by Julian Mann, Anglican Ink
The letter below to a newspaper editor is not a spoof. Penned by the Revd David Isiorho, a retired Church of England minister, it actually appeared in the Church Times on August 28th as one of the ‘responses to the sudden death of Dr Jason Arday’:
‘Madam, — We talk a lot about “Black Lives Matter”, but what does that mean to the so called white indigenous population of the UK? Sadly, I don’t think Black lives do matter to a lot of people.
The person who cleans my house was very upset about the murder of Ann Widdecombe [the conservative Christian politician and Strictly Come Dancing TV star] and talked about Miss Widdecombe and Nigel Farage [leader of Reform UK] as if they were personal friends. Don’t get me wrong: what happened to Miss Widdecombe was horrible. What happened to Dr Jason Arday (News and Comment, 21 August) was also horrible, but in a different way. My cleaner has not mentioned Dr Arday to me despite the publicity given to both deaths. Many people in the UK have not identified with Dr Arday; so he is not on their radar.
This is important, because if black lives are not valued by a section of the UK population, then this is where Reform is most likely to get support. Clearly there are people of all social classes who genuinely seek racial and gender equality, particularly those who are associated with the churches. But my cleaner is not likely to engage with the Church Times. That should tell us something about the professional, educational, and class divide of the UK.’
It is frankly astonishing that the Church Times published such a snobbish and patronising missive. Did it slip through the net because Sarah Meyrick, who became the paper’s editor in 2024 and has certainly sharpened up its news, was on holiday?