John Humphreys has made the news by saying he thinks the Radio 4 ‘Thought for the Day’ is “deeply, deeply boring.” Apparently contributors have nothing more to say than “be nice to each other” or, as Justin Webb pointed out, “if everyone was nicer to everyone else, it would be fine” and the world would be such a better place. There wasn’t a lot of sympathy for that 3 minute slot among the presenters for well-meaning religious moralism, so why bother with it?

We have to begin by acknowledging t...