But for drama, I often turn to my box sets; gifts or borrowed. And my current BS passion is In Treatment, starring Gabriel Byrne as a psychotherapist called Paul, strangely enough. It is quite slow to start with, showing one session a day, over the course of a week, meaning we get to know the individuals ( and in one case, a couple) and their particular ‘issues.’ Then, on a Friday, Gabriel Byrne goes to see his old supervisor, to discuss his own crisis in work and personal life.

Who would think that a show about people sitting in a room talking could be so gripping and, at times, moving?

That it is so good is largely down to excellent acting, a fine script and the incredibly handsome Byrne, who manages to make the art of listening and thinking, dramatically absorbing. Then, on a Friday, he reveals a completely different side of himself in supervision, coming across as rather cranky and dissatisfied, quite at odds with his calm professional demeanour.

Highly recommended.

* some of my other ongoing series include Missing in Domestic Action, Thoughts of an Amateur Cellist and Reasons to be Cheerful, started just below this post. Warning: parts two, three, four etc of these ruminations are often quite a while coming, so do enjoy Part one ( of each) in all their singular glory!!!

As firefighter, trade union activist and talented photographer Tim Hoy observes, in a lovely blog on his daughter Cydney’s education at Queens Park Community School in north west London, where our daughters also go, today’s state schools are, on the whole, far more disciplined and the children better supported and hard working than in years past. We need to build on this, and the values that underlie the comprehensive idea. Failure to do this amounts to tacit acceptance that only the rich deserve a good education, an idea I find absolutely extraordinary in the 21st century.

* Opinion piece in this week’s Public Finance on why neither party can win the class war.

* An in depth interview in The Guardian today with Mary Foley, an extraordinary woman, who has forgiven her daughter’s killer.

* A review in this week’s New Statesman on Kate Figes’s latest book on modern coupledom.

For the moment, I will simply refer to one statistic quoted by Hutton. Ten million people in this country earn £15000 a year or less, and there are a further three million who do not make themselves available for employment: who are, in other words, chronically unemployed. To which I add my own statistic: most private schools cost circa £15000 a year; some, incredibly, a great deal more than that.

A level playing field for all our children? You work it out!

Miliband talks instead of self interest and shared interest, and the need for Labour to build on common values rather than make a lame last minute appeal to the presumed self interest of this or that demographic.

Miliband is right to frame the discussion in quite different terms from the Blairite years. We are all aspirational now, in that everyone desires access to good housing, a good education and reasonable standard of living. (The tricky part, of course, is that in this age of instant information, we are all more aware, in a superficial sense, of what those common goals might mean for others which makes equality an ever more complex goal.)

The problem with the old New Labour aspirational model was that it too often ended up sanctioning unacceptable forms of self interest. In terms of the national finances, it condoned excessive greed. In education, despite the best efforts of many, its policies confirmed the creation of a hierarchy of schools, with the panicked middle classes getting their pick from the higher echelons of the state pyramid. In housing, it meant a virtual silence on the need for affordable or social housing.

For whatever reason, Brown’s government feels very different to these early Blair years. It feels like there is a return to the ’shared interest’ question at last: Labour’s natural territory.

Too little too late? I don’t know. But whatever the electoral outcome, it is clear we are entering a period of much needed renewal within the party. Miliband junior is, quite rightly, turning a possible crisis into a fresh opportunity. There is certainly a desperate need for a new conversation and for fresh ideas to promote social justice, and just as importantly, new respect for older traditions and models.

To that end, I am also glad to see Miliband praise the importance of collective action and talk of the need to create ‘ real jobs in engineering, not just financial engineering.’ Always good to see a politician turn the art of the sound bite to positive political use.