A McMess for Prince gobbo

THERE was a long-standing joke during the Hutton inquiry about the Daily Mail’s coverage of it. It was said by many, the the mid-market paper had a tough task: who to side with, Labour or the BBC?

For it, it really was a case of the lesser of two evils. I think it plumped with the BBC in the end, though I’m not sure that truce lasted all that long.

This week, we had another of those situations for the media, after Prince Charles announced that he thought McDonald’s should be banned.

So who do we side with? The multi-national giant which had made fatty foods available for all and made the task of bringing up children on a healthy diet so much harder for parents who care (ie those not in North Tyneside) about what goes into their children’s mouths?

Or the slightly potty, greatly detached-from-reality prince who seems to be more Teflon than the prime minister when it comes to making sure nothing ever sticks to him?

Initially, I’d have plumped for Charles on the grounds that a bit of Maccie bashing is almost as popular in the media as a bit of Mucca (lady Heather Mills) bashing.

But then it emerged that while, yes, McDonald’s food range isn’t that healthy for you, it certainly beat a range of snack type products called Duchy Originals.

Organic they may be, but just being free of chemcials doesn’t guarantee low calorie count, low sugar, low fat or low salt counts. As Prince Charles should know – given that the Duchy Originals range is actually his own.

This, in my book, makes him either ignorant, or a hypocrite. Or both. A man happy to jump on a bandwagon rather than assess the facts, which are these: Yes McDonald’s foods aren’t the healthiest, BUT the company has tried very hard to put healthy products on its menu. It’s also possible to have some regular McDonald’s meals for fewer Weightwatcher points than a low-fat ready meal.

And above all, Prince Charles forgets one important fact. Just because he doesn’t seem able to control what comes out of his mouth doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t able to control what goes into ours.

It’s called freedom of choice. Something we all have, except when it comes to deciding if we wish to pay for the monarchy.

Getting forgetful

ONLY 13 Labour MPs attended, but the fact that Sky News and BBC News 24 covered it live meant it was beamed into my living room when I really should have been trying to catch up with Phil and Fern on This Morning.

I'm talking about this bizarre 2020 vision thing which Alan Milburn, he who makes a great play of representing a down-at-hell constituency in the North East, and Norfolk's answer to Shrek - Charles Clarke, launched yesterday morning. Cue sighs at Sky News and News 24 as another half hour of television was filled easily.

Both - Clarke and Milburn, not the news channels - insist it's a chance to kick about ideas about future Labour policy via the internet to make sure Labour has a purpose for the next decade.

It's not, they say, a ploy to flush out some Blarite candidate to stand against Gordon Brown. Which is just as well really, because any politician who can properly read public opinion - rules out David Blunkett then - will know that standing on the Blairite ticket in the current anti-Tone climate will generate a similar reaction to Michael Barrymore promoting swimming pools.

But if they do both desire a non-Brown successor to Blair, then why not say so? Brown isn't stupid, he knows who his friends are, and surely Milburn won't be hoping for a way back in? And Charles Clarke? Too frank, too often, about Brown, me thinks, to think he can find a way back in.

Because, as I've said before, it's wrong for Labour to assume it can just pick a new prime minister for the country. It should pick a new leader, then go to the polls. And for the Labour Party itself, it is arrogant for Blair to engineer some sort of succession. That's not how it works. A realistic challenger is needed, not John McDonnell, to come and have a go with Brown.

I dare say Brown will be our next PM, and I certainly plan to vote for him ahead of Cameron if that is the case, but Brown will be all the stronger if he has fought off a real competitor for the top job. As Michael Howard will be only too happy to tell him.

But seeing as Milburn - who, I've always found, has the sort of demeanor when being interviewed which suggests he thinks he's only one question away from having a secret revealed - wants to focus on policies, lets do just that.

He wants policies to take Labour forward. I say this: How about getting the original policies sorted first.

