Justice Archives - Page 3 of 3

March 20, 2016

George Osborne’s Budget: more reasons to be angry

A report from the Resolution Foundation has estimated that the UK Chancellor’s raising of the higher rate income tax threshold in this year’s budget will boost incomes for higher rate taxpayers by £200 per year.

At the same time, his increase in the personal tax allowance will raise incomes for basic rate taxpayers by just £60 per year.

When you look at the changes by distribution of household income, these inequalities are even more stark, with the poorest 10% of UK households receiving less than £10 per year extra, while the richest 10% (myself included) will receive an average of around £270 per year extra.

Distributional impact of income tax threshold changes in April 2017

But it gets worse.

When you take into account other changes to benefits and taxes, the Resolution Foundation calculate that by 2020-21, households in the bottom half of the income distribution will be £375 worse off, while those in the top half will be £235 better off.

How can this be right?

Having had a few days now to reflect on this budget, I am appalled by the preferential treatment of the rich:

As a high earner with a secure job, I will gain by an extra £2,615 of my salary being taxed at a lower rate;
As someone who can afford to save, I could invest in shares and pay less tax when I sell those shares for a profit;
I could give up to £4,000 per year to each of my children to put into a new lifetime ISA, to which the government will add £1 of tax payers’ money to every £4 they save;
When Esther and Joe move away from home later this year, we could rent out the extra rooms through AirBnB and earn up to £1,000 per year tax-free.

Meanwhile, the chancellor has announced that he will cut £4.4 billion from benefits for disabled people. Apparently this means that 200,000 disabled people who are dependent on personal independence payments for help in personal care will lose out on these benefits, while a further 400,000 will see them cut.

If the health of our nation is measured, even in part, by how we treat the poorest and most vulnerable of our neighbours, it seems to me that we are sadly lacking at present.

But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Amos 5:24

December 20, 2015

Where is my God?

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God.

For I will yet praise him, my saviour and my God.

Psalm 42

And yet my soul is troubled. Downcast. I long for something more.

Where is my God?

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

Where can I go and meet with God?

I lay in bed last night, troubled and disturbed by judgemental attitudes – in the church and in our society – attitudes that condemn and blame, that offer no hope. That say to the messy, troubled parents at Dudley Lodge[1], or to other young people, pushed out by the very society that condemns them: “You’re not good enough”, “You don’t deserve this.”

But I don’t see that. They are beautiful, mixed-up, traumatised kids who surely deserve something better than what life has dealt them. Surely they deserve a hope and a future – for themselves and their children (and isn’t that, after all, what Dudley Lodge is all about – offering a hope and a future?) Not to be written off, cast down, given up on.

Where is my God for them?

I hate the abuse, the violence, the control that messes people’s lives, that destroys both the abuser and the abused; that says to its victims (abuser and abused), “You are filth, scum. You are no beloved child of God – created, beautiful, in God’s own image. NO – you are worthless, ugly, not worth the bother.”

How can I go “with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng”?

Where is my God when, behind closed doors, women and children scream out in silence?

And where is my God while the bombs fall on Syria? While hundreds of thousands leave their homes in terror, risking their lives in search of something better? Or stay, amidst the gunfire and explosions, desperately longing for a peace that will not come?

All your waves and breakers have swept over me.

[1] A local family assessment unit where Lois and I have recently started spending some time each week with the residents and their babies.

November 29, 2015

Fighting terror with terror: a letter to my MP

Dear Mr Cunningham,

I am writing to you as I am increasingly concerned by the way the debate in Parliament on military action is going, and the direction in which Mr Cameron seems to be taking our country in his proposed response to the Paris terrorism attacks.

We have all been horrified by the indiscriminate brutality of the Paris attacks. Like the rest of the population, I would not want to see such atrocities take place in Britain, and I would want to stand in solidarity with our neighbours in France.

However, I cannot see how military action in Syria can do anything but escalate the crisis, and cause even further suffering for thousands of innocent people. I understand that the death toll in Syria after four years of civil war is now over 250,000, nearly half of them civilians, and over 12,000 children. The lessons of Iraq tell us clearly that, no matter how technologically advanced our weapons, the reality is that we cannot accurately target terrorist groups in these countries, and that the more the fighting escalates the higher the civilian death toll will rise. If we respond to the terrorist threats with airstrikes and bombs, innocent civilians and children will inevitably die. We cannot take that risk.

It is also difficult to see how military action could possibly do anything other than strengthen the cause of terrorists. Writing in the Guardian on 27.11.15, journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer pointed out that in 2001 there were perhaps a couple of hundred terrorists in the Hindu Kush; following George Bush’s war on terror, and the loss of as many as one million Iraqi lives, there are now an estimated 100,000 terrorists posing a threat to the international community. Isis was apparently created six months after the start of that invasion. If the West continues to drop bombs on Syria, killing civilians in the process, this will only provide welcome ammunition to Isis and result in the alienation and radicalisation of yet more disenfranchised people.

