A massive clerical error

For once, the devil does not lie in the detail. The real problem with the sharia row triggered by the Archbishop of Canterbury is not legalistic, but that it should be happening at all. What on earth possessed the most senior Christian churchman in the land to suggest what he did in the first place? Since when is the function of the established Church to recommend an accommodation with the tenets of imported theocracy?

The Archbishop’s primary role, one assumes, is to care for the souls of his own dwindling flock. Instead, poor Dr Williams gets his surplice in a twist, proposing with the garbled logic of which only a true academic is capable that part of the answer to the dual allegiance felt by British Muslims might be to recognise certain aspects of sharia law. It is a relief to learn that the Archbishop is not recommending public executions in Brick Lane or the cutting off of thieves’ hands in Burnley.