So my thanks to alleged comedian Russell Brand, against whom I recently argued about illegal drugs on BBC’s Newsnight programme.

Mr Brand has tried (and failed) to keep footage of our encounter out of a new film about him, proof as far as I am concerned that he was the loser.

The Church of England hasn’t often produced great men in modern times. But I have long believed that George Bell, Bishop of Chichester from 1929 to 1958, was such a man.

Not only was he among the first to see the menace of Hitler, and to aid the Christian opponents of German National Socialism. He also protested against the stupid treatment of German anti-Nazi refugees, rounded up by dimwits in the early months of the Second World War.

He gave up his beautiful palace for the use of others during that war.

Above all, he voiced the Christian conscience of the nation by criticising Churchill’s deliberate bombing of German civilians when it was deeply unpopular to do so. I happen to think he was right, but right or wrong he was acting as he believed Christ, his true Lord and master, would have acted. If he’d kept his mouth shut he would almost certainly have become Archbishop of Canterbury. He died in 1958, leaving no children but a great memory.

So I was aghast to read in several newspapers (two of them supposedly conservative journals of record) that George Bell ‘was’ a child abuser. Not ‘allegedly’ but ‘was’. The Church was also said to have ‘admitted’ or ‘acknowledged’ the dead Bishop’s guilt.

Well, nothing is impossible. But the alleged offence took place more than 60 years ago, and wasn’t alleged until 1995 (when he had been dead for 37 years). One report complained it hadn’t been referred to the police at the time. What were they supposed to do? Exhume him and question his bones?

As usual, we may not know the name or sex of the accuser, though money has been paid to him or her in compensation.

But there has been nothing resembling a trial. No evidence has been tested. No defence has been offered. No witness has been cross-examined. No jury has given a verdict. Yet this allegation is being treated as if it was a conviction. Once again I see the England I grew up in disappearing. What happened to the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial before a jury of your peers?

I know the C of E has had real problems with child abuse in recent years, and has a lot of apologising to do. No doubt. But was it wise or right to sacrifice the reputation of George Bell, to try to save its own? Who defended the dead man, in this secret process?

As the prophet Isaiah once remarked: ‘Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.’

This is why I continue to believe there is one court of justice where no lies can be told and all secrets are revealed. I’ll leave the final appeal to a higher authority than Lambeth Palace.

We have lots of coal, but won’t use it because fanatics claim it hurts the planet. We demolish expensively built and efficient coal-fired power stations.

Meanwhile, we destroy our steel industry by forcing it to pay huge green taxes also meant to discourage the use of wicked coal. The result of this? More steel is made in China, which is building coal-fired power stations even faster than we are blowing them up.

Oh, and having destroyed our own superb nuclear industry by dogmatically privatising it, we’re paying foreign state enterprises to build nuclear power stations, which will make electricity at prices nobody can afford. And I’m supposed to believe our Government is competent.