There are no bad people in The Warden. The comparison with our own MPs is quite telling. The top churchmen always had most of the money once bequeathed to support the local pensioners. They justify that to themselves on the grounds that the church should make its own rules, and that society was better if it did. And only when it was given a harsh write-up in the press did it become clear that the internal, moral logic that they thought was perfectly fine actually wasn’t. There’s a clear link with what happened over the expenses scandal last autumn and good people are dragged down with the bad. It is a nuanced book, which draws attention to that, and a good one for any editor to read.
