Ian Paisley on the financial crisis: Repent
During yesterday’s British House of Commons debate on the banking crisis, the Rev Ian Paisley sounded like an Old Testament prophet. The MP for Antrim North called for repentance and prayer.
Daily Mail columnist Quentin Letts says the reverend “spoke for us all”.
Having prefaced his remarks by saying that he remembered the soup kitchens of the early 20th century, Ballymena’s preacher man predicted ‘very terrible times’ ahead in this ‘dark hour’.
And lo, the mountain did quiver and quake as ye prophet spake. And there was a weeping and wailing and a mashing of mobile telephones from 10 Downing Street.
‘I trust,’ said Mr Paisley, lifting two watery eyes to the firmament and licking the desert air with his Old Testament tongue, ‘that our whole nation will turn in repentance and cry to God for an intervention so that calamity will not come on our children and on babes in cots’.
The House sat slightly stunned. Repentance? From politicians? I wouldn’t count on it, padre.
Indeed. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling could only offer this barely coherent response:
‘Er,’ he said, ‘I am not as well qualified to comment on whether or not divine intervention can help us or not.’
Glasgow’s The Herald adds this:
Other than that, Mr Darling skilfully said nothing at all, and the market dropped anyway.
Maybe that was the point at which the City traders were taking Mr Paisley’s advice and were on their knees. When mammon fails it is time to turn to prayer.
But which came first: lack of prayer or failure of mammon?