The lesson is clear: we cannot beat terror with terror.

I recognise that there are no easy solutions to the threats posed by terrorist groups, nor to the ongoing oppression of unjust regimes in Syria and elsewhere. However, there are alternatives to the escalation that would come with air strikes. I would suggest four key strategies in which we could positively engage: to stop Gulf states delivering weapons to terrorists in Syria and Iraq; to help Turkey seal its long border and prevent the flow of new fighters joining Isis; to support moves to give the Sunni population in these countries a voice; and to fully invest in social and economic development in Syria and its neighbours.

Wardah Khalid, Peace Fellow in Middle East policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation in the States makes similar proposals:

‘Create a comprehensive, multilateral strategy with our allies, including the Arab League and the U.N., that includes such tools as a regional arms embargo to prevent weapons from going into the wrong hands, penalties for purchasing illicit oil that funds the Islamic State group and more money for diplomacy and humanitarian aid. A political solution to Syria and its President Bashar Assad must also be revisited, as the power vacuum there is what allowed radicals and their foreign backers to first take hold.’[1]

So I would ask you, for the sake of the many suffering children and adults in Syria, and for the sake of our own national security, to please vote against any military action in Syria.

Yours sincerely

[1] http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2015/02/18/stopping-the-islamic-state-group-without-the-bombs?src=usn_tw

November 16, 2015

An In-between time

Growing up to be a child is all about Jesus’ challenge to become like children. This challenge was linked to a purpose: to enter and live in God’s kingdom here and now.

While I believe we can be part of God’s kingdom right now, it is also clear to me that this kingdom of heaven has not yet been fully established. We are living in an in-between time, in which we may see aspects of God’s kingdom but we certainly don’t see it in all its fullness. Children continue to get abused; people continue to use violence to promote their causes; the rich get richer at the expense of those who are poor, vulnerable, and exploited; people continue to get sick, suffer, and die; and our world remains troubled and damaged.

Continue reading “An In-between time”

May 22, 2015

Going Green

Frustrated by the outcome of the general election, the apparent pervasiveness of what comes across as an inward-looking, focus on ‘what’s best for me’ in our society, and the gradual merging of the main political parties into a somewhat right-of-centre common ground, I decided this week to join the Green Party.

Having spent some time before the election reading through some of the Party manifestos, it seemed to me that the Green Party was the one party that is actually prepared to challenge the status quo of global capitalism and exploitation, to question whether protecting our economy really is the most important value for our society and government, and to dare to suggest that there could be alternatives. There is something about the principles on which the Party is founded that resonates with the values to which I aspire: a concern for justice for all; care for our planet; care for those in our global society who are most vulnerable; an emphasis on health in its fullest sense; and a commitment to non-violent approaches to tackling the problems we face.

Continue reading “Going Green”

May 17, 2015

Pride

Yesterday, Lois and I watched Pride (BBC Films, 2014), a truly inspirational film which I would highly recommend (thank you Kevin Finnan for your recommendation). A small minority group, hated and victimised, struggling with their own weaknesses and infighting, choose, in spite of that, to look beyond their own problems to recognise and do something about the needs of another oppressed group. In doing so, these ordinary, vulnerable human beings find something of their true selves, the immortal diamonds within. They, and the group they choose to help, discover within themselves, the capacity to show compassion, to see beyond the stereotypes and prejudices, to identify with others who are, perhaps, not so different from themselves. And, in doing so, they make a stand for justice that has an impact.

Continue reading “Pride”

May 6, 2015

On the eve of the general election

On the eve of the general election I find myself increasingly exercised by the issues of justice that are at stake here. This election isn’t just about who we would like to govern our country, it is about how we, as a country, and the people who govern us, treat our fellow-citizens, particularly the most vulnerable in our society: children, the elderly, disabled people, immigrants and asylum seekers, those living in poverty, those with mental health problems… the list could go on.

Over the past three weeks I have spent a lot of time preparing and delivering lectures on child mortality, both in the UK and overseas. While there has been incredible progress over the past 25 years in reducing child mortality, we live in a country in which over 5,000 children and young people die each year, and in a world where over 6 million children die each year before their fifth birthday. One aspect stands out above all others:

there is a consistent inverse relationship between child mortality and socioeconomic status.

The more wealthy you are, the less likely your child is to die. This finding is persistent across time, and geography, and holds true regardless of whether you measure socioeconomic status at an individual or societal level.

Continue reading “On the eve of the general election”