Archbishop Winning of Glasgow responded to the Institute of Fiscal Studies findings by underlining this point:
The cumulative effects of social security legislation and the imposition of the poll tax and a general tendency to denigrate the poor as being responsible for their own plight is surely one of the greatest horror stories in modern Britain. It should not be swept under the carpet.2
When we come to evaluate the scale of domestic poverty we should not simply rely on statistics, emotive arguments or political rhetoric. For twenty years I have held weekly advice and help centres in inner-city Liverpool. Over that time I have grown cynical about the claims and counter-claims of self-appointed spokesmen for the poor. The biggest growth industry has been in sociological survey teams. They try out their own pet theories, set up a project, and often depart within the year. People I have represented have developed a fairly healthy scepticism for those who make an occupation out of poverty. In addition to the social scientists, some politicians make political capital out of poverty while doing nothing to help the individuals affected. It would be hard to live in Liverpool and not be angered by those members of the Labour-Left who used the language of social justice while they simultaneously concocted land deals, entrenched vested interest, preached class struggle and confrontation, and brought a city to its knees. The Sunday TimesInsight team's investigative exposĂŠ and the BBC Panorama investigation into the intimidatory methods used by members of Liverpool's Labour Party were a devastating indictment of a party reputedly committed to the alleviation of poverty. Liverpool in the 1980s also became a text book case of what can happen when a community of half a million people are abandoned by central Government and how festering conditions can create the climate for the unscrupulous and the extreme to thrive: a museum of horrifying example. Without the regular intervention of the city's church leaders, Archbishop Derek Worlock, Bishop David Sheppard, and Moderator John Newton, I doubt whether Liverpool would now be enjoying the post-Militant improvement in its reputation and relative economic position. As a direct result of the manipulative and exploitative methods used by Militant and others it actually became harder to raise the profile of the least well off. The extreme positions which were struck alienated public opinion and made it easier for an unsympathetic Government to leave Liverpool to stew in its own juice: it served them right. Just as the individual living in poverty is blamed for his