Very sorry to read this: a truly brilliant historian and a very kind person, exceptionally generous with his time for so senior a scholar.

Dipped into twitter to sample response to Carson Nobel. Rote culture war execrations based on little to no familiarity with the work. They also seem to have invented a fascinating-repulsive new figure, the subliterate literary influencer/grifter. Anyway, here's part of the sublime Isaiah sequence.

& it seems to me rhetorically useful and striking to demonstrate that in pursuing this, the US places itself in a category with states it regards as global pariahs!

That the US had popular lynchings (& culprits let off through currently fashionable jury nullification), only decisively abolished execution of minors in 2005 (Roper), and which *nonetheless* long ago decided the state turning execution into public spectacle was wrong: these are all important facts!

I do think the manoeuvre is typical of a bad form of left thinking: a cherished liberal myth about a good state or institution is shown to be at best a partial truth (fine!) but is then the basis for a maximalist rejection of any distinction between flawed institution and its worse alternatives.

Yes. On the other hand, statements like this do make me think of her as being somewhere in the family. (Paris Review i/v.)

It can sometimes seem like stating the obvious that the Trump regime does things that are evil, but this is evil. There's not another word for it. It is so corrosive and degrading that it will permanently disfigure the society which permits it. It is sheer barbarism.

Which includes this completely bonkers graph, tracking support for net zero policies from the major parties. Look at those Tories!!

I hate this so so so much

This isn't entirely the Corporation's fault. A DCMS Secretary worth the brief, and who understood the bearing media has on cohesion and political common sense, would be thinking about these questions in the context of a new financial settlement and organisational autonomy. Unfortunately...

Somewhere at the root of this should be the question: what can the BBC do that nobody else can? Instead, the question seems to be: what can the BBC do to offer the same thing as everybody else?

"It looks like you're trying to radicalise yourself into blowing up speed cameras. Can I serve you a selection of Today Programme clips to nurse your grievances?"

And, you know, it might be that in a world characterised by mistrust and outright deception, a rediscovery of Reithian virtues now reinforced by a sense of independence from government might actually be a winning news formula.

Her other Archer line, also delivered with absolutely perfect timing, was after being told not to give him the oxygen of publicity: "I'm not that happy with him having the oxygen of oxygen, actually."

Linda Smith's absolutely perfect line about Archer being released from prison "into the cryogenic embrace of Mary"is permanently etched in my mind.