Gordon Brown faced an unprecedented assault from the Church of England today after leading Bishops delivered a damning assessment of Labour’s record on debt and spending.

Five senior figures from the Church of England warned that the country was suffering from family breakdown, an addiction to debt and a growing gap between rich and poor. The Bishop of Manchester went further, branding Labour “morally corrupt”.

The Bishops of Durham, Winchester, Manchester, Carlisle and Hulme used weekend interviews to accuse ministers of squandering their opportunity to transform society and pursuing “scandalous” policies.

Their intervention is particularly wounding because the Bishops took the unusual step of attacking Labour by name, with one Bishop declaring he agrees with a Conservative assessment that family breakdown is at the heart of society's problems.

The attack echoes the famous 1985 assault on Margaret Thatcher by the Church, when a report commissioned by the then Archbishop of Canterbury blamed Thatcherite policies for growing spiritual and economic poverty in inner cities.

The Prime Minister responded by releasing passages from his New Year message early, saying that the government would be a “rock of stability” upon which people can stand as the economy slides into recession.

The Rt Rev Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, berated ministers the Sunday Telegraph for not doing enough to help the poor since 1997.

“Labour made a lot of promises, but a lot of them have vanished into thin air,” he said. “We have not seen a raising of aspirations in the last 13 years, but instead there is a sense of hopelessness.

“While the rich have got richer, the poor have got poorer. When a big bank or car company goes bankrupt, it gets bailed out, but no one seems to be bailing out the ordinary people who are losing their jobs and seeing their savings diminished.”

The Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, the Bishop of Manchester, criticised Labour for encouraging people to get further into debt.

“The Government has acted scandalously. This is not just an economic issue, but a moral one. It’s about what we value,” he said.

“The Government believes that money can answer all of the problems and has encouraged greed and a love of money that the Bible says is the root of all evil.