{"id":7292,"date":"2012-04-29T14:10:45","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T14:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=7292"},"modified":"2012-04-29T14:10:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-29T14:10:45","slug":"fool-or-knave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/fool-or-knave\/","title":{"rendered":"Fool or Knave?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Scottish Cardinal Keith O\u2019Brien is at it <a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/04\/those-in-glass-houses\/\">again<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/politics\/2012\/apr\/29\/cardinal-david-cameron-favouring-rich\">Via the <em>Guardian<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of Britain&#8217;s most prominent religious figures, Cardinal Keith O&#8217;Brien, has accused David Cameron of immoral behaviour and of favouring rich City financiers over those struggling on lower incomes.<\/p>\n<p>O&#8217;Brien, Scotland&#8217;s most senior Roman Catholic authority, said: &#8220;The poor have suffered tremendously from the financial disasters of recent years and nothing, really, has been done by the very rich people to help them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Nothing<\/em>? Really?<\/p>\n<p>Amongst his suggestions:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>O&#8217;Brien called for Cameron to introduce a Robin Hood or financial transaction tax on City dealings. &#8220;My message to David Cameron, as the head of our government, is to seriously think again about this Robin Hood tax, the tax to help the poor by taking a little bit from the rich,&#8221; he told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>Last year Cameron and the chancellor, George Osborne, led Europe-wide efforts to stop France and Germany introducing just such a tax, arguing that it would be uniquely damaging to UK interests.<\/p>\n<p>In a BBC1 Scotland interview, O&#8217;Brien said it was immoral &#8220;just to ignore&#8221; those suffering as a result of the credit crunch.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I say poor, I don&#8217;t mean [only] the abject poverty we see sometimes in our streets. I mean people who would have considered themselves reasonably well-off.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People who have saved for their pensions and now realise their pension funds are no more\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, amongst those hit by such a tax would be, uh, savers. <\/p>\n<p>As O&#8217;Brien probably knows.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Cardinal-OBrien.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Cardinal-OBrien-212x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Cardinal O&#039;Brien\" width=\"212\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-7293\" srcset=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Cardinal-OBrien-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Cardinal-OBrien.jpg 255w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 212px) 100vw, 212px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scottish Cardinal Keith O\u2019Brien is at it again: Via the Guardian: One of Britain&#8217;s most prominent religious figures, Cardinal Keith O&#8217;Brien, has accused David Cameron of immoral behaviour and of favouring rich City financiers over those struggling on lower incomes. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/fool-or-knave\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[895,403,16,82,468],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7292"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7295,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7292\/revisions\/7295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}