June 9th, 2007 by lex
I was reading this BBC news story about Sony Entertainment’s questionable decision to use the Manchester Cathedral as the backdrop for one of their first-person-shoot’em-up video games – after all, being part of the Anglican Communion (at least for now) I do have a certain fraternal, albeit casual interest in the goings on of the mother church – when I ran across this absurd justification for a potential C of E lawsuit against Sony:
The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, described the decision to feature the city’s cathedral as “highly irresponsible” – especially in the light of Manchester’s history of gun crime.
“It is well known that Manchester has a gun crime problem,” he said.
“For a global manufacturer to re-create one of our great cathedrals with photo-realistic quality and then encourage people to have guns battles in the building is beyond belief and highly irresponsible.
What’s beyond belief is that the BBC swallowed that last bit from the Rt Revd Nigel hook, line and sinker: Guns are banned in Britain, have been for ten years. How can there possibly be a “gun crime problem” in Manchester?
You’d think these guys would have editors, or something.
