Did Liz Truss snub Justin Welby?

Back in October, international trade secretary Liz Truss held the first meeting of the reconvened historic Board of Trade after decades in abeyance. The appointment of former Aussie PM Tony Abbott among others to this once great commercial champion prompted a paroxysm of fury from the usual suspects, with Truss’s shadow Emily Thornberry dubbing him a ‘Trump-worshipping misogynist.’ But now it transpires that Abbott’s appointment could have been the least of the Department of International Trade’s worries.

A Freedom of Information request has confirmed that the modern Board is a continuation of the late eighteenth century entity, established by the Order in Council of 1784. As this Order has not been revoked, there are no new Orders in Council, Warrants or Ministerial letters in relation to the creation of a new Board of Trade. This means that not only does the Board’s full title remain The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations – hardly one for the right on brigade – but that there are numerous ex officio members, including the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The thought of Justin Welby descending from Lambeth Palace appears to have filled the mandarins of the DIT with such dread that he has not been invited to any meetings over the past four years nor informed of the progress of the Board of which he still remains a member. A departmental spokesperson