Archbishop: Put morals back on political agenda

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, called for morality to be placed at the heart of the political agenda in an outspoken speech yesterday.

Delivering the Dimbleby Lecture, which will be broadcast on BBC1 tonight, the archbishop said religion could be used to insert an ethical responsibility into issues such as education and prison reform. Dr Williams, who formally replaced George Carey earlier this month, made his address before an invited audience of politicians, academics and church leaders.

He said that without religion, "our whole politics is likely to be in deep trouble". He also warned that the growth in consumerism and the market had led to the erosion of the nation state and that governments could no longer be guaranteed to provide a sense of security and wellbeing of the community.

Dr Williams said we were living in a time, "where the basic assumptions about how states work are shifting".

He also spoke of the "sinister implications" of the internet and electronic communications, suggesting that this had made terrorism harder to detect.