Promised by Jack Spong with a major confrontation at Lambeth '98 over homosexuality and related issues, Dr Carey and the apparatchiks have already begun the campaign to side-track discussion to the subject of Third World debt. This is presumably on the age old principle that it is always better to discuss something for which one has no direct responsibility and about which one can do nothing, than to disagree about something for which one is responsible and where action is inevitable.
Edward Spalton of Derby, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph (January 26) gave the Archbishop and assembling worthies something to think about:
SIR, The Archbishop of Canterbury urges the West to rescind the debt of African countries (report, Jan. 21). Much of this debt is the result of corruption. Has Dr Carey ever asked the ruling cliques of these and other Third World countries to open up their Swiss bank accounts and return the money to the people they have robbed? Why does he think it a good idea to transfer wealth from relatively poor taxpayers in rich countries to extremely rich racketeers in poor countries?