Analysis Why archbishop chosen for his managerial skills had to go

In earlier times it used to be more straightforward: archbishops of Canterbury used to get it in the neck from the king, like Thomas Becket and William Laud, or at the hands of the mob, such as Simon Sudbury, who was killed during the Peasants' Revolt.

- Stephen Bates

Now, it's more like politics: Justin Welby has resigned having lost the confidence of the Church of England over his failure to tackle the institution's chaotic handling of safeguarding and his own personal culpability in failing to spot his vulnerability, arising from his links to and knowledge of the serial abuser John Smyth.

The failures arise partly out of the church's institutional and constitutional position, tied to the state and the irony is that Welby, pre-eminently an institutional figure - Eton, Cambridge, and even the oil trade before he saw the light - was chosen largely because of his managerial background: an ability to sort out the church's administrative inertia and spiritual shortcomings and, in the C of E's ungainly phrase, get bums on seats.

He has not managed any of it.

Safeguarding of the young and vulnerable has become an issue of terrifying potential, too difficult and embarrassing for institutions based on authority and indeed authoritarianism to root out, all the more so when sexual misconduct is involved. Religions have been in denial for a long time and allowed men like Smyth to roam with impunity.

His predatory behaviour was known within the evangelical community and as for the young Welby, who attended the now notorious Iwerne camps as a student in the 1970s, if he was really told to steer clear of Smyth, he might have recollected that some time ago.