its Christmas!- lets do some bishop bashing

'Tis the season of goodwill and the journalists are more pissed and lazy than they are normally. in the search of a good filler for their newspapers and programmes they reach for that mainstay at times of vaguely religious festivals of finding a priest making some bollox argument to fill the airwaves with manufactured outrage and moral hypocrisy.
step forward the vicar of st Lawrence and st Hilda who has suggested that for families that are going without it is better to shoplift for what they need than to burgle or prostitute themselves.
the good rev goes on to say:

I would ask that they do not steal from small, family businesses, but from national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices."

however he cautioned:

I would rather that people take an 80p can of ravioli rather than turn to some of the most appalling things.

"Burglary causes untold harm and damage to people in a way that taking a can of spaghetti rings from a supermarket doesn't.

This hits all the buttons for the lefty muddle classes- a distain for material possessions by those who never have wanted for anything, opposition to capitalism (but only bad big capitalism), and a determination that the poor should know heir place(which is being shown the right way to do things by their betters), and a unwillingness to ever live in the real world.

the Rev tells the poor to steal from the big shops; because they can afford it. They also can afford CCTV, security guards, solicitors, and civil recovery firms.
These impose penalties on those accused of shoplifting (but never convicted of any crime) of hundreds of pounds more than the amounts they are accused of stealing.
the rev wants the poor to confirm themselves in his image of them; only taking a tin of ravioli. fuck that! if you are in such straits, get the fucking widescreen TV! stealing something like that might justify the risks involved.
this ecclesiastical fagin also displays his own fear; that those who live in poverty might seek to find redress by the expropriation of those who have never wanted for anything. like himself.