Over at Irene Lancaster’s weblog comes evidence that Lord Carey is none too happy at the media’s interpretation of a speech he made recently. Here is the Sunday Telegraph’s version:

In a speech that will be seen as a direct attack on Dr Williams’s ability to maintain unity in the Church, Lord Carey accused liberals of devastating the communion “that we once loved”…

“When I left office at the end of 2002 I felt the Anglican communion was in good heart,” he said. “It is difficult to say in what way we are now a communion. Bitterness, hostility, misunderstanding and strife now separate provinces from one another and divide individual provinces.”

But this was not an attack on Dr Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop and successor to Lord Carey. The text of the speech makes this clear:

When I left office at the end of 2002 I felt the Anglican Communion was in good heart, although forbidding black clouds were appearing on the horizon as a result of the decisive outcome of the Lambeth Conference on August 5th 1998 in which the Resolution on homosexuality was agreed overwhelmingly by the assembled bishops.

Dark clouds were already looming, and nothing to do with Dr Williams. But no doubt the urge to paint Lord Carey as attacking his successor will continue.