Corbyn: The 'only real impetus' behind a new centrist party, says FERGUS KELLY

The first was a newspaper article in which "one friend" of David Miliband was quoted as saying: "David is still attracted to Britain."

Lucky old us. 

Even though he quit politics here five years ago to run a New York charity because he was still sulking about little brother Ed beating him to the Labour leadership, David might be willing to give us another chance.

Miliband senior's second coming is linked to a number of excitable reports about someone putting up money to fund a new centrist party. 

I know, you thought we had one of those already - the one called the Liberal Democrats who won 7.4 per cent of the vote at last year's general election. 

Like the Lib Dems the new centrists would want a second EU referendum despite the fact that 82.4 per cent of voters at the last election backed Conservative and Labour parties who pledged to leave the single market and customs union.

And they favour the same sort of broadly social democratic policies that saw the socialists come fifth in France last year and the Social Democrats in Germany most recently slump to 20 per cent of the vote - their worst result since the war.

The only real impetus behind the proposed new party comes from Blairites who won't accept that Jeremy Corbyn has been overwhelmingly backed - twice - by the Labour membership, any more than most of them accept the majority's wishes in the EU referendum.

Don't be surprised if they decide to call themselves the Democratic Party.

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ITV's new series, Last Laugh In Vegas, is hilarious - if not perhaps as intentionally as its protagonists hope. 

It's about a group of veteran British performers realising a dream by playing America's entertainment capital.

You'd need a heart of stone not to root for Su Pollard, Little and Large, Bobby Crush, Anita Harris, Kenny Lynch, Bernie Clifton and Mick Miller - and all provide poignant moments. 

But they paled next to the fabulous squabbling that ensued when they fought over which rooms to occupy in their rented mansion.

It was a row chiefly provoked by actor and singer Jess Conrad, who bagged the first room when really only a separate mansion would have sufficed for his ego.

Anyone under the age of 60 might struggle to pick out Jess in an identity parade of one but the speed with which he selflessly volunteered himself when the group was asked which of them would still be regarded as most famous back here, belied his age.

On reflection it was unfair of me to link him earlier to David Miliband, however.

After all, Jess, 82, doesn't take himself entirely seriously.

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If some of us are honest we didn't always shout the most charitable comments at the TV about soccer's Ray Wilkins during his England appearances. 

And some of us might have flinched a little at such recollections when we heard last week that he'd died far too young, at 61, not least because we'd seen since what an evidently decent and gentlemanly type he was in his later coaching and punditry careers.

So, despite the fact I then had to endure my club Bradford City's pathetic performance to lose 5-0, it was genuinely touching to experience the minute's silence in Wilkins's honour being observed so respectfully before their match at Blackpool at the weekend. 

And it was the same up and down the country.

Football calls to our most tribal instincts and not always the most benign ones. 

But at its best, like on Saturday, it feels more like a family coming together.

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Social media might have many faults but to identify it as a leading cause of soaring knife and gun crime - as Met chief Cressida Dick and other commentators have done - is a wilfully misleading cop-out. 

Equally mendacious is the contention that the internet is the chief culprit in "radicalising" would-be jihadis, as if a malevolent magic wand had been waved over them.

Such claims do not just dilute the personal responsibility such criminals must take for their actions. 

They also deliberately obscure the cultural and religious roots of these deadly problems that our law-makers and enforcers are too frightened to confront.