They might as well change the name of BBC Radio Four to BBC Radio Taliban. The same goes for BBC Television. The Corporation's first response to the attack on the US was to stuff Question Time with virulent lefties and a group of very aggressive Muslims who proceeded to blame America for the massacre of its people in New York and Washington.

It makes me want to tell you the politically-correct version of the parable of the Good Samaritan: a social worker sees the poor man who has been beaten up and robbed lying by the roadside; he ignores the victim and exclaims angrily: "The person who did this needs help!"

Every day we have to put up with voices on the BBC telling us that Americans brought the attack upon themselves because of their greed and selfishness - because their economic policies damage the developing world. It has even been said that the attack on the US was "punishment" because the Bush administration refused to sign the Kyoto agreement on global warming.

Of course, there is a great deal of poverty and suffering in undeveloped countries, but this is not the fault of global capitalism; it is the direct result of corruption, violence and economic mismanagement on the part of the leaders of those nations. While I'm at it, I might as well dispose of the myth of "the developing countries". It is argued that they need a lot more aid from the West. But what is foreign aid? It consists of poor people in rich countries, such as Britain and the US, giving money to rich people in poor countries - rich dictators who then use Western aid to keep their cronies and secret police on side while neglecting the development projects which the money was meant to support in the first place.

The Western democracies are not perfect. No political system is perfect for the simple reason that all human beings are morally flawed. But it is a matter of degree. Consider the freedoms we enjoy in the west. We choose our leaders in free elections. We live under the rule of law, not tyrants. We extend religious and cultural freedom to all-comers and then wring our hands and accuse ourselves of "institutional racism". If we were really institutionally racist, how is it that we allow all these mosques, synagogues and Hindu temples to be built throughout the land? Disgrace of the week was Jack Straw fawning all over the leaders of Iran - who then proceeded to denounce him and the West when he had left to apologise to Mr Sharon for his earlier slur on Israel.

I am sickened by these whingeing lefties who come on the BBC to despise our country along with its political liberties and its tradition of decency, and to rubbish our history. The fact is that capitalism works better than any other system. And those poor countries which have had the sense to hitch their wagon to the global market and to embrace democracy are showing signs of emerging out of poverty.

Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange

Published: Tuesday, October 2, 2001