Categories: politics, religion
Tags: hypocrites, alcoholics, James Purnell
Date: 14 April 2009 18:36:50
It always annoys me when people tell me that, as a Christian, I should not be a Conservative voter. I am told that Socialism is nearer to Christianity as it is more inclusive and caring. Alternatively I should think about voting Liberal Democrat but we all know that's just a wasted vote - don't we Tractor Girl???? :-)
So imagine my feelings of smugness as I drove home tonight. You can read the story here if you like Alcoholics on Benefitsor for those too lazy here is a summary.
The government are proposing that any alcoholics who are claiming state benefits should be denied them unless they get treatment. On paper that's a laudable aim but in reality?
If you are on benefits then you don't have any other income, so how do you get money to buy groceries, rent etc?
Another problem is that the government are happy to fund drug treatments but there is a great shortage of assistance for alcoholics. There are just not enough treatment centres or courses available now, let alone in the future. So what happens, are their benefits cut because there is no course available?
James Purnell, the government minister, says that the government want to help people. So how does removing benefits assist anyone? Of course, the main reason is that they want to get them "back to work". The fact there are no jobs to go back too doesn't seem to occur to them!
If this was a Conservative policy then the Labour party would be on all the TV channels, on the radio, in the papers and on blogs shouting about how heartless the policy is. Yet this government seems happy to inflict this policy on people. Even though charities have been calling for investment in alcohol programmes the government have ignored their requests.
Once again though they announce a programme before starting to put the tools in place. So they punish people and then they'll compound the problem by not having the treatment programmes available.
Is this really a programme that is "Christlike" in origin? What would Jesus do? Well he'd probably draw our attention to the hypocrites who are full of air and not deeds. You can't preach love and community while punishing the poorest people struggling to make ends meet.
Well, you can if you're a Socialist!!