Enduring Values

As the Church of England congratulates itself and/or prepares to tie itself in knots over the appointment of a female Archbishop of Canterbury, a borough council in Kent has served up a timely reminder of what life could be like when the Church was more than a Ruritanian minority cult. The council's leader has petitioned the Home Secretary to issue posthumous pardons to a handful among the thousands of women executed as witches owing to legitimate and understandable Christian concerns. Although the women are unlikely to have been immigrants or socialists, there will no doubt be questions about the prospect of forgiving them their fictitious trespasses. It's true that British governmment is occasionally disposed to make token amendments for historical wrongs once the victims have been dead long enough; but asking Team Starmer to disown a witch-hunt may well be a moral step too far.