It is good to see the historian Asa Briggs, otherwise Baron Briggs, still going strong at the grand age of 93. His birthday on Wednesday of last week was recorded in The Times. He was described as “former provost, Worcester College, Oxford”.

Above him in the list was Professor Sir Alan Breckenridge, said to be “chairman of the emerging science and bioethics advisory committee”.

In both cases, you will note, there was an omission of capital letters where they might have been expected — where in my view they were required.

The Thunderer’s style guru, Oliver Kamm, whom I mention on the left, told readers some weeks ago that a cutdown on capitalisation was in the offing. I think it a big mistake — as it was when it was tried years ago by the then editor Simon Jenkins. Then we were offered absurdies like ‘foreign secretary’, making Douglas Hurd sound like a Spanish typist.

Over Lord Briggs, the game would have been up had The Times called him the ‘former Provost of Worcester College’, which was his proper title. ‘Former provost, Worcester College’ (while strictly correct) was a cop-out.

Would the newspaper have referred, for instance, to Lord Carey, as ‘former archbishop, Canterbury’ or to prince Charles as ‘prince, Wales’?

On another page of last Wednesday’s Times was reported a sad parade of show-business figures making court ‘appearances’ — as they are always called, rather strangely.

Here the newspaper’s lower-case policy was applied to give us ‘Preston crown court’ (Stuart Hall) and ‘Southwark crown court’ (Rolf Harris). This robs both of their proper names.

‘Preston’s crown court’ and ‘Southwark’s crown court’ would have been correct, however.