Justin Welby and the welfare state

From Robert Runcie’s attack on Tory Pharisees to Rowan Williams’s missives on the Iraq war, the ecclesiastical opposition housed in Lambeth Palace has in recent times been a frequent source of unease to the government of the day. If any ministers were hoping Justin Welby would be a quieter presence than his predecessor, they were disabused of this notion last weekend when, before even waiting for his enthronement, he backed a letter signed by 43 bishops attacking welfare cuts. The letter claimed that the proposed changes would throw 200,000 children into poverty.

It is understandable that the new archbishop felt obliged to sign the letter: this peculiar way of viewing child poverty has been woven into the Lambeth creed under Rowan Williams. It is an old trick. An arbitrary poverty line is drawn, and if a family’s income is £1 below it, then their children are said to have fallen into poverty.