The weekly host of Question Time and role model of English decency in a bear pit of conflicting interests.
Whether saving a drowning boy, defusing a bomb with nail clippers or offering himself as a prison hostage, he's a model of steadfast decency.
Outside its borders, as the rush of post-communist states to join the EU demonstrated, Europe is usually seen as an attractive model of democratic decency.
As Mr. Holmes pointed out, Jasper also bears a certain resemblance to his creator, for at the time of writing "Drood," Dickens, one of the most admired and beloved men in England, seemingly a model of kindness, decency and probity, had been living a double life for years.
Sciascia entered politics in middle age and stood out in the Italian senate as a model of honesty and decency.
Ms. Stiles's farm girl-turned-princess-in-waiting is a model of integrity and decency, so unpretentious she seems anachronistic in the age of Britney, Christina and J Lo.
In the 1920s, she wrote a series of 20 articles for The New York American in which she criticized society's lack of respect for models and challenged the prevailing standards of decency and beauty.
"Nina was an uncomplicatedly good woman, whose long fight to obtain justice for the victims of the Potters Bar crash was a model of eloquence, principle and human decency".