During his tenure as health secretary, he pledged Alzheimer drugs for all who needed them, a decision now rescinded by NICE, the government body which rations drugs on the basis of cost.

If Mr Milburn - who seems to love power but not real responsibility - really wants people to take his attempt at debating future policies seriously, perhaps he needs to try a little harder at ironing out where the current ones have gone wrong.

Perhaps then such fringe press conferences, which didn't even flicker on the radars of most Labour MPs, will be worth the coverage they got on the UK's rolling news channels.

Germans have got the right idea

2.30am Thursday morning - where were you? I was at Manchester Airport, waiting for my girlfriend to arrive on a flight from Gran Canaria.

Inside the incredibly bright arrivals area were maybe two dozen people. Then the flood of tanned-but-tireds surged through the door from baggage collection.

It was the only flight into Manchester between 1am and 6.30am-ish, which is when the run of flights from capital cities across Europe begins.

I've been there in the summer too, at 2am, waiting for my folks. Flying in from Croatia on one occasion, and Portugal on another. In the summer, you'd think it was daytime if it wasn't for the fact the shops are shut (and W H Smith can work out why they don't make as much money as they used to.)

And it got me thinking: Why do we stand for it? The flights times, that is, not a rank branch of Smith's being shut? People save up for months a week somewhere hot, and just shrug when they realise they've got duff times for flights.

I flew back in from Gran Canaria and landed at 6am in Manchester last summer - it knocked the sleep pattern out so much that I might as well have not gone away.

Inside Las Palmas airport at 1am, you couldn't move for Brits - some trying to get drunk to fall asleep, others trying to stay awake through it, and kids getting exceedingly grotty.

I only noticed this because the resort I'd stayed in had a fair old mix of nationalities. German, Swedish, even some French. But their flights weren't leaving at 1am, 2am or 3am. According to the list, theirs left during the day.

We might mock the Germans for always grabbing the best sunbeds, but when it comes to bagging the best flight slots, we need to fight a bit harder.

Get well soon, Tony

IT'S safe to say that most people have heard of Anthony Wilson. If you live anywhere near Manchester, as I do, you can't avoid seeing him.

And thanks to the Steve Coogan film 24 Hour Party People, which chronicles the history of Factory Records, which Wilson created to marke the likes of the Happy Mondays, most people know the legend, if not the man.

For a long time I thought he was a jumped-up self-publicist who kept cashing in on his trend-setting past to turn himself into some sort of TV presenter turned regeneration guru.

And lets be honest, anyone who calls themself Tony H. Wilson is inviting such comments.

I finally met him last year, when he arrived to work on a project to rebrand East Lancashire. Towns like Blackburn, Accrington and Burnley are currently saddled with the dark-mills-and-cloth-caps image, he argued. He's right, I've worked there. His solution? Rebrand the area 'Pennine Lancashire' and cash in on its biggest asset - the rolling countryside.

My misguided thought prior to meeting him was that here was a man, like so many others these days, ready to come up with a plan just to cash in on Government money meant for regeneration projects.

But unlike the many other people I have met of that ilk - and they are everywhere - he spoke so passionately and was so frank that it became obvious he wasn't some regen bullsh*tter. And as for the arrogant Tony H image - I'm pretty certain that's more to do with the people who have hung around him, hoping for a scrap of his glory, rather than the man himself.

And this week, it was sad to see him in the pages of the Manchester Evening News talking about a fight he's currently having with kidney cancer. I know loads of celebrities regularly rock into town and talk about their illness.

Not many, however, do it the way Wilson does. There's was no 'I'll be back for the fans soon,' or similar such PR clap trap. Nor was there any hiding away in a posh hospital getting the sort of treatment which is actually readily available on the NHS.

And it wasn't about telling people about his big op to get some media attention.

Instead, he'd broken his silence because he wanted to praise the quality of care he had received ... on the NHS.

