Anglicans are the most Conservative religious group in the country – so why is the church run by lefties?

Whenever I begin to suspect that I’m turning into a mad old right-wing “reds-under-the-bed” paranoiac doomed to end my days huddled on park benches muttering to myself about an imaginary socialist plot to destroy our way of life, someone writes or says something that reveals me to be a hard-headed, clear-eyed realist. Today it’s a trainee priest writing under the pseudonym “Harry Pinker” in the latest issue of The Spectator, here. The number of parallels with what I found at the BBC (here) is startling - and depressing:

Any overtly Tory priest-in-training would quickly learn the error of his ways. I have not, in two years here, heard anything other than left-wing bias in preaching, either from the staff or from visiting speakers. We are fed a constant diet of propaganda which assumes that all Tories are evil and that they exist solely for the benefit of the rich.

Earlier this month 27 Anglican bishops signed a letter to the left-wing newspaper the Daily Mirror, accusing Tory “cuts” of creating “hardship and hunger”. What was truly awful about their drivellings was the absence of any understanding that moves to uncouple recipients from the welfare teat might have a moral as well as an economic purpose: surely it's unarguable that supporting a system which encourages able-bodied people of sound mind to live a parasitic existence at the expense of those who can be bothered to work for a living is wicked, because it destroys the sense of purpose and corrodes the souls of those allowed to wallow in idleness. Needless to say, the arguments used by the bishops were of the babyish variety often parroted by gormless students, Question Time audiences and the dimmer members of Labour’s front bench.

“Harry Pinker” underlines this point:

In terms of welfare reform, the established position is to the left of Archbishop Welby’s. It is generally considered that any change to the system would be immoral; that the only Christian solution is to keep increasing spending. I have never heard a priest discuss the fact that people might become dependent on welfare. 

The truly weird thing about all this (except to those of us aware of the Left’s wildly successful strategy of taking control of just about every major traditional British institution) is that far more of those who describe themselves as Anglicans vote Conservative rather than Labour. Last month saw the publication of Voting and Values in Britain: Does religion count? by Ben Clements and Nick Spencer, a report by the religious think-tank, Theos. Its findings are fascinating. In the 2010 General Election, 45.5% of Anglicans voted Tory, while 25.5% voted Labour. Amongst Anglicans who actually attend church at least once a month, the figures are even more one-sided – 51.6% voted Tory, while a miserable 19.4% chose Labour. Even allowing for a large Liberal Democrat vote (25.8%), this means that more church-going Anglicans voted Conservative in 2010 than for both of the other two main parties combined. And it means that less than one in five Anglican voters opted for the party overhwlemingly supported by their own clergy!

So Anglican bishops and priests do not represent the political views of the majority of those who – like them – regularly attend church. Not only that, Anglican clergy (according to “Harry Pinker” – and their public utterances would seem to support him) actively despise the political values of the majority of their flock.

Mind you, I’m glad I never became a Roman Catholic – screamingly red, apparently.