This evening I watched a couple of episodes of a BBC murder/mystery/spy series call “Collateral”. It was well done and entertaining but, since it was produced by the BBC, it was laced with the usual generous lashings of political correctness. I’ll confine myself to commenting on the antics of an Anglican priest who made her first appearance in episode 1.

We first see her when she enters her church, sits in an empty pew, looks up and says “God, I’m a mess”. “Fair enough”, I thought, it’s a fallen word, we are all a mess: at least she believes God exists, a major concession in the BBC’s portrayal of Church of England vicars. I was fully prepared for her to be the villain of the piece, but it was not to be.

She was a kind and generous lady vicar, a daring, outrageous scripting mistake for the BBC, I thought. However, my pessimism was soon rewarded. The reason for her being portrayed sympathetically became clear: she was a lesbian in an open sexual relationship with a young girl. Not only that, her bishop couldn’t censure her because he had a male lover. She had “come out”, he had not, so she occupied the high moral ground.

For those of us who labour under the delusion that the Church of England can’t  succeed at anything: we are wrong, and I apologise for my part in propagating this error. The Anglican church has made tremendous strides in convincing the world that humanity’s chief virtue lies in being not just homosexual, but openly homosexual.

Justin Welby would be proud.