The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has warned that the rise of "button pushing" politics in Britain is eroding the basic democratic traditions which underpin a healthy society.

In his first major address as Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams described the emergence of a new market-based model of the state: "By pushing politics towards a consumerist model, with the state as the guarantor of 'purchasing power', [the market state] raises short-term expectations. By raising short-term expectations it invites instability, reactive administration, rule by opinion poll and pressure."

Delivering the annual Dimbleby lecture to an invited audience at Westminster School, Dr Williams added: "The apparently simple and attractive picture of a more direct relation between individuals and government, the button pushing model, a contract that can be honoured by the prompt delivery of what the consumer orders is not the ideal of democratic debate, but parody of it."

Education, he said, faced a particular challenge:

"We are no longer confident of educating children in a tradition. Schools can't do the job of a whole society, sustaining a 'tradition' on behalf of the whole community, an accepted set of perspectives on human priorities and relationships, a feel for the conventions of common life; they can do a certain amount of damage limitation in the context of a rootless social environment, but cannot of themselves sustain a culture that can command loyalty outside the school gates."

Dr Williams argued that in the face of such challenges, religion had a fundamental role to play in providing a wider context and setting for our understanding of who we were as individuals and communities.

"The historic role of the Church of England has been and still is making space available. Its history-its constitutional position-however controversial that has become for some-means that it is obliged just to be there, speaking a certain language, telling a certain story, witnessing to certain non-negotiable things about humanity and the context in which humanity lives."

Dr Williams added, "We are bound to ask where there is a future for the reasonable citizen, for public debate about what is due to human beings, for intelligent argument about goals beyond the next election. My conclusion is that this future depends heavily on those perspectives that are offered by religious belief."

The lecture was established in 1972.

The lecture was broadcast on BBC1 TV Thursday 19th December 2002 at 10.35pm.