Tories’ policies caused poverty

Sir,– I notice Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser (October 9) praising Christian groups in Perthshire for their action on poverty and foodbank provision.

Perhaps he has forgotten that the current Government in Westminster is the latest led by a practising Christian in a so-called “Christian country”, for which the existence of foodbanks can be seen as a success of former Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society scheme.

Then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams alerted Christian organisations like the Trussell Trust in June 2011 to the dangers of this Government initiative to shrink the state and abrogate responsibility for some services to volunteer groups and charities, warning it might be a “stale slogan” and a euphemism for “an opportunistic cover for spending cuts”.

This much was apparent in David Cameron’s address to the Council of Christians and Jews at a reception in Downing Street in

2012, where he reaffirmed his Big Society idea “that there’s a huge space between government and the individual that can be filled by organisations, faithbased organisations perhaps in particular, that can deliver great public services, that can do great things in terms of tackling some of the problems of our time”.

There can be no greater witness to the problems of our time than foodbanks, a clear sign the poor are both increasing in number and being made poorer.

We shared Rowan Williams’ concern then as we do now, that while at grassroots level churches, mosques, secular charities and the donating public are delivering a valuable service, they are all being seen as convenient patsies by a Christian Westminster Government as intent as ever on offloading the financial, social and moral responsibility for the poor on to volunteerism. Alistair McBay. National Secular Society, Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh.

Perhaps he has forgotten that the current Government in Westminster is the latest led by a practising Christian in a so-called ‘Christian country’, for which the existence of foodbanks can be seen as a success of former Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society scheme