Some previous commissioners have deferred to political appointees, not only on matters of policy (which is often appropriate), but also on decisions that concerned individual products or civil service personnel.
Lord Alexander, like those two before him, was the sort of man who epitomised the best side of this country's establishment: well connected and schooled, unabrasive, scrupulously fair, yet eager to speak out on issues that concerned him, such as civil liberties, human rights and, latterly, the legality of the Iraq war.
Giving the background to his decision, the judge, Ian Dove, even quoted Wordsworth, whose walks around Tintern Abbey on the banks of the Wye, prompted him to write: "How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye!" Dove noted the case hinged on issues that concerned Wordsworth – "the natural landscape and those who tend it".
In the Commons chamber he was a regular speaker on issues that concerned him, in particular disarmament, church affairs and racial discrimination.
In the midst of an escalating diplomatic crisis, the Swedish government was due to decide on another issue that concerned Saudi Arabia, a very sticky one.
In America it takes only seconds to find out about a sex offender: some states have a "click to print" icon on their websites so that concerned citizens can put up posters with the offender's mugshot on trees near his home.
On Friday, Kahn said the Times did not report on a "very narrow issue" that concerned "the background of the captive soldier".
But it was not a matter of the soul that concerned them on Thursday; their issues were more temporal: All had warrants seeking their arrest, and they were turning themselves in beneath a cloak of leniency.
It is in Gay's essay that some of the questions that concerned Hume on the nature of virtue are addressed.
I had seen that concerned look twice before, on other doctors' faces.
