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Diary: Sorry, Dave, the C of E likes women more than you do Diary: Sorry, Dave, the C of E likes women more than you do
(30 days later)
• If you thought David Cameron’s reshuffle last week was a showcase for promoting women, imagine what the Church of England’s appointment process for promoting them to the episcopate is going to be like. Now it has finally taken the plunge, the good old C of E is desperate not just to get a female candidate into the ranks of the junior episcopate – the suffragans – but to go the whole hog with a diocesan bishop who can go straight into the top tier and the House of Lords.• If you thought David Cameron’s reshuffle last week was a showcase for promoting women, imagine what the Church of England’s appointment process for promoting them to the episcopate is going to be like. Now it has finally taken the plunge, the good old C of E is desperate not just to get a female candidate into the ranks of the junior episcopate – the suffragans – but to go the whole hog with a diocesan bishop who can go straight into the top tier and the House of Lords.
• The formalities will be completed at a General Synod in November, and the first vacant diocese would then be Gloucester, early next year. But Southwell is coming up fast on the inside. It will be halfway through the appointments process itself then, yet is wondering whether it can introduce women candidates at a late stage before it makes its final choice. Oxford, the next diocese down the slipway with a vacancy, is thought unlikely to go for a woman as it has hardline conservative evangelicals – the same men who prevented the gay cleric Jeffrey John from becoming bishop of Reading a decade ago – in positions of influence, ecumenically opposed to both women and gay people.• The formalities will be completed at a General Synod in November, and the first vacant diocese would then be Gloucester, early next year. But Southwell is coming up fast on the inside. It will be halfway through the appointments process itself then, yet is wondering whether it can introduce women candidates at a late stage before it makes its final choice. Oxford, the next diocese down the slipway with a vacancy, is thought unlikely to go for a woman as it has hardline conservative evangelicals – the same men who prevented the gay cleric Jeffrey John from becoming bishop of Reading a decade ago – in positions of influence, ecumenically opposed to both women and gay people.
• There is a sense of marking time in the appointments process. One recent diocesan vacancy took several meetings to find a suitable male candidate – people dropping out, people falling ill, limited choice – and things got so fraught when the diocese’s representatives refused to accept the hierarchy’s favoured candidate that a senior churchman angrily refused the archbishop of Canterbury’s request that he should close the meeting with prayers. Not terribly Christian of him.• There is a sense of marking time in the appointments process. One recent diocesan vacancy took several meetings to find a suitable male candidate – people dropping out, people falling ill, limited choice – and things got so fraught when the diocese’s representatives refused to accept the hierarchy’s favoured candidate that a senior churchman angrily refused the archbishop of Canterbury’s request that he should close the meeting with prayers. Not terribly Christian of him.
• Priti Patel, the Tory MP for Witham, proved her credentials – ethnic minority: tick, woman: tick, Thatcherite: tick – long before her promotion to a junior Treasury ministerial post last week. Indeed, she seems to have been a precocious Tory loyalist from birth. As she told the Commons last year in paying tribute to the baroness: “I was proud to grow up during the Thatcher years. As a young girl in the 1970s I was fully aware of the disastrous state this country was in …” No mean achievement considering she was only seven when the Tories came to power. • Priti Patel, the Tory MP for Witham, proved her credentials – ethnic minority: tick, woman: tick, Thatcherite: tick – long before her promotion to a junior Treasury ministerial post last week. Indeed, she seems to have been a precocious Tory loyalist from birth. As she told the Commons last year in paying tribute to the baroness: “I was proud to grow up during the Thatcher years. As a young girl in the 1970s I was fully aware of the disastrous state this country was in …” No mean achievement considering she was only seven when the Tories came to power.
• Meanwhile, Nadine Dorries, one Tory MP who wasn’t promoted last week, did a reading of her much-panned novel, The Four Streets, to a literary festival in Bedfordshire. She told the audience that when she was a child in Liverpool her family was so poor she could not go to school because she had no shoes. Now she is so successful she wears Louboutins. The baroness would approve. And they say the Tory party has no sole.• Meanwhile, Nadine Dorries, one Tory MP who wasn’t promoted last week, did a reading of her much-panned novel, The Four Streets, to a literary festival in Bedfordshire. She told the audience that when she was a child in Liverpool her family was so poor she could not go to school because she had no shoes. Now she is so successful she wears Louboutins. The baroness would approve. And they say the Tory party has no sole.
• At least someone’s pleased to see Philip Hammond at the Foreign Office. North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Su Yong, has sent him a message of congratulation, expressing the expectation that “friendly and cooperative relations would grow strong in mutual interests”. It couldn’t be, could it, that Pyongyang has an unlikely sleeper at the heart of the British establishment?• At least someone’s pleased to see Philip Hammond at the Foreign Office. North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Su Yong, has sent him a message of congratulation, expressing the expectation that “friendly and cooperative relations would grow strong in mutual interests”. It couldn’t be, could it, that Pyongyang has an unlikely sleeper at the heart of the British establishment?
• Finally, here’s heavy metallist Alice Cooper in Classic Rock magazine, being asked about the weirdest autograph request he has ever received. “We were in a 24-hour doughnut shop in Los Angeles. It’s 11pm and packed when suddenly a gun shot goes off. Some guys are robbing the place. We bolted into the kitchen and as we did, bullets hit the wall behind us. We get out into the alleyway, but the getaway car’s waiting there and they fire off a few rounds at us. As we climb a wall, I realise there’s a guy with us. On the other side, my heart is bursting out of my body. He looks at me and says, ‘Are you Alice Cooper? Can I have your autograph?’ I swear it’s true! We went back over the wall, I gave the cops the make and model of the car and the guy got his signature. I was left shaking for about three days.” Alice Cooper, eh? – stool pigeon as well as softie. It was probably the makeup that gave him away.• Finally, here’s heavy metallist Alice Cooper in Classic Rock magazine, being asked about the weirdest autograph request he has ever received. “We were in a 24-hour doughnut shop in Los Angeles. It’s 11pm and packed when suddenly a gun shot goes off. Some guys are robbing the place. We bolted into the kitchen and as we did, bullets hit the wall behind us. We get out into the alleyway, but the getaway car’s waiting there and they fire off a few rounds at us. As we climb a wall, I realise there’s a guy with us. On the other side, my heart is bursting out of my body. He looks at me and says, ‘Are you Alice Cooper? Can I have your autograph?’ I swear it’s true! We went back over the wall, I gave the cops the make and model of the car and the guy got his signature. I was left shaking for about three days.” Alice Cooper, eh? – stool pigeon as well as softie. It was probably the makeup that gave him away.