Lord Carey and This Week

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury was in the news following last week's BBC's This Week programme as he suggested that local footballers should bale out Liverpool Council. I think we can agree that Premiership footballers are paid well, too well for my liking but at least they have one thing in their favour, they are in the public eye. There are so many others who are anonymous, like the bankers whom he also critised, who are earning obscene amounts of money. Of course no individual should be compelled to hand over their "hard-earned" money to any charity or to any council for that matter. Why should one footballer donate a large proportion of his wealth and another do nothing? Lord Carey may gain more support if he argues for a redistribution of wealth rather than pick on famous individuals.

I will now come to Lord Carey's support. Michael Portillo criticised his report by saying that he unfairly criticised Margaret Thatcher. When she said there was no such thing as society, she was actually saying the same thing as David Cameron because she added that there were families and communities. No she didn't Michael. It may be worth re-reading the full quote. Margaret did not mention communities. If she had done so then she would have been rightly criticised for talking nonsense as communities are a synonym for society. Margaret did use the word neighbour but that is a long way from any organised society. She was criticising those who looked to others (not family) to support them. She didn't want a big society.

I could write so many blogs on Lord Carey's report but I'll restrict myself to one more point. He believes that Liverpool City Council's refusal to join in with the big society has a certain logic about it. He could equally have said the City Council's refusal to join in with the big society has a certain petulance about it. It is a pity that Lord Carey had to mix his generally correct commentary with specific political partisan support.

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