He said: The sheer quality of the care provided to me by the nursing staff and doctors has been fantastic," he said.

"It's funny that everyone has a moan about the NHS except for people who actually use it."

And do you know what, he's spot on. Get well soon, Anthony.

Cameron's potty to hide behind 'privacy'

If there's one constant in the UK, it's that we Brits like nothing more than building someone up in the limelight only to sit back and watch when they get knocked sideways.

And after two days of being the darling of Fleet Street's political editors and commentators, David Cameron may just be feeling that the worm is beginning to turn.

The sad thing is, he only has himself to blame. The issue about him smoking pot as a child - as reported across the Sundays and no doubt in depth in the Mondays too (very slow news weekend overall) - could easily have been wafted away when he was going for election.

Why wouldn't he admit or deny taking class A drugs prior to becoming a politican? And why won't he admit or deny smoking pot as a teenager? A denial would be a swift way of knocking it on the head, unless he did smoke pot in which case journalists will soon find the proof. Admitting it would simply serve to show him regretting his past and using his own experiences to good effect.

But instead he hides behind some pretence that he deserves the right to keep his life before politics private.

Which is rubbish. He chose to stand for election, chose to run for leader of the Conservatives, chose to start presenting himself as an alternative to what everyone assumes will be a Gordon Brown-run Labour Party at the next general election.

By choosing to do all those things he has invited the spotlight into his public and private life - warts and all. He has pledged a clean and honest party, and one which will take the Punch and Judy element out of politics. He's already failed on the latter, and is in danger of falling down on the former.

As an elected representative, he can't on one hand call for cannabis to be reclassified but not divulge if he has ever smoked it. That smacks to the British public of 'do as I say, not as I do.'

If he wants to represent the British people on a world stage as our leader, he has to answer every question put to him. We have a right to know everything about him.

After all, if he feels he can pick and choose what he tells us about himself, can we trust him to be clean on affairs on state if in charge?

He might have a stronger arguement about privacy if he didn't, when it suited him, flout parts of his personal life in public in a desperate attempt to hide his privileged upbringing by screaming 'Hey middle England, I'm like you too, honest.'

Grappling with the webcam in the kitchen with the child appearing bang on cue as he tries to discuss politics while doing the pots - it's a great way to show he's just like each and every one of us but once he's started, he can't decide when to stop.

And what a stupid issue to decide to become the bastion of MP privacy over. Smoking pot. There was a time when it seemed you weren't worth knowing if you weren't admitting to enjoying the weed as a youth.

With his cronies coming out of the woodwork to back him up, we're learning a lot about Cameron's Tories. They believe they're reinventing politics, doing a 'New Labour' in the 21st century. They think they're deciding the rules, playing the game they're way, and the rest of us can play along.

Wrong. We make the rules. We're the ones who vote for you. And by refusing to accept that, the mask of Cameron is starting to slip.

If this man really believes he can have secrets from the British public, then the British public has a duty to make sure he never gets the keys to number 10.

Bakr's dozy

When in doubt about how to begin a blog, I find the best way is to build it around a well-known phrase.

So here's one: You can't make an omlette without breaking any eggs.

And if you want to create a safe, terrorist-free society in 2007, it's pretty much assured that some people arrested will be innocent.

I'm referring to the anti-terror raids which took place in Birmingham last week. Birmingham, of course, is a city which has first-hand experience of terrorism and its human cost.

It also has a police force which many feel was unfairly used as a scape goat when the Birmingham Six had their convictions for the IRA bombing in 70s, quashed.

That same police force, some 30 years on, was at the centre of last week's raids after intelligence suggested a 'Baghdad' style plot to kidnap a British soldier and execute him on camera - only in the UK.

One of the men arrested was Abu Bakr. He's since been released without charge and - as you do - went straight on to TV to blast the police. Admittedly, Operation Gamble - the name the police used for this raid - probably wasn't the smartest in terms of giving pundits an easy hit, but that's besides the point.

