Archbishop-of-Canterbury

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.telegraph....vid-Cameron-says.html

Should clerics such as Dr Rowan Williams make political comments, especially when they do not involve religious matters, but are just his own obvious Labour held views?

If he wants to follow a political career, he should give up his lucrative career and put himself up for election.

However, I must agree with him on the coalition point, the electorate should have been given a choice, a hung parliament, a coalition of their choice or a new election.

[mike11111]

I was going to comment on the fact that someone else found Welsh sheep attractive, but I shall refrain.

[sandyRoe]

Speaking truth to power isn't as risky as it used to be. He might have ended up in the Tower years ago.

[whiskeryron]

//
Sqad
237SJ....He has gone further than that saying or inferring that he is speaking on behalf of the electorate. I don't know many people who have met the Archbishop, so where does he get his information from?//
Where does David Cameron get his information from that the people voted for him to put hundreds out of work in the public sector who have been loyal servants in the NHS & Local government & who are now on the scrapheap ? Ron.

[237SJ]

Sqad - I suppose he gets his information from feedback from the people in his diocese? After all politicians claim to get information from the electorate and I have never met any of them either.

[joggerjayne]

Antidisestablishmentarianism surely no longer has a place.

We should all be Disestablishmentarianists ... particularly if we are hoping to be acknowledged as a multi cultural society.

[Sqad]

Well at least the boys (Politicians) do have constituency offices and have surgeries where they come face to face, eye to eye with the British public........knock on doors have research assistants ect.

Have you seen the Bishop down your street?..You would have more chance seeing your MP.....a little more......but at least he is available.

[New Judge]

We need to be wary of this “educated man who is only voicing his opinions”. In 2008 he advocated that parts of Sharia Law be adopted in the UK.

Well educated he may well be, but not so well educated, it seems, to know that in the UK voters do not elect a government or vote for policies. They elect MPs to represent them at Westminster and it is those MPs who choose Ministers. The ministers devise policies and the Members vote for them.

There is nothing unusual in a party (or parties) not doing what they said they might do if elected (or indeed doing things that were not mentioned in their pre-election garbage). This particular government is better placed than most to in this respect because, as a Coalition, it is not bound by any single party’s manifesto. They can also argue (as they do) that they cannor keep their pre-election pledges because of "the Coalition Agreement".

The Most Vicious and Evil Cuts in Public Spending The World Has Ever Seen (about which the Archbishop pontificates) actually equate to a reduction of about 0.7%. The country will still be running a huge deficit for the next four or five years (and some) and this illustrates quite clearly how profligate the previous administration was. If the Good Doctor Williams thinks such profligacy is sustainable he has perhaps not put his education to as good use as he might have.

There is, of course, the other small matter that as well as not voting for what he describes as “radical policies” (I've yet to see any) nobody voted for Dr. Williams either.

[BertiWooster]

// I presume that most of the people whom the Archbishop meets believe in a supernatural super-deity, controlling all our lives ... ie they are loonies. //


//..but if you have a logical rational long hard think about the what where and why of what he believes in, he is a loonie.//


Given that the Queen is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and whoom some of you on here would have no criticism against .

Are you therefore comtent to have a ' loonie' as your monarch ?

[Gromit]

http://i.telegraph.co...MATT-web_1917313a.gif

[jno]

given that 100 years or so ago virtually everyone in Britain was a Christian, it's surprising that a country full of loonies has produced such an enlightened lot of descendants.

[anotheoldgit]

/// "He's an educated man" ///

/// makes you wonder then how comes he dresses in a strange uniform ///

They are the vestments of his position as an Archbishop, just as other ceremonial adornments are for other state officials.

Would you question the robes of judges etc, or even the uniforms of the Chelsea Pensioners?.

[venator]

He does seem out of touch, and a bit of a wierdo - he can't do much about the outfit, but surely someone should tell him his hairstyle and beard don't do anything for his image...

[venator]

weirdo ...

[mike11111]

This may or may not be relevant, but Williams was a Blair appointee. The two front runners at the time, the Archbishop of York, David Hope, and the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, either of whom would have been eminently acceptable to the majority of Anglicans, were passed over in his favour.