ARCHBISHOPS – are they best confined to old-fashioned jokes about what was said to them by actresses? Except that lately it has been a case of what the archbishop said to the nation.

Or, perhaps more pertinently, what assorted news editors and commentators who sit on the right-hand side of our national classroom decided he had said.

Sharp objects were thrown, and ordure was heaped upon the archbishop’s wispy white hair and some of it dribbled down his passing cloud of a beard.

At such moments it is worthwhile looking at what was actually said. And no, on this occasion we are not addressing our own ecclesiastical worthy, but his boss, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

His fluffiness has been lambasted for comments he made in an article in the New Statesman, a small circulation lefty magazine. Your columnist used to enjoy reading this publication, until the free copies stopped arriving at the office.

Last week, Dr Williams wrote a leading article in an edition for which he was the guest editor. The way his thoughts and comments were reported was an object lesson in how debate is conducted in this country.

The archbishop was mugged as he made his way back to Lambeth Palace. He must have wandered into a dark street, possibly the one that runs above the River Fleet, where he was roughed over and fragments of his article were stolen.

These purloined phrases ended up in the gratefully grabbing hands of the news editors of certain national newspapers. And, lo, the archbishop was thoroughly done over.

He was berated for criticising the Coalition, and beaten about the head for suggesting that “we are being committed to radical long-term policies for which no one voted”, and for daring to point out that the “big society” was a painfully stale attempt to distract us from deep spending cuts.

On the evidence as presented, the archbishop stood accused of entering the political arena and, worse, of being a worrisome old leftie.

Now I have had my doubts before about archbishops and what they say, usually on the grounds that as a more or less secular nation we should not have to be lectured by the holy high and mighty.

So do I now have to eat my words? Well, no – but I shall give them a quick chew.

The problem is that on this occasion, Dr Williams was attempting something worthwhile: to articulate the unease many people feel about the reforms in health, education and other areas that the Coalition is rushing into – while pondering generally about how politics is conducted in this country.

His criticisms of the Coalition, and by implication David Cameron, were sharper than anything you are likely to hear from Ed Miliband. Yet he also had a go at Labour, although you wouldn’t know it from the outraged commentators, who conveniently overlooked that section.

Here is what Dr Williams said after he criticised the “big society”: “But we are still waiting for a full and robust account of what the left would do differently and what a left-inspired version of localism might look like.”

Fair enough too, I would have thought.

He also said “political debate in the UK at the moment feels pretty stuck”, which seems true too. Sadly, such debate in this country remains an orchestrated slanging match, in which the cheerleaders twist and turn the evidence to suit their ends, and then shout very loudly. Cameron, to his credit, said that Dr Williams was entirely free to disagree with the Government.

A more common problem with Dr Williams is that it can be hard to define exactly what he is going on about, due to the opaque nature of his thoughts. On this occasion, his words were mostly clear, and more thoughtful than he has been given credit for. Well, apart from his use of the phrase “associational socialism”. If you have half an hour to spare and no life to lead, try a quick Google. It is possible you will end up none the wiser.