Our lives have become more and more dominated by the instant gratification available through our mobile phones and social media. Streaming sites have sought to displace traditional channels, allowing us to watch whatever we want whenever we want it. With that, the act of watching TV has become more solitary and insular. A far cry from the years many of us remember of three channels and one set per household

Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London, Radio Times, 14-20 December issue

It’s not a young offenders’ institute or a prison. It’s a school. We have bedrooms not cells, we have student flats not wings and we have fobs instead of jangling keys. The staff don’t wear uniforms. They are youth workers, they are teachers, they are health professionals. They care for children. The philosophy behind everything we do here is not, “What have you done wrong?” but, “What’s happened to you?”

Steve Chalke, founder of Oasis, The Times, 7 December, interview about Oasis Restore academy (Features, 24 May)

No, it is Labour. To hell with the Bishop [of Leeds]

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, debate in the House of Lords on Europe: Arts and creative industries, 10 December (Lord Foulkes later apologised)

How could he [Archbishop Welby] possibly have thought, giving his final goodbye in the Lords in a debate on housing, that there would be any sympathy with his bleat that, now he was having to look for somewhere else to live, affordability puts him “a very long way away from where we would like to be”? Being evicted from Lambeth Palace is, no doubt, tough but it hardly compares with the plight of many on its doorstep

Patience Wheatcroft, The New European, 11 December

We . . . need to know whether the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, who called publicly for the most reverend Primate’s resignation and for a root-and-branch clear-out, is the Church of England’s equivalent of Alan Bates to the Post Office

Baroness Berridge, House of Lords, 6 December

Interesting that the right of personal choice and expression is paramount when it comes to assisted dying, yet isn’t when it comes to footballers expressing their allegiance to Jesus

Graham Tomlin, former Bishop of Kensington, X, 4 December

Most of the migrants I have met in Calais know nothing whatsoever about the UK Benefits system — in fact they know remarkably little about the UK at all. They want to get to a place of safety where they can get a job and support themselves. Benefits are not on the agenda

Mark Bryant, former Bishop of Jarrow, X, 5 December

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