Bakr said the police had no grounds to arrest him and that his arrest proves Muslims live in a police state.

Actually, it doesn't. The fact he was allowed to go on Newsnight and make that claim shows he isn't living in a police state.

What's more, if it was a police state, he probably wouldn't have resurfaced for several weeks - if at all. Did he appear on Newsnight with bruises all over him from repeated beatings? No. His harshest accusation was that the police seemed to be fishing for information. Also known, I think, as asking questions.

Sure, it must feel like an affront to be arrested for something you know nothing about, but here are the facts: Twice in 2005, radical Muslims set about blowing up parts of London. One group succeeded, another didn't.

That doesn't mean all Muslims should be suspects, far from it. But it wouldn't hurt for people like Bakr, when released without charge, to express an understanding for the work of the police and why they are doing it. After all, how would he like it if 'dodgy' intelligence - as he called it, although we don't now how reliable it was - wasn't acted upon, and a member of his family died when a bomb went off?

Back to the phrases: Engage brain before mouth appears to one that's spot on here...

Tony Blair is the new Chesney Hawkes

DID you see that video footage of Tony Blair arriving at a school in, I think, Telford, on Thursday?

There he was, surrounded by youngsters, just ahead of education secretary Alan Johnson, with that perma-grin on his face, hoping to talk about the importance of sport.

And talk he did about it - only the media weren't listening. Because all they wanted to know about was his latest chat with the police. One which was kept secret for four days at the request of the police, and for a further day by Downing Street.

I've seen that footage several times on TV now and it's only in the last 20 minutes I've twigged who he now reminds me of: Chesney Hawkes.

Think about it. Popstar of the early 90s, his career has been dominated by one thing: the embarrassing 'I am the one and only' single which topped the charts. No matter what he tries, he can't escape it.

He's now big on the uni ball circuit, and will come out and sing a few of his newer songs, but no-one cares. By the fifth, normally, the audience are singing 'The One and Only' and he decides to oblige.

It's kind of like that in reverse for Blair. Rather than the embarrassing moment coming at the start of the prime ministerial career, it's come at the end. And it doesn't matter what he says, or does, that's all people are interested in. Whether his hands are mucky in the cash for honours scandal.

From an outsider's point of view, it's quite amusing to see the upper levels of the Labour Party rattled as they are. The police investigation, which I suspect many thought would be a cursary white wash, is shaping up to be anything but.

But going back to the Chesney Hawkes analogy, while Chezza's embarrassment at not being able to get past his big single to quite amusing, for Britain, the shadow over Blair is a national disgrace.

Here is a man who, yes, has achieved a lot for the good of the country. But if he was working in commerce and his department was under investigation, surely he'd be suspended from his job pending the outcome? Denied the right to speak to those being interviewed?

For Blair, the time to go has come. There's no point hanging on, hoping it will go away. If he wants to be remembered for his achievements rather than his current sleaze, he'll step back, allow justice to take its course and, if in the right, come out smelling of roses. Of course, if he's got something to hide...

Gordon's jackpot

HMMM. Here's a thought. Last week, Manchester announced it was going ahead with congestion charging. Up to £8 for a visit to the city centre, the experts reckon.

A week later, and against all the odds - betting odds, that is - Manchester lands a super casino, the first in the country.

Call me a cynic, but surely it's in the best interests of the Government to drum up as many visitors as possible for Manchester now it stands a chance of cashing in on them directly (and I'm sure the Government will get a share of a c-charge, even if it is because they will have to pay the councils less for transport projects in the future.)

Perhaps this is what Government means when ministers talk about joined-up thinking?

All bets off when it comes to regeneration

HANDS up if you thought tomorrow's papers would be full of accusations about favouritism, secret dealings and murky goings on after Greenwich got the first super casino?

Certainly, the TV crews were certain it was going to Greenwich, with Blackpool a people's choice second.

