This column is written for The Stray Ferret by the Bishop of Ripon, The Right Reverend  Dr Helen-Ann Hartley. The Bishop was in the news recently after she received a death threat over a comment she made about the Prime Minister's aide, Dominic Cummings, who drove from London to Durham during lockdown.

Following the Prime Minister’s appearance at the COVID_19 daily briefing a few weeks ago, I popped onto Twitter to see what the response was.  ‘Fairly annoyed’ would be a summary of what I saw.  I decided to contribute, and commented on a tweet from someone I know who was very upset at what the Prime Minister had said in defence of a certain official who had made a trip to Durham during the period of what we all thought was total lockdown. "Integrity, trust and leadership were never there; just a driven misguided ideology of power that has total disregard for the most weak and vulnerable, and those who work to protect and care for us for relatively low pay".

A few moments later, as the comments started to roll in, I tweeted: "My parents live in Durham, an hour away from where we live.  My father finished radiotherapy treatment just before lockdown.  I’ve missed his birthday, Mothering Sunday and countless other catch-ups that would have happened.  And that’s a fraction of a story compared with others".

What happened next was both brutal and affirming as emails, phone-calls, and then hand-written letters started to pour featuring rather extreme views and threats and heart-rending stories of personal loss and thanks that Church leaders were speaking up.  The reality is that Church leaders speak up quite often about all manner of topics, local, national and global, and this isn’t always noticed.

As much as we are living in ‘unprecedented times’, the conditions of anxiety and lockdown have created an atmosphere that is often toxic and unforgiving.  I didn’t post those tweets lightly, I did so because my own personal story and the stories of so many I have heard in recent weeks has been seriously undermined by the behaviour of individuals who set policies and who I expect would model that in their own lives.

Speaking truth to power is an important aspect of my role as a bishop, and I do that aware of the potential to annoy and even offend.  When I became a bishop in New Zealand over six years ago, my predecessor said to me that leadership was a bit like climbing a mountain: the higher you go the more scenic the views, but the more likely to attract complex weather systems.  How true that is.

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