Barrowby
Great Gonerby Rectory
Dear Friends,
Over the past few months, I’ve been following the debate about restoring the tax relief for married couples. This first came about as a result of Ian Duncan-Smith’s working party report. This stated how good marriage was for society in terms of social cohesion and in reducing antisocial and disorderly behaviour particularly from youngsters. Such a reduction could have a positive knock-on effect on education and schools, policing, and the National Health service. I would have thought all his was pretty obvious, but it’s good that a report has confirmed it. What happened next was the interesting part:
Considering this a good election point, the Conservatives started releasing proposals to encourage marriage via the taxation system -- which at present works against a couple getting married. The government, while not denying that marriage was generally a good thing, have been raising some objections. They thought that any financial incentive wouldn’t really help the poor in society. Any taxation change would only help the wealthier middle classes who paid tax, and in any case already tended to value marriage more.
What an amazingly weird response!
First of all, anything which reduces antisocial behaviour would help the working classes, because that antisocial behaviour is usually most evident in the poorer parts of the country. The rich gated communities have the resources to solve this problem their own ways. But, more importantly, what set out as a positive moral policy seems to have ended up as an economic debate. Now economics and concern for the poor is a moral issue. But when any party reduces all moral questions to a rich person/poor person debate, then politics is impoverished. It may be worth examining all the parties’ manifestoes in the run-up to the election to see if they show any morality other than economics.
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Saturday the 13th of March sees the launch of a new church initiative to help all people in Grantham who like to go out and enjoy themselves in the town.
That is the night when the new Street Pastors begin operating in the town. The Street Pastors scheme is a church response to urban problems, -- engaging with people on the streets to care and listen. It was pioneered in London in 2003 and there are now teams in over a hundred towns and cities around the UK. They patrol the streets, clubs and pubs – not preaching, nor working as ancillary police officers, but just being there to offer practical help to people who find themselves in difficulties, “worse for wear” or whatever. They work in partnership with the police, the council, the local businesses and other statutory agencies, but really they are just Christians being organised to be there and offer help to people in our town centres at night.
God Bless,
Revd. Peter.