Thought for the Day, the homily slot on the BBC's main morning news radio program, used to play the really useful role of getting me out of bed when I was a university student. I had worked out that if I set the radio alarm to go off at quarter to eight and placed it out of my reach, then come 0750 I would be forced out of bed to turn the radio off.

I gradually became more used to it; it stopped working as a morning call to action, and slowly I began to enjoy it, although usually with remnants of the aversion to being preached to that has abated only slowly. There are occasionally some really thoughtful thoughts ---Mona Sidiqqi, for example, stands out. And sometimes, even when the thoughts are aggravating, they have pushed me to record a counter-thought (like here, on Catastrophes, or here on Exodus versus Odyssey).

This morning's thought by Dr Giles Fraser was particularly good --- maybe it struck me so because it resonates with what feels like a big thought that has been stalking me for a while about sameness and difference.

Fraser uses Jonathan Freedland's view that we have now seen the "human face of Iran", and, specifically, that the last 3 weeks of protest have developed in the West "a strong affinity" to Iranians in the streets to ask a big question about our common humaity. Does this "human face" do its work of transforming out attitudes because it emphasises the humanity that we commonly share (apparently Freedland's view)? or because it recognises the profound difference that unites us (Emanuel Levinas' view)? and does this foundational difference matter?

The thought that has been stalking me is that the distinction really does matter because within it lies a guide to how liberalism, in some of its recent incarnations, became so anti-pluralist. "Let the market solve it" is attractive if what we all share is the kind of thin nature assumed by modern economists; "let the tanks impose regime change, democracy and rule of law" is attractive if political value and social selves are given, invariant, and waiting only for an opportunity to be expressed.

More convincing, practically and philosophically, is that difference is irreducible and the starting point of our social selves. This makes the basic human impulse for politics that of hospitality rather than sympathy. If we base morality and politics in sympathy, then we will always be looking at ways of thowing away what really makes others others.We will think that conflict can be dissolved by easy universalism rather than real and respectful accommodation. 

I look forward to more on this during the conversation this evening between Susan Richards and Anatol Lieven around Susan's emergent recent history of ordinary Russians. It is the quality of difference, not sameness, that seems to permeate the extracts we have here on the site. 

Chris Giles and Simon Briscoe in the FT have a beautifully produced flash-data feature describing the state of the UK economy. Their basic message would not have sounded out of place in 1980: the state has become too large; taxpayers are unwilling to fund it; public spending will have to give.

But their message is too crude for their graphics. We now understand better than we have for 50 years what the "mixed economy" really is: it is a mixture of centralised and decentralised decision-making processes with all the fundamental parameters of markets relying on explicit or implicit social choices. The financial sector has effectively been socialised in "capitalism" ever since the lender of last resort interventions of central banks became the norm (1825); technology has been set by the social choices of the strength of patent protection; basic R&D occurs mostly in non-market institutions; entertainment economics has been underpinned by access to scarce broadcast media, content-related law, and copyright; land-use and house prices have been determined by planning politics; agriculture has been socialised ... The list goes on.

The truth of the mixed economy is not that it is a little bit pure capitalism and a little bit pure socialism. It is that the significant, parameter-setting choices are all made socially and varying usage is made of decentralised decision procedures thereafter.

The Association of Train Operating Companies tells us that there is a case for re-opening 40 stations and 14 lines that were closed after the Beeching report of 1967. A moment for environmentally concerned rail-lovers to rejoice, surely? After all, rail is, according to David MacKay's numbers, by far the most efficient form of fast land transport:

Actually, he has a full electric train as being about as energy efficient as walking. Only cycling beats the energy efficiency---at about a tenth of the speed.

"Today" featured an item today about whether we should know the salaries of top BBC radio presenters (as if queued by Anthony's reply to my post about their lazy journalism yesterday). The National Audit Office had asked for the information, but had not been able to sign the confidentiality agreement that the BBC needed to have in order to protect its contract with employees. That sounds like a plausible excuse --- if I were embarrassed by the amount I had been able to negotiate for myself, and even more if I thought that it might reduce my credibility in my job, I would certainly negotiate a clause in my contract making the pay confidential.

The real question --- and one which Humphreys avoided in his faux-probing of Jeremy Peat, Trustee of the  BBC --- is whether the BBC should sign such contracts. Morning radio shows are today's equivalent of a church service---they prepare millions of minds for the day ahead; they are the daily cult that makes up our culture. It is crucial that the priests of the cult be exemplary. This was the great discovery of the 10th century West European movement of monastic reform: you can only claim authority if you are seen to be beyond reproach. In the 10th century, this meant re-establishing the chastity of the monks (... yes ... they had given it up; poverty had to be re-established later as a sign of authority---the fabulous wealth of the monasteries was not at that time anticipated).But if the Church was going to legitimate the rule of monarchs as representatives of Christ on earth, they had better come across as credible authorities on the subject.

I don't want chaste or poor priest/presenters on my morning radio. But what the monastic reformers got right is that whatever the standard of legitimacy it is that you champion, those in ritualistic charge of the system must adhere to it. Journalism lives under the standard of transparency and accountability, and it cannot afford to itself be opaque. It will lose its ability to probe if it is.

There was a fascinating demonstration of this in the morning interview: Edward Leigh, the MP who is chair of the select committe that was looking into BBC Radio's performance, turned the tables  on Humphreys as I have nver heard before. Listen to the clip: at minute 1:48, after the usual priest-to-victim grilling, Leigh says: "the taxpayer pays a polltax for the BBC, and has a right to know. How much do you earn, John?" Humphreys is stumped. He doesn't want to break rank, he stumbles, he blames the men in suits. The high sacrificer has turned sacrificial victim. At minute 1:48, the logic of accountability---one that MPs have been thinking a bit about these days---is confronted to the logic of the Corporation's interest. Not only is accountability the clear winner, John Humphreys clearly knows it. When he asks for a justification from his trustee, Jeremy Peat answers that "the BBC is not like any other public body. It is established by Royal Charter." 

Well ... the aura of monarchy may not extend so far these days as to keep the BBC closed. What I really look forward to is not so much knowing the salaries --- though I expect that will reduce the bill to taxpayers, not increase it --- I look forward to having transparency in the news-making, and in particular to reducing the power of public relations in our public realm.