Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, has spent an awful lot of time since his recent interview with the Telegraph clarifying just what he meant when he said that the way welfare reforms have been implemented has left people destitute and relying on food banks. When I saw him earlier today, he wasn’t exactly tetchy about the coverage so much as tired explaining what he actually wanted to get across.
‘People should take the trouble to read what I said’, he said (a familiar refrain, that, from non-politicians who deal with journalists). ‘My concern – and it’s a privilege to be able to bring into the public square those are not often heard; it’s absolutely the proper thing to do – is that at this time there are people who are destitute and forced out of hunger to rely on food banks, and in a country as affluent as ours it’s a disgrace.
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