When Rowan Williams, the sharia-supporting Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke out in defence of Karl Marx this week it was tempting to shrug one’s shoulders and file it under “Well, what did you expect?”.

But when the normally sensible John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, joined in the attack on modern capitalism, it is time to sit up and take notice.

Bishop Sentamu condemned traders who cashed in on falling share prices as "bank robbers and asset strippers".

I’m afraid the Archbishop, a courageous and godly man, simply does not understand the market. The only reason the so-called short sellers were able to force down the price of banking shares was because they were overvalued in the first place, built as they were on a mountain of bad debt and years of irresponsible loans.

If the market fundamentals underpinning the shares had been sound, the price could not have been forced down as far as it was.

By helping expose the real value of shares short sellers perform a vital service. The last thing we want is an artificial, rigged market that protects badly-managed companies from economic realities.