Comment: The archbishop is still wrong

Dr Williams suggested last week it was "unavoidable" that some aspects of sharia law would be adopted in Britain. Today he showed some humility, although he did not take back his remarks, attempting instead to set them in context.

His intervention has brought a storm of criticism, although today the Prime Minister rallied to him, praising him as a man of "great integrity".

Dr Williams's integrity is not in question. But whatever today's clarifications, it is hard to see how sharia law could result in anything but more separate communities. As many commentators have pointed out, no group can choose the laws it wants to obey selectively: the law has to apply equally to everybody. This is essentially the argument made yesterday by both Lord Carey, Dr Williams's predecessor as archbishop, and by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who represent different positions on many issues but are united in their concern over his intervention.

What is more troubling is Dr Williams's apparent inability to see anything wrong with his remarks: he simply claims that his original comments have been "distorted". He may have calmed his critics within the synod for the moment, although he still faces a difficult week that will be dominated by the sharia row and by arguments about homosexuality. But interventions like this one do nothing to help either community relations or his own credibility.