The Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken of how yesterday's Westminster attack and the reaction to it illustrate the foundational values of British society.
Speaking in the House of Lords this morning in response to the Prime Minister's earlier statement, he offered three 'pictures'.
'The first is of a vehicle being driven across Westminster Bridge by someone who had a perverted, nihilistic, despairing view of objectives of what life is about, of what society is about, that could only be fulfilled by death and destruction.
'The second is of that same person a few minutes later, on a stretcher or on the ground, being treated by the very people he had sought to kill.
'The third is of these two Houses, where profound disagreement, bitter disagreement, angry disagreement is dealt with not with violence, not with despair, not with cruelty, but with discussion, with reason and with calmness.'
He said these pictures point to 'deep values within our own society – deeper even than ones that have been mentioned, quite rightly, in the Prime Minister's statement and in other statements – which is the sense that comes from (and you would expect this from these benches) a narrative that is within our society for almost 2000 years.
'That speaks of – at this time of year as we look forward to Holy Week and Easter – of a God who stands with the suffering, and brings justice, and whose resurrection has given to believer and unbeliever the sense that where we do what is right; where we behave properly; where that generosity and extraordinary sense of duty that leads people to treat a terrorist is shown; where that bravery of someone like PC Keith Palmer is demonstrated, that there is a victory for what is right and good; over what is evil, despairing and bad.
'That was shown yesterday. That is shown not just in our expression of values, but in our practices which define those values. And that is the mood that we must show in the future.'
He also acknowledged the help of members of the public who 'pitched in and did what they needed to do, when faced with things for which they had never been trained or prepared'.
He spoke of how a member of his own staff was caught up in the attack, saying: 'Yesterday afternoon, one of our own security staff at Lambeth Palace, a Muslim, arrived at the gate having been missed by the vehicle very narrowly, and spent time helping those who had been injured. It was typical of this community and this country that he refused to go home until the end of his shift, and simply spent the time doing his job as he expected.
'This has been typical of so many in this city – the emergency services who contained the incident within six minutes; the staff at this extraordinary place, who give so much of themselves on normal occasions, and extraordinary occasions.'
