New Voting Statistics

This week London (Thursday) and Manchester (today) voted on the proposed Anglican Covenant. Both dioceses voted against adopting the Covenant, bringing the total in the Church of England to 15 dioceses for and 25 against. Four more dioceses will meet in April to have their say, but since last week the result has been clear: the Covenant cannot come back to the General Synod for adoption, at least until 2015.

With London's and Manchester's figures, we now have:

Bishops: 77.4% for, 16.7% against, 6.0% abstentions
Clergy: 45.0% for, 50.9% against, 4.1% abstentions
Laity: 48.1% for, 47.0% against, 4.9% abstentions
 
Overall: 47.5% for, 48.0% against, 4.5% abstentions
Overall (clergy and laity only): 46.7% for, 48.8% against, 4.5% abstentions

Total figures now show more against than for overall, even including bishops. Also of interest is that the number of abstentions has been steadily dropping. Overall opposition has been strongest among the clergy. But clearly the membership of the Church of England, assuming that they are accurately reflected by the diocesan synods, do not want to adopt the Anglican Covenant.

We take a break from the horse race until after Easter.