The Church of England issues a damning judgment of the state of Britain under the Coalition as a country in which the poor are being ‘left behind’ and entire cities ‘cast aside’ In a direct and unapologetically ‘political’ intervention timed for the beginning of the General Election campaign, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, warn politicians against selling a ‘lie’ that economic growth is the answer to Britain’s social problems.They condemn inequality between rich and poor as ‘evil’ and the assumption that the value of communities is in their economic output as a ‘fundamental sin’. Britain, they argue has been ‘dominated by rampant consumerism and individualism,’ while the Christian values of solidarity and selflessness have been supplanted by a new secular creed of ‘every person for themselves’. While London and the South East forge ahead, much of the rest of the country is still  ‘trapped in apparently inevitable decline’.