I HAVE read with interest the correspondence about the effects of austerity over the last seven years of Coalition and Conservative government.

It is now evident this ideology has had its day. It needs to be rethought if our society is to thrive again – both the “squeezed middle” and those at the bottom of the pile.

As I write, the Social Mobility Team has just announced its resignation; and Alan Milburn’s letter makes it quite clear that they no longer believe Theresa May’s government can deliver on promises to help struggling families.

Which raises the broader, largely forgotten question of spiritual bankruptcy.

When any government breaks the social contract, which is to invest responsibly in national security, policing, healthcare, benefits, basic resources for schools, a workable system of elderly care, commitment to forces’ veterans, etc, such shrinking of the state results in people feeling increasingly helpless.

Unless you belong to a favoured class insulated by personal wealth, you will feel abandoned. At both extremes inequality breeds selfishness and resentment.

Scripture has a great deal to say about the social contract.

The Israelites are repeatedly challenged to care for “the widow, the immigrant and the destitute”.

At the end of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus asks “And who is my neighbour?”.

There is no excuse for the number of food banks or the level of homelessness in current-day Britain.

With the inevitable distraction of preparations for Brexit, there is no foreseeable improvement in sight.

This is deeply depressing.

The Bible makes it clear that one of the grossest sins is the sin against hospitality.

By this it means not just practical hospitality, but hospitality of heart.

A compassion-less society is a society without any true connection to God – again, government, as well as a right-wing media, bear a large responsibility for their part in searing people’s consciences.

Fortunately there will always be those, in both secular and spiritual settings, who will hold the torch for deeply human values.

But they will find themselves increasingly having to stand up and be counted.

That is what spiritual bankruptcy looks like – a fight to the death against a culture which has been deliberately manipulated. It is never too late to turn the tide. But have we the will to do so?

Canon Dr Michael Blyth Rennie Walk, Heybridge