Values fail the test

GIVEN recent appeals both in your columns and on this letters page for a more compassionate and widely responsible UK foreign policy, it is not surprising that only discreet prominence was given to an address by David Cameron (your report, 17 December) on the danger of moral collapse in the UK.

Speaking at an event organised by the Church of England celebrating the King James Bible, Mr Cameron disarmingly admitted he was a “vaguely practising” Christian and was “full of doubts” about some theological issues.

Further, he was not against other faiths, or those people who are without faith. Nevertheless, he insisted, it was the Bible’s set of values and morals which had made Britain what it is today and which we should “actively stand up and defend”.

Some of the sins that Mr Cameron mentioned as contributing to our degeneration were excess in the City, MPs’ expenses abuses and Islamic terrorism.

The foreign policies of his government apparently didn’t get a mention, which is a pity, for surely some at least of his audience were puzzled how his respect for biblical values squared with the almost universally condemned (but supported by his party) invasion of Iraq and with the intense bombardment of Libya, which the late Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi himself described as “barbaric”.

For my part, I am resolved to write to his Foreign Office, suggesting that, in inspiration, a statue might be erected there in some quiet, reflective corner, of the late Robin Cook, who, preferring Christian deed to word, resigned the FO’s top desk in magnificent protest against the invasion of Iraq.

Fantasy, these hopes? Maybe, but, as Mr Cameron has shown, it is the panto season – and come to think of it, so close to Christmas, isn’t it something of a reversal for the Church of England to be asking politicians to advise on Christian values?

JOHN MELROSE

Whitehaugh Park

Peebles