This is the script of this morning’s Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
I’ve heard a faint rumor that a budget might be coming our way soon. Speculation is rife about what Rachel Reeves might include, exclude, put in the pending tray, and so on. But, until we actually hear and read it, we don’t quite know what to expect – despite the deluge of advice the Chancellor is getting at every turn.
What we can say is that a budget is not simply a game with numbers. Decisions about income and expenditure have a powerful – and not always obvious – impact on everyone’s life. So, it matters what money goes where.
Someone once called a budget “theology by numbers”. What this means is that where the money gets allocated will tell us something about who we think we are. Politicians as well as preachers are rightly judged not by the bold statements they make or the rhetoric they craft, but, rather, by the way they dispose of ‘stuff’ – money, material things, social structures.
So, it is right that the Chancellor’s choices are going to be controversial. And it has always been thus.
I go back three thousand years to when a group of people were about to establish a new society in a new land. Rather than being given a send-off party, God gave them some hard instructions. “When you get there you will put down your roots, cultivate the lands, build your homes and economy, … and when you have plenty, you will forget that once you had nothing and were dependent on others. So, when you gather in your harvest, the first thing you will do is take 10% to the priest and recite a creed. The creed reminds you that “my fathers had nothing and knew what it was to depend on and receive from others. Never forget this. Because if you do, you will start treating other people as your slaves – as a problem.”
The other rule was that another 10% had to be left around the edges of the field so that poor, marginalised, homeless people could always find something to eat.
Now, this isn’t some romantic notion of egalitarian generosity. No, it’s rather an expression of the mutual obligation demanded by a society that claims to be – or, at least, wants to be – just. How we allocate our resources – in our case: paying taxes, engaging in democratic and respectful debate, looking for how the weakest are faring – tells us the truth about who we think we are and what we think matters.
Of course, harvesting crops once or twice a year is not the same as trying to set out a five or ten year plan, but the principle of mutuality still holds power.