Go To Work To Save Lives

What can I say? If you weren't here or, even if you were but you missed Iain Duncan Smith, you missed what everyone is already saying will have been the best speech of the conference - or, indeed, that anyone has seen for some conferences.

"Moving" - as so many have said - is simply an understatement. As for the three-minute standing ovation - as one former MP put it: it was an ovation the likes of which we haven't seen since the days of Mrs Thatcher.

Speaking of those who work in the charity sector and help former drug addicts to turn their lives around, some of whom who we saw interviewed on video, Iain said, "Every day they go to work, they go to work to save lives." May that be the passion behind what each of us does each day. And, as he concluded, in contrast with Labour who last week told us they want power "to destroy the Conservatives," let everyone be clear that the Conservatives want power to rebuild our country - to mend our broken society.

Remembering, Ten Years On

Ten years ago, the world lost a rare and unique individual who selflessly lived for higher purposes, whose devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity.

I speak, of course, of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu — better known as Mother Teresa, who died on 5th September 1997. Rather than celebrate her example, however, our media continues to obsess over another death — as the title of a piercing piece in the International Herald Tribune puts it, "Meanwhile: The blind cult of Princess Diana":

Britain's version of Elvis week reaches its crescendo Friday with a memorial service marking the 10th anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales...

Beauty covers a multitude of sins, and Diana, like all of us, had plenty of them. We forgive her multiple affairs and her manipulative tactics because we love her looks. She makes us feel good still. We desire her even in death...

We are prepared to believe lies if they affirm our deepest desire to feel good, if not about ourselves, then about a goddess statue that can be as devoid of spiritual power as the false gods created by pagan peoples.

Citing Germaine Greer's "devastatingly honest essay" in last weekend's Sunday Times, it finishes, "Cults ultimately disappoint, and the Diana cult will, too. Germaine Greer concludes by writing that Diana was a 'desperate woman seeking applause.' No wonder so many still love her, because they are seeking the same thing."

Meanwhile, the work of the Missionaries of Charity and millions of other unassuming humanitarian workers and neighbourly citizens quietly minister to the world's needy — the homeless, the sick, the orphaned, the disabled, and the dying. They give all they have and seek no applause. These are the true celebrities, the saints to whom we ought to be looking for inspiration in this individualistic age.

Real Respect

Four weeks ago in Breakthrough Britain, the Social Justice Policy Group called for greater third sector delivery of public services. Today, the Conservatives' Social Enterprise Zones Task Force reinforces this call for charities and other non-governmental organisations to play a bigger role in boosting deprived neighbourhoods and communities.

Emulating the economic "enterprise zones" set up in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher to create jobs, wealth and opportunity, local authorities would be able to designate deprived areas as "social enterprise zones" in which social entrepreneurs would receive tax breaks to fight poverty. A Community Bank could also be created to channel funds and allocate tax relief where it might have the best effect. In addition, a new National School Leaver Programme would offer every young person the chance to participate in community activity at home or abroad after leaving school.

If we really want to promote community regeneration and attract investment in disadvantaged communities — if we are to have any hope of getting to grips with the sub-culture of drugs, knives and guns in places such as Hulme, the site of Manchester's latest shooting, less than a mile from where Jessie James was shot in Moss Side last September — then these "Real Respect" proposals are precisely the kind of localised, "bottom-up" solutions that government should be facilitating and supporting. As David Cameron notes in today's Guardian, these are social problems that require social as well as statutory solutions and it is a serious failing that, at present, the government typically works with large, national charities rather than smaller, locally based voluntary organisations, which are more often than not the ones most effective at combating entrenched deprivation.

The choice at the next election, whenever it comes, is clear: another four to five years of the present Government, that thinks the state knows how to run our lives better than we do, or a Party that will actually trust the people.

Highlights From Breakthrough Britain

Writing in the overview to the Social Justice Policy Group's report, Breakthrough Britain, Iain Duncan Smith says, "Breakthrough Britain advocates a new approach to welfare in the 21st century. We believe that, in order to reverse social breakdown, we need to start reinforcing the Welfare Society. The Welfare Society is that which delivers welfare beyond the State." He identifies two specific areas why their approach is unique: "Firstly, we have recommended a range of policies which are designed to break the cycle of disadvantage in the early years of a child’s life. Secondly, we wish to strengthen families by removing the perverse disincentives in the fiscal system which are an obstacle to stable families."