Instead, Manchester won. Which was a bit of a shock for everyone, not least the mighty Manchester Evening News which had cued up its third edition with the banner headline: "Blackpool gets super casino."

So surprise all round. But it's not the location which bothers me so much as this myth that it's worth jumping into bed with the gambling industry because of the untold regeneration riches it will bring.

Which is nonsense, and serves to show that regeneration experts the world over are very good at blocking things which don't appeal out of their mind.

The belief is this: A super casino in a poor area will not just a self-contained gold mine, but one in which the area benefits in terms of further investment from other companies, more jobs, and therefore better living conditions.

Look to Las Vegas the experts cry - look what happened to a desert town in the middle of nowhere when the mining industry collapsed. They allowed gambling, and the rest is history. Millions visit every year, it's good, if not always clean, fun in a safe environment.

Which may be true for the Brits like us who head over there for a few days in the year-round sun before heading off to San Fransisco or Los Angeles.

But in terms of creating a better place to live and work, Las Vegas is the last place which British areas should be looking to replicate.

When I went on a two-centre holiday there in 2003, one of the first things our tour guide said en-route to the Stratosphere Hotel was not to walk north of the hotel. The bit between the hotel and the original strip - the bit without the huge hotels - wasn't safe.

South of the hotel, he said, was fine - and the image of thousands thronging the wide pavements each side of the Strip, admiring hotels themed on everything imaginable, is one perhaps worth replicating.

If only it wasn't for the streets on either side. The biggest eye-opener for me was that within 50 yards of these massive hotels were what can only be described as slum housing. Several blocks high, paint peeling, no gardens, the closest these people get to the riches on offer on the Strip is either a) working in one of the casinos or b) spending all their cash trying to get hold of some of the riches.

People in those houses earn peanuts - and there's no reason at all why the supercasino in Manchester will pay anything above the minimum wage over here. So the riches from the tourists like you and me stays on the Strip, or more likely, in the pockets of the big companies.

So the notion that a big bang development can solve an area's problems is rubbish. What about the crime it will bring?

And as for the tourism pull - how long does it take people to get bored in Las Vegas? If you're not hooked on gambling, there's only so much themed hotel days you can take, which is why most people stay three of fours days before moving on. Even then, one of those days is spent at the Grand Canyon.

Blackpool seemed certain casinos would solve its problems. It won't, just as it won't turn East Manchester into the most sought after bit of real estate in the North. Those who will profit will be the casino owners, not the local community which desperatley needs a co-ordinated approach to having its socks pulled up.

We hate Ruth

HERE'S a thought. Imagine a very orthodox Muslim man became an education minister and then decided that the Government shouldn't fund college education, post-16, for Muslim women because it conflicted with his beliefs.

Or a health minister who was a Jehovah's Witness trying his best to give doctors the power to deny blood transfusions to patients because it might interfere with the medic's beliefs?

What would happen? There would, I hope, be moral outrage, an absolute refusal for it to happen. It's the sort of thing that couldn't happen, could it?

But is it so far removed from having a hardline Catholic running the department responsible for equality legislation trying her best to make sure said legislation is equal for all as long as you are not gay?

I don't think so. Two weeks ago, for what it's worth, I felt a tad sorry for Ruth Kelly over the hoo-harr about her son being sent to a private school because she felt it was the best solution for his 'special needs.' For the record, that sympathy vanished when she decided to report The Daily Mirror to the Press Complaints Commission on the grounds that her son's privacy had been invaded.

Bobbins Ruth. By reporting it to the PCC you've made it look as though your son should be embarrassed by his dyslexia, and should try and hide it. You've stigmatised your son when you could have become a champion for better mainstream education.

She's one of those ministers who seems to attract trouble wherever they go. In the 'communities' department, you'd expect her to keep a low profile - and not try and torpedo equality legislation the department is promoting by demanding an opt out for the Catholic church.

