By Terry Lovell HarperCollins. £15.95
Terry Lovell, a former news editor of The People, claims that the Church Commissioners became involved in business practices which were fundamentally unChristian.
'It was a financial scandal', he claims, that involved 'reckless property investment, unethical conduct, massive borrowings of hundreds of millions of pounds, and a level of administrative incompetence that would cause a parliamentary enquiry to accuse the Commissioners of acting with 'unbelievable naivete'.'
Lovell's book has chapters on the history of the Commissioners, the events leading up to the property crash, the Lambeth enquiry which followed it and the Turnbull proposals for change. One fact that became more widely appreciated afterwards was the Byzantine historical relationship between the Commissioners and the Church. They trace their origin to a gift from royalty ('Queen Anne's Bounty') given to assist the church's work, but they cannot properly be regarded as part of the church; they are more like a state quango, with high level church representation, and a powerful Assets Committee enjoying virtual independence of the main body.