It is understandable that media coverage has so far focused on the group's marriage and tax-related suggestions. After all, the Government has spent ten years creating a tax and benefits system that perversely penalises married couples, perpetuating poverty for the 76% of children who live in couple households. However, any attempt to heal our broken society will need to change more than just the tax system. Duncan Smith explains the significance of the five pathways to poverty identified by the Group:

"Our approach is based on the belief that people must take responsibility for their own choices but that government has a responsibility to help people make the right choices. Government must therefore value and support positive life choices. At the heart of this approach is support for the role of marriage and initiatives to help people to live free of debt and addiction. Government has to be committed to providing every child with the best possible education and giving the most vulnerable people the necessary support to enter active employment. The problems of family breakdown, drug and alcohol addiction, failed education, debt and worklessness and dependency affect us all, either directly or indirectly, as Breakdown Britain showed."

The Difference offers the following list of highlights from the report that it is hoped will receive due attention in the coming hours, days, and weeks:

Family Breakdown

• Relationship education in schools
• Creative ways for delivering more respite care
• Targeted assistance for parents who currently struggle to nurture their children, rather than steering them towards local authority childcare
• Removal of the bias towards state-provided childcare.
• A review of family law conducted by a dedicated independent commission
• Reinstatement of the use of ‘marital status’ in government forms and statements

Economic Dependency

• Clear work expectations must be attached to the receipt of benefits for people who can work
• Back-to-work services should be state determined but not state delivered
• A serious and thorough review of the Housing Benefit system is needed
• Parents should be given the opportunity to front-load child benefit

Educational Failure

• £500 p.a. educational credits for disadvantaged children to fund supplementary educational services such as a year’s extra maths tuition, six months intensive literacy support and a year’s group music lessons
• An end to bureaucratic overload
• ‘Booster classes’ for pupils falling behind
• More alternative provision to pupil referral units

Addiction

• An integrated addiction policy to replace the separate drugs and alcohol treatment
• A devolved responsibility to local Addiction Action Centres
• An expansion of third sector proven provision of ‘holistic’, value added, abstinence-based treatment

Serious Personal Debt

• UK credit unions should be strengthened, supported and expanded
• Local community based debt advice should be supported
• The benefits system and Social Fund should be reviewed in detail
• Education in personal finance should be improved

Third Sector

• Gift Aid should be made easier to claim
• Introduce Charitable Remainder Trusts as tax-efficient vehicles for planned giving
• Launch a 'V Card' reward scheme to boost volunteering
• Greater third sector delivery of public services
• Less bureaucratic and prescriptive Government funding
• Introduce voucher schemes to empower users of government-funded services
• Enhance the third sector's voice in Cabinet and Parliament
• Create a level playing field for faith based organisations

Yes, all this will come with a cost. But, as the report also notes, social breakdown presently costs the UK £102,000,000,000 per year, or around £3500 per taxpayer — that's a lot of money that could be better invested.

All You Need Is Love

Writing on the theme of "Charity and Justice in the Relations among Peoples and Nations" in a message to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the Pope has said the world faces three specific challenges that "can only be met through a firm commitment to that greater justice which is inspired by charity."

1. The environment and sustainable development

Benedict XVI maintained that "If development were limited to the technical-economic aspect, obscuring the moral-religious dimension, it would not be an integral human development, but a one-sided distortion which would end up by unleashing man's destructive capacities."

2. Our conception of the human person and consequently our relationships with one other

The Pope lamented the fact that "Despite the recognition of the rights of the person in international declarations and legal instruments, much progress needs to be made in bringing this recognition to bear upon such global problems as the growing gap between rich and poor countries."

3. The values of the spirit, such as knowledge and education

Speaking about the increased interdependence of peoples arising from globalisation, he called for "a just equality of opportunity, especially in the field of education and the transmission of knowledge, is urgently needed. Regrettably, education, especially at the primary level, remains dramatically insufficient in many parts of the world."

He concluded:

"To meet these challenges, only love for neighbour can inspire within us justice at the service of life and the promotion of human dignity. Only love within the family, founded on a man and a woman, who are created in the image of God, can assure that inter-generational solidarity which transmits love and justice to future generations. Only charity can encourage us to place the human person once more at the center of life in society and at the centre of a globalized world governed by justice."

The observant among you may notice an uncanny resemblance between these and "the priorities of a 3G Europe" identified by David Cameron a couple of months ago: Global warming, Global poverty, and Globalisation. This surely represents an incredible consensus, to have both political and religious leaders singing from the same hymn sheet. Assuming they have identified the correct issues, I wonder to what extent the building of a just society is the responsibility of the political order and to what extent the Church and broader civil society need to get involved.

They used to say that "If Jesus Christ were on Earth today, he would be a Marxist revolutionary." Perhaps today he would be a Cameroonian Conservative, encouraging non-conformity in the Church of England?