The grotesque interventions of the anti-Cummings bishops

God, I loathe the bishops. Not Beth Rigby, Robert Peston and the other hacks who seem to be auditioning to guide the morality of the nation. I mean the actual bishops, who turn out to be even less use than these competitively incensed cross-examiners.

Most people in Britain couldn’t name a bishop if they tried. But Nick Baines is a name worth remembering. The otherwise utterly un-noteworthy Bishop of Leeds came to my attention in January 2019 when he gave a talk at Bradford Cathedral in which among other political interventions he referred to Boris Johnson (then foreign secretary) as ‘an amoral liar’. 

Four months later the same Nick Baines, Bishop of Leeds, could be found warning against the increase in ‘violent bile’ and lack of ‘political restraint’ in discussions around Brexit. Another three months later and the good Bishop could be found appending his name to a joint letter of Church of England Bishops calling for ‘national reconciliation’ and, er, warning about the potential consequences of a no-deal Brexit.

Now Bishop Baines can once again be found entering the political arena by howling that Dominic Cummings is guilty of a ‘do what I say, not as I do’ attitude. An accusation that of course could never be levelled against Nick Baines, Bishop of Leeds.

I had assumed that my slight interest in the hypocritical Bishop was a private thing. So imagine my surprise when I learned how much media interest Bishop Baines and a few of his attention-hungry colleagues have been able to garner over recent days. 

On the BBC, Sky and other channels, various presenters in need of something to talk about in this moment of national crisis have spent the last couple of days stressing that a number of bishops have come out as anti-Cummings.