The End Times Are Upon Us

The Church of England faces being wiped out as a significant national force without an "urgent" campaign to recruit more believers, a report warns. In the last 40 years the number of adult churchgoers has fallen by half while the number of children regularly worshipping in public declined by 80 per cent, the study says.

The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, the Rt Rev Paul Butler, will present findings to the Church's national assembly, the General Synod, in York on Saturday. Synod members will be urged to vote for a new national drive to recruit more members.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has acknowledged that the Church must devote more energy to increasing the number of regular worshippers over the next five years.

In other news :

"Church of England report calls for affirmative action on race"

"Affirmative action" = the practice formerly known as "racial discrimination".

"The Church of England is to give the go-ahead for the appointment of openly homosexual bishops."

It's one of those strange historical oddities, like Britain being invaded and conquered every thousand years, that the Church of England was born of the adulterous desires of one prince, and on its sick bed condoned the adultery of another.

But the (IMHO terminal) sickness of the Church of England is no cause for rejoicing. It was great once, a noble Church of a kind that we should not dare to raise our voice against. It is fallen, and its cure is beyond us; but I would that it lived, in the hope that it may find one.


UPDATE - the great and good Rev. Peter Mullen :

"Frankly, much of the Church has been mad for decades."

Another frothing racist

" a determined Islamic attack"

"That is the type of evangelism they are doing: mass-production, so if you have four wives, four children, sixteen children, very soon you will be a village"

"surrounded by Islamic domination"

Who is this spittle-flecked, swivel-eyed chap ? Quite obviously one of those embittered types who's not cool with diversity and thinks that (parental advisory - the writer thinks that swearing is grown-up) "a significant portion of the babies being born are, apparently, the wrong sort of babies – babies from ethnic minorities, babies with immigrant parents and lone parents, black babies, poor babies".




Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, 56, was elected Primate of Nigeria last week.




Like his predecessor, the great Peter Akinola, the Archbishop seems to have the CoE hierarchy pretty well taped.

“Who is the leader in the Christian world? There is no leader”

That's you, Rasputin, that is.



While we're on the subject of the Church of England, here's another canary in the coalmine.

Lewis Bullock, an IT and business consultant in Dubai, was only 14 years old when he took the bold step of changing his faith from Christianity to Islam while growing up in the UK.

"I only had brief knowledge of Islam from our world religions class; in fact, we had the image that it's a religion for Indians and Pakistanis," Bullock said, who comes from a religious Christian background with his father and grandfather (a priest) belonging to the Church of England.

Obviously another one driven away by "the wishy-washy standards of contemporary Christianity".

"I have developed a new lifestyle different to the accustomed one in the UK and I tried to make my family understand this change by pointing to the irregularities in the lifestyle and high divorce rates as compared to arranged marriages," he said, adding that his marriage to an Arab UAE national has helped to strengthen his faith in Islam.

He's right of course. In fact, I've noticed recently a new trend on left blogs in the comments. When hideous righties talk about defending Western culture, the response is "what culture ? Binge drinking, high crime, family breakup ?" - all things which the left have been in the forefront of promoting - and things which once only hideous righties used to complain about.


Obviously no problems with the Bullocks' family life.

Bullock is a fluent Arabic speaker of the colloquial Emirati accent and enjoys his career and family life with his wife and five boys.

What's German For "Schadenfreude" Again ?

Rowan Williams complaining about people not liking Britain is like Schopenhauer moaning about pessimists.

The Archbishop of Canterbury told shoppers yesterday that Britain was a country that was “unhappy” and “didn’t seem to like itself”.

Speaking in a city centre pub in Cardiff, Dr Rowan Williams told his informal congregation after a presentation on social problems that the nation seemed ill at ease with itself and was in urgent need of some help.

“What we saw was a picture of a country and society that doesn’t seem to like itself very much,” he said. “We are not very happy, we look around for people to blame . . . When society is that unhappy then society has a problem.

I can't understand it. After all, apart from a few surviving traces of sexism, racism and homophobia, Roy Jenkins' "Civilised Society" is pretty much with us today. That bad old Britain of the 1950s, when innocent murderers were hung, innocent criminals and innocent homosexuals were sent to prison, and the streets ran red with the blood of the victims of domestic violence and back street abortion (the victims of the latter being the mothers, of course, not the babies), classrooms rang to the screams of the victims of corporal punishment - and worst of all to the Archbish, the Church of England was a strong supporting pillar of such evil - is now history.

