Confessions to the Reverend

At Monday's lobby and again, yesterday's lobby, I met the Reverend who I've met a few times.

Yesterday, of course, he remembered me straight away and came up to say hello.

I told him that on Tuesday I'd done some sums regarding the £26000 cap. How it effects me and how it effects another single mother but who lives in a council flat.

He asked me if I'd send him the figures and I said sure, but please don't say it's me who lives in the private flat. He said he wouldn't.

"Oh Father," I continued. "Working it out was so depressing that I just got really drunk!"

"Oh you mustn't do that," he said.

"I couldn't help it Father. So many people find life so hard at the moment and you need some form of escape..."

"I understand but it's also very expensive,"

"Oh no Father, the supermarket's know how we're feeling and doing some great deals at the moment. You can get a whole pack of beers for £3.50!"

He shook his head, his eyes brimming with sorrow saying "Try, and do send me those figures so I can lobby with them."

"I will Father, today!"

He's replied this morning. "Thankyou very, very, much."

My pleasure Father. Thank YOU.

My absolute pleasure Father given the former Archbishop of Canterbury has sided with the government on welfare handouts, saying bishops "cannot lay claim to the moral highground":

"The sheer scale of our public debt, which hit £1trillion yesterday, is the greatest moral scandal facing Britain today.
If we can’t get the deficit under control and begin paying back this debt, we will be mortgaging the futures of our children and grandchildren.
In order to do this, we desperately need to reform our welfare system." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091330/Lord-Carey-benefits-cap-Fuelling-culture-welfare-dependency-immoral.html)

Reform our welfare system, not our banking system? You too, are with punishing the poor as you side with the rich Lord Carey?

His own father worked and his mother STAYED AT HOME. "Hard-working people." I am not a person?

He says Duncan Smith "has come to realise that we have betrayed the poorest and most vulnerable by merely throwing money at them, be it income support or housing benefit, with no strings attached."

No, we've been betrayed by a lack of affordable housing, low wages which don't rise with inflation and now beating everyone with a stick as companies sack people by the hundreds. The construction industry alone will lose 45,000 jobs this year.(http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/25/construction-industry-lose-45000-jobs-2012) Why no mention of any of this in these articles???

Oh Lord Carey, your fellow bishops aren't wrong. You, like so many others, just can't see the bigger picture. Or don't want to see it.

Yesterday's Evening Standard actually led me to this story. I've tried reading other commentator's in the Daily Mail this morning but it's hurting my eyes too much.

I was blind you see, like them, I admit it, but now I see things in ways I never could before I lost everything at a click of a finger.

That's all it takes

It's that quick

From there you must rise against ever rising obstacles.

The futures of our children and grandchildren indeed.

Preserving hope is easy to say when one is rich hey former Archbishop Lord Carey?

Once again Reverend, thank you very much.