Alex has difficulty with speech, meaning he can't pronounce sounds as expected for his age, and people don't always understand him. . . . Alex has taught me a lot about helping children with speech problems by his candid opinion of speech therapy. He's also taught me about "voicism" from his experiences. Helping children to communicate more effectively when they are young should reduce the effects of "voicism" and hopefully help others see the child, not the speech problem.

Walden was only the first of Mr Hattersley's appearances yesterday. Later, on Star Chamber (Channel 4), he was interrogated by a computer. Here was a political interview which would, you felt, have benefited from Nicam Digital Stereo, enabling us to savour in full Mr Hattersley's amusing impression of Ken Livingstone's nasal twang (a surprisingly voicist slur from someone who recently accused Chris Patten of sneering about his own speech impediment).