An Iron Lady of Christian faith

By Tim Montgomerie
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One of the best pieces you'll read in the papers this morning is in the Daily Mail from Cynthia Crawford - 'Crawfie' - Lady Thatcher's personal assistant during her time at Number 10 and her lifelong friend. In a intimate portrait Crawfie - as Lady Thatcher called her - writes about Mrs Thatcher the private person - including her love of fashion and, in this extract, her personal faith:

"It was the private face of Lady T that I knew best. I saw her humanity. I was with her when she wept privately for our soldiers killed in the Falklands. I knelt beside her when — careless of her own close brush with death — we prayed together at our bedsides for the bereaved on the night of the Brighton bomb."

In The Times (link to follow) we also have a piece from her former Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit, Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach. Brian writes about the Iron Lady's faith. Here's an extract:

"For Margaret Thatcher the Christian faith was not only intensely personal, it was also the basis of her approach to economic and social policy. She was a politician not a theologian but she had an instinctive grasp of orthodox Christian theology. She placed great stress on the Old Testament and referred to her perspective as Judaeo-Christian rather than simply Christian. Christian social doctrine was in the Old Testament, while its spirit and deeper meaning were set out by Jesus in the gospels. She had great regard for the Chief Rabbi, who was later ennobled and more generally for the commitment to family, public service and charity shown by the Jewish Community. By taking key elements from both the Old and New Testaments she argued that we gain “a view of the universe, a proper attitude to work and principles to shape economic and social life”. The creation mandate, care for the environment, private property rights, the rule of law, economic justice, provisions for the elderly, the sick and the disabled were all principles which influenced her policies and which grew out of her Judaeo-Christian world view."

Careful with the churches, George

By Paul Goodman
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There is no row between the Government and the churches over the welfare reform measures that came into effect yesterday.  The church report which sparked reports of a clash was published over a month ago, and reported over the weekend by the BBC as if it were new.  Bias, anyone? So when the Daily Telegraph (£) (for example) reports this morning that George Osborne will today respond to "a weekend of criticism about benefits cuts from Labour, leading church groups and prominent figures on the Left:, it's worth bearing this artificiality in mind.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that church leaders support the Government, but the context of their reaction to its policies is very different from that of the 1980s, when a special report for the then Archbishop of Canterbury, "Faith in the City" criticised Margaret Thatcher's economic policy.  Church attendance is even lower.  The Catholic Church has been blighted by the child abuse scandals, and the spectre of militant Islamism has fed a backlash against religion.  Neither the Human Rights Act nor the Equality Act existed in the mid-1980s, and the European Court of Human Rights was less intrusive and aggressive.

As I write in today's Daily Telegraph, the churches do invaluable work with the poor and deprived, running, as one bishop put it, "post offices, cafes, doctors' surgeries, asylum rights centres, homeless outreach and bereavement counselling, job creation and economic regeneration programmes, eco-initiatives [and] youth clubs".  The Chancellor and the Government should therefore handle church criticism, when it comes, respectfully and carefully.  Furthermore, a big slice of people receiving tax credits are working - which helps to explain why the slob-on-a-couch posters which CCHQ rushed out, and quickly backed off, were a mistake: a caricature of how some present-day conservatives think Margaret Thatcher campaigned.  (She was both more positive and more subtle.)

None the less, there is a difference between what worshippers in the pews think and what bishops in the Lords, and elsewhere, say.  Very simply, episcopal criticisms of the Government are often reactionary, in the literal sense of the word - a harking-back to the years of the Attlee post-war settlement, when more men worked in manufacturing, more people were married, women didn't enjoy the same opportunities as today and there were far fewer ethnic minorities.  When a coalition of churches lines up to attack the Government's welfare policies, or George Carey pops up to attack its social policy, the policy presciptions they yearn for are often out-of-date.

This doesn't mean that David Cameron has a thoroughly thought-out approach to the churches, or that all church criticism is always wrong.  (The same-sex marriage debacle was a self-inflicted wound; the treatment of one-earner couples could turn into another.)  But the longer church leaders confuse the Attlee settlement with a New Jerusalem, the safer the Prime Minister will feel in first complimenting them, and then ignoring them - secure in the knowledge that more churchgoers agree with his stance on welfare than some bishops care to admit.

David Cameron celebrates hitting 0.7% overseas aid target in his Easter message

By Tim Montgomerie
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David Cameron once downplayed his faith but he used his Christmas message to suggest he took faith very seriously. His Easter message, just released, is also emphatic:

“I send my best wishes to all those in the United Kingdom and around the world celebrating Easter this year in what is an incredibly exciting time for the Christian faith worldwide.

