AN EVANGELICAL CASE FOR VOTING LABOUR

Cranmer's Curate has been described in the national press as a conservative blog. That is partly but not wholly the reason why your curate would like to offer the youth group an Evangelical Christian case for voting Labour.

As a first principle, the Christian must cast his vote in what he honestly believes to be the national interest. That is because he is commanded by Jesus in the Gospels to love his neighbour as himself (cf Mark 12v31).

Tempting though it is to vote for a fringe party, it seems to cc that the national interest means voting for one of the parties most likely to get an outright majority - the Conservatives or Labour. It is manifestly not in the national interest to have a hung Parliament. The possibility of this has already impacted on the pound. In order to maintain our triple A credit rating and the attractiveness of the UK for foreign investment, a government with a working majority to reduce the inflated national debt by cutting public spending is sorely needed.

So why aren't you voting Conservative then?

Because cc is far from convinced that a Conservative government would be able to lead us into national economic recovery. It is far from clear that the current front-bench is sufficiently commerce-friendly. Your curate may be completely laughed out of court by close-to-the-action political journalists and maybe deservedly so for saying this, but he believes the current Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, has more ability, expertise and willingness to support enterprise than anyone in the current Conservative leadership. And he also honestly believes that the Conservatives are unlikely to show more moral courage in implementing unpopular spending cuts than Labour.

He also believes that David Milliband or Alan Johnson would make relatively decent Prime Ministers if the Labour Party decided after winning an election that a new leader was needed.

The political correspondents who have seen Labour's dark side in a way that cc has not are not offering themselves for election. As a voter, you can only choose from the array of candidates who are standing - to whatever degree they may resemble the Prince of Darkness.

But aren't you more worried about moral issues such as the devastating impact of the the permissive society and the undermining of heterosexual marriage than about the economy? Surely the Conservatives are more in tune with Judeo-Christian values than Labour?

Yes, British society desperately needs spiritual and moral renewal, but long-term economic instability would be very disruptive of re-Christianisation. The spread of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ requires political, social and economic stability (cf 1 Timothy 2v1-7). It is far from clear that the Conservatives would be much different from Labour on moral issues. The Conservative Party backs civil partnerships - in fact its leader called same-sex unions 'marriage', which they aren't.

The Conservatives, it would seem, have all the zeal of a new convert when it comes to politically-correct morality. The Conservatives' Judeo-Christian values used to be personified in Colonel Sir Archibald Bufton-Tufton MC, MP, Privy Counsellor. But he is now becoming extinct by deliberate design.

Bufton-Tufton could recite the Ten Commandments, which the Padre made him learn in confirmation classes when he was in the school corps. He could recite the Lord’s Prayer and if you quoted to him ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled' (AV) he could tell you in which of his sermons Jesus said it.

Yes, he may have been lacking in Christian grace and humility in some of his pronouncements. He certainly did not have a monopoly of political virtue. But at his constituency surgery Bufton-Tufton's ire was fired to action by the small shopkeeper’s tale of the police response when his livelihood was ruined by thugs trashing his newsagents: we are concentrating police resources on tackling hate crime - in line with the new directive from the diversity and equality unit.

Bufton-Tufton had a firm conviction that he should do something about this man's plight. In practical terms, he was therefore a compassionate man.

But now the Conservatives have a new morality personified in Ms Joan Cool, Twitterer, dip. Public Relations, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, adopted by the central list. She feels passionately about equality and diversity. She hates bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Her ire has been fired by the letter from the 13-year-old girl at the faith school who came out as a lesbian to the chaplain but was advised not to become sexually active on the ground that ‘her feelings could change’.

The perpetrators must be dealt with firmly. The Conservatives are the only party tough enough to drive out dinosaur attitudes from 21st century European society, intones Ms Cool.

Your curate honestly believes Labour would be more inclined to give the orthodox Christian case a fair hearing than the new Tory PC zealots. He is not fully persuaded that he should support Labour, but believes that, in a fallen world awaiting God's new creation, there may be some wisdom in sticking with the devil you know.