The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, today condemned the prime minister’s response to the economic crisis, describing his efforts to boost spending in a downturn as like “the addict returning to the drug”.
Williams said the credit crunch had been a “reality check” in a climate of unsustainable greed, and it should be used to provoke a fundamental rethink of the pursuit of wealth. It demonstrated that the country had been “going in the wrong direction” by relying on financial speculation rather than “making things”, he said.
It was “a reminder that what I think some people have called fairy gold is just that ”“ that sooner or later you have to ask: ‘What are we making or what are we assembling or accumulating wealth for?’.”
Amen. Preach it, Rowan. Americans and Brits have a defeatist attitude. They think that we can’t compete in the manufacturing side of things. Let us encourage durable goods and discourage reckless spending.
Thank you Rowan.
Sure glad you are an expert in something.
I read the IHT article on this over and over. I understand that Williams is disappointed in the Prime Minister, but it is unclear to me xactly what he thinks the Prime Minister should be doing differently. I get the part that public values are out of whack, but what could the PM in reality do about that?
The PM could lower taxes and tell the ABC to stick to something with which he is more familiar. Anything.
Proof that even a stopped clock will be right twice a day.
Of course, the biblical phrase is ‘a dog returning to its vomit’.