Finally, the church admits it was wrong on Thatcher
by Steve Doughty, Mailonline:
Bishops say ‘they failed to see the moral vision’ of former PM’s benefits reforms.
Bishops yesterday admitted that the Church of England was wrong about Margaret Thatcher.
In a paper that amounted to a sweeping U-turn in the Church’s longstanding Left-wing attitude to poverty and the welfare state, they declared that it ‘failed to see the moral vision that informed Margaret Thatcher’s administration’.
Their acknowledgement that the late Tory prime minister was driven by ‘moral purpose’ contrasted strongly with the view taken by the bishops even last year, when before the General Election they were severely critical of her legacy.
Yesterday, in a discussion document endorsed by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York John Sentamu, the leaders of the Church backtracked on their opposition to Thatcherite principles and Tory benefit reforms.
Instead of demanding higher benefit spending and criticising the market economy – the default position of most Church leaders for more than three decades – they said that ‘we should support welfare policies which create incentives for work’.
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