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Friday 5 September 2008

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Gordon Brown’s moral compass is more like a dodgy satnav

I often miss the glaring messages in fiction, because I am a prosaic and feeble-minded moron. Take Lyra and her altheiometer, in Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights trilogy. I read it ages ago, and it only clicked the other day. It’s basically a science-powered moral compass, isn’t it? Lyra makes her moral choices based on the readings of an instrument. The Church, her nemesis, does not.

When Gordon Brown talks about having a moral compass, I wonder if this is the sort of thing he has in mind. Him and all his little daemons, crouched in a cupboard in Downing Street, watching a little golden needle swing between pictures of, say, a man with a beard, and a bomb, and the number 42.

Maybe not. Many of our Prime Minister’s decisions appear far too complex to be compass-led. Is it more like a dodgy moral sat-nav, perhaps? A moral Google Maps, with the wrong postcode from the start? The 10p tax fuss, the wrangling over fuel tax, the idea of closing schools to make them better. What kind of gadget came up with those? A moral Hungry Hippo?

According to the authors of Moral, But No Compass, a new report commissioned by the Church of England, the needle is spinning madly. And why? ‘The churches,’ sighs the report, ‘simply do not register on the policy-making radar in serious terms.’ That’s right. A policy-making radar, too. No wonder our politicians are lost. Moral compass in one hand, policy-making radar in the other, pivoting at the junctions of the corridors of power. Like bats in an orienteering contest, occasionally going ‘meeeep’.

It has got to be a tough gig, producing a report for the Church of England. Whatever the question, the answer has got to be ‘the Church’. That’s the whole point. Failing marriages? The Church! Kids going feral? The Church! It’s not like you have free rein to suggest banning cheese in schools, or mandatory pet days at the London Planetarium, is it? So, what could help reset the government’s wayward moral compass? Ah yes. The Church!

More articles from: Hugo Rifkind | this section

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