Here are some musical highlights from last year that Londoners were able to enjoy and that had something in common: the composer Nitin Sawhney played extracts from his music along with a few of his friends, Anoushka Shankar, Akram Khan, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui; John Dankworth and Cleo Laine were joined by those consummate jazz musicians, Soweto Kinch and Guy Barker, to pay homage to the work of Duke Ellington; Michael Ball, a bestselling tenor known for his work in musicals, mixed popular standards by Bizet, Bernstein and Carly Simon.

If you were paying careful attention to the utterances of Margaret Hodge, the UK culture minister, this week, you would not have guessed that all these concerts took place under the auspices of the BBC Proms. Hodge crassly decreed that this revered cultural institution had not played its role in fostering a sense of common belonging among Britain’s citizens.