Miles Kington: How to become Archbishop without really trying

I was at Lambeth Palace yesterday for the first informal meeting designed to start choosing a new Archbishop of Canterbury, and although I have no real chance of landing the job, I was encouraged by the calibre of the other candidates (Keith Vaz, Kevin Keegan, Mo Mowlam, Peter Mandelson etc) to believe that none of them has much of a chance either. But the ground rules were spelt out pretty fairly by the Archbishop's spokesman when he addressed us all at the beginning of the session.

"Now, there are two basic ways of choosing the top honcho in an organisation like the Church of England, or Enron, or Railtrack, or any modern thrusting enterprise," he said.

"One is to pick someone who has risen through the organisation through natural promotion on his own merits, which used to be very popular but is clearly not in tune with these modern times, so we are now turning to the other main method – namely, head- hunting. All of you are either leading members of your profession, or have recently decided to leave the profession, or have been asked to leave your profession – in any case, you are all a credit to something or other and it is a great pleasure to have you all here today, apart from Jeffrey Archer, who couldn't make it.

"Now, we shall be interviewing you all one by one, which may take some time, so in the meanwhile we would be pleased if you would take refreshments and mingle with each other, getting to know each other and doing the high-level networking which is customary on these occasions. Thank you."

The first thing that struck me was that although men were in the majority, there was a good sprinkling of women as well, including Kate Adie and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, and the unmistakable figure of Janet Street-Porter. I found myself in conversation with Sue MacGregor, doyenne of the Today programme – which she is shortly due to leave – and asked her if she really had a serious chance of becoming the Archbishop, as she a) was not a bishop already b) was a woman, and no woman had ever been archbishop of anything.

"Good heavens, I have no intention of getting the job," she said. "I don't think many people here are seriously interested in it. But you have to be seen to be applying for these things, otherwise people forget about you when it comes to the job you really want. That's why these things always take so long – they have to weed out the people who always turn up to apply for these jobs whether they want them or not, the Michael Grades and Jeremy Isaacs and Michael Jacksons and John Tusas and so on."

I asked her if she thought they were ready to give a woman the job yet – such as Janet Street-Porter, perhaps?

"I think she might make a good archbishop," she said, unexpectedly. "Street-Porter is famous for two things. One is that she always speaks her mind. The other is that nobody can ever remember anything she has ever said. Both are admirable qualities for an archbishop. George had both."

"George who?"

"George Carey, the outgoing man," she said, looking at me oddly. "Has he been forgotten already ?"

I decided to move on before I made more of a fool of myself. I tipped my hat to Gerald Kaufman and the Hamiltons (wonder which one was going for the job?) and Mohamed al-Fayed (a Muslim, surely? but these days perhaps even a Muslim can get a top C of E job – it is really not as Christian as it used to be). Finally I ended up chatting to a tall man in well-pressed suit with white hair and no features. I couldn't place him straight off. Alastair Darling? Chris Patten?

"Think you can do the job ?" I asked.

He smiled.

"That all depends on the tax situation," he said. "If I can get the money tax-free, I might consider doing it on a part-time basis, along with crime, the railways and everything."

It suddenly clicked. John Birt! I moved away before anyone could see me talking to him, bumped into Andrew Motion, apologised to Roger McGough and said hello to John Simpson...

More of this high-level inside stuff tomorrow, when we learn how caring an Archbishop Fergal Keane would make, and what sort of questions Archbishop Chris Tarrant would be asking his flock.