More Britons face hardship

More Britons face hardship

By Frank Noakes

LONDON — The sign outside the church proclaims: "Only Jesus saves". This is a lamentable truth in Britain today: no-one else can afford to. Recent statistics highlight the depth of misery in the land of hope and glory.

Seventy-six small businesses go under every day. Since the April general election, more than 30,000 companies and individuals have been declared bankrupt; business failures are now running at 2.6% of registered companies per year.

Ten thousand workers lose their jobs every week and face the lowest social security provisions in Europe. Talk of retraining and better education, all the buzz at the Conservative Party conference, is just talk; recent studies show Britons have the worst standard of education in Europe.

But there are signs of people actively opposing the disastrous course set by the Tories and mysterious market forces. Many hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent weeks in protest at pit closures, hospital closures and the wanton destruction of whole communities. As MP Tony Benn said recently, "Hope is the most powerful force in politics and the events of the last few weeks have reawakened that hope, after years of defeatism and pessimism".

Meanwhile, the Church of England, which blew £500 million on the stock exchange earlier this year, appears not to have lost faith — in the market that is. Another gambling spree has just cost it a further £70 million. It is surely provident for the church commissioners that Jesus saves.

From GLW issue 80