Canon Angela Tilby

Good morning. One of the clichés of the media industry is that the public have a ‘right to know’ especially when things go wrong. It’s often true. Think of the post office scandal or the recent investigations into some of our privatised water companies. It’s important for the public to know when rules are being broken and when there’s manifest injustice. But the right to know must be balanced by prudence. On issues of security or defence, or when vital decisions are waiting, secrecy can be important. The whole point of a democratic system is that it’s for us to choose who we trust, who we allow to keep secrets on our behalf. And all this is fine of course, until it goes wrong. In recent days many files relating to Peter Mandelson have been made public. We’ve learnt of indiscreet remarks between him and the then Work and Pensions Secretary, Pat McFadden. There are scathing comments about the Prime Minister and other leading politicians which were never meant to see the light of day, and come across now as disloyal. Reading them I can’t help but suspect part of this was simply letting off steam. Politicians have a right, as we all do, to trust that casual remarks sometimes made in frustration won’t go any further. But of course they sometimes do and in the days of smart phones this trust is coming to seem naïve. Perhaps these days we could reflect that Jesus’ prophecy: ‘What you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in an inner chamber will be proclaimed on the housetops’. This is very challenging. Who hasn’t said something disparaging behind someone’s back and then interacted with them as if they’d never spoken? Hypocrisy is part of the human condition. And Jesus himself warns against it. ‘Let your yea be yea and your no be no’. That leaves it up to us to make judgments about who we trust and why, who we can safely let off steam to and who it is better to avoid. The public’s right to know has to be balanced by common sense, because in the case of secrecy, context is all: another journalistic cliché of course. But it’s true. And perhaps we should extend our sympathy to those who carry the burden of secrecy on our behalf. Not everything is a plot. Not everything said in private actually matters that much, though its exposure can be deeply embarrassing. Jesus told his disciples to be innocent as doves but I don’t think he was telling them to take everything at face value. In the same sentence he had advised them to be as wise as serpents.

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Canon Angela Tilby is an episode from Thought for the Day by BBC.

This episode is 2:35 long.

This episode was published on Jun 3, 2026.

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