Fast Work

Twenty-seven of the country's fifty-nine Anglican bishops have signed a letter blaming cutbacks and failures in the benefits system for the growing number of people who have to rely on food banks. Doubtless it was the apparent fact that a simple majority of church leaders think the coalition is doing a bang-up job which emboldened the faith-based community at Westminster to publish a report, commissioned by the Government and handed in last summer, which found that the demand for food banks is due to poverty, unemployment and failures in the benefits system. This contradicts the famous claim by Iain Duncan Smith's altar-boy, Lord Freud, that the increase in food bank use resulted purely from the increase in availability coupled with the proles' insatiable appetite for a free lunch. Since those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear, the Government's eight-month delay in publishing the report must be ascribed to the need for a decent interval to elapse before the brilliant Duncan Smith announces that it has confirmed Lord Freud's correctitude in every particular.