Sunday Telegraph report 'as wrong as wrong can be' - Archbishop's office

A spokesman for the Archbishop of York has dismissed newspaper reports as being "as wrong as wrong can be" in reporting a recent speech by the Archbishop of York.

"The headline of the story is as wrong as wrong can be" said the Rev Arun Arora, spokesperson for the Archbishop of York.

"The truth of the matter is exactly the opposite to what the headline says. In his lecture entitled 'A Broken Society ? ' - which was purposefully framed as a question - the Archbishop dismissed claims that British society was broken and urged his audience to abandon the scapegoating and blame game associated with such descriptions of British society.

"Ironically the Sunday Telegraph seems to have done exactly that."

Mr Arora was responding to a story published on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph - headlined "Britain is broken, says archbishop" - which misreported the contents of the speech made by the Archbishop on 21 February and also inferred Dr Sentamu's comments were a rebuke to a speech made on March 1 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The Archbishop's speech was more than a week old by the time of the Prime Ministers comments, claimed his spokesman, and hence could not be taken as endorsing or criticising any political party.

"The story is plainly wrong to suggest the Archbishop's comments are a response to the Prime Minister's speech, given that Dr Sentamu's comments were already ten days old when the Prime Minister spoke in Birmingham.

"Unfortunately the story in the Sunday Telegraph is a litany of inaccuracy - even the location of where the Archbishop delivered his speech is wrong. In addition some of the quotes used in the story were taken from previous speeches given by the Archbishop, at least one of which was two years old, but dressed up to appear as if they were made in Cambridge."