On this issue, it's the bishops who are out of touch

Religion and politics have always been a potentially lethal combination. It is way too simplistic to say they don’t mix. Actually the problems usually arise from the fact that they tend to mix only too well.

The question is not so much whether they do mix, but whether they should mix, such is the potential for rival politicians to extract wildly differing interpretations from the same religious texts.

The most infamous blurring of the lines between the two that has occurred in recent years was when Tony Blair declared that he would “answer to his maker” for joining the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Looking back, I don’t think he was really saying that God told him to go to war. But what the statement did reveal was that Mr Blair saw a clear moral justification for the decision that derived, at least in part, from his purported Christian values.

In theological terms, the former Prime Minister could point to some fairly heavyweight support for his espousal of the so-called ‘Just War’ theory, however politically inept it was to have expressed it as he did.

No less of an authority than the 39 Articles of the Church of England state: “It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars.”

But just as Christian pacifists have always taken issue with this point of view, so too has the question of state welfare versus individual charity been another long-running bone of contention among believers.

And it is this issue that pitched religion back into the spotlight this week, as a group of Church of England bishops attempted to scupper the government’s plans for a £26,000 cap on benefit payments.

The days when the C of E was ‘the Conservative Party at prayer’ are thankfully long gone, although it would probably still be fair to call it the SDP at prayer were it not for the fact that the SDP is also long gone.

So it’s not particularly surprising to see them endorsing what is essentially a social democratic position on welfare, highlighting the ‘bias to the poor’ that is found throughout Scripture and in particular in Jesus’ ministry.

But not all agree. For former archbishop Lord Carey, among others, the country’s £1trillion deficit, and the fecklessness and irresponsibility which he claims the benefits culture rewards, constitute far greater moral evils.

"The sheer scale of our public debt is the greatest moral scandal facing Britain today. If we can't get the deficit under control and begin paying back this debt, we will be mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren,” he wrote.

The theological arguments will go on – but what about the politics? Well, for my part, I reckon the Coalition has got this about right.

While I am normally quite content to see bishops and other faith leaders attempting to bring a moral perspective to bear on policy-making, on this issue they appear to have seriously misjudged the mood of public opinion.

Establishing a benefits cap at what is around the level of the current average wage will hardly be seen as unfair by the great majority of the population, although admittedly it will hit people disproportionately in London where housing costs are higher.

Even that, though, makes a fairly pleasant change from the disproportionate hit that the North-East and its neighbouring regions have had to sustain as the result of other public sector spending cutbacks.

The bigger political picture here is that, in proposing the benefit cap, the government is seeking not only to tackle the deficit, but also to appeal to a group of voters who are becoming seen by both main parties as the key to electoral success over the next few years.

Gordon Brown used to call them ‘hard working families’ – but they have now become known as the ‘squeezed middle,’ people who are working as hard as ever but whose real incomes have declined significantly over the course of the economic downturn.

The bishops and others will worry – quite rightly – of the risk to social cohesion in focusing attention on relatively middle-class voters at the expense of those at the bottom of the income scale.

But even they might have to concede that continuing to condemn such people to welfare dependency is the surest way to create a permanent underclass.

The quiet man finds his niche at last

For good or ill, most Prime Ministers ultimately tend to remembered for a single defining event or achievement that happened on their watch.

For Clement Attlee, it was the creation of the welfare state. For Anthony Eden, it was Suez. For Ted Heath, entry into Europe. For Jim Callaghan, the winter of discontent. For Tony Blair, Iraq.

It's early days for David Cameron. But what he most wants to avoid – apart from losing the next election - is for his government to be remembered solely for the cuts.

He wants it to go down in the history books for something else entirely – for reforming the welfare state that Attlee created and for mending the society that he claims has subsequently been broken.

It is no mean ambition. Welfare reform has proved to be a 'mission impossible' for successive Prime Ministers – even ones who told their welfare reform minsters to "think the unthinkable."

Mr Blair's failure to bring about meaningful change in this area – despite a 179-seat majority and a favourable economic headwind – has become symbolic of the many missed opportunities and thwarted hopes of his long premiership.

By contrast, Mr Cameron must depend for his parliamentary majority on the Liberal Democrats, while the economic environment could hardly be less conducive to his aim of moving people off welfare and into work.

Yet, perhaps by force of circumstances in the shape of the need to reduce the deficit, his government has embarked on a programme of change which, if successful, would amount to the biggest recasting of the welfare state since its inception.

Perhaps even more improbably, the reform programme is being overseen by Iain Duncan Smith, the quiet man who failed to turn up the volume and seemed destined to go down as no more than a footnote in Tory Party history.

Forced into the political wilderness in 2003, he skilfully reinvented himself as a Beveridge de nos jours, and now, as Work and Pensions Secretary, has the chance to put his radical ideas into practice.

At the heart of the changes announced in his White Paper this week are two relatively straightforward principles.

First, the replacement of the labyrinthine system of work-related state support with a single Universal Credit, and second, the idea that it will always pay better to work than remain on benefits.

So will it succeed where other attempts have failed? Well, in its favour is the fact that there is an unusual degree of political consensus over the central objectives of the changes.
"If the government gets this right we will support them because we accept the underlying principle of simplifying the benefits system and providing real incentives to work," said Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Douglas Alexander.

New Labour leader Ed Miliband has already made clear he will not oppose the coalition for opposition's sake, and this is a wise strategic move on his part.

He realises there is a public consensus not just that the deficit needs to be cut, but that the dependency culture which has become entrenched in some deprived communities needs to be addressed.

But Labour's caveat, of course, is that the crackdown on benefits must go hand-in-hand with pro-growth policies to ensure the jobs are there for people to move into.

This highlights the biggest obstacle to Mr Duncan Smith's proposals – the fact that the government's cutbacks in other areas are likely to lead over the coming year to rising unemployment.

If there are not the jobs to go round, moving people off welfare into work becomes not just politically impossible but practically impossible.

As with much else, the fate of the government's welfare reform gamble depends on whether its greater economic policy gamble succeeds or fails.