In our recent home group Bible study we looked at the story of Ananias and Sapphira in.
Acts 4:32 - 5:11It’s a frightening story if you take seriously the idea of the judgment of God against sin, be it in this world as in the Bible story or in the world to come. Our group concluded as many Bible scholars have before that the sin that made the apostles so angry was not so much the selfishness and lack of generosity that caused the guilty couple to keep back some of their wealth for themselves, but their deceit and hypocrisy when they made out that they were handing over the full value of their property to the fund for the relief of poverty. Indeed it is this lie and deceit, reflecting the character of Satan, the father of all lies, that is the sin against the Holy Spirit which as Jesus taught cannot be forgiven.
We all need to acknowledge as Isaiah did that “I am a person of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.” This is especially necessary if we are to go on to critique others for their apparent deceit. There is always the possibility that we may be wrong in our judgments, or too harsh, for ultimately there is only one just judge, who sees all things clearly, that is the Lord God himself. But at least that confession of fallibility clears the way for us to speak the truth as we see it, in anger perhaps yet in love and concern and sadness as we see the possibility of a day of reckoning approaching.
I find it hard not to consider how this story compares with the present political situation in the UK.
A dozen or more years ago many of us were utterly fed up with Tory sleaze and their misguided policies. We were overwhelmingly cynical when Jonathan Aitken spoke of the “sword of truth” even as he was being convicted and jailed in a perjury trial. Ironically many years later he appears to have come out of it all quite well, as a repentant siner and changed character having found faith in Jesus.
Ten years ago on that bright May morning I, with many others who had stayed up through election night, and cheered heartily as Tory ministers and MPs (especially Michael Portillo) were unseated, we hoped it was a new dawn, and joined in the song that “things can only get better”. Personally, even then I was not totally convinced.
I had joined the Labour Party in Newham in 1980, and been active in it through all the Thatcher years. I’d been a branch chair and secretary, campaigned at every local and National Election and even considered going for selection as a councilor (In Newham it was selection that mattered not election as the “monkey with a red rose will always win” rule always applied.). Some of my friends got on the Council, one eventually became Leader, did some good things with a deft touch and eventually became MP.
In 1992 after campaigning at the general election, with a baby son I’d helped produce especially for Labour candidates to kiss, that despite the polls, I was devastated we lost again and John Major was back in Downing Street.
After that my enthusiasm waned. I was never a great fan of John Smith and when he died I soon understood that the young Tony Blair looked like a winner, and have to admit I gave him my vote in the leadership election. But from then on it was downhill all the way. Disillusion set in as I realised that even if Labour won the next election it wouldn’t make much difference, at least not on the great issues of poverty and justice at home and overseas. So it was that my activism died, I failed to renew my Party membership, and I played no part in the 1997 campaign. Ten years on I can’t even remember if I voted for them, but if I did I’m pretty certain it was the last time.
And now exactly a decade later it seems that Mr. Blair is packing his bags and about to leave Downing Street. And I am not just a half hearted reluctant fellow traveler as I was in 1997. I have instead become utterly and absolutely opposed to everything New Labour stands for, and to almost everything they have done or failed to do. I am convinced I will never vote for that party again, and am amazed that anyone else can contemplate doing so.
What has caused this? Above all I would say it is the culture of The Lie that has been at the heart of the Blair Project. It is a lie that has taken many shapes and forms but here are a few.
It begins with the culture of spin. The presentational and media control skills that were so important in winning the 1997 and 2001 elections have worn thin. Alaistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson have fallen from grace, but their legacy is one of deceit and cynicism. As perhaps never before no one believes a word that any politician utters, including themselves, judging by the way they constantly try to wriggle out of the traps they have set for themselves.
There is the lie that New Labour has a progressive agenda, that it seeks to work for the good of the many not the few. Meanwhile salary differentials and inequalities continue to increase, and the super rich prosper as never before. Recent changes to the income tax regime certainly fail to indicate a passion to benefit the poorest workers. The minimum wage and tax credits seem to have been helpful, though recent reports suggest more children trapped in poverty that elsewhere in Europe and the brunt of poverty wages and exploitation is now borne by expendable European migrant labour.
There is the lie that New Labour supports and invests in the public sector. Money may have gone in, but most of the effort has been to recruit and empower high paid managers and accountants. In truth most of the staff of the great statutory agencies are alienated by the slavery of target driven management, the devaluing of professional skills and expertise, the outsourcing to low paying private companies, and the general squeeze on pay and working conditions. And just ask someone from Preston how hard it is to find a local NHS dentist who will take new patients!
There is the lie of the new Labour mantra about rights and responsibilities. As I wrote ten years ago there is some good sense and Christian foundations to the political philosophy of communitarianism on which these arguments are based. But it has been transmuted into an oppressive regime where ordinary people are increasingly policed and under surveillance to impose responsibilities and increasingly rights are taken away. There is a coercive model of what constitutes the good active citizen, the adequate parent, the safe employer, the local community or faith group with which the state can engage. Yet at the same time despite human rights legislation, rights to privacy, independence and even freedom of belief and conscience are being taken away. The war on terrorism is used as a smoke screen to increase surveillance, bring in biometric ID cards, and reduce the right of habeas corpus. Meanwhile the big global corporations and anyone with lots of money is rarely challenged about responsibilities, and seem to have increased rights to make more money, influence government and (alledgedly) to buy peerages.
There is the lie about being tough on crime and the causes of crime which was the catch phrase of the earlier Tony Blair. Want seems to have happened is that New Labour has widened the definition of crime, criminalized and locked up record high numbers of people (mainly young working class and ethnic minority men) and invented the category of Anti social behaviour to allow more people to be treated as criminal and excluded without the need for judicial process. More young people feel more alienated, and it’s not surprising they wear hoodies, distrust authority and in some cases turn to armed violence. There is little attempt to understand the causes of crime, and the probation service which traditionally had that role has been left with offender management and risk containment, is driven by irrelevant, unachievable and trivial targets, has a work force who are de skilled and demoralized, and is heading for privatization. Fear of crime seems greater than ever and community policing where it succeeds in engaging established older residents encourages lynch mob mentality.
Then there is the biggest lie of all the war in Iraq. It is bad enough that in ten years Blair has committed UK troops to numerous international conflicts more regularly than any other recent PM. But who would have believed that in 2003 a Labour government, following the lead from a right wing neo conservative, US President, and despite the opposition on the streets of millions of concerned citizens would invade a middle Eastern state on the back of a propaganda campaign about non-existent weapons of mass destruction that could be used against us within hours! If this was a genuine mistake on the part of the intelligence services then they and their political masters ought to be sacked. If it was not a genuine mistake then the deceit is monstrous, causing hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths and suffering. If the war had been portrayed as an honest attempt to overthrow a tyrannical brutal dictator, even a pacifist might have tolerated it. Even an explanation that the west needed to secure oil supplies would have been more honest. Four years since the invasion the war continues in much more chaotic ways and it seems impossible to find an exit stratgegy.
For these and other lies I shall be glad to see Tony Blair go. In 1997 his message was “Trust me”. He has betrayed that trust, and as a result my and many other people’s trust in politicians has evaporated. For the rest of my life I shall be in active opposition to the Labour Party to which I once belonged. When Thatcher was in power I knew there was an alternative. These days, this side of heaven at least, I am not so sure.
Both Tony Blair and George Bush have publicly declared their Christian faith. We can only hope for their sake that God, who knows and sees all things, and represents perfect justice, will be more generous in his judgment than I have been, and more lenient than He was with Ananias and Sapphira.
Bow & Fiddle Rocks Portknockie
NW from Windermere
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