This year’s Holy Week and Easter celebrations follow an extraordinary few days for Christians; not only with the enthronement of Justin Welby as our new Archbishop of Canterbury, but also with the election of Pope Francis in Rome.

In the Bible, Saint Peter reminds us of the hope that comes from new birth through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Christians, it also reminds us of Jesus’s legacy of generosity, tolerance, mercy, and forgiveness. That legacy lives on in so many Christian charities and churches both at home and abroad. Whether they are meeting the needs of the poor, helping people in trouble, or providing spiritual guidance and support to those in need, faith institutions perform an incredible role to the benefit of our society. As long as I am Prime Minister, they will have the support of this Government.

With that in mind, I am particularly proud to lead a Government that has kept its promise to invest 0.7 per cent of our gross national income on helping the world’s poorest*, and I am grateful that we have been able to partner with both Christian and non-Christian charities to relieve suffering overseas.

I hope you have a very happy Easter.”

I'm not sure it will convince George Carey however. The former Archbishop of Canterbury used an article in yesterday's Daily Mail to suggest that David Cameron was increasing British Christians' fears of persecution. Lord Bates was very unimpressed. In an article for ConHome the Tory peer argued that if anyone was to blame for Christianity's marginalisation it was churchleaders like Dr Carey who talked a lot about issues that weren't central to the lives of their declining flocks.

* Most Tory MPs in marginal seats told Matthew Parris of The Times that the PM was right to honour his aid commitments.

Can Cameron heal his divided Conservative coalition? Here are three suggestions for the Tory leader...

By Tim Montgomerie
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81 Tory MPs rebelled on David Nuttall's EU referendum motion.

91 Tory MPs voted against Lords reform.

143 Tory MPs have voted against the Coalition's policies at some point. 37 are hardcore rebels.

136 Tory MPs voted, last night, against the Tory leadership's position on gay marriage. Another forty abstained.

Technically, of course, last night's vote wasn't a rebellion against government policy. It was a free vote. But it was certainly a vote against one of David Cameron's most important initiatives since becoming Prime Minister and also against his model of modernisation. Read today's papers and the result is certainly being presented as a rebellion against his authority. The party looks divided in the eyes of voters and voters don't like divided parties. Very divided. Some gay people may have new confidence in the PM but less faith in the Conservative Party.

Continue reading "Can Cameron heal his divided Conservative coalition? Here are three suggestions for the Tory leader..." »

Same-sex marriage: Ayes - 400. Noes - 175.

By Paul Goodman
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9.30 pm Update: According to the Guardian, 127 Tory MPs supported the bill, 136 opposed it, and 40 MPs either voted both ways (actively abstaining) or did not vote at all.  According to Paul Waugh, 40% of payroll vote (47/119) failed to support the Prime Minister, and 70% of backbenchers (129/184) failed to back him.

7.45pm Update: We have our first real rebel estimate - the number of those Conservative MPs who voted against the programme motion.  There were 55 votes against it - it's not clear at this stage how many were Tories.  60 blue votes would be a fifth of the Parliamentary Party.

7.30pm Update: Preliminary estimate from Paul Waugh of PoliticsHome - 132 Tory MPs voted with the Prime Minister and 139 against.

I wrote earlier that an important test for David Cameron would be whether he can get the support of 152 Conservative MPs.

My first reaction to the figures above is that, assuming some 30 MPs of other parties voted No, the Tory No vote looks to be on the high side.

Nicholas Watt of the Guardian is tweeting Labour sources as saying that more Conservative MPs have voted against the Prime Minister than with him. Let's see.

Will more than half the Conservative Parliamentary Party follow Cameron into the Aye lobby this evening?

By Paul Goodman
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All free votes are free votes, but some are less free than others.  Today's same-sex marriage bill vote will help to prove the point.  The programme motion will be whipped.  So, as Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart point out this morning, will some votes be at committee and report.  The Second Reading vote won't be completely free from whipping, either - or at least a form of it.

The Whips Office is officially neutral on Second Reading. (Indeed, a chunk of the office will vote against it).  And there is a lively backbench whipping operation against second reading.  But with both David Cameron and George Osborne in favour of the bill, and effectively controlling patronage between them, requests to "help" the Prime Minister today have a certain status.

