Society

There have been 106 Archbishops of Canterbury since Gregory the Great declared Augustine his ‘Apostle to the English’ in 597. Their number has included Catholics and Protestants, progressives and traditionalists, academics, politicians, even a tank commander. But none had ever been a woman. Sarah Mullally’s appointment is a historic moment for the Church but it comes at a moment of peril for Anglicanism. The Church of England seems to be in a state of perpetual crisis. Few would argue that it serves the world’s more than 100 million Anglicans well or that it sits at the heart of public life. Sunday attendance has fallen by 40 per cent in the

Over many years as a journalist, writing for newspapers as well as authoring books, I’ve dealt with a sizeable number of celebs. And believe me, the majority are not exactly likeable. Well, no doubt their chums find them so, but their fame and money and ‘specialness’ tend to imbue them with haughtiness and self-importance, traits they bestow on those they regard as ‘the little people’. Their genial public personas are, I’ve often discovered, merely flimsy facades. The most shining exception to this general rule was Jilly Cooper, whose death at the age of 88 was just announced. I was deeply saddened to learn of it. We never met in person,