The Church of England Guffs a Big One over the Living Wage.

So the Church of England doesn't practice what it preaches (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31581524). Why should we be surprised - religion of all sorts is riddled with hypocrisy, so one little touch more is hardly significant. But this story features here for one reason alone - rather than confess to their sin the church came up with the guff that it was "nothing to do with them" because every parish is a separate legal entity. Utter guff guys - does every parish have its own archbishop? It's own prayer book? No. The legal entity excuse is utter nonsense.

House of Lords Europe Committee Spouts Guff

According to the House of Lords European Union committee there was (I paraphase) a catastrophic misreading of the mood in the Kremlin with the EU not realising the depth of Russian hostility to its plans for closer relations with Ukraine.

This is a classic example of attempting to claim expertise based on "analysis" of known facts and imply other people should have been able to predict the current situation in advance. We all know now what Russia is doing so it is easy to claim we should have known Russia would do it. In fact this is monumental guff. Let's start with the obvious guff. If it was so easy to read the mood of the Kremlin in advance of these events, how comes all the wise and learned members of the House of Lords committee said nothing about it at the time? Perhaps because it wasn't obvious. Indeed it is actually impossible to predict with certainty any outcome from a given set of events.

Even now after the fact it is not possible to demonstrate a casual relationship between Russian behaviour and EU plans for closer relations with Ukraine. There are so many other factors in play - the oil price for example - that no analysis can prove a relationship.

So, here's an idea. Instead of wasting your time and my taxes on writing reports about what we should have done, spend some time explaining what we should do now. Your fingerpointing at supposed mistakes in the past is totally useless.

From the BBC on 17 February. Apparently "The Church of England has a right and a duty to speak in the political debate ahead of May's general election." Really? The "church" is not a person; it has no "rights" and it certainly can't speak.

Perhaps they mean that people who work for or attend a church have a right to speak? That's certainly true, although the rest of us have a right to ignore the pontification of those who believe in mystical creatures and bizarre fantasies that are less believable than the plot of Lord of the Rings. 

What then do these "church people" feel it is their duty to speak about? Presumably sex discrimination won't be on the list, but there are a few other points they feel qualified to discuss. These include nuclear deterrence, taxation, Europe and the economy. I can't be the only person struggling to understand why a bishop of the Church of England feels qualified to offer anything to these debates or why being a bishop would somehow make their opinion worth listening to. 

The church, completely legally, avoids paying tax by claiming charity status. Maybe it feels it has expertise to offer on the use of hedge funds to reduce tax on investments - a large part of its £5 billion of investments is held in hedge funds. Presumably then they intend to lead a debate on the benefits of reducing tax payments as much as possible and adopting tax avoidance schemes. No? Seems rather hypocritical if they take a different position.