The Financial Times seeks applicants for the Sir Samuel Brittan fellowship. Announcing this, the paper refers to him as Sir Samuel, which is correct. It also quotes its obituary of him where he is called simply Brittan. That is also correct for a dead man, as we might say Churchill, not Sir Winston. It would have been wrong, though, to call Brittan Sir Brittan. That is a rule of the English language.

Yet the FT has taken to referring to peers by their first names and titles, with Lord tacked on before: Lord David Cameron, Lord David Alton. That is as wrong as to say Sir Brittan.

The FT style depends on the theory that everyone has two names and the first name distinguishes them from others with the same surname. So the paper would refer to Lord Conrad Black and Lord Guy Black. But this is not how they are differentiated in the House of Lords. The former is Lord Black of Crossharbour and the latter Lord Black of Brentwood.

Worse, for the FT, is that not every member of the House of Lords is a life peer. Viscount Brookeborough is one of the hereditary peers elected to the House. But his name is Alan Brooke, so the FT could not call him Lord Alan Brookeborough.

Nor do all life peers use their surnames as titles. Lord Deben and Lord Chadlington are brothers. They were formerly John Selwyn Gummer and Peter Selwyn Gummer. I had wondered whether they adopted their middle names when they both went to Selwyn College, Cambridge, but their father was called Selwyn Gummer and had not gone to Cambridge.

As the FT knows perfectly well, someone referred to as Lord David Cameron sounds like a younger son of a marquess or duke. Another Cameron in the Lords has the Christian name Ewen. They are distantly related through chiefs of Clan Cameron, but one is Lord Cameron of Dillington, a place in Somerset where his family has farmed for centuries, and the Foreign Secretary is Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton. Don’t just call him Dave.