Tristram Hunt, one of the great minds of this or any other generation, showed just how clever he is last night by publicising a correction about him printed by the Mail. The story was about Michael Gove finding 14 historical errors in Tristram’s new history book, so it was a double win that the Mail had withdrawn the claims.

So glad to see The Daily Mail correcting the record on Andrew Pierce's hapless journalism http://t.co/fOT2jDflwS#sidebar-of-real-shame

— Tristram Hunt (@TristramHuntVA) August 12, 2014

If you read the actual correction, however, poor Tristram is left red-faced once again:

“A comment article on 14 July repeated unsubstantiated claims that Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt’s new book contained certain errors. We are happy to clarify that the error referred to appeared only in the uncorrected version sent to reviewers and apologise accordingly.”

The explanation that the errors “referred to appeared only in the uncorrected version sent to reviewers” and not in the final version found on the shelves hardly does his reputation for historical accuracy any favours. Not only that, it suggests Tristram’s publishers had to rewrite his book to correct the errors pointed out by Gove. Well done him for pointing that out…