UNHOLY ROW OVER ECONOMIC CRISIS

Gordon Brown has clashed with the Archbishop of Canterbury over the failing economy
.

Rowan Williams likened the Prime Minister's fiscal stimulus package to an "addict returning to the drug" and suggesting the credit crunch was a welcome "reality check".

But Mr Brown reminded the head of the Church of England in a pointed public rebuke of the biblical stricture not to "walk by on the other side" when people were suffering.

The spat took place amid more gloomy economic news including record borrowing figures, soaring repossession projections and a further plummeting pound.

Dr Williams admitted in a radio interview he was "suicidally silly" to engage in economic debate but said he felt a moral need to comment on the Government's plans to combat the recession.

He said: "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.

Asked whether he meant the global financial crisis was a good thing, 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?"

Mr Brown, the son of a church minister, said in a Downing Street press conference: "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."