The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has stated his sympathy for calls to impose a tax on financial transactions. Writing in the Financial Times, Dr Williams says that would produce revenue which the government could use to advance the "moral agenda" of the protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral.

Speaking on the Today programme the Bishop of London Dr Richard Chartres said it is right for the church to be involved in financial matters.

"We want people to be prosperous and we want them to be generous," he told presenter Sarah Montague. "But how that wealth is distributed and how it's invested for the common good, these are major ethical problems and people don't want to think about finance simply in a technical way. They want to think about it in the context of ethics, morality and God"

And the bishop insisted St Paul's would recover from the crisis it was facing, adding "Christians are very used to near-death experiences; they're also used to resurrections. The cathedral has burned down. Its symbol is the phoenix. I have absolutely no doubt that that will be the story this time as well."

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