Hypocrites of the week

From an article in today's FT headed "Church accused of hypocrisy after archbishops' attack on short selling"...

Hedge funds pointed to the willingness of the church commissioners to lend foreign stock from their £5.5bn ($10.2bn) of investments - an essential support for short selling - and derided the [two archbishops] for not understanding shorting. "They are trying to shoot the messenger and . . . deflecting attention away from the dramatic incompetence of bank executives," said Hugh Hendry, of hedge fund Eclectica Asset Management. "Short selling is the pursuit of truth." ...

As well as aiding shorting by lending stock, the church commissioners had £13m invested in Man Group, the biggest listed hedge fund manager, at the end of last year. The commissioners also sold a £135m mortgage portfolio last year, says their annual report, despite Dr Williams' criticism of trading debts for profit. Through the Church of England pensions board, which manages another £847m, the church invested this year in a fund from Auriel Capital, a London hedge fund, which aims to make money from currency trading - including short selling currencies.

And their excuses are the best bit ...

Andrew Brown, secretary to the commissioners, said they did not invest in Man's products, only its shares, and none of their managers used shorting. "We can assure you that the commissioners' stocks have not been used to facilitate the shorting of financially vulnerable institutions in the US and UK, including HBOS," he said. "Nor will this happen."

Ahem. That's like saying "Although we invest in arms manufacturers we do not buy weapons. We used to be involved in shorting financial stocks, but we stopped doing it recently once public opinion turned against, although we still short other non-financial stocks. And we're not going to short sell financial institutions any more because it's illegal now."