Channel 4 shouldn’t get to decide the next Archbishop

Most popular

Obviously, it is difficult to defend the leadership of the Church of England, and I am inexperienced in that art; but I do feel strongly that its episcopal appointments should not be controlled by Channel 4 News and Cathy Newman. This, in essence, is what is happening. First went Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, because Channel 4 News was determined to show that he had not reacted vigorously over the John Smyth scandal. (In my view, the Makin report failed to prove Welby’s culpability.) Next was the turn of the Bishop of Liverpool, John Perumbalath, forced out after Channel 4 News reported his alleged sexual assault against an unnamed woman and alleged sexual harassment of Bev Mason, the (female) Bishop of Warrington. By Bishop Perumbalath’s sad account on Facebook, which no mainstream media have covered, Channel 4 ran its long (17.5 minutes) and accusatory item although ‘the statement issued by the Church of England… said both the complaints were investigated by the National Safeguarding Team. And no safeguarding concerns were established’. The reporting is unbalanced. As he puts it, those accused dare not defend themselves fully ‘as that would be seen as victim blaming. So the accuser is able to tell whatever they want to say, and the accused should stay quiet’. Having little left to lose, the Bishop goes on to detail why his accusers are wrong. No one yet can know who is telling the truth, but that is the more reason for due process rather than trial by television with guilt decided in advance. In the case of the Right Rev Bev’s claim, Bishop Perumbalath writes: ‘It was about one incident of greeting each other in a room full of church leaders. I can say that confidently because I had to respond to an out of time application for a CDM [Clergy Discipline Measure] complaint. I wasn’t aware of this allegation for 11 months, which left me wondering why she wasn’t able to relate to me in the way we did before as friends.’ The ultimate purpose of the Channel 4 campaign is to oust the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, who is acting Archbishop of Canterbury, and who was close to Bishop Perumbalath when both worked in the Chelmsford diocese. I find it hard to sympathise with Archbishop Cottrell after he decided to inflict a roving Racial Justice Officer upon his diocese, but I must try. No iniquity is proved against him, as this week’s General Synod in effect acknowledged. Channel 4’s coverage assumes that the accusations of abuse are automatically true. That assumption strikes at the root of all justice. Those who advance ‘independent’ safeguarding without consideration of justice will add new wrongs to the abuse they rightly deplore.

The Crown Nominations Commission has begun its work to find Archbishop Welby’s replacement. A quick way to weed out the duds would be to declare any bishop who has used the cant term ‘global majority’ unfit for the high office. The only candidate I have so far not found uttering the phrase is Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich.

Nearly five years ago, I first reported that the China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge, purporting to be an academic project, was unmitigated propaganda for Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist party (‘national rejuvenation’, ‘extraordinary transformation’). Given that the world was suffering from a CCP-incubated plague, the Jesus grovel was particularly striking. Some of its work was backed by Huawei. None of it was truly independent. No criticism of the CCP passed the Centre’s portals. It still has not done so, because the Centre’s tenacious director is Professor Peter Nolan, an elderly Maoist, who has consistently refused to explain the Centre’s relationship with the CCP and where all its and his money came from. Over the years, Jesus College has squirmed and wriggled, but never got rid of the project and its kowtow. Now, at last, the Cambridge student magazine Varsity reports that the Centre (already renamed Forum) will close. It has not been publicly explained why, but Professor Nolan is retiring. This is a gratifying victory, not least for some persistent Jesuan alumni who would not let the matter drop, but a small one. After starting work on Jesus, I soon discovered that dozens of British universities have corrupt relationships with the CCP that avoid any form of study which could possibly be critical of the CCP in any way.

It is China worries, more than high charges for passage through the canal, which have caused President Trump to lean on Panama. The Americans built the canal to revolutionise their trading opportunities, so the growing influence of China there makes them feel rather as we would if Xi Jinping made his presence felt in the English Channel. Panama was, until Trump intervened, one of more than 150 nations in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It is extraordinary that western powers have allowed this imperial system to grow up in the past 12 years, without protest. The Road is the so-called Maritime Silk Road in the Indo-Pacific. The Belt is the overland road and rail links rebuilding for China the old trading routes to the West it once controlled. The project may have brought some advantages to some participating countries, but is a great imperialist design. The idea is that the Belt tightens round the participant nations and the Silk strangles them with debt for ports etc which they no longer control. I hope that President Trump’s strong words with Panama are the start of something much bigger.

Hunting recently, I noticed one of those burly teenage countrymen who still, I am glad to say, exist. It was his hair that struck me. On top of his head was a sort of mop and beneath was such a strange mixture of tufts and shaved bits that he looked as if he had got into a fight. No, I was assured, by a woman who knows, such a style is in fashion. It has led to a new rule at schools that no boy may have two haircuts at once.