He is due to speak at the town's Winter Gardens venue, which has hosted the likes of the Beatles as well as many political party conferences after being invited by a number of local churches including St John's Church in Blackpool, St Mark's Church in Layton, and All Hallows Church in Bispham for the rally next September.

What was striking was the statemanslike nature of the statement by AMIE's mission director Lee McNunn announcing the ordinations. This belied the juvenile headline by the allegedly evangelical but actually liberal-leaning website, Christian Today: 'Rival Anglican church ordains new clergy in challenge to Justin Welby' (current Archbishop of Canterbury).

I was so uneasy about this that I mentioned it to my taxi driver on the way home in order to discover what he thought about these Safeguarding techniques. "Oh don't talk to me about Safeguarding. I'm full up to here with it. We taxi drivers were told by the Safeguarders that we should look closely at our women passengers for signs of physical abuse. It's sick, I tell you"

The C of E version of the story has two drunks afflicted by cognitive dissonance. Arch of Cant 'Wobbly' Welby and his Chief Education Officer Nigel Genders (believe me, that is his real name!) are frenziedly explaining how little boys can combat the classroom bully if given permission to cast off their school uniforms and parade around dressed like drag queens. Not even Homer Simpson would come up with such a barmy solution to bullying.