By Their Fruits

The Church of England's General Synod has taken time out from worrying about sexual organs and has come over all ethical about its investments in Rupert Murdoch's tar and feather empire. A vicar from Bury St Edmunds said that "senior figures in the church were embarrassed", at last, by its holdings in Murdoch, and the church's Ethical Investment Advisory Group, which has apparently found nothing to disapprove of in the Sun or its sty-mates until now, has written a letter to Rupert Murdoch exhorting him to clean up his act lest dire spiritual consequences ensue. If the appeal to God brings forth no redemption, the church always has Mammon to fall back on: "disinvestment is our ultimate sanction if engagement does not work". The Anglican church owns shares to the value of £3.7 million; doubtless this was considered a suitably minor sum for the nation's established religion to have invested in topless models and right-wing propaganda, particularly given the decline in the number of deserving poor who might otherwise have benefited.