Enter the Archbishop, calling for Robin Hood tax on City
Call for Tobin tax puts Rowan Williams on collision course with Cameron and Osborne
DR ROWAN WILLIAMS, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has taken to his pulpit today to call for a 'Robin Hood' tax on banks as he intervenes at last in the dispute over the anti-capitalist protesters camped on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral.
Back from a Vatican conference on "peace and justice" in Assisi, Italy, he has written an article for this morning's Financial Times in which he calls for David Cameron's government to support European proposals to tax financial transactions, and says that the Occupy London Stock Exchange demonstration is "an expression of a widespread and deep exasperation with the financial establishment".
"There is still a powerful sense around – fair or not – of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers," he writes. "Of messages not getting through; of impatience with a return to 'business as usual' – represented by still soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices."
The Prelate's intervention follows days of chaos at St Paul's Cathedral which have led to the resignation of three senior clergy and yesterday's decision to withdraw support from the City of London proposal to have the protestors with their tents forcibly evicted.
The Cathedral has also asked the retired investment banker Ken Costa to propose ways to "reconnect the financial with the ethical", and to include on his team Dr Giles Fraser, the cathedral's former Canon Chancellor who was the first to resign last week in protest at plans to evict the demonstrators.
Dr Williams invades the realm of Mammon with a series of practical suggestions for hearing the voices of the protestors and the public sentiment behind them. He supports the idea of "ring fencing" retail banking from speculative investment banking and of placing more obligations on banks that took taxpayers' money to stay afloat.
"If we want to take seriously the moral agenda of the protestors at St Paul's," he writes, "these are some of the ways we should be taking it forward." ·
