Archbishop of York returns to Andrew Marr show a decade on from dog collar protest

The Archbishop of York is set to return to the BBC's Andrew Marr programme almost exactly a decade after he dramatically cut up his clerical dog collar on live television in protest at Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe.

John Sentamu vowed he would not wear it 'until Mugabe's gone' and he has not worn it in any setting since.

Now with the former president removed from power and his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, sworn in on Friday, John Sentamu has accepted an invitation to return to the programme, prompting speculation he would don the mark of ordination for the first time since December 9, 2007.

A spokeswoman for the archbishop told Christian Today Andrew Marr has kept the pieces of Sentamu's dog collar to this day and the The Times reports Marr is looking forward to 'congratulating him on being so unflinchingly open-throated for so long'.

The spokeswoman added Sentamu was not currently wearing his dog collar but would do 'when the time is right'.

The show's editor, Rob Burl, tweeted:

While Sentamu is live on the Marr programme, the Archbishop of Canterbury is scheduled to appear on ITV's rival show with Robert Peston.

When Sentamu appeared on the Marr programme on December 9, 2007, he said: 'As an Anglican this is what I wear to identify myself, that I'm a clergyman,' he told the Andrew Marr programme on Sunday, December 9, 2007.

'Do you know what Mugabe has done? He's taken people's identity and literally, if you don't mind, cut it to pieces. This is what he's actually done to a lot of - and in the end there's nothing.

'So, as far as I'm concerned, from now on I'm not going to wear a dog collar until Mugabe is gone.'