God and Mrs Thatcher (48 page)

THE HISTORIC BOND
between the Church of England and the Conservative Party had begun to dissolve in the inter-war period, but it was only from the late 1960s, as the Church moved to the left and the party took a sharp turn to the right, that this divergence became glaringly apparent and prompted a bitter fight over the ownership of the Church, politics and doctrine. When the Ordination of Women Measure reached the House of Commons for approval in 1993, however, only nineteen members (two-thirds Tories) voted against it. During the debate, there were notable contributions from Tory Anglicans in favour, the familiar but irrelevant call from Tony Benn for disestablishment, and strident Labour women praising it as a step towards equality, but most MPs were of the view that it was entirely a
matter for the Church to decide. For some Anglican Tories, though, the admittance of women into the priesthood would be the trigger that would prompt their move to Rome. In her comprehensive critique, Ann Widdecombe complained that the Anglican leadership had been seduced by the spirit of the age and on female ordination had wilfully capitulated to secular feminist thought. Responding to a question from Labour MP Clare Short as to why she felt so much resentment, Widdecombe remarked bitterly: ‘It is utter disbelief at what has been going on, that we have not only managed to consecrate bishops who do not believe in the resurrection and the virgin birth, but that we cannot get our moral message across. Yes, I am very angry.’
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Widdecombe eventually came to the conclusion that only the Roman Catholic Church had the necessary authority, conviction and self-assurance to oppose the evils of the permissive society.
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John Gummer also spoke in opposition but from a position of regretful alienation rather indignation. In his view the Measure compromised ‘the whole basis of the Elizabethan settlement’, which had ‘sought to create a Church of the nation in which everybody, except those who were at the extreme ends, could worship together’.
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Gummer seemed to contradict himself, though, by proposing an inclusive concept of the congregation but an exclusive concept of who should be ministering them. He too would later convert to Rome.

Outside Parliament, another convert, journalist Charles Moore also laid the blame on the Church and specifically its obsession with politics, which he considered was ‘indistinguishable from those of a reasonably decent, mildly Left-wing agnostic’.
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Moore’s sentiments reflected the way in which Tories tended to heap the responsibility on the Church and not admit that Conservatism itself had fundamentally altered too. Writing after his conversion, Moore portrayed Anglicanism as a disrupted and disordered community destroyed by modernity and unnecessary change:

According to Catholic convert William Oddie the move away from Anglicanism involved a transformation of ‘one’s entire historical consciousness’.
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Anglican Conservatism had rested on a Protestant reading of the nation’s story. How one viewed key episodes in England’s past, such as the Reformation and, crucially, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was central to Conservative identity. Becoming a Catholic, therefore, demanded a rewriting of this narrative. Foreseeing the potential ramifications of this as early as 1987, journalist T. E. Utley had described the process in pretty bleak terms: ‘I shall have to become a ghetto Christian. This is a tragic thing for a man who is, not only by intellectual conviction but to the marrow of his being, an Anglican, one who loathes the idea of belonging to a sect which separates itself from English life.’
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And yet, the increasing prominence and respectability of Roman Catholicism by the 1990s meant, in fact, that the leap did not feel such a great one. Those converts to Catholicism did not feel like ‘ghetto Christians’ although Charles Moore admitted that in some sense it involved a certain renouncement of Englishness: ‘Even I could see that a religion which was
merely
English could not possibly have been what Christ intended.’
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With the conversion of these prominent figures to Rome, so one of the remaining threads of Anglican Conservatism died with them. No longer would the Conservative cause be linked or even associated with Anglicanism, or
even Christianity, in the way that it had been. Anglicanism, once closely bound to Conservatism and Englishness, ceased to be a core component of either. These high-profile conversions had, however, the effect of further raising the profile of a distinctly English right-wing Catholicism.

In 1983, Catholic MP Chris Patten wrote that ‘to describe Conservatism without mentioning Christianity would be like describing a barometer without referring to the mercury’.
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Yet by the 1990s, there were fewer and fewer who would make this case. Thatcher certainly spelt out the Christian basis of neo-Conservatism yet while her successors adopted the economic message, they seemed to disregard the theology underpinning it. Those Conservative MPs elected in the 1980s may have been ‘Thatcherite’ in outlook, but they came from a much wider base, both socially and religiously. Those who had led the Anglican Conservative faction in the 1970s and ’80s, the likes of Bernard Braine, Peter Bruinvels, Peter Mills, John Stokes, Ivor Stanbrook and Enoch Powell, had all left Parliament by the early 1990s, only to be replaced by a younger cohort of Conservative MPs for whom Anglicanism or even Christianity was not a core component of their political DNA.

If the Conservative brand had, as many people say, become ‘toxic’, this was partly down to the relentless challenge it had faced on its moral foundations and integrity from its former conscience, the Church of England, whose criticisms, unlike those from the left, cut much closer to the bone. The subsequent development of ‘compassionate Conservatism’ reflected a desire to soften the edges of Thatcherite ideology. In 1990, less than one month after Thatcher had left office, the Conservative Christian Fellowship (CCF) was founded by future
Times
columnist Tim Montgomerie, and others, out of a desire to rectify the broken link between the party and Christian denominations. That party activists felt the need to establish such an organisation was a sure sign that the breach between the Church of England and
the Tory Party was complete. This new incarnation was not only non-denominational – signalling the growing number of Catholics and Nonconformists within the party – but also aimed at courting the Christian vote. The CCF seemed almost designed to answer that key question that had preyed on Conservatives consciences throughout the Thatcher period: could a Christian vote Conservative? The CCF, however, does not forward the Thatcherite gospel of individualism, but seeks to unify the party of both Macmillan and Thatcher by promoting a much more consensual and cohesive Conservatism.

