The Newsnight package had Alan Bennett – invariably these days referred to as a “national treasure” – a well-known actress with whom many people will identify and lots of reasonable people sharing tea and cakes all on the side of the local library. Equating this ensemble with the characters from a heart-warming and popular film might have been a clumsy analogy, but it was evidently intended to portray the cause in a sympathetic light.

In his recently-published diary for the year Bennett speculates that Mark Littlewood (or Underwood as he calls him) might have been chosen for the studio debate afterwards precisely because he presents himself as such an egregious pantomime villain. In other words, Bennett was happy enough that the bias, if bias there were in the programme, ran in the opposite direction.

Still, why should we take the word of someone who thinks there is some kind of equation between tying a child up and stubbing cigarettes out on her skin, and making her get on a bus before she can get to the local library.