Although Tony Blair - whose relationship with the Catholic church is, like most things associated with the great man, a tad odd - has since ruled there will be no opt out for the Catholic adoption agencies when it comes to giving gay couples equal status when placing children, questions still remain about the role of Ms Kelly.

The MP for Bolton whose children go to school in Tower Hamlets, wasn't voted in by the good people of Bolton because she is a severe Catholic. She was voted in because she represented Labour, which has made a great point of putting equality close to the top of its agenda.

She needs to remember that point. Perhaps the people of Bolton were pushing for her to put the boot into the gay community on adoption. Do gay couples make good parents? Probably as guaranteed to do so as a straight couple - surely it all comes down to the individuals involved.

And if the people of Bolton are telling her to push this point, then she needs to resign from her position. She's rather like the chief executive of Barclaycard, who famously said he'd never have one of his cards because the interest rate is too high.

But as with most things New Labour, Ruth Kelly is able to continue in her role largely due to the fact those around her are able to ignore certain parts of the equation. Does Hazel Blears, the party chairman and rule enforcer actively campaigning against a Government policy in her constituency not mean she is in conflict with her party? Apparently not. Does the fact the deputy prime minister was humilated after having a fling mean he now doesn't have the gravitas to continue in office? Apparently not.

And does all this pretty much guarantee Labour will get a good kicking at the next election? When you look across the floor at Cameron and his mob, and ask yourself if they'd be any better, there is only one answer: Apparently not.

Potty mouths ahoy

Hmmm. Knowing when to shut up appears to be a skill in short supply at the moment.

Take Jade Goody last week - she just kept blabbing, blabbing, blubbering, blabbing after coming out of the Big Brother house. She's ashamed of herself for her 'racist' comments made to Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. But she's not managed to keep it zipped long enough to make me think she is actually genuinely remorseful - instead, her continual presence in the papers makes me reckon she's crying crocodile tears over her flagging career.

Her actions, apparently, should make Britain ashamed. For those in their ivory towers who still believe Britain is classless society, then perhaps Jade's ignorance did come as a surprise. So perhaps they are ashamed. But this week, I think, there has been a real reason to be ashamed. Those travelling from across the UK to Devon to raid the washed up goods from on board the stricken ship - great journalistic phrase - Napoli.

People honestly rented vans in Manchester and Liverpool before driving to Devon to see what booty they could get. The sight of us, in the 21st century, allowing people to steal belongings from others as a result of a accident is shameful - another favourite word among journos. Some people did get lucky, with BMW motorbikes and more perfume than you could shake a stick at. But what about those leaving with random pipes, or car steering wheels. What's more embarrassing for us as a nation - that people would happily pick among the piece of a disaster or the fact we did nothing?

And to hide behind age-old scavanging rights is very sad, too. Just because it was law in the past doesn't mean it is morally acceptable now. Mancuians on the beach proclaiming their scavaging rights as though they were taught about them at school.

I was taught at school about the Pendle Witches, and how suspected witches were thrown into ponds with weights tied on. If they sank, they weren't witches, if they did, they were, and they were killed by other means. I have no idea if killing witches is still legal - I can't imagine it's come up for debate in Parliament - but I've not intention of chucking the woman down the road who keeps leaving rubbish at the end of my garden into the pond, just because it's what they used to do in that neck of the woods.

But to go on to Radio 5 Live, as one woman did and say a)it was her right to steal from a ship's cargo and b) she only went because she heard there were nappies on board and her daughter has just given birth served to prove people don't know when to shut up when a microphone is put in front of them.

And if I needed further proof, and regular readers of this blog will know I rarely need proof before ranting, about my theory that people don't know when to shut up, then I got it today.

Step forward Derek Williams of North Wales. He's a child porn pervert. He downloads nasty images of children. He was convicted of this yesterday, but thanks to Home Secretary John Reid's decision to say only serious repeat offenders should go to jail, he got a six month sentence suspended for two years.

