Brown has Biblical run-in with Archbishop

The Government cannot "walk by on the other side" when people are suffering, Gordon Brown said today in a Biblical comeback to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Dr Rowan Williams likened the Prime Minister's plans to combat recession by boosting spending to an "addict returning to the drug".

And the head of the Church of England suggested the credit crunch was a welcome "reality check" for a society which has become driven by unsustainable greed.

Mr Brown said that as the son of a church minister he always listened to senior church figures and backed the Archbishop's call for action against irresponsible bankers.

"But I think the Archbishop would also agree with me that every time someone becomes unemployed or loses their home or a small business fails it is our duty to act and we should not walk by on the other side when people are facing problems," he said.

"That's the reason why our fiscal policy is designed to give real help to families and businesses and to give them that help now."

The Prime Minister was responding to outspoken comments made by Dr Williams earlier as part of a scathing assessment of "moral" failings in Britain's economy.

Interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he insisted the country had been "going in the wrong direction" for decades by relying on financial speculation to generate wealth quickly rather than "making things".

The UK had backed itself "into a corner", and must now rediscover "patience" and rethink the way it viewed material gain, he said.

Dr Williams expressed concerns over the Prime Minister's "fiscal stimulus" package, which included cutting VAT to get the public spending again.

Questioned on whether increased spending was the right way to tackle the downturn, he said: "It seems a little bit like the addict returning to the drug.

"When the bible uses the word 'repentance', it doesn't just mean beating your breast, it means getting a new perspective, and that is perhaps what we are shrinking away from."

The Archbishop added: "It is about what is sustainable in the long term and if this is going to drive us back into the same spin, I do not think that is going to help us."

He said people should not "spend to save the economy", but instead spend for "human reasons" - to provide for their own needs.

Dr Williams admitted he was likely to face criticism for giving economists "advice" on how to tackle the crisis.

"It's suicidally silly, I think, because I am not an economist by any stretch of the imagination," he said.

"But I want to ask where these moral questions are in the economic discourse."

Asked whether that meant the global financial crisis wracking the economy had been beneficial, Dr Williams replied: "It is a sort of a reality check, isn't it - which is always good for us.

"A reminder that what I think some people have called fairy gold is just that - that sooner or later you have to ask: 'What are we making or what are we assembling or accumulating wealth for?'."

Dr Williams went on: "I would like to think that in this sort of crisis people would be reflecting more on how you develop a volunteer culture, how you develop a culture of people willing to put their services at the needs of others so that there can be a more active, a more vital civil society."

The Archbishop called on the Government to give more of a lead on "how the civil society is created".

Mr Brown, facing questions in Downing Street after talks with the Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek, said: "My father was a church minister so I always listen very carefully to what the Archbishop of Canterbury and other members of the clergy say.

"I support what he says about a strong civil society and the need for responsibility and the need to act against irresponsible behaviour when it appears in the banking and financial systems as it has in recent times.

"But I think the Archbishop would also agree with me that every time someone becomes unemployed or loses their home or a small business fails it is our duty to act and we should not walk by on the other side when people are facing problems.

"That's the reason why our fiscal policy is designed to give real help to families and businesses and to give them that help now."