Julian Armitstead

Lisa Nandy: "He's right to say that it is unprecedented in recent times that an entire group of away supporters have been entirely banned from a game" Unprecedented in recent times? In 2023 Legia Warsaw fans were banned from a game at Villa Park.

It’s not easy to give a fair and balanced public assessment of someone you know personally, even slightly, but here is my best attempt as someone who knows Sarah Mullally slightly – she was Canon Treasurer at Salisbury Cathedral when I arrived in the city 12 years ago. The strengths – Sarah is a superlative behind-the-scenes operator of the Church’s machinery; she knows what governance is about and how to make machinery of governance work. Her colleagues regularly spoke exceptionally highly of her in this regard, spontaneously and without prompting, when she was in this diocese. She has succeeded as a liberal, Central Tradition, Bishop of London, in holding together a notoriously difficult diocese with large blocs of Conservatives on both the Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic ends of the C of E. It isn’t even that the Diocese of London is a microcosm of the entire Church of England—it’s actually far more difficult and far more divided than most of the rest of the Church, and it has been for decades. I presume that’s why she got the job – she’s seen as the person to improve the operation of central machinery and hold the Church together in an era of threatened splits and repeated criticism of poor governance. The weaknesses – Sarah isn’t a great preacher and isn’t a great public communicator. She’ll have people round her to help with this. She’ll need them. The imponderables – it has felt in recent years felt that the central institution is almost embarrassed of ordinary C of E parishes – whether in villages like mine or suburbia, while often speaking out of both sides of its mouth towards parishes in council estates and post-industrial towns, praising them in words but starving them of resources. One of Justin’s key projects was lavishing resources on attempts to establish new megachurches in the Charismatic Evangelical mould while normal parishes struggled to pay the bills. Some of these attempts worked – one quite near me – but most failed on their own terms, yet this model retains substantial institutional support. Will this continue or will a fairer distribution of central resources now come about? This is actually far more important to my life as working parish clergy than sharper theological or ideological questions. Sarah wasn’t the continuity Welbyist candidate - that was clearly Pete Willcox. But, just as with Pope Leo, it will take months-to-years for us to understand what she’s really about as changes are slowly rolled out - or not made - through dozens of committees and funding mechanisms. Despite being someone who holds strongly to meritocracy and nowadays often yawns at self-congratulatory statements about diversity in appointments, I’m also very proud that the third most senior/prominent office in the entire Christian world is held by a woman. Psalm 96.1. Sarah has my heartiest congratulations and my prayers.