Thursday 9 June 2011

Praise be

It's not often you'll read praise for the Church in these pages, or for individual members within it, but one member of it I do have a bit of time for is the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his comments, shortly to be published in the New Statesman, are an indication as to why. As a supposed moral guardian, or whatever you want to call him, for our society, I of course have a fundamental problem with him being strongly guided by his faith. But that doesn't, of course, make him always wrong. Some issues are plain to anybody with a functioning moral compass, regardless of the source of the 'magnetism' to which it points.

He's never been afraid to speak out, which is important for a man in his position, but never before has he made such a scathing and wide-ranging attack on government, at least never that I can remember. He's pointed particularly to the coalition's peculiar notion of what constitutes a democracy, given that the government is introducing sweeping changes which, in his words, people did not vote for. I've already, in this blog, had a pop at the government's plans for NHS reform, a direct contravention of a Conservative manifesto promise, and this is one of the plans attracting his ire. But he's also had a pop at plans for education, at the cuts, at their seeming lack of empathy with the public, pretty much everything.

Though I don't expect them to, they would do well to listen to him, or at least pay heed to the fact that he's felt the need to speak out. He may not be my idea of a moral compass, but he is a decent barometer (sorry about all the meteorological devices) of society's thinking insofar as, if he's pointing at 'stormy', they would do well to pay attention. The next general election is already only four years away maximum, and could be sooner if they're not careful. They may not like what he's saying, but they should in fact be very grateful that he's said it. Check out the New Statesman website for the whole thing - they're already on there.

No comments:

Post a Comment