Sean O’Callaghan

Ed Balls has become the left’s Michael Portillo, reviled as a politician, now a game, well-loved, almost cuddly TV personality. I met him once on This Week and I was instantly struck by how easy, funny and genuinely likeable he was: as engaging in person as he was totally bloody awful as chancellor. Happily it was the gentle man rather than the leftist bruiser who dominated Travels in Trumpland (BBC2, Sun). One fatuous previewer I read in the papers grumbled that he hadn’t challenged Trumpism enough. Tosh.

If I needed a safe space, I would nominate California. Against most odds this seedbed of censorious liberalism has thrown up the antibodies to the lurgy it created. Here within a short space of each other are a group of leftists and conservatives, religious and non-religious, all of whom are united in deploring the ‘You can’t say that’ culture which has torn across America and the West in recent years. The state may still have the shoutiest students. But it now also has the best first-responders. On Monday morning in Los Angeles I go to be interviewed by Dennis Prager, a devout, Republican talk-show host. From there I go to the studios of Joe Rogan, a libertarian comedian and martial arts expert.