FACTS of 13-years of Labour and 5-years of the Conservative led coalition points to the opposite, as Labour screwed more poor people and let off the rich, LOOK AT THE POLICY RECORD and what each party inherited/left, not ignorant (of facts) rhetoric.

Although in Scotland, you lot were convinced the Conservatives have never left a better economy than the one they inherited, and an Independent Scotland with £5 billion of annual 2014 oil (at $110 a barrel) Scotland was one of "the richest nations on earth" - how DID that work out?????

Especially when you were going to spend £2.5 billion (of that £5 billion) on an independent armed forces with Putin buzzing your shores every day - and most of your medium to large businesses looking to head for the border.

Where would an Idependent Scotland be NOW without Cameron, sucker????

'expatinscotland.... what a shame the FACTS of 13-years of Labour and 5-years of the Conservative led coalition points to the opposite, as Labour screwed more poor people and let off the rich, LOOK AT THE POLICY RECORD and what each party inherited/left, not ignorant (of facts) rhetoric.'

I have already read. You have, by your own words, concluded that anyone who is not a Tory voter in this election must be ignorant and uneducated. You recognise only Tory and Labour.

Then you went further with ignorant bigotry: ' Although in Scotland, you lot'

And then this disgusting tidbit, 'Where would an Idependent Scotland be NOW without Cameron, sucker????'

Keep posting, you are an excellent representative of the party for whom you chose to vote.

(pays out rope)

If 1% of the worlds people now own more that 50% of the wealth

That figure was published recently by Oxfam. It is a projection, not the current figure. It is also highly misleading. According to Oxfam:

• Anyone who owns an average house in London with no mortgage is part of the top 1% that own over 50% of the world's wealth.

• Someone living on the streets of Mumbai (or anywhere else for that matter) with no income, no assets, no debts and 50p in their pocket is in the top 70%.

• Someone with annual income of £250k, assets of £1M and debts of £1.5M is in the bottom 30% - poorer than the person living on the streets.

• Most Chinese are in the top 50% whereas North America has 8% of the world's poorest.

That isn't to say these figures are wrong. In terms of what Oxfam were measuring (net wealth) they are accurate. They just aren't in line with the way most of us think about poverty or, indeed, the rich. They look simply at total assets less total debts ignoring income completely. So anyone with a house in negative equity is one of the poorest people in the world by this measure.

An alternative view based on UN statistics:

• Global poverty is falling faster than at any point in history.

• Since 1990 the proportion of people in developing countries living on less than $1.25 per day has fallen from 47% to 22%.

• In 1990 24% of people in developing regions were undernourished. This has now fallen to 12% - still too many but a huge improvement.

• The global figure for the years of life lost due to disease per 100,000 people is falling rapidly, with particularly large falls in diseases associated with poverty (N.B. This one is from a paper published in The Lancet, not the UN).

The problem is that people tend to assume the size of the cake is fixed, so if those at the top are getting more those at the bottom must be getting less. However, the global economy is growing. It is therefore possible for those at the bottom to be getting more at the same time as those at the top.

Oxfam's figures are about inequality, not poverty. Oxfam won't tell you this but we are living in the golden age of poverty reduction. If our goal is to reduce and eliminate global poverty the evidence says we should carry on with what we are doing now.

Oh, and by the way, Oxfam aren't even terribly helpful on inequality. Global inequality has risen since 1960 but peaked in 2000 and has been falling since then. This is mainly due to stronger economic growth in Latin America, Eastern Europe, former Soviet countries and Africa.

expatinscotland ... I'm sorry if your red tinted class glasses have not worked out that the men from Eaton didn't get us into the financial mess, it was their brains helping to get us out - or that as there is fag roll up paper difference between the SNP and Labour in policies so it wasn't worth the mention on this thread - but lets just say that the "disgusting" TONE of my reply reflected your opening post.

As to the 'you lot'; it is now clear, if it wasn't already, that based on Ms Sturgeons rhetoric (before the independence vote and now), _an Independent Scotland could NEVER be allowed to keep the Pound or borrow in the international markets in anyone elses name but their own, Scotland Ltd.-

Ms Sturgeon who wants to rack up the UK's national debt before trying under a Labour administration (after 2016) to AGAIN try for Scottish independence - therefore must have FIRM plans to launch a new currency and government bond market (with a credit rating) - as if Ms Sturgeons policies are going to pan hole a currency and borrow like there is no tomorrow for future generations to pay off, best it is in Scotland's name.

So "you lot" is any socialist party who want to hand MY CHILDREN the FUTURE debts/spending cuts/tax rises, of their political agendas NOW.

VoyageOf Dad ... We had the worst recession in over 80-years, Labour instead of giving tax cuts to citizens and businesses chose to keep spending deficit money on fat, inefficient government - and had NO CLUE what to do about it.

Where do think the UK food bank count would be if Labour would have won another term, with unemployment rates closer to the Eurozone average of over 11% (rather than 5.6%), nearly 8-years after the financial/economic crash?

In a UK huge budget deficit economy, far larger than the rest of Europe, the general Election motto should be 'if you think its bad now, just think how bad it could have been' - as there is not a shred of evidence Labour had any other, never mind better, plans to deal with the UK's problems e.g. the fall in 'real' earnings, in a very bad recession on their watch.

P.S. the pay of City bosses and any company owner is paid for the shareholders of those companies, often based on global remuneration levels for 'talent', not the taxpayer, so as long as we receive MORE TAXES on those salaries to pay for our services, so what?

If the church wants to worry about salaries, let them start with footballers, earning up to £200k a WEEK whether the brain dead tosser kicks a ball on Saturday or not - while charging 'the masses' so much to see them NOT turn up on the day.

Or will that not be so popular?

You continue to be personally insulting, Isit. This say more about you than me.

Keep going. You're a fantastic representative of the party you support.

Sez the person who had to use the f word twice in one sentence, it must have been intellectually a stretch not to drop the c bomb - rather than look at where this country was in 1979 and what was handed back in 1997, similar in 2010 and 2015 - and work out that the alleged non posh 'people party' are the problem, not any posh apparently 'out of touch' party, always sorting the aftermath out.

Yes, I think DC is a cunt. I think George Osborne is a cunt, too. I think the entire cabinet are cunts. The whole lot of them are cunts. Fuckwits who only care about themselves and their cronies.

Expat ... You have a right to your opinion, thats democracy at work folks, but one has to ask WHO THE RED TEAM care about, where their priorities are; the Public Sector Trade Unions funding them from Milibands office expenses down through most of the Shadow Cabinet and sitting MPs - as WHO pays for this lot if NOT the masses?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1214001/The-cost-quango-Britain-hits-170bn--seven-fold-rise-Labour-came-power.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358144/Labours-3m-town-hall-jobs-bonanza-employed-deliver-frontline-services.html

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10574376/Graphic-Britain-outstrips-Europe-on-welfare-spending.html

And in the first several years, pre 2007 crash, here is the PROOF who was paying for Labour's fat, inefficient government - who's economic incompetence spent more time building public sector bureaucrats and non jobs, than looking after the factory workers they USED to represent.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-389284/The-80-tax-rises-Labour.html

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/million-factory-jobs-lost-under-labour-6150418.html

Ask yourself in honesty, practically what is more sustainable for the economy, cronies that PAY for our public services, or those that bloat the government payroll, sap taxpayers hard earned money, and divert £££ from the 'front line' services?

Tough one, eh?