Plenty of gnashing of teeth as you may well expect. The Tories, Victim Support, something called SmartJustice, the Lib Dems, victims of crime - all came forward to say what a scandal it was.

And so did Mr Williams.

Sat, in what I'd call scruffs but fear are probably his best clothes, he berated the fact the judge's hands were tied. He was gracious enough to admit he was lucky to be out - too right - but then went on to say it showed what a state the country was in. He also said the country included England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Proof, like I said, that sometimes people should take their right to remain silent - for the benefit of us all.

Have a good weekend.

Soapstar washout...

To the pages of the Manchester Evening News, where Antony Cotton, he who won Soapstar Superstar, is expecting great things as a result of his success.

The prospect of several main storylines in Britain's favourite soap - Coronation Street - doesn't appear to be enough. He wants a talk show.

"I'd like to be something irreverent, light-hearted, a bit camp and a bit fluffy and also a bit new and bold."

Hmmm. Irreverent, light-hearted, camp, fluffy? Try Channel 4, weekdays, 5pm Antony - Paul O'Grady got their first!

But while Antony may be suddenly losing grip on reality, the same can't be said of 'racist' Jade Goody.

Quoted in the papers today, she says: "I just hate myself right now." It's only taken four years, but it appears Jade is finally on the same wavelength as the rest of us.

Posh n Bucks - hell, everyone else has used that pun

Hmmm. David Beckham is off to America to help raise the profile of game known as 'soccer' on that side of the pond.

Good luck to him. And after CBS Evening News (shown in the UK on Sky News just after midnight) marked his pending arrival by showing an England goal scored by Michael Owen, it would appear Beckham needs all the support - practical, spiritual, divine, what ever you can offer - to get 'soccer' better known stateside.

But in all seriousness, people do need to lay off the whole 'he's doing it for the money' business. He doesn't need the money. It's only right he should move the family to America and quietly ply his trade while his wife tries to give her career a push. After all, she's been very good at sitting quietly in the background while David's tried to keep pushing on in football, hasn't she?

And on that note, have a good weekend.

Raining on the RAC's parade

Some essential advice issued by the RAC Foundation today, from Edmund King, arguably the second-most quoted man on TV (after Cary Cooper, the psychologist).

He is quoted as saying that drivers should stop when approaching a swollen ford [ie a stream that's full because of the rain, not a car with too much petrol in it] and check how deep and fast flowing the water is.

More than 18 inches could be enough to cover the engine and brakes of a small car, which could make the engine cut out and the brakes fail.

If you get stuck, call out your breakdown service. the longer the car is in the water, the greater the damage to the electrics.

"If a farmer is nearby, pay him to pull the car out. It could be cheaper in the long run. If your car is swept away and you can swim, it's best to get out."

Two questions:

1) What about those of us who don't live in Suffolk

and

2) If you found any of that advice enlightening, how the bloody hell did you get a driving licence in the first place?

Give the man a chance!

QUESTIONS which need answers from today's news: Why have three Premiership managers now paid money to sign Djimi Traore? Why does anyone feel the need to own a pitbull terrier? And why are people now calling for John Reid's head at the Home Office?

Of the three questions listed above, I think the latter is the most baffling. Question one may well answer itself in time (though I doubt it) and question two probably has something to do with feeling inadequete as a human being wrapped in the answer.

But as for question three, well, here's another question: Is it not becoming abundantly clear that the Home Office's problems have nothing to do with the politican in charge, but those paid handsome salaries to run the place?

From the Criminal Records Bureau fiascos to prisoners escaping, from the scandal that is the asylum system to the current debacle about unregistered criminals in the UK, one thing is adundantly clear: John Reid was stating the bloody obvious when he said the Home Office was no longer fit for purpose.

But perhaps more telling was the point from Jack Straw, a former home secretary, who incidentially was wrongly derided later by his successor David Blunkett - the most disappointing politician of all time.