Continue reading "Will more than half the Conservative Parliamentary Party follow Cameron into the Aye lobby this evening?" »

The same-sex marriage bill - and why I'm cutting the money I give to the Party

By Paul Goodman
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Before marriage was the handfast - a public declaration of commitment by a couple.  (There is a charming portrayal of one in As You Like It.)   First absorbed by the Church and later abandoned by the state, its memory is a reminder that marriage is at heart not a government-licensed arrangement, but a social institution.  In that context, there is an attractive conservative case for same-sex marriage, since institutions, by their very nature, evolve.  Just as Shakespeare's plays evolved from the theatre that preceded them, the argument runs, so marriage can evolve from that of a man to a woman.  The cross-dressing and role-playing in Shakespeare's play can acquire a new dimension.  Orlando can marry Touchstone, and Rosalind be wed to Celia.

If this was all there was to same-sex marriage, we should all be "intensely relaxed" about it, as the saying goes.  I found some of the contentions about marriage put forward by the Catholic Church, when I first heard them put from the pulpit, unpersuasive (and have not changed my mind since).  But the current debate is not about custom, but law: the same-sex marriage bill is to have its second reading tomorrow. Its contents have already exploded one of the main arguments made by its supporters - namely, that the bill is all about equality.  After all, it proposes that adultery will not be a ground for divorce among same-sex couples.  How can there will be equal marriage without equal divorce?

Continue reading "The same-sex marriage bill - and why I'm cutting the money I give to the Party" »

Christian and traditionalist Tories have chosen the wrong fight. They've chosen to fight gay marriage, a battle they can't win. They've neglected religious liberty, a battle they can't afford to lose.

By Tim Montgomerie
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There's lots of nonsense emanating from certain pollsters, notably ComRes, about gay marriage having a disastrous impact on Tory fortunes. YouGov's Joe Twyman has Tweeted an important link which shows that the effect might well be negative in the short-term but that - AT WORST - it will reduce the Tory vote from about its current 34% to 33%. Here, in full, are Joe's numbers:

Joe's numbers don't account for the generational issue. Younger voters really cannot understand the opposition to same-sex rights. The Conservative Party rebels on gay marriage are putting themselves on the wrong side of history.

Continue reading "Christian and traditionalist Tories have chosen the wrong fight. They've chosen to fight gay marriage, a battle they can't win. They've neglected religious liberty, a battle they can't afford to lose." »

The connection between the victorious cross-wearing BA nurse and...Steve Hilton

By Paul Goodman
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David Cameron has tweeted this morning for the first time since Sunday - to express his delight at Nadia Eweida's victory at the ECHR.

I hope he has expressed it personally to James Eadie QC, who opposed Ms Eweida's case in court...on behalf of the Government of which Cameron is Prime Minister.

Eadie argued that Christians should "leave their beliefs at home or get another job" - to borrow the Daily Telegraph's vivid summary of his lawyerly arguments.

To be fair, it is less absurd that it might seem to have the Prime Minister take one view and the Government's lawyers take the opposite one, and put it in court.

For it is sometimes (indeed, often) the case that Ministers' view of a case is one thing and their lawyers' view is another.

But there is a connection between the way in which the Government lawyers approached Ms Eweida's case and Steve Hilton's criticisms of the civil service, as reported last weekend.

She was asked by British Airways not to display her cross at work as long ago as 2006, and Ministers thus inherited the case from Labour.

Continue reading "The connection between the victorious cross-wearing BA nurse and...Steve Hilton" »

No, Cameron isn't Henry VIII. None the less, imagine: your church has a hall in which wedding receptions are held...

By Paul Goodman
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I think that priests in the Church of which I'm a member are going a bit far in comparing David Cameron to Henry VIII.  That sort of language is better confined to the wilder spirits on ConservativeHome threads.  But their Daily Telegraph letter today reminded me of a question put to an MP friend of mine at a surgery - and one that isn't Catholic-specific.

A delegation from a local Church told my friend that it has a church hall which is available for wedding receptions.  If same-sex marriage passes into law, it has three options.  First, to open it for receptions to same-sex couples, despite the beliefs of their Church.  Second, not to do so, and risk a lawsuit.  Third, to stop making it available altogether.  What should they do?

My friend was stumped, as well he might be.  David Cameron is about to propose a measure which he was under no public pressure to introduce, which hasn't been properly thought through, and which will gain him no demonstrable benefit.  Which helps to explain why I oppose the same-sex marriage bill, which will cause the Conservative Party difficulties that are only just beginning...