Only a few elderly bigots cling to the hideous morality of our wicked past - and they'll soon be dealt with.

Summer Floodwaters From The Curate's Brook

More a collection of links, really - stuff I just haven't found the time to blog about :

This story is one of a number in the last couple of years about Muslim prison gangs. Wasn't someone killed by Muslims in Frankland in the last year or so ?

Prison authorities have compiled an action plan for dealing with a kidnap plot involving radicalised Muslim convicts inside Britain's jails. The dossier has been compiled in the past few months following rising tension in the prison system. Intelligence gathered from Britain's eight top-security prisons indicate that specific threats to kidnap and decapitate an officer first emerged at Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire six months ago. However, a senior prison source said that the risk went beyond one jail.

Most primary school teachers have been women - and that's probably true even going back to Victorian days. It wouldn't be so bad that only one primary teacher in 50 is male - if so many boys didn't have a male role model / authority figure in their lives.

"The secret state that steals our children" - Camilla Cavendish on the family courts - a must-read. One family's story here. More here.

Rasputin's real views on homosexuality and Christianity revealed - it wasn't exactly a secret now, was it ? Like John Humphrys, Mary Ann Sieghart wishes he'd have the courage of his convictions.

Ross is posting some good stuff at the moment ... and Marko Attila Hoare - where did he get that name ? - is worth reading on the ex-Soviet Empire, even if you don't agree with everything.

Who's been stabbed or shot recently ? Public Perception has the stories.

They've got your phone calls. Now they want your email and browsing habits. Not just MI5/6, who one tends to assume already has that sort of thing. Your local council, health authority, etc. Surprise surprise, it's driven by an EU directive.

And for details of all such things, EU Referendum - in terms of adding to one's knowledge, it has to be the best Brit politics site on the Web. Also highly informative - the Yorkshire Ranter - he may be a lefty, but he knows an awful lot about technology, particularly the military stuff. A rattling good read.


So, he left her flat at 6 am, leaving - according to his testimony, the deceased still alive and well.

Her body was found two days later. I can see that, were she still alive, she might not have spotted him pinching her mobile and Oyster card, which he used on his way home. They're the kind of things you can slip into a pocket. But how in God's name, if they are alive, do you steal someone's DVD player and Freeview box without them noticing, leaving the flat with "a big bag" ?

You do have to wonder if the jury was made up of people who don't like pre-op transexuals like poor Kellie Telesford. Alleged illegal immigrant Shanniel Hyatt is very fortunate that the full weight of British law didn't descend on him. Had he been found guilty, he might have ended up doing two whole years for manslaughter !

Repent And Be Saved !

Back at you, babe ! We've become used to what seems like the annual disruption of Christian meetings by homosexual campaigners. Here the Guardian readers at prayer in Giles Fraser's Putney parish get a bit of extempore preaching. I'd better make it plain that I disapprove of disrupting religious services, even when they're full of Guardianistas who are going to hell (we are all sinners at risk of that). One should stand outside, leaflet and engage. But of course, as Mr Peter Tatchell would no doubt point out, you don't make the news that way.

Minister Ben Bradshaw was there. I must say I had no idea he was a Christian. I see his dad was a vicar. And his brother is Jonathan, the comfortably off poverty specialist.

Quote Of The Day

I don't know if it's original, but I'd not heard it before - James at WhatsThatSmell? on Rasputin :

"At the very least, he's so open-minded, his brain's fallen out"

Rasputin Consolidates New Fan Base

In the UK and US they think he's mad as a fish, but Rasputin's views on Sharia law have made him a host of friends in the Muslim north of Nigeria.

Mauled by the media for suggesting aspects of Sharia Law should be incorporated into the British legal system, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has become something of a hero -- even a Christian legend -- in Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria.

Speaking at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London on March 6, the leader of the multi-million strong Qadiriyyah wing of the Islamic faith, Nigerian Sheikh Qaribullahi Nasiru Kabara, told academics and diplomats that he felt "very good" when he heard what Williams had to say at a February lecture.

