Bbc

Has there been a more emetic sight than Alastair Campbell touring the radio and TV studios lecturing the world on moral probity? I can’t think of one, offhand. The BBC, an institution he once tried to destroy, if you recall, is more than happy to shove him on air whensoever he feels like it. I assume that this is because, like Campbell, they are intent on turning the Daily Mail-Miliband farrago into a post-Leveson issue about the nature of journalism. As some of us said at the time of Leveson, the metro-liberal left does not really give a toss about intrusion into the lives of drug-addled slebs. It wishes instead to stop newspapers saying stuff with which they fervently disagree.

It is twenty years since Samuel Huntington’s essay ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ was first published in Foreign Affairs. On Monday night I took part in a discussion on BBC Radio 3’s Nightwaves about the article (and the resulting book) which turned oddly nasty. I have always been a qualified admirer of Huntington’s most famous work (‘qualified’ because like most people who have read the book I admire its range and grasp while disagreeing with certain of its conclusions). But broadly admire it or not, it appears to be a difficult work to discuss. This is largely because it suffers the double-bind of being misunderstood by people who have not read it.

When you hear the words ‘English art’, there are very few people who would immediately think of embroidery. As Dan Jones said when he was asked if he would like to present a programme about ‘the golden age’ of English embroidery, ‘Embroidery? What, like sewing?’ But accept the offer he did, and found that there’s a lot more to embroidery, as an art form, than ‘just’ sewing. In this week’s magazine he writes about everything he learnt about ‘one of English history’s most underappreciated art forms’. Here's a clip from one of the previous 'Fabric of Britain' programmes - this one on knitting. Downton Abbey has returned to our screens for its fourth season. Is that a reason to crack open a bottle?

Royal Mail delivers to 29 million UK addresses; last year it generated £9 billion of revenues, of which £324 million remained as profit before tax; and it is likely to be valued at £3 billion in its privatisation share sale, indicating a price-earnings ratio modestly below ten. Twitter — the microblogging phenomenon beloved of self-admiring celebs, but now so ubiquitous as a mode of communication that it is compulsory for British ambassadors abroad — has 200 million users and is expected to generate revenues of just £365 million this year, maybe twice that next year. Twitter says it’s profitable but has so far kept its accounts private, and is nevertheless likely to be valued at £6 billion-plus in its forthcoming flotation.