You seem to be happy with the rest of my posting as you choose only to challenge one part of it.

No I am picking the parts where a challenge is easiest to set out.

We must at cross purposes over politics. Of course the Church has a political role. By the bishops being in the lords they are involved in politics. That's the idea. No one here is suggesting that the bishops being there by right is not an anachronism.

The anachronistic inconsistency is that the Church automatically gets some people who have worked their way up through their own ranks but organisations like the CBI and TUC don't get some who have worked their way up through theirs - those people get there by being nominated.

Ten percent of the UK population is a lot of votes, so politicians won't change things lightly. That's the sort of thing happens in a democracy.

So far as the bishops in the House of Lords is concerned "the Church" is the Anglican Church. The Magdelaine Laundries are a red herring. My own staunchley athiest ex-Catholic friends get worked up about the bishops in the same way. My fellow ex-Anglican friends are mainly vaguely agnostic and don't get worked up about it. Why do you think that is ? If you have an issue with the Roman Catholic church take it up with them.