"I felt very good," the sheikh said. "The people of northern Nigeria are very happy. It shows the recent upward rating of the British and the way they see Islam...That call from the Archbishop of Canterbury caused a serious round of celebrations because people feel, 'These people are now listening to us. Let us look at them and talk to them properly.'"

Of course, happy or not, some of the people of northern Nigeria have killed thousands of Anglican Christians in the last few years.

Over 10,000 people have died in religious violence since 1999 when several northern states decided to implement the Shariíah penal code in defiance of the countryís secular constitution. The Wase area of southern Plateau State has experienced intermittent violence since the summer of 2002 when attacks by armed Muslims on the predominantly Christian Taroh tribe left at least 5,000 people dead, 100,000 displaced and over 80 villages destroyed.

There was a lull in the violence during 2003 when the State Governor, Joshua Dariye, convened local peace talks. However, tensions mounted once again on January 3 2004 after it emerged the Muslim Emir of Wase, deeply implicated in the violence of 2002, had brought more than 500 Muslim families to the area to settle in towns and villages abandoned by displaced Christians.

I somehow doubt that Nigerian Christians are quite as chuffed with the Mad Monk.

Canterbury Tales 2008

Iowahawk updateth the Canterbury tales. Read the whole thing.

... the hooly Bishop takynge tea
Whilste watching himselfe on BBC.
Heere was a hooly manne of peace
Withe bearyd of snow and wyld brows of fleece
Whilhom stoode athwart the Bush crusades
Withe peace march papier-mache paraydes.

Sayeth the pilgryms to Bishop Rowan,
"Father, we do not like howe thynges are goin'.
You know we are as Lefte as thee,
But of layte have beyn chaunced to see
From Edinburgh to London-towne
The Musslemans in burnoose gowne
Who beat theyr ownselfs with theyr knyves
Than goon home and beat theyr wyves
And slaye theyr daughtyrs in honour killlynge
Howe do we stoppe the bloode fromme spillynge?"

The Bishop sipped upon hys tea
And sayed, "an open mind must we
Keep, for know thee well the Mussel-man
Has hys own laws for hys own clan
So question not hys Muslim reason
And presaerve ye well social cohesion."

He's madder than ever

Rasputin's really gorn and done it now. When even liberals like Ruth Gledhill wonder if you've gone crackers you know you're in trouble.

Has the Archbishop gone bonkers?

Forgive the stark clarity of my headline, but sometimes when writing about the Archbishop of Canterbury, clarity is what is needed. I ask this of readers here, because this is the question put to me time after time this afternoon by incredulous commentators of every variety, stunned into blunt expression by the Archbishop of Canterbury's uncharacteristically clear comments on Sharia in Britain. The Archbishop believes adopting aspects of sharia law into British law would help maintain social cohesion.

The funny thing is that only a few days ago this 'liberal' Archbishop was calling for "thoughtless and, even if unintentionally, cruel styles of speaking and acting” to be made a criminal offence.

Now we may all have an idea of what that would mean in practice. But you can't get much more thoughtless than the Mad Monk's latest. Even John Humphrys might not be too keen on Sharia, though the extra wives might come in handy. What's Hebrew for "chutzpah" again ?




UPDATE - I'm sorry to say that Rasputin is an alumnus of my mother's old school, Dynevor - as was Spencer Davis (this video marking the first recorded appearance of the fuzzbox) - whose mum I think worked in the Lewis Lewis department store. By strange chance, the last I heard of very wonderful singer Steve Winwood - what a voice for a teenager - he was playing the church organ on Sundays not so very far from where I live.

Rasputin's At It Again

My contempt for Rasputin really knows no bounds.

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has launched a stinging attack on US policy, comparing it unfavourably with the British Empire. In an interview with Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel, he said the British Empire had put energy and resources into "normalising" lands it took over.

But the US had assumed a "quick burst of violent action" to "clear the decks" was it all had to do in Iraq. It thought it could then leave others to "put it back together", he said.

Dr Williams said the US, as the only "global hegemonic power", was trying to accumulate influence and control, rather than territory. But he said: "That is not working," describing the result as "the worst of all worlds". He told the magazine the US had lost the moral high ground since the 11 September attacks and needed to take steps including "generous aid" to "the societies that have been ravaged", a "check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories" and a "demilitarisation" of its presence in them in order to recover.

