Last week I referred to our anxieties about violence in films, but I've decided threats to the moral fabric of society can come from more unlikely sources.
I'm talking, of course, about Peppa Pig.
For the uninitiated, Peppa Pig is an award-winning and hugely popular animated sit-com aimed at pre-school children.
When, with my two-year-old, Zoe, I sat through a box set of Peppa Pig recently I c
ouldn't help noticing the relentless ridiculing of the porcine patriarch, Daddy Pig.
Is my recent lack of sleep making me paranoid, or is Peppa a menace to society?
All I know for sure is that poor old Daddy Pig is the butt of jokes about, among other things, his incompetence at DIY, his failure to impress Peppa's friends with his conjuring act at her birthday party, his lack of prowess as a cyclist, his tendency to fall asleep after lunch, his fear of spiders (in contrast, inevitably, to Mummy Pig's courage), his thwarted attempts to smuggle cakes onto the supermarket conveyor belt, his failure to master electronic household goods, and above all the regrettable girth of his porky paunch.
Daddy Pig endures humiliations that, if they were foisted on a female character, would cause the steam to hiss from feminist ears.
Come on, dads: Tell me I'm not the only one to have noticed this.
Isn't Peppa Pig likely to - gulp! - undermine our daughters' respect for male authority?
Some readers might think male authority is there to be undermined, and that the earlier we start teaching girls that men are idiots the better.
But I'm not so sure.
And it might sound petty to object to misandry in a kids' cartoon, and no doubt it's a sign of insecurity on my part. But either we take the potential influence of the media on our kids seriously or we don't.
l I'm pleased to see Diane Abbott made it onto the ballot paper for the Labour leadership contest.
As a fan of This Week, I've long admired Abbott for her relative willingness to speak her mind, often against the party line.
And I've become so familiar with her foibles - closing her eyes when she's caught on the defensive; bristling when faced with a young, attractive female guest - that I've begun to find them endearing.
Never mind that she's black and female, I suspect it will be her air of genuineness that will distinguish her from the other candidates, and endear her to the public, if not the party, in the coming weeks.
Though she's unlikely to win - as I write, her odds are 25 to 1 - her candidacy will be a welcome sideshow to the painful spectacle of the Miliband brothers' rivalry.
It must be awkward for parents whose offsprings' talents coincide to such a degree.
I reckon the Milibands will be hoping David will win, knowing that to be beaten by a younger brother is a harsher blow than to lose out to an older one.
The pair have said that brotherly love transcends politics. But in the coming weeks, as the leadership battle gets bloodier, the Miliband brothers will have to invite warlike feelings into their hearts, and are likely to land blows on one another that will be hard to forget, whichever one wins.
And if the winner is Ed, will David ever forgive his kid brother for rendering him the Paul Ross of politics?
awolstenholme@ywng.co.uk
