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WONGA, THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE FOOTBALLER
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WONGA, THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE FOOTBALLER  Wonga is one of Britain’s leading payday loan companies. Last month, the company increased its annual interest rate from 4,214% to an incredible 5,853%. When Wonga's annual interest was just a mere 4,214%, the money expert Martin Lewis calculated that if a person took out a £100 loan and if unpaid for seven years, £23.5 trillion would have to be paid back to Wonga. That amount is far more than the entire national debt of the US! Recently the head of the Church of England, Justin Welsby the Archbishop of Canterbury, told Wonga that he wants to “compete it out of existence” by allowing credit unions to use church premises and by encouraging church volunteers to help credit unions. Credit unions are member-owned cooperatives providing credit at much lower interest rates than payday lenders like Wonga. However, soon after the Archbishop made this bold challenge, it was revealed that Church of England’s investment fund had indirectly invested about £75,000 in Wonga. The Archbishop of Canterbury said he was “embarrassed” and “irritated” that his Church had backed Wonga. Wonga also sponsors the football team, Newcastle United, to the tune of £8 million a year. Recently Papiss Cissé, a Newcastle United footballer, refused to wear the football shirt emblazoned with Wonga.com because he is a Muslim; under sharia law, the giving and receiving interest on loans is prohibited. The club, with Wonga’s support, threatened sanctions against the player. Soon after making his threat, photographs of Papiss Cissé gambling in a casino were published in newspapers. He has now relented and will now wear the Wonga-inscribed football shirt. The Archbishop and the footballer have given Wonga a lot of free publicity. I nearly forgot to mention the two founders of Wonga, Errol Damelin and Jonty Hurwitz, are seriously rich men, and they have also given lots of money to the Conservative Party! Have you ever taken out a payday loan? Have you ever made a principled stand to only have to back down later? I once wrote a review of a book on the law. I wanted to make the point that the law is not equal and that, in the eyes of the law, the rich and powerful are ‘more equal’ than the poor and powerless. I compared how Tesco, a large supermarket retailer, was flagrantly breaching Sunday trading laws by opening many of its stores on Sundays during the 1980s and how Winston Silcott, an unemployed black man, was wrongfully convicted for the murder of a policeman during the 1985 Broadwater Farm Riots. A lawyer strongly advised me to insert the word ‘allegedly’ into my review in case Tesco sued for libel; neither the publisher nor I had the money to defend a libel case in court, which is further proof that the law is not equal. I swallowed my pride, ditched my principles and added the word ‘allegedly’! |
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Like you, I'm generally fortunate in my job in that I don't have to compromise my principles too much. 
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