SOCIETY Church to address poverty

Senior officials of the Church of England yesterday accused politicians of all parties of divisive policies designed to appeal to the middle classes at the expense of those on the fringes of society, and pledged to put forward their own programme for dealing with poverty.

The Ven Douglas Bartles-Smith, Archdeacon of Southwark, said MPs must make clear how they planned to improve the lives of the "forgotten 30 per cent" - those people who were unemployed or economically inactive. "All the politicians talk about being tough on crime but they forget about that 30 per cent of people, which is why there is crime in the first place," he said.

"The leaders of all three parties have recently said they are Christian and as Christians we are challenging to put that faith into action."