The letter below to a newspaper editor is not a spoof. Penned by the Revd David Isiorho, a retired Church of England minister, it actually appeared in the Church Times on August 28th as one of the ‘responses to the sudden death of Dr Jason Arday’:

‘Madam, — We talk a lot about “Black Lives Matter”, but what does that mean to the so called white indigenous population of the UK? Sadly, I don’t think Black lives do matter to a lot of people.

The person who cleans my house was very upset about the murder of Ann Widdecombe [the conservative Christian politician and Strictly Come Dancing TV star] and talked about Miss Widdecombe and Nigel Farage [leader of Reform UK] as if they were personal friends. Don’t get me wrong: what happened to Miss Widdecombe was horrible. What happened to Dr Jason Arday (News and Comment, 21 August) was also horrible, but in a different way. My cleaner has not mentioned Dr Arday to me despite the publicity given to both deaths. Many people in the UK have not identified with Dr Arday; so he is not on their radar.

This is important, because if black lives are not valued by a section of the UK population, then this is where Reform is most likely to get support. Clearly there are people of all social classes who genuinely seek racial and gender equality, particularly those who are associated with the churches. But my cleaner is not likely to engage with the Church Times. That should tell us something about the professional, educational, and class divide of the UK.’

It is frankly astonishing that the Church Times published such a snobbish and patronising missive. Did it slip through the net because Sarah Meyrick, who became the paper’s editor in 2024 and has certainly sharpened up its news, was on holiday?

The first question the letter raises is why Isiorho was allowed to portray his cleaner as stupid because he or she ‘is not likely to engage with the Church Times’. Does the paper’s letters editor really think that people who do not read the Church Times, aimed as it should be at readers specifically interested in C of E stories, should be portrayed as thick and bigoted?

Secondly, why was Isiorho allowed to make out that Reform is a racialist political party when it has amongst its leading supporters Zia Yusuf, a British businessman of Sri Lankan descent and Reform’s highly eloquent Home Affairs spokesman, and the conviction politician Suella Braverman MP, a former Conservative Home Secretary of Indian diaspora heritage? 

Thirdly, was not the letters editor concerned that Isiorho’s cleaner might be under pressure not to vote for the political party of their choice? Is it the business of any employer in a Western democracy to concern themselves with the voting intentions of their employees?

Of course, Left-wing views on the circumstances leading up to the tragic suicide of the late Jason Arday should be aired in the paper’s letters page but could not the editor have found a less problematic expression of them than this?

If Isiorho’s cleaner is feeling under pressure not to vote for Reform when they want to, they would be advised to join the Free Speech Union.

Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire, UK.