‘Here,’ said my husband, chucking a folded-back copy of the Daily Telegraph to me, ‘this’ll interest you.’ For once he was right.
It was a reader’s letter. ‘My distress at the Paul Flowers debacle (I am a Methodist) has been increased by the BBC and others referring to “the Reverend Flowers”,’ wrote Lesley Barnes of Henfield, West Sussex. ‘As your paper, at least, is aware, this man is the Revd Paul Flowers or Mr Flowers, but never Revd Flowers. Even our Eton-educated Prime Minister seems not to know this.’
It distressed me too. Even George Parker of the Financial Times was at it on Radio 4. Where have these people been living, Arkansas? Would they call Dominic Lawson ‘the Honourable Lawson’? Would they call the Archdeacon of Lichfield ‘the Venerable Baker’? Perhaps they would.
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