Now it may be that the whole interview (which is not available online) is somewhat more nuanced than the Beeb's excerpts. I hope so, because as presented it's full of lies. The US, for example, is the most generous aid donor in the world. But Rasputin, while an idiot, is not stupid. He'll be well aware of how this will be presented - as a dig at the Great Satan.

(I note that the enterview was with Sarah Joseph, editor of Emel, Catholic apostate, intelligent middle class English girl and another Brit convert. Her brother's a convert too. The twittering in the coal mine gets a little louder.)

UPDATE - The full waffle is at Ruth Gledhill's blog. Doesn't alas alter anything above. Thanks FW for the heads-up.

Rasputin Responds

When 138 Muslim scholars addressed the open letter "Oi mate - a quiet word in your ear" (pdf) to Christian leaders, I suggested that Rasputin would be one of the first to enthusiastically endorse it.

Rasputin will be well up for it, I'm sure. He might even agree that no mullahs in same-sex relationships be appointed to British mosques for a year or two.

He certainly seems quite keen.

In this country, in which we are together both British citizens and citizens of heaven, love of neighbour could happily be our watchword for the year ahead. My hope is that we shall be able to demonstrate the meaning of neighbourly love towards those around us, whether of faith or not.

Hope springs eternal. My fear is that the meaning of neighbourly love is likely to become all too apparent in the years ahead. It may not be neighbourly love as understood by the Mad Monk.

Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself ..

The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians, Islamic scholars told the Pope today.

In a letter addressed directly to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, 138 prominent Muslim scholars said that finding common ground between the world's biggest two religions was not "simply a matter for polite ecumenical dialogue".

The letter, which is entitled A Common Word between Us and You, says: "Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world's population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians."

Rasputin will be well up for it, I'm sure. He might even agree that no mullahs in same-sex relationships be appointed to British mosques for a year or two.

"With the terrible weaponry of the modern world; with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants. Thus our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake," the letter says.

It adds that the Qur'an entreats Muslims to treat Christians and Jews with particular friendship, though it also warns against aggression from Christians.

"We say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes," the letter says.

"With Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before", eh ? But there are quite a lot of places where Muslims and Christians aren't intertwined - we can start with Saudi Arabia, followed by a host of countries where Muslims and Christians used to be intertwined - until the Christians were driven out. Palestine for starters.

Lets take apart that concept a bit more. Where Christian and Moslem are intertwined with a Christian minority, where's any conflict coming from ? Are the Copts rioting or letting off bombs in Egypt ? No, they're being attacked and stabbed. Turkey, where the Christian minority is tiny after the events of 1917. Are they rioting or setting off bombs ? No, they're being shot and stabbed.

Where Christian and Moslem are intertwined with a Moslem minority, say in Britain or France, where's any conflict coming from ?

To ask the question is to answer it.

You can't help feeling that what's being presented to Christian leaders is a not very cryptic warning, accompanied by an invitation to surrender.

Rasputin's signature in the railway carriage is pretty much a foregone conclusion, although Bishops Sentamu and Nazir-Ali may not be so keen. But what of our Pope, Benedict ? He's tough enough with the CoE on doctrine, but whatever faults they may have (and they are many), they're not likely to react with violence. What will he say to this invitation ? Please pray for him.



(btw, the Armenian massacres of the Ottoman Empire are much in the news at present. Although Johnny Turk was a reasonably fair fighter against uniformed opponents, he didn't seem to behave very well when confronted with popular resistance. If the much-maligned Black and Tans had behaved like the Turks in Bulgaria, there'd have been a lot of abandoned villages in Cork and Limerick)

High Noon For Rasputin

The Mad Monk will have to choose.

Just a short walk from the muddy waters of the Mississippi, the Anglican bishops of the United States have gathered to decide whether they will provoke the biggest schism in the Church of England since its foundation by Henry VIII.

At issue is the role of gays in the Anglican Communion and the status of Gene Robinson, a homosexual father of two daughters who was elevated three years ago to become the Bishop of New Hampshire. On Tuesday, the American bishops, the majority of whom are liberals, are expected to vote to support a greater role for gays and lesbians in the Church, both with regard to the creation of new bishops and the blessing of same-sex relationships.

