Quintin Jardine's blog

Will there be any follow-ups to The Loner? As of this moment, George, it’s a one-off, the story of a man’s life. But you never know. I have a couple of ideas.

From the moment of his appointment, I’ve thought there was something odd about the current Archbishop of Canterbury. Indeed, I see him as a curse cast upon the Church of England by Tony Blair, who, having done so, promptly buggered off to become a Catholic. There is nothing right about Dr Rowan Williams, least of all his politics. For openers he is an adherent of two religions, the other being druidism. You’ve heard of the anti-Christ? Then the A of C has to be the anti-Anglican; someone should check under his cassock for cloven hooves.

He is also, it seems, an idiot, if today’s Financial Times is anything to go by. He wants the government to sign up to a new European impost on financial transactions, named the Tobin Tax after its economist inventor, but labelled already by the media as ‘The Robin Hood Tax’. There is precious little under Dr Williams’ hood if he does not see  the iniquity of such a measure.

The proposal is that it will be levied on the sale of shares, bonds and foreign currency, raising envisaged billions to be invested in the developing world. The reality is that it will be passed on by financial institutions to their customers, people with equity based pension funds and other investments intended for their retirement, and people who need a few hundred euro, US dollars or other currency for holidays or other trips abroad. The irony is that it is being proposed by the geniuses who have led the eurozone into its present parlous state. Its effect will be to pillage the savings of ordinary people who have worked damn hard to build up some meagre resources; yes, folks people like you and me. And what are the chances of any of this stolen money going anywhere near the developing world? Slim and none, and Slim’s already left town. No, it would go to shore up the euro. Simples.

What has brought on this latest rush of blood to what is left of Dr Williams’ head? The sight, it seems, of a few screwballs in tents camped around St Paul’s Cathedral, a public outrage that instead of condemning, he is tolerating and even encouraging. But that should surprise nobody. Recently, England’s senior cleric accused the government of committing Britain to ‘radical, long-term policies for which no-one voted’. Actually many people did, but I do not recall Church of England members voting for him. Indeed I suspect that if they were offered a referendum on his fitness for office, the druid archbishop would soon find himself banished to a Welsh hill-top, condemned to watch endless reruns of ‘The Wicker Man‘.