Justin Welby has made a huge shift on homosexuality

Forget Nixon in China. That phrase needs renaming: Welby on sexuality.

For it is now at last clear that he has shifted his position on homosexuality. Talking to The Rest is Politics podcast this week, he finally came out with it. He is not, as we all assumed, a conservative in the awkward position of presiding over a Church that is pursuing reform. He has quietly changed his mind.

In the last year or two, he has hinted that he is on a journey, moving away from the conservative position that he has taken throughout his career, but he has never quite clarified. Before that, of course, he was a clear advocate of the conservative evangelical line: the Church only affirms sex within heterosexual marriage. 

Since February last year, his position has implicitly shifted.