A Close Shave

It was a great pleasure to hear Peter Hitchens on the Today programme this morning. I read his Mail on Sunday column yesterday, in which he warned that 'you can now be arrested for not smiling when an Olympic event is taking place', and I feared for his safety.

Happily it turns out that he hasn't yet been detained, and the worst that seems to have happened is that he's invited to discuss his thoughts with James Naughtie to an audience of millions.

It's good to know that the 'totalitarianism' Hitchens fears hasn't quite kicked in yet. He still sounded very cross, though. Almost as cross as his Mail colleague Stephen Glover, who was so upset by the opening ceremony with its 'Marxist version of our island history'.