Whether one agrees with his vexatious guest editorial in the New Statesman or not, it seems that very few people are taking the view that what the Archbishop has written is irrelevant to the wider political debate.
The article itself has been bizarrely (mis)reported as a “sustained attack on the coalition”, when it is self-evidently nothing of the sort. The statement that the coalition is pursuing radical policies for which no-one voted – which comes dangerously close to blindingly obvious – is about as strong as it gets. Beyond that, the Archbishop hardly mentioned policies or ministers at all.
It is also worth remembering that of which some critics seem blissfully unaware, namely that Williams has spoken favourably about the coalition agenda in the past, giving the Big Society “two-and-a-half cheers”. The New Statesman editorial occupies much the same place: the Archbishop may think it peculiar that the Conservative-led coalition has alighted on a form of associational socialism (one that he clearly favours) for its main policy narrative, but he clearly does not think it is simply a cynical cloak for cuts.
No, if Rowan Williams’ editorial is a “sustained attack” on anything, it is on an impoverished political culture as a whole, where radical solutions are being pursued outside of proper political debate – and, crucially, of opposition. It is not simply that the nation’s public life, and services, are undergoing tectonic shifts without a compelling electoral mandate or sufficient parliamentary debate. It is that the opposition is not doing its job well enough, preferring instead to hover on the edge of fear-mongering. Thus the Archbishop reserves serious, if coded, warnings for the Labour party when he says, “the task of opposition is not to collude with [fear] but to define some achievable alternatives,” and, more seriously still, when he criticises them for failing to articulate – even to have – a convincing alternative:
“We are still waiting for a full and robust account of what the left would do differently and what a left-inspired version of localism might look like.”
This storm in a teacup will blow itself out soon enough. The New Statesman editorial is nowhere near as substantive as the Church of England’s 1985 report Faith in the City, and nor is the media excitement it has generated. There is value in a comparison between the two affairs, however, namely that in both instances the opposition was/is struggling for the big, cogent and persuasive ideas with which they might oppose government policy.
There is, in all this, a peculiar assurance for the Church of England which, though established, has evidently not been made captive to the interests of the state as some like to claim. The Church remains eminently capable of voicing the “fear and anger” of the ordinary man on the street. It is not, as detractors of establishment would imply, simply a source of civil religion and legitimation for whatever policy is either necessary or appealing.
As Daniel Gover suggests in his new Theos report, Turbulent Priests?, it may indeed be precisely the fact of establishment that allows the Archbishop, perhaps more than any other major public figure in the country, to do that most sought-after (and most hackneyed) of things – and start a national debate.
Paul Bickley is Senior Researcher at Theos.
