Justin Welby says goodbye

Justin Welby has given his valedictory speech in the House of Lords, his first public remarks since his resignation. It was quite a sad speech in which the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury didn’t appear to know quite what he wanted to say about his own departure. He started by joking that ‘if you want to make God laugh, make plans’, then added: ‘Well, on that basis, next year, I will be causing God more hilarity than anyone else for many years, because the plans for next year were very detailed and extensive.’ He told peers:

The reality is that there comes a time if you are technically leading a particular institution or area of responsibility, where the shame of what has gone wrong, whether one is personally responsible or not, must require a head to roll. And there is only in this case, one head that rolls well enough, I hope not literally, one of my predecessors in 1371, Simon of Sudbury, had his head cut off.