A natural competitor to BBC2 and BBC Four will fall and the corporation will extend its dominance.The BBC is in an especially fortunate position during the present advertising recession. In a boom, the BBC is always adequately financed, as it is in a recession. Private companies have to deal with a much more capricious financial framework. So Ms Jowell should look again at how she can maintain that plurality of output across different media that all agree is a great strength. Otherwise, the BBC will be making a film about itself called “The Broadcaster that Ate the Industry”.. In his sermon on Sunday, the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev and Right Honourable Dr David Hope, expressed the view that the Church of England “can learn from the wonder of Harry Potter”.

His congregation might have wondered instead if things had really come to this: the established Church, with its long and occasionally glorious history, looking for inspiration from a children’s fantasy. But the Archbishop’s new gospel is that the Church should concentrate on attracting people back to its services and spend less time on the sort of internal debate it held yesterday at the General Synod about its links with the state. But in trying to portray the vitally important discussion of the Church’s independence from state as a purely “internal” matter, he was doing a grave disservice to Anglicans and non-Anglicans alike.Many of the arguments heard yesterday are familiar. From the point of view of many in our increasingly secular society, the very notion of an “established Church” that encompasses a few active members is anathema, absurd even. That would at least liberate the Church to determine its own destiny, while satisfying the traditionalists’ wishes to retain the outward formalities of establishment.But it would be better to loosen the ties that bind the Church to the body politic. One of the underlying reasons of the Church’s decline is the comforting delusion that, while it has the formal role of providing moral leadership to the nation, it need not confront the scale of the challenge it faces.

As a result of this, it has all but disappeared in many cities and is less and less part of rural life (and it is on the ground in these places that it can still perform a vital role in dealing with some of the failings of our society). Its participation at state occasions hardly makes up for such deficiencies.The probable next Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, comes from Wales, a disestablished branch of the Anglican communion. It is encouraging that, even while the Synod displays its innate conservatism, he and the Prince of Wales, heir to the title of head of the Church and defender of the faith, have indicated they wish to modernise the Church of England’s position in a multifaith, multicultural society. Sadly, progressives who want to create an independent, self-confident Anglican community will struggle to defeat the suffocating complacency that dogs the Church of England..

Here are some ingredients that teachers of any age tend to throw into their teaching repertoire, with scores of their effectiveness in helping students to retain information: explaining to others 90 per cent, practice by doing 75 per cent, discussion 50 per cent, demonstrations 30 per cent, audio-visual 20 per cent, reading 10 per cent, listening 5 per cent. What stunned me about this list was how far down reading and listening were. It’s a common experience to get halfway through explaining something to somebody and then realise you don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t believe any teacher has not experienced that.When it happens you have to go back to your source of information, you have to refine your knowledge until you can understand what it is you have to say, and that means that you can explain to others. Once you can explain to others, you remember what it is you’re saying, so it’s an absolute tool.I want to answer the “Why did they bother anyway?” question.