Out of touch

I t used to be said that the Church of England was the Conservative party at prayer. Now it seems that the two sides are at war.
The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has already crossed swords with Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions minister, over some of his austerity cuts on benefits and yesterday's detailed announcement of a raft of welfare economies will not have helped matters.

The Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Church of Scotland have joined together in a report on the government's “systematic misrepresentation of the poorest in society” that is being used to justify welfare cuts.

Iain Duncan Smith has an unenviable job but it cannot be said that he helped himself by his interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme yesterday. He fell into the trap of saying that he could live on the lowest job seeker's allowance of fifty-three pounds a week -- “If I had to” -- and in doing so showed just how out of touch he is. Within a few minutes an on-line petition calling on him to try had been established and received 18'000 signatures in no time at all. The minister's claim that he is “restructuring the welfare culture so that people always find that work pays” does beg a rather big question in response. What work?