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Category - welfare state

  • 26 Jan 2012
    Bishop Wallace Benn apologises

    Wallace Benn, the Suffragan Bishop of Lewes, has sent me an apology for his endorsement of a booklet the promotes the legalisation of rape within marriage and the criminalisation of same-sex relationships.

  • 25 Jan 2012
    C of E bishop and a booklet that sanctions marital rape

    Update: Following my blog and comments yesterday (below), and those by Bishop Alan Wilson and others, Bishop Wallace Benn has 'wholly and completely' disassociated himself from the extremist pamphlet by Stephen Green. Subsequent to this post and my previous one, Bishop Benn's office has issued a further statement with an apology and a clarification that he has asked Stephen Green to remove the endorsement from his website

  • 23 Jan 2012
    Bishops lead the way in government defeat on benefits

    The government has been defeated in the House of Lords in a key part of its attempts to reduce the benefits available to unemployed people and part-time workers.

  • 10 Oct 2011
    Coming out as disabled

    A few weeks ago, I was sorting through some old papers and came across my first ever published article. It was a piece on Christian attitudes towards mental health, published in the (now defunct) New Christian Herald in October 1998. I was 21.

  • 6 Oct 2011
    The parallel universe of David Cameron

    Welcome to the parallel universe of David Cameron. It is a world in which the Tories stand up for the poor, lead the fight against dictatorship and stop people from being given benefits on demand. It is a world that exists in a conference hall in Manchester this week, in a few daily papers the rest of the time, and in the less well-informed parts of the right-wing blogosphere. It has nothing in common with the world that most of us live in.

  • 1 May 2011
    Betraying disabled people and welfare
  • 11 Feb 2011
    Disabled by society

    Disabled people stand to lose much and gain little from the government's cuts. The social model of disability suggests that people are largely "disabled" by society, says Nicola Sleap. Christians should take a stand on disability rights, responding to Jesus' call to heal by healing a society that continues to marginalise people.

  • 26 Nov 2010
    Peer's comments show Tories' true colours, say critics

    Conservative peer Howard Flight has been accused of showing “the Tories' true colours” after he said that benefit reforms would encourage poorer people to "breed".

  • 12 Nov 2010
    Welfare specialists slam Duncan Smith's plans for benefits

    Welfare specialists have contradicted claims that government reforms will simplify the benefits system. They said the reforms could make it more complicated.

  • 24 Oct 2010
    Follow the Gospel, resist the cuts

    For some Christians, coalition cuts and the "Big Society" are an opportunity for churches to extend their influence by taking over services run by the state. But the Gospel is not about increasing our own influence. In seeking to love our neighbours as ourselves, we need to be ready to stand up and resist a vicious assault on the welfare state.