The Critic Magazine

Blessed are the poor? Really?

Arise ye workers from your slumbersArise ye prisoners of want …Arise (we might add) ye parishesof England!

LAST MONTH I WAS IN THE unusual position of being the standard-bearer of the Left. Let money pour down like fountains on the poorer parishes of England, said I. Resist, cried the Bishops, for this would create a “dependency culture”. Remember this exchange, the next time the Lords Spiritual intervene in the Upper House on the question of Welfare.

I think I need to explain further. It

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