27 July 2013

Dog-Collared Lucre Brokers

Glen Newey

To pardonable glee from the press, the new archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has got his crozier stuck in a cowpat, after suggesting that the Church of England could set up in business as rivals to payday lending firms. The church commissioners, who nurture the Church of England’s £5.5 billion-odd of assets, ‘manage a well-diversified investment portfolio’; in pursuit of this diversity they forked £75,000 to Wonga – generally seen as a ravenous great white among loan sharks, which last year was caught charging students interest at over 4200 per cent. Still, seventy-five grand out of five and a half billion is barely a drop in the font.