Yet an examination of the letter shows that it contains several references to issues that are already at the heart of the pre-campaign and are likely to remain until election day. For instance: The climate of chronic family instability, sexual chaos and exploitation, drug abuse and educational disadvantage is a lethal cocktail. And: There are things that really should make us tremble, rootlessness and alienation among some of our urban youth, the degradation of the environment, the downward spin into chaos and violence of large parts of the poorer world.
Even more specifically, the letter complains that familiar anxieties over terror, asylum and immigration are already featuring in campaigns and asks the parties not to exploit people's fears in an effort to win the election. Not for the first time since he became Archbishop of Canterbury, one wonders just which planet Dr Williams is living on.
People already have fears about terror, asylum and immigration and it is difficult to understand how proposing and campaigning for policies to deal with them can be regarded as exploitation.
There are some choice passages in this open letter. One calls for more support for stable families and marriage, but not in the context of middle-class, middle England nostalgia. What on earth does that mean?
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