Unless they can be persuaded otherwise, it seems certain the move will irrevocably split the Church, ending the Anglican Communion and creating an alternative alliance between Africa and conservatives in the US. It could not be more appropriate that the final battle is set for New Orleans, a city so steeped in its reputation for sin and debauchery that the fire-and-brimstone wing of America's Christian Right attributed the destruction of Hurricane Katrina to the cleansing wrath of the Almighty.


Will he get out of town with his true love, the uber-liberals of the US Episcopal Church, or will he take the steep and narrow way of duty, turn from his path and blow away the idolaters, though they be as many as the grains of sand on the seashore ?

Your guess is as good as mine. What's a foregone conclusion is that both sides will end up hating him - which in the end is a tragedy. Like Neville Chamberlain, he "ran into tides the force of which he could not measure, and hurricanes from which he did not flinch, but was unable to cope".

Swirling About In A Cess-Pool Of His Own Making

Don't ask me what this is all about. A secret communion service that's all over the media ? I suppose they're interpreting the word 'secret' in the light of recent scholarship and much prayerful reflection, or something. Maybe they're listening with open hearts to the experiences of those who think it means 'reported in the Times'.

It looks as if once again Rasputin is managing brilliantly to offend everyone. It's what he does, in the immortal words of Tom Butler.

Get Religion has an entertaining take on the whole sorry saga.

I don’t think the Third World traditionalists are going to compromise. And I don’t think the American left is going to compromise now on issues of the sexual revolution. They are not going to be willing to offend the New York Times editorial board and other sources of doctrinal power and authority. So at some point, England is going to have to figure out which way it wants to go. And the Church of England is just as divided as the American church on these issues.

(Mitre-tip - Sam Tarran)

"A looser interpretation of Scripture"

More American priests opt for spiritual oversight from Africa rather than their own nation. How long before African missionaries are preaching the Word to the heathens of the UK ?

A meeting of primates in Tanzania this year agreed to draw up a “covenant” that would commit Churches to procedures for resolving disputes within the Communion, but the flow of American renegades to Africa has continued. More than 30 congregations have joined the Kenyan Church. Others have found sanctuary with Nigerian, Ugandan and Rwandan bishops. More than 200 of the 7,000 Episcopal congregations in the US have opted out of the covenant.

200 out of 7,000 is about three percent. Not a flood, but still a perceptible number.

Peter Akinola Interview

Times :

“The missionaries brought the word of God here and showed us the way of life. We have seen the way of life and we rejoice in it. Now you are telling me this way of life is not right. I have to do something else. Keep it for yourself. I do not want it.”

No Nigerian bishop needs to go to Canterbury to learn how to be a bishop, he says. “No Nigerian Anglican needs to go to Lambeth Palace to learn how to become a Christian. It is all available here. We rejoice in our fellowship, we rejoice in our heritage as Anglicans. We celebrate it. But our unity will never be at the expense of truth, of the historic faith.”

In spite of what Western church leaders fear, he has no ambitions to lead a breakaway church. “That has never been on my mind. This is the media thing. You see we have scripture. We have our traditions. We have not broken the law. It is your churches that are breaking the law. You are the ones breaking the rules. You are the ones doing what should not be done with impunity. We are saying you cannot sweep it under the carpet. Maybe in the past you could get away with it, but not any more. We have aged. So we are not breaking away from anybody. We remain Anglicans. We are Anglican Church. We will die Anglicans. We are going nowhere.”

Rasputin's not been a very good shepherd. The ageing, barren American and English sheep in one part of his pasture are given over to practices offensive to the healthier, more vigorous Nigerian flock. One side of the field bleateath not to the other. All very sad.


(An aside - perhaps the first violent jihadist attack in the UK was the 1995 murder of Nigerian Christian Ayotunde Obanubi, stabbed to death at Newham College in east London by mates of Ed Husein and totally off the radar of liberal England. One of those charged (the charges were dropped) with the murder was banged up for nine years not long back.