The ambition of unifying the party of Macmillan and Thatcher was certainly Cameron’s goal when he became leader; a commitment to a small state and individual enterprise combined with a paternalistic vision of the welfare state. But, tellingly, Cameron’s vision was articulated in secular rather than Christian language. Indeed, one of the reasons why there was such confusion surrounding his concept of the ‘Big Society’ was because it was conceived in a secular framework; odd, given that it chiefly relied on faith groups for its implementation. David Cameron once said that his faith was a bit like the ‘reception of Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes’.
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So it came as a great surprise to many, especially Anglicans, when, in 2014, Cameron penned a piece for the
Church Times
entitled: ‘My faith in the Church of England’.
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In a piece that read like a local squire writing in a parish newsletter, Cameron gave bland assurances that Britain was still a Christian country, praised faith as something that entreats people to ‘make a difference’ and reminded sceptics of the generous financial support that his government had given towards the nation’s decaying cathedrals. The contrast with Thatcher’s dogmatic assertions could not have been more stark, yet Cameron’s letter is just the type of polite endorsement that the Established Church likes to receive from the state. Further evidence of such tokenism was the initiative of Education Secretary Michael Gove to issue a bound copy of the King James Bible to every primary school to coincide with its 400-year
anniversary. The Bibles gathered dust in school libraries as teachers were unsure what precisely to do with them: ‘It hasn’t actually been opened. I’ve offered it as a drama prop, in case someone fancies wandering around dressed as a vicar with a Bible under their arm,’ was the response from one head teacher from Barnsley.
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, can be singled out as one of the few Conservative ministers whose faith has directly translated into policy and action. After his failed stint as leader of the party, Duncan Smith became a keen student of Catholic social teaching and, in 2004, set up the Centre for Social Justice, which would later act as the source of inspiration for many of the Conservative-led coalition’s social and welfare policies. Although, it is precisely because Duncan Smith claims a Christian motivation that he has faced more criticism from the churches than any other minister.

Christianity remains an important thread within the Conservative Party even if it does not always sit well with Cameron’s socially liberal, metropolitan and tolerant rebranding of Conservatism. Outside the party, there remains a religious right-wing lobby – largely evangelical in flavour – which still views the secular multicultural left as the enemy, although the fight for the preservation of Britain’s Christian heritage has been complicated by a new target: Islam.

The Christian Right in Britain is generally speaking left-of-centre politically. There are, in fact, very few who dare forward the Christian case for the free economy with the scriptural force and certainty that Margaret Thatcher did thirty years ago; a silence, which in itself reflects both the secularisation of British politics and the current denigration of capitalism.

The connection between Conservatism and Anglicanism is still evident at the grassroots although David Cameron’s commitment to gay marriage has meant that many now consider that it is their party rather than their Church that is betraying its moral principles. This disaffection with the moral direction of the Conservative Party is something that UKIP’s Nigel Farage has seized upon in a quest to broaden his
party’s appeal beyond euroscepticism. In UKIP, the old Thatcher cries of moral and national degeneration are finding their voice once more.

REFLECTING ON THE
problems in the 1980s, Tony Blair once conceded that ‘the Left got into trouble when its basic values became divorced from … ethical socialism [and] Christian socialism’.
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Blair wrote this in 1996 just at the time when he was seeking to present Labour as a credible force when there were clear political gains to be made in renouncing the ideological purity of the 1980s and pronouncing the party’s Christian/ethical heritage. Yet, as is widely recognised, Blair himself was a man of profound faith who had undergone conversion while at Oxford and whose Christian social understanding was never in doubt, even if he was discouraged by his PR men from openly talking about it. ‘Religion was more important to him than anyone I had ever met outside the priesthood,’ Cherie Blair later wrote of her husband.
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Like his predecessor, John Smith, Tony Blair self-consciously sought to reignite the Christian socialist roots of the labour movement as a way of repositioning the party back onto the centre ground. Having won the symbolic battle over Clause IV, Blair set out his definition of New Labour at the party conference in 1995:

In tone and language, the New Labour project seemed remarkably similar to the Church’s position during the Thatcher years. Blair even made an explicit connection between the Church’s leadership on social issues in the 1980s and the priorities of New Labour. ‘The essential challenge posed by
Faith in the City
remains unanswered,’ Blair posited in an article for
The Guardian
in 1996, a decade after the report had been published, ‘Do we have the confidence and the ideas as a nation to achieve prosperity with fairness in the next century?’
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The mid-1990s saw a growing closeness between Christian leaders and the Labour Party. Shadow ministers held regular meetings with a group of bishops, while David Sheppard was invited to sit on the committee of the Institute of Public Policy Research’s Commission for Social Justice. The report, published in 1994, directly drew on
Faith in the City
and would eventually act as the foundation for New Labour’s ‘social exclusion’ agenda once in office.
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Sheppard actually turned down the offer, fearing that such an association would align him too closely with the party, although he would later sit on the Labour benches – as would other retired Anglican bishops who were granted ex-officio seats in the House of Lords.