The Midlothian question
The Scottish press called it “the Sermon on the Mound”: Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in its Assembly Hall, which stands below the castle in Edinburgh.

At a reception in London last week to mark his retirement after nearly 30 years as a senior adviser to three cardinal archbishops of Westminster, Charles Wookey recalled sitting with Cardinal Basil Hume, watching the Prime Minister on television lecturing the members of the Kirk on the meaning of Christianity. They listened to her in stony silence. Wookey asked Hume what he should say if journalists called to ask for a comment on Mrs Thatcher’s address. “Tell them that in a busy life I am only able to cope with one infallible person at a time,” he replied. Sadly, the call never came.

The unflappable Wookey is leaving his role as assistant general secretary of the bishops’ conference to become CEO of A Blueprint for Better Business, a movement to encourage companies to serve society for which he has worked since 2011.