In praise of Rupert Murdoch

In March last year, when the bosses of Jesus College, Cambridge, lost their legal battle for a ‘faculty’ to take down the 17th-century memorial of the college’s benefactor, Tobias Rustat, because of slavery connections, from their college chapel, they did not appeal against the verdict of the ecclesiastical court. They knew they would not have won. But, as I mentioned at the time (26 March 2022), the Church of England high-ups, angry at their own heritage law, are not giving up. The latest biannual report of the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice backs attempts to change the church’s faculty jurisdiction rules and promotes the 47 recommendations of From Lament to Action, by the commission’s anti-racism taskforce. It inveighs against ‘our faith’s monocultural capture’, as if a religion centred on what happened among Jews, Romans and many others 2,000 years ago and 3,000 miles away has not been bursting with multi-cultures ever since.

The biannual report also carries approvingly a long appendix, ‘Revisiting the Rustat case’, by Professor Mike Higton.