Since November 2012, we have been producing a weekly(-ish) roundup of the law and religion news, with one or two items that did not seem to merit individual posts. As an alternative to our annual end-of-year quiz, the following straplines taken from the weekly posts in 2024, provide a week-on-week snapshot of the events throughout the year[*]. Just as we provide Answers to our Annual Quizzes, the following glossary gives an explanation of the more obscure comments.
14 January – The week in which the Revd Ms Vennells sent back her CBE…however, as the BBC notes, “[t]he only person who can strip someone of an honour is King Charles. People can indicate they would like to renounce their honour, as Ms Vennells has now done – but doing so has no formal effect. Until the King is advised by the Forfeiture Committee and acts on its advice, Ms Vennells will continue to hold her CBE”. It was also the week in which it was alleged by the BBC that Ms Vennells had been shortlisted for Bishop of London.
28 January – A week in which we didn’t take “a pinch of salt” with the news as it didn’t “suit us to a tea”…as in the matter of “An important statement on the latest tea controversy”, we (and the Cabinet Office) thought the US Embassy was playing games with us.
18 February – An end to havering on naming the new London Overground Lines…For the first time ever, each of London’s six Overground lines is to be represented by a new name and line colour. After much debate, The Liberty line: Romford to Upminster “celebrates the freedom that is a defining feature of London and references the historical independence of the people of Havering, through which it runs. It will be grey parallel lines on the map”.
17 March – “Like many amateur photographers, we do occasionally experiment with editing”… The Princess of Wales said “I do occasionally experiment with editing, admitting she made a blunder in editing her Mother’s Day photo.
28 April – A Happy “Ed Balls Day” to our readers. Whilst not featuring in the Church’s Liturgical Calendar, Ed Balls Day serves as a reminder to users of Twitter/X (by whatever name called) of the perils faced by internet users, for which the “Liking” of a Tweet may lead to a CDM Tribunal.
5 May – Today, Orthodox and Oriental Christians are celebrating Easter Sunday. 5 May 2024 was celebrated as Easter Sunday by most but not all Orthodox and Oriental Christians.
26 May – The week in which the Revd Mrs Vennells appeared before the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. In other news… a very full round-up including: General Election 2024; “Religion” in the Scotland Census 2022; A registration threshold for charities in Northern Ireland?; And no-fault divorce?; Assisted dying in Jersey; Disregarding the faculty jurisdiction (1); and Disregarding the faculty jurisdiction (2).
9 June – The Equality Act, Human Rights Act and Climate Change Act as new electoral shibboleths? on which we noted “The current election campaign in the United Kingdom has been subject to misinformation, manipulation of images and deliberate untruths on key issues. This has been promoted by the widespread use of social media, although in the present climate it is a naïve politician who anticipates that false claims will go unscrutinised, as events of the past week have shown…”
31 June – “…through our indiscriminate use of social media we are in danger of becoming stupid in our judgement of where to place our trust” GS 2354 at [39]. We clarified that we had no intention of changing the name of our blog in order to mislead potential readers – even to acquire further page-views.
7 July – So now we know the General Election result …and as widely predicted, the Labour Party won a landslide victory. For students of law and religion, that means, at the very least, that the Equality Act 2010 and our membership of the Council of Europe are safe for another five years. However, there remain outstanding issues that need to be addressed…
28 July – The European Court of Human Rights is no more foreign for being situated in Strasbourg, than is the United Nations for being in New York and Geneva…”. Baroness Chakrabarti, HL Deb 24 July 2024 c563 as if this needed restating, but …
1 September – “Woman dances on holiday”, “Man moves portrait”, “former Ministers blame 8-week-old government”. A quiet week to end the “silly season” as we patiently awaited the announcement of the Second Church Estates Commissioner, whose name had been known internally since mid-July, but the nomination of Marsha de Cordova, MP for Battersea, was not announced until 7 October 2024.
8 September – “Long overdue report” lamented by Archbishop, a non-canonical consecration, and Tory leadership contender’s threats to leave the EHRC…all of which might have filled out a quiet week of news, but none were strictly within the remit of L&RUK.
22 September – “Do you want lies with that?“…a feline observation (i.e. Larry the Cat on X/twitter). Whilst we made no comment on that particular instance, there does appear to have been a significant increase in deliberate misinformation in politically motivated communications following the UK General Election and in the run-up to the US Presidential Election.
10 November – Word of the week – ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve, ‘recrudescence’ being the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve, in the context of the US Election result and/or the publication of the Makin Report.
17 November – A week dominated by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s announcement of his intended resignation…and in which the blog had over 10,600 page views.
24 November – “Anyone who wants to be the Archbishop of Canterbury absolutely needs their head reading”, Rt Revd Rachel Treweek’ in which she ruled herself out of the running for ABC.
1 December – An astonishing claim in Tuesday’s Times … our revised (polite) comment on the article by Boris Johnson in which he blamed the Church of England for Britain’s obesity crisis.
8 December – “The particular genius of the parish church and the parish system is that it preserves and communicates meaning, value and belonging in places where people can serve and be served, and discover fresh perspectives on what it is to be human and to be a human community.” Archbishop of York, Lords Hansard, 6 December 2024 – a statement which appeared to be reflected in attendance at Christmas with side aisles full and extra seating required.
15 December – “The next archbishop has to…deal with the systemic issues of dysfunction both in the institution & its central capacity, but also in the House of Bishops in terms of cultures around power, privilege & entitlement that persist.” Rt Revd Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Newcastle.
And although not included in our earlier post, the Revd Richard Coles provides a final quotation…
In spite of a crisis at HQ it seems to have been a bumper Christmas in parish churches…
[*] There are some weeks during which there was insufficient news to merit a round-up, and others in which we did not identify a suitable pithy strapline.