Simon English: Divine time for Church to offload News Corp

Outlook The Church of England has taken a bold ethical stance. It has decided to sell its holding in that disgraceful outfit News Corp because of phone hacking and its lack of a proper corporate governance structure (it has only just noticed that the company is Murdoch heavy, and tends to favour family members for top jobs). The fund is run by various men of God, including David Harding of Winton Capital (personal fortune: about £800m). By lucky chance, or divine providence, the shares of News Corp rose about 50 per cent in the year between when the Church decided it was awfully bothered about News Corp's ethics and the decision to sell.

But then, if God can't call markets, who can? Other companies the fund has invested in: BP (without scandal), HSBC (no issues here) and GlaxoSmithKline (never been in trouble for anything).