Julian Armitstead

Teacher, Playwright, Story-teller & Church Warden, not necessarily in that order.
Website, including *The Runaway Clothes* shop:

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

Say it loud, say it clear.
https://t.co/I0qydyhiy4

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

The salvageable, late season windfalls. About one fifth of the number composted. Still more hang pendent on the branches.
A lot of apples from just three trees.
Well done, trees!

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

@Valen10Francois Such a shame! Zut!

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

Actual shot (not AI!) of a French detective working the case of the French Crown Jewels that were stolen from the Louvre in a brazen daylight robbery.

Somehow he looks like he’s smoking even without a cigarette in his hand, but surely everything you know about life is screaming at you: this case is officially screwed!

To solve it, we need an unshaven, overweight, washed-out detective who's in the middle of divorce. A functioning alcoholic who the rest of the department hates.

Never gonna crack it with a detective who wears an actual fedora unironically.

[Hughes-on-the-Wold @NotThatHughes]

"OK, so apart from Legia Warsaw, Ajax, Roma, Eintracht Frankfurt, West Ham, Glasgow Celtic, Galatasaray and every English football club between 1985 and 1990, this is definitely unprecedented in recent times"

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

@giles_fraser The Israeli authorities cited *threats to human* life in justification for the cancellation of the Tel Aviv derby. How odd that you seem to have no such concerns in relation to the fans and people of Birmingham.
I am genuinely amazed.

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

@giles_fraser I hear that the Israeli police have cancelled the Tel Aviv derby match due to uncontrolled fan violence. Will you now retract your ignorant article, while apologising to Aston Villa, West Midlands Police & the city of Birmingham for slurring them as complicit in anti-semitism?

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

@giles_fraser While on subject of Jews threatening to leave the UK, a phenomenon I would deeply regret, but which you like to weaponise, do you ever consider how many have already left Israel itself on account of the policies of its current government, for which you so willingly shill?

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

@giles_fraser Ajax fans were banned from visiting an away game at Marseille quite recently. Happens all the time. Usually, when the fans in question have form for stirring up trouble.

Fair play to you, though, on seeing the opportunity...

To remain silent on an actual genocide.

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

Hooray!
https://t.co/epEhMtJjoF

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

https://t.co/k9FzKP7emW

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

Welcome Sarah Mullally. Good to be reminded of progress continuing in the CoE, despite so much else, with this historic appointment.

[Gerry Lynch @gerrylynch]

It’s not easy to give a fair and balanced public assessment of someone you know personally, even slightly, but here is my best attempt as someone who knows Sarah Mullally slightly – she was Canon Treasurer at Salisbury Cathedral when I arrived in the city 12 years ago.

The strengths – Sarah is a superlative behind-the-scenes operator of the Church’s machinery; she knows what governance is about and how to make machinery of governance work. Her colleagues regularly spoke exceptionally highly of her in this regard, spontaneously and without prompting, when she was in this diocese. She has succeeded as a liberal, Central Tradition, Bishop of London, in holding together a notoriously difficult diocese with large blocs of Conservatives on both the Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic ends of the C of E. It isn’t even that the Diocese of London is a microcosm of the entire Church of England—it’s actually far more difficult and far more divided than most of the rest of the Church, and it has been for decades. I presume that’s why she got the job – she’s seen as the person to improve the operation of central machinery and hold the Church together in an era of threatened splits and repeated criticism of poor governance.

The weaknesses – Sarah isn’t a great preacher and isn’t a great public communicator. She’ll have people round her to help with this. She’ll need them.

The imponderables – it has felt in recent years felt that the central institution is almost embarrassed of ordinary C of E parishes – whether in villages like mine or suburbia, while often speaking out of both sides of its mouth towards parishes in council estates and post-industrial towns, praising them in words but starving them of resources. One of Justin’s key projects was lavishing resources on attempts to establish new megachurches in the Charismatic Evangelical mould while normal parishes struggled to pay the bills. Some of these attempts worked – one quite near me – but most failed on their own terms, yet this model retains substantial institutional support. Will this continue or will a fairer distribution of central resources now come about? This is actually far more important to my life as working parish clergy than sharper theological or ideological questions.

Sarah wasn’t the continuity Welbyist candidate - that was clearly Pete Willcox. But, just as with Pope Leo, it will take months-to-years for us to understand what she’s really about as changes are slowly rolled out - or not made - through dozens of committees and funding mechanisms.

Despite being someone who holds strongly to meritocracy and nowadays often yawns at self-congratulatory statements about diversity in appointments, I’m also very proud that the third most senior/prominent office in the entire Christian world is held by a woman. Psalm 96.1. Sarah has my heartiest congratulations and my prayers.

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

Irish passport arrived today thanks to an Irish grandparent. After all the toxic nonsense of Brexit, it feels bl**dy marvellous to be European again.
And no less British.

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

@giles_fraser What is surely *Beyond Belief* is not a villain who sees God's mercy and compassion but a clergyman who chooses to to make excuses for genocide. Bishop Mick, bless him, resolved his cognitive and spiritual dissonances. Brave man.
How, I wonder, will you?

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

This continues to be a calamitous unforced error by Labour. Think of the same sleight of hand being exercised next time by a Trumpian Reform government, aimed at quelling dissent on grounds of terrorism, so far unproven.
https://t.co/o2QO4GcZC7

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

Vivid article, written I assume, with due consideration of how this might affect his prospects of freely entering the US.
https://t.co/Wsf544h2b2

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

@giles_fraser Aside from that, I can affirm that Mark Vernon's book is indeed brilliant. But also the Blake himself would look askance at a priest turning his back on grotesque violence meted on a now entirely vulnerable people, in the Holy Land of all places.
For shame.

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

@giles_fraser I'm intrigued by the substitution of yellow ribbon for your former *Proud Zionist* handle. Surely you know that the families of the hostages are now very largely against the Gazan genocide. Shouldn't you show at least a small part of their great courage, by also calling it out?

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

https://t.co/hWtGRgoltT

[Julian Armitstead @ArmitsteadJ]

A strategic as well as moral disaster for Labour since an invitation for people of conscience to take their votes elsewhere, no matter the risks of letting in Reform.

[BBC Newsnight @BBCNewsnight]

"Absolutely standard authoritarian tactics"

The King's former advisor Sir Jonathan Porritt condemns the Home Secretary for the proscription of Palestine Action.

#Newsnight