The Wardman Wire

One of my favourite parts of the National Secular Society website is the “What the Papers Say” headlines, known to its fans as “Mrs Trellis Incarnate” or the “News Bastardisation Machine”.

A few days ago there was a corker, as opposed to the usual “misleading”, “insulting” or “this is what we want you to think” stuff interspersed with others that reflect the linked article.

The Headline is: “Churches want £100 million from the taxpayer to repair buildings“.

This links to an article post by Ruth Gledhill, which is about … er … English Heritage reporting that there will need to be £100m of maintenance over the next decade. Needless to say, there’s not a peep in the article about any churches wanting or demanding anything, or about £100m needing to come from the taxpayer to the churches, or about anyone wanting that much money to “repair buildings”.

Three howlers in 10 words; that’s stretching it, even for Terry.

Let’s put this in perspective.

Gledhill’s piece quotes English Heritage figures that 250 million ukp has been spent on restoration and maintenance of Cathedrals over 18 years. Of that 250 million, a mere 47-48 million (or 19%) came from English Heritage. Ruth quotes 52 million, but actually 4-5m came from the private Wolfson Foundation, not the taxpayer.

The other 200 million plus (81%) was raised from other sources, mainly by the Cathedrals themselves.

So, even if Cathedrals do receive grants at the same rate, it will only be 19 million, anyway.

This is a lower spend rate (£10m a year) than has been achieved over the last 18 years (£250m since 1991, or £14m a year).

That sounds – to me anyway – like a success story.

Mrs Trellis is carried uncritically by, among others, The Freethinker. Perhaps the NSS had better start offering a (much shorter) edited version of the headline feed that only includes those headlines which have some relationship to reality, for the sake of their friends’ reputation.

Enthusiasts for a hardline secularist state might like to note that in their beloved France, where the Government looks after all Roman Catholic places of worship, a single grant has just been given to restore a single spire of a single cathedral (Notre-Dame) to the level of 2 million Euros:

The cathedral will get 2 million euros ($2.6 million) to restore in May its “epi de faitage,” the 12th-century spire that soars about 45 meters, or 147 feet, above the city. The 18 months of work will provide jobs to roofers, scaffolding builders, engravers and other craftsmen.

That is about the same as total British Government repair funding per annum to all 50 or so UK Cathedrals. Or, at least, what the funding was – until they cut it.

I somehow don’t see the British people falling for this laïcité wheeze once they understand how much more expensive it will be than the system we have already.