Rowan Williams pours scorn on David Cameron's 'big society'

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Rowan Williams pours scorn on David Cameron's...

Key policy 'comes across as waffle', says archbishop of Canterbury in valedictory bombshell

Toby Helm and Julian Coman

The archbishop of Canterbury has denounced David Cameron's "big society", saying that it comes across as aspirational waffle that was "designed to conceal a deeply damaging withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities to the most vulnerable".

The outspoken attack on the prime minister's flagship policy by Rowan Williams – his strongest to date – is contained in a new book, Faith in the Public Square, that is being prepared for publication ahead of his retirement in December.

Passages from the book, obtained by the Observer, reflect the archbishop's deep frustration not just with the policies of Cameron's government and those of its Labour predecessors, but also with what he sees as the west's rampant materialism and unquestioning pursuit of economic growth. Williams also laments spiralling military expenditure, writing that "the adventure in Iraq and its cost in any number of ways seems to beggar the imagination".

But it is his suggestion that the big society – Cameron's personal vision of a more active civic society – is seen by people as a deliberate cover for plans to shrink the state that will be most controversial.

Williams, who steps down in December after 10 years in his post, writes: "The big society, introduced in the runup to the last election as a major political idea for the coming generation, has suffered from a lack of definition about the means by which such ideals can be realised.

"Big society rhetoric is all too often heard by many therefore as aspirational waffle designed to conceal a deeply damaging withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities to the most vulnerable."

He suggests that ministers have fuelled cynicism over the Cameron vision by failing to define what the role of citizens should be. "And if the big society is anything better than a slogan looking increasingly threadbare as we look at our society reeling under the impact of public spending cuts, then discussion on this subject has got to take on board some of those issues about what it is to be a citizen and where it is that we most deeply and helpfully acquire the resources of civic identity and dignity."

Williams has never been afraid to wade into sensitive political issues during his decade at Lambeth Palace. But his valedictory work, to be released three months before he leaves office at the end of the year, is more strident in its criticism than anything that has come before. It is certain to cause fury in the government, which is under fire, including from some Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, for lacking a compelling message other than the necessity of public spending cuts and austerity.

A perception that the government is failing to prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable as it pursues growth has spread since chancellor George Osborne's controversial decision to end the top 50p rate of tax on incomes of more than £150,000 a year in his March budget.

In a powerful section questioning economic assumptions that govern modern societies, the archbishop takes issue with the idea that economic growth, defined as increasing production, is necessarily a good thing. "Practically speaking, at the individual and the national level, we have to question what we mean by growth," he writes. "The ability to produce more and more consumer goods (not to mention financial products) is in itself an entirely mechanical measure of wealth."

The archbishop argues this mindset "sets up the vicious cycle in which it is necessary all the time to create new demand for goods and thus new demands on a limited material environment for energy sources and raw materials. "By the hectic inflation of demand it creates personal anxiety and rivalry. By systematically depleting the resources of the planet, it systematically destroys the basis for long-term wellbeing. In a nutshell, it is investing in the wrong things."

No 10 said: "The launch of Big Society Capital in April is a concrete example of the government delivering on its plans – £600m to help create a funding model that is truly self-sustaining and that will help charities and social enterprises to play their part in building a bigger society."

The archbishop also says that the Labour party was wrong, in 2006, to make incitement to religious hatred a criminal offence, arguing that anti-Muslim statements or images could show courage. "The creation under British law of a criminal offence of incitement to religious hatred has provoked bitter and sustained controversy. Disproportionate attention has been given to a hypersensitive minority.

"Some anti-Muslim images or words (foolish and insulting as they may be) may well exhibit courage in a world where terrorist violence reaches across every national boundary."

He also calls for greater integration of Muslims living in Britain and insists they make their loyalty to "the nation state" rather than "the international Muslim community". "To suggest that the Muslim owes an overriding loyalty to the International Muslim Community [the Umma] is extremely worrying," he writes. "Muslims must make clear that their loyalty is straightforward modern political loyalty to the nation state."

Publisher Robin Baird-Smith, who runs Continuum, part of Bloomsbury, said that the book was "a powerful, carefully reasoned rebuttal of Williams's critics. This is not a work of theology. It is a book about the role of religion in public life – it touches on economics, ecology, public morality, atheism," he said.

He added: "This is thus a book of supreme importance."

Source: The Guardian UK