Bashing the Bishop Pete of Willesdon

Bishop Pete of Willesdon, bloody Willesdon? Do they have an Archbishop of Wythenshawe? A Vicar of the parish made up of the Burger King on the Northbound Trowell Services on the M1? -. I digress. Bish Pete is officially the most horridest man in Christendom after he made some stupid comments on Facebook about the royal family, Katie and Williams wedding likely lasting seven years, Chas's ears, the royals being a bunch of philanderers -and a tasteless joke about a princess and a bridge column in a tunnel in Paris (I made the last one up by the way). Why do I mention this preposterous story? Well Melanie Philips; Peter Oborne; Richard Littlejohn, and some prat no-ones ever heard of on the Torygraph blogs are saying that this [Anglican] godbloke; who has made republican comments as well - should be sacked as technically the Queen is a sort of his boss (what about God?? Is she like the Department manager and he's the MD or something?), and he swore an oath of allegiance to her, so technically he has committed the ecclesiastical equivalent of slagging his boss off online. This is all interspersed with how republicans are just a bunch of mean minded; disloyal killjoys, blah blah -who should just shut their faces. So much for the ostensibly libertarian Torygraph, yeah free speech if you sing to the right songsheet more like.

It's not the unedifying and slightly weird "reverential" forelock tugging that seems to be going on with some of the conservative commentators response to our royal betters tieing the knot, that bugs me about this story, though I do hear "get a fucking grip it's 2010 for gawds sake!" screaming in my mind with some of the coverage this weddings getting. No it's how they are reacting to an institution [The C of E ] they supposedly revere as an essential part of our "Judeo Christian bedrock values". In case they haven't noticed the C of E is dying on its arse a bit at the moment. The guys comments were a bit in bad taste yeah, but come on! The C of E is losing followers. Joe public loses interest with stuff like this. It's trivial. It really highlights the bubble some of these people are in in regards to the role of the Anglican church in regards to modern Britain. It is almost pitiable to see these guys getting worked up at the "harm" this is doing to the church. Yeah it causes harm, it shows how out of touch it is, getting worked up about it. People won't want to know. Kick this bloke out! Yeah it's not like the C of E is having staffing crises is it? Do get a grip.

And on a final note. As I said his comments were a bit of a case of republican sour grapes. But I know that some of the homophobic comments from that same institution are a lot worse, and are directed at people who don't have the material trappings of bishop Petes targets either. I wonder why these commentators (I'll let Oborne off the hook) don't get half as worked up about that sort of sentiment?