Welby has a reputation as a guy who enjoys a good laugh and discourages formality. His manner when I meet him is affable but circumspect. This is a man who once observed that he didn’t want the top job and was “one of the thicker bishops” in the Church of England.
“I can spot an old Etonian a mile off ,” I venture, “and your deï¬ning characteristic is precisely that kind of phoney diffidence.”