Stop the finger pointing, legal expert warns BBC and Welby

THE BBC and the Archbishop of Canterbury should both stop pointing the finger at one another over child abuse, a victims’ representative has said.

The Most Rev Justin Welby had got into a row with the broadcaster after claiming the church handled sex scandals with more integrity than the broadcaster.

Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, said the BBC and the Church of England should both be “looking very hard at themselves and be focused entirely on how they can both look to improve safeguarding.

“Both organisations have been guilty of appalling failings in terms of safeguarding children and neither should be pointing the finger at the other,” he said.

The Archbishop had told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the corporation had not dealt with complaints as well as the Catholic and Anglican churches. Martin Bashir, BBC religious affairs correspondent, responded by telling the Archbishop: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

A Lambeth Palace spokeswoman said that since the Archbishop’s appointment children and vulnerable adults had been made the highest priority. She added: “The Archbishop believes this level of rigorous response and self-examination needs to extend to all institutions, including the BBC.”

Justin Humphreys, of the Churches Child Protection Advisory Services, warned: “I think we run the risk of being accused of pointing the finger while not looking at our own back yard.”

One reason I like the present Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, is that he takes to heart Saint Paul’s famous words: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”

Obviously, it was foolish, in any worldly sense, for the Archbishop to attack the BBC for saying that he hadn’t seen the same “integrity” in the way the BBC dealt with abuse by Jimmy Savile as the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church had dealt with comparable accusations.

Foolish, partly because it prompts critics to quote another line from the New Testament: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye”; partly because the BBC is a very great power in the land. Sure enough, the Corporation immediately used Archbishop Welby’s words as a way of attacking him rather than examining for a second whether he might be right.

But “foolish” Justin Welby had already put himself beyond the BBC pale, because he is the first Archbishop of Canterbury since the invention of broadcasting to have a policy of mentioning Jesus Christ in all his public utterances. Last Good Friday, he was invited to present Thought for the Day on Radio 4. On seeing his script, the BBC authorities protested that it had too much God in it, which is like telling Mary Berry to stop talking about cakes.

The BBC has a statutory duty to cover religion, but it intensely dislikes all those areas which are most distinctive about religion – prayer, parish life, liturgy, doctrine; faith, hope and charity; indeed, God himself (if one may use such a gender-specific phrase). Instead, it drags the subject round to its favourite subjects – sexuality, Islamophobia, and the profound wickedness of Donald Trump.

Jesus himself was “foolish” enough to keep on talking about God. As a result, he was crucified. But 2,000 years later, he has more followers alive than ever before. You would think a great national broadcaster would want to find out why.

It has rightly been pointed out that nice Jeremy Corbyn has some very nasty followers. While he speaks with beardy mildness, they threaten Laura Kuenssberg, troll opponents, put up posters near the Tories’ conference inviting people to hang them, and deny the Holocaust.

This is a curious phenomenon, but not a new one. The same was true 35 years ago in the era of Mr Corbyn’s hero, Tony Benn. Mr Benn was famously charming and, unlike Mr Corbyn, witty too. In between puffs on his pipe, he would dispense homely versions of Marxist extremism in his unthreatening posh accent. Off-stage, his supporters in the Labour Party and the trade union movement would intimidate moderate opponents, deselecting parliamentary candidates and offering violence to “scabs”, as they called people who preferred working to striking.

In those days, I quite often met Tony Benn and, like everyone, found him courtesy itself. I wondered how it was that he never seemed to notice, let alone rebuke the thugs who stood behind him. I identified two factors. The first was the blindness of ideology, which led him to conclude that socialists must be virtuous people. The other – never to be underrated in leaders who enjoy mass adulation – was sheer vanity. In both these traits, Mr Corbyn faithfully imitates his master.

Tim Shipman’s forthcoming book about the chaotic past year in British politics reports that Theresa May annoyed Buckingham Palace after the uncertain election result. She is accused of telling the Queen that a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party was all sewn up when it wasn’t.

It is surprising that modern prime ministers – something comparable happened with Gordon Brown – do not seem to know the conventions about dealing with the palace. Can it really be that private secretaries – usually efficient people at both ends – do not inform them? Perhaps the excessive power of spin doctors is to blame.

The problem is often presented in terms of personal discourtesy to the Queen. But the Queen is not, for these purposes, a person with feelings. She is the head of state, and it is her job to make sure that government is properly carried on. She cannot do this if her first minister does not tell her accurately what is happening.

‘Jesus has more followers alive than ever. You would think a great broadcaster would want to find out why’

Sometimes, the media must translate what politicians say. Yesterday, Mrs May said: “I will fight the next election.” Last year, David Cameron said he would not step down if he lost the EU referendum. He stepped down on the day of the result. In November 1990, Margaret Thatcher said: “I fight on. I fight to win.” She resigned the next morning.

The accurate translation of all these declarations is: “I am not going to say anything which would make it likelier that I shall have to step down sooner.” It would be unkind to call such statements lies. After all, if Mrs May had said, “I’ll be gone before the next election” (which is almost certainly the case), she would have signed her political death warrant and this week in Manchester people would have talked of little else.

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