A Briton who allegedly tried to buy missiles to shoot down airliners has been jailed, it has emerged following the Old Bailey fertiliser bomb trial. Reporting restrictions covering the conviction of Kazi Nurur Rahman have been lifted. Rahman, 29, was arrested in November 2005 after trying to buy three Uzi sub-machine guns in a police sting. He pleaded guilty and was jailed for nine years but details were kept secret because of his links to the defendants.

"Last bid to stop Anglican split"

I seem to read this headline about five times a year. I wish they'd get on with it.

"A move to censure the liberal wing would dismay many followers in Europe and lead to charges of hypocrisy. According to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM), some 100 bishops worldwide are homosexual, though many are not active."

If they're not active, it's not a problem. It's acts, not desires. We all desire to do things which are contrary to the Commandments. I know I do.

Rasputin - May Contain Traces of Christianity

"I don't believe inclusion is a value in itself. Welcome is. We don't say 'Come in and we ask no questions'. I do believe conversion means conversion of habits, behaviours, ideas, emotions," he told a Dutch journalist.

"Ethics is not a matter of a set of abstract rules, it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. That applies to sexual ethics."

The archbishop said that he was determined to preserve the unity of the church from being destroyed by the warring factions in the gay crisis. He said he has backed a resolution which says that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Bible.

The Rev Giles Goddard, the chairman of Inclusive Church, a liberal group, said the archbishop's comments revealed an "astonishing" change in his position. He added: "The implication is that there is no justification in scripture for the welcome of lesbian and gay people. It appears that he has moved into the conservative camp."

Chris Bryant, a homosexual Labour MP, said that many people would feel betrayed by the archbishop's comments. "The Church of England wouldn't survive without gay clergy in inner cities.

"People will feel this is a huge betrayal. Rowan has refashioned the Church of England into a narrow-minded, conservative sect."

I think he just doesn't want to go down in history as the bish who split the Anglican Communion. Still wouldn't trust him an inch. The good news is that now, neither will anyone else.

Rasputin - May Contain More Traces of Christianity

Imagine my surprise when the BBC Sunday programme (Realaudio) told me this morning how the Archbishop of Canterbury was in Pakistan, raising with political and religious leaders his concerns about the oppression of Christians in that country.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has said that Christian minorities in Pakistan and other Muslim countries were often not provided justice and it was a matter of concern.

Well strike a light, thought I. I'll not forget the good he does, any more than I'll forget the bad. I'll do a little post on this.


I might have known that wouldn't be all.

The Crusades were a serious betrayal of Christian beliefs, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said yesterday.

Speaking 900 years after Christian warriors sacked Jerusalem, the Archbishop said that any attempt to revive the crusading ideal today would not garner much support among Christians.

His comments, made in Pakistan, appeared to be an attempt to reassure Muslims that the Churches are anxious to avert confrontation between the West and Islamic states.

In the past he has warned western leaders, particularly President Bush, against using sensitive religious language such as the term "crusade" to justify the war against Iraq.

That's right, Rasputin. The Muslim conquest by fire and sword of the historic Christian regions of Anatolia and North Africa ? Let's not talk abou that, shall we ? An attempt to partially reverse those conquests ? God, aren't we awful !

Meanwhile in Wales ....

In a sermon to mark International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women, Dr Barry Morgan said Christians had "often used the Bible" against women.

It's certainly heavy enough - but it would be blasphemous so to use the good book. An erring wife or child should be lovingly chastised with this weighty tome.

Homophobia and Church News

When David Morley was beaten to death in an unprovoked attack last year, Rasputin issued a press release implying that Anglicans who disapproved of homosexual clergy used the kind of language that inspired Mr Morley's killers.

I pointed out at the time that said killers were unlikely to be churchgoers.

Rasputin wasn't the only one to blame "homophobia" for Mr Morley's death. There was a march through London, Peter Tatchell blamed Jamaican singers - probably a bit nearer the mark than Rasputin was. One and all shouted "homophobia" !

So it's with joy and relief that we greet the news that it WASN'T a homophobic attack. It turns out Mr Morley was one of eight people assaulted that night, of which two at most were homosexual. The perpetrators were doing it for fun - they'd have killed a straight just as happily. Just an ordinary, multiracial crew of young Londoners out for a good time.

Thank heavens. We can all breathe again. Except Mr Morley, of course.