Conscientious

Kamal Ahmed, already comfortable in suits, is to be the new editorial conscience of BBC News, as Editorial Director. This could be entertaining; as economics editor, he's believed to have been frustrated during the Brexit referendum campaign from reporting on the sheer weight of economic evidence saying exit was a bad idea.

Kamal, 50, decided to describe himself as 'mixed race', rather than 'black British', after the election of President Obama and Lewis Hamilton's first F1 championship; his father was a scientist from Sudan, his mother from Rotherham. He went to Drayton Manor School, a comprehensive in Hanwell, where he adopted the name 'Neil' ('It was better than being called 'camel'') then studied politics at Leeds, where he worked on the Leed Student, before taking a post-graduate course in journalism at City University.

He's been twice married and divorced. For a while, he squired BBC News correspondent Sophie Long, but is now stepping out with human rights lawyer, Polly Glynn, whose firm Deighton Pierce Glynn wrote letters to Brexit Secretary David Davis back in March, threatening to take him to court.

Kamal's autobiography, The Life and Times of a Very British Man, is due out in October, from Bloomsbury.