Attacks on benefits and services are nothing new, but the situation has now become a crisis, as the latest vote in the House of Lords (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15900) illustrates. But now is not the time to give up.

“A dog starved at his master's gate, predicts the ruin of the state”. These lines from William Blake's Auguries of Innocence go beyond the obvious cruelty they describe. They remind us of the destruction which follows when power abdicates responsibility, care and compassion.