Both men are back in the public eye, with new things to tell us about life and work. Take Beckham first. His credentials as a totemic father, husband and gender crossbencher are in ruins. Rumours of infidelity multiply. Claudio Ranieri, the Chelsea manager, is the new role model for tearful men. Even Beckham's pioneering fondness for lingerie has been superseded, now that Bob Dylan is growling his way through adverts for turquoise balconette bras.
For the disdainful who think the Beckham revelations make Footballers' Wives resemble Madame Bovary, it is too late to catch up. Already the plot features a matador, a chauffeur who allegedly worked for Fidel Castro, and the Spanish equivalent of Jordan. Here, however, is a brief recap. Beckham is accused of having an affair with his former personal assistant, Rebecca Loos. It is reported that they exchanged mobile phone text messages too lurid even for our top-shelf teen magazines. Newspapers are forced to print transcripts splattered with asterisks, as they speculate on the future of the Beckham marketing pull.
Will Pepsi ever taste the same again? Will Bend It Like Beckham lose its innocence? Will Vodafone subscribers on the delayed 5.10 to Leatherhead blush furtively while composing messages saying things like: 'Hold casserole late 4 tea'? Hoping to resurrect their marriage and their brand, the Beckhams, complete with a Greek chorus of inlaws, meet up at Courchevel.
Posh has packed enough designer snowwear to clothe the entire Inuit population, though, oddly for an aspiring snow-boarder, no gloves. But sport is not the point. Instead, the Beckhams entwine themselves around one another in strange poses common only to baby chimpanzees and celebrity couples hoping to convince tame photographers that their happiness is Hello! -proofed. There are some glimmers of upside. Posh is reported to be thinking of capitalising on the publicity surge by releasing a new record, and Beckham's autobiography, My ****, or some such title, is named the fastest-selling memoir in Britain.
But the consensus is that disaster has befallen the Beckhams. Whose fault is this? Well, Posh's obviously, according to most female commentators. Not only is she an unpopular arriviste adorned with plastic fingernails and other women's hair. She is also a third-rate has-been who sacrificed her marriage to her own decaying career.
By refusing to uproot her children and move to Spain, she decreed that her perfect husband had no option but to succumb to one of those clever temptresses no man could resist. If Posh wants to hang on to her marriage, she needs to get to Madrid and get pregnant, pronto.
What a long way we have come since the days of girl power. As the Spice Girls warbled then: 'Now we know what's goin' on this time, we're strong in our feets/ And Now We're Industry Players/ We're wearing G-strings, taking meetings, feelin' music to beats.' Such lyrics may not have branded them ambassadors for feminism, scansion, grammar, syntax, democratised glamour or basic boardroom decorum. Even so, it is dispiriting to watch a coven of opponents trampling Posh beneath their own Gucci-shod 'feets'.
There is something horrible about the reaction to the latest chapter in the Book of Beckham. It is not sufficient to dismiss the whole saga as tabloid claptrap, when the handbaggers are from broadsheet papers and redtops alike. It doesn't matter, either, that the story is tawdry. The whiff of atavistic attitudes to women and to relationships says more than we care to acknowledge about modern manners.
If Victoria Beckham should be sacrificing her career to that of her wonderful husband, then so, logically, should women who are being encouraged to take advantage of the flexible working legislation. At first glance, the new laws, which have just passed their first anniversary, are a big success. Eight out of 10 of the parents of young or disabled children who have asked for flexitime have had their requests granted. The take-up of the new provisions is hopeful, too, with almost half of those eligible applying for hours tailored to their family needs.
The less encouraging statistic is that four out of five of these applicants are women. It is not that fathers don't want to spend time with their children, but in our supposedly malleable social market economy, men still fear falling behind, or missing out on promotion, if they dare break rank. That worry becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more men and women are seen as different species of worker, the worse deal women will get on pay and rank.
That is where Alan Milburn comes in. Not only is he calling for a White Paper on the work-life balance, addressing the gender pay gap, long hours and the still woeful lack of childcare. He is also a test pilot for this new culture, claiming that life as a family man is 'a million times better' while taking his two young sons with him to speaking engagements. Mr Milburn is not as pretty as Mr Beckham, and nor is he quite as showy.
He has not had a calligraphic tattoo of his partner's initials inked on his inner wrist or invested in his'n'hers Dolce & Gabbana wardrobes.We must take his word for his happiness, but, actually, the less we know about it the better. As the Beckhams have shown, family evangelism can be a risky card to play. Still, like the Milburns, they have some useful public lessons to deliver.
On the logic of the Posh-haters, Milburn was mad to give up his Cabinet post. His partner, Ruth Briel, was never tipped as a future Prime Minister. So what was she doing, insisting on working as an NHS consultant psychiatrist in Darlington, instead of traipsing round Westminster on the arm of her hard-working husband?
If her relationship had not withstood the strain of separation, she would have had no one but herself to blame. Such arguments are as absurd as they are sexist. They are also the ones deployed by independent-minded women about the inevitability of the schism between the Beckhams.
We may well get Mr Milburn's White Paper. We might get a month's paternity leave instead of the current fortnight. We could even have the year's paid maternity leave at which Patricia Hewitt, the Trade Secretary, has been hinting for some time. All of those would be most welcome. But there will never be equality at work, or at home, for as long as antediluvian attitudes to women prevail.
As cultural lodestars, Posh and Becks have always been overrated. This time, we can be grateful for Mrs Beckham's contribution to public debate. Inadvertently, she has given a whole new meaning to Victorian values.
