'Self interest' was spur for Tory victory, says former Bishop of Ludlow
The former Bishop of Ludlow has said David Cameron's victory in the General Election was the result of people voting with "naked self-interest" on May 7.
And the Rt Rev John Saxbee has warned inequality is set to increase and make the work of charities harder.
The bishop, who now sits in the House of Lords after retiring from his final post as Bishop of Lincoln in 2011, was speaking during a visit to the St John the Baptist Church in Bishop's Castle for Christian Aid Week, which finishes on Saturday.
As part of his service, he said: "It is unlikely that those who voted for right of centre parties have, at the top of their minds, the kind of concerns that motivate us in support of Christian Aid – and that has made our task all the more important but also all the more difficult.
"We're now in the shadow of the election where one cannot help but feel sadness that, for many, naked self-interest became the criterion when it came to casting a vote.
"Christian Aid must challenge these realities, these trends, and seek to mitigate their consequences – but it will never be more difficult to make the moral case for aid when people find themselves blaming the poor for their poverty, praising the wealthy for their prosperity and patronising the rest for their passivity," he said.
Bishop John said the election result pointed to "nonchalance in the face of increasing inequality, as myths promoted by the rich and powerful – about trickle-down economics, regressive taxation and unsustainable reductions in the size of the state – still beguile many of those who are harmed most by those very things".
He said an apparent swell in nationalism seen in the way people voted was also "the means whereby borders become barriers rather than meeting places."
He was appointed Suffragan Bishop of Ludlow in 1994, and moved on to be Bishop of Lincoln in 2002.
But speaking at Bishop's Castle, the Bishop said he was standing in for the current chairman of Christian Aid, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
He said one of former Archbishop's favourite questions was "For whom is your wealth good news?"
Bishop John told those assembled: "I think for all of us here the answer to that question cannot be, 'It's good news for me' or even 'It's good news for me and those closest to me'.
"We instinctively know that the answer to that question has got to reach out beyond our own self-interest to that which embraces humankind in all its need," he said.
