The Archbishop’s spite

Why does everyone think that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is so clever? Is it just the beard? Maybe if you nailed a beard onto Wayne Rooney people would start saying he was clever too, rather than thinking him a truculent potato-headed troll with learning difficulties. Beards are a mask, a diversionary tactic. If you say something stupid but thoughtfully stroke your luxuriant beard whilst doing so, people immediately think you’re not stupid at all, merely thoughtful, or cleverly thinking the unthinkable. Rowan’s been getting away with this for longer than I can remember. How many divisions does the Pope have? More than enough to deal with Rowan.

His latest statement of manifest stupidity would not be remarkable at all were it not for the fact that it betrayed a quality we do not usually associate with church leaders, namely spite. Delivering his Easter message via the offices of BBC Radio Four’s regular three minute God-slot, “Pious Wet-Lipped Liberal Wank”, or “Thought for the Day” as others know it, he said that a new law should be enacted to make “all cabinet members and leaders of political parties, editors of national newspapers and the hundred most successful financiers spend a couple of hours every year serving dinners in a primary school on a council estate, or cleaning bathrooms in a residential home.” Never mind the practicalities – how many of the Cabinet would get through the CRB check and be allowed anywhere near schoolchildren? – it is the naked, nasty, barrel-scraping populism of the suggestion which really offends. The sort of sentiment you might hear from the former Sun columnist, Jon Gaunt, on a bad day. Williams picked upon two groups of people – politicians and bankers – whom he knows the public does not much like at the moment and stuck the ecumenical boot in, with a palpable degree of glee.