Mr Straw said, this week, that it is impossible to know everything that goes on in the Home Office until you are made aware of it. He was smart enough to make the point that such a comment was similar to Donald Rumsfeld's famous "there are known knowns, known unknowns but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know." comment about Iraq.

And in a nutshell, the point is this: You can't sack John Reid for something he didn't know anything about. It's different if it later comes to light he did know about it, but I doubt that will happen.

If it proves to be true Tony McNulty, one of his ministers, did receive a letter about senior police officers about the problem, and never followed it up after passing it on to colleague Joan Ryan, who, it is said, did chuff all about it, then both of them need to go.

As do the people inside the Home Office who have let it happen in the first place. This isn't just about an error in the sense that files which should have been processed on to the national police computer when they arrived at the home office were just left to one side.

It's about putting the safety of the public at risk. 500 free of a criminal record in this country. Rapists free to work in schools.

So if Mr McNulty or Ms (Mrs?) Ryan have been, at least, inefficent, they need to go. And the people in the Home Office who made the mistake need to go.

We're living in an age where the 'war on terror' has impacted on all our lives. We're all having to be more cautious, and put up with tougher measures in the name of security.

There needs to be a feeling of terror in the Home Office, too. A knowledge that if you get something so simple so wrong, then you walk. Being in the public sector has many perks over the private sector, but job security when you put the security of others at risk can't be one of them.

And Mr Reid needs too keep looking at the department and decide whether it does need to change. If it is too big to meet the modern-day challenges, then it needs to be shaken up. And he's the man who should be given the time to sort it out.

Because, after all, if Blair is to kick out John Reid because he has failed to get to grips with a massive public sector instution, then surely he has to do the same with the woman hasn't yet turned the NHS around.

And Pat Hewitt has had much longer at it that Mr Reid!

Blunkett again

Footnote to yesterday's blog: I made a mistake. I took David Blunkett's column to be a serious reflection of the week's events. Then I saw he allows someone to impersonate his guide dog, Sadie, and write about reduced fat doggie chews. And he wonders why no-one takes him seriously now.

Spot the hypocrite!

IT'S funny, isn't it, how sometimes you end up sympathising with people you have generally disliked in the past?

Take Ruth Kelly, for example. On a professional level, as a journalist, I've met her twice. I've found her to be generally off-hand, unhelpful and ever so slightly patronising of anyone who hasn't signed up to the New Labour belief-sphere lock, stock and barrel.

So how odd that I find myself feeling sorry for the semi-mauling she's taken in the papers - simply because she's put one of her children - with special needs - into a private school because she doesn't feel the right education is available in the state sector.

Ok, so she's an MP, and more than most MPs, has had the chance to influence education policy. But the Government's push towards placing as many special needs pupils in mainstream education as possible wasn't her idea.

No, it was that of David Blunkett MP, who writes in his Sun column today: "All politicians are vulnerable because they may not have made enough progress to avoid the accusation that what they expect for others, they don't expect for themselves."

That's a rather rich statement from Blunkett, who always insists he should never have had to resign from the cabinet - on either occasion - and who didn't believe the public should be so interested in his private affairs, before releasing a book detailing those affairs.

He goes on: "Surely the task we face is making major progress so we don't have to take these difficult decisions. Or more important, don't exclude those who don't have enough income to make these choices."

Again, rather rich - seeing as he has effectively created this situation by forcing special needs provision into the mainstream and, according to parents involved, diluted the ability of such services to be as specialist as each child may need.

And as for not excluding those who don't have enough income to make the choices - as the first education secretary following the 97 Labour landslide, can he explain where some of the support packages for getting youngsters into the private sector when they needed such support, went?

Funny how some people you should respect you end up disliking with a passion?

But, having established that perhaps David Blunkett is perhaps being more of a hypocrite - or, at best, forgetful - than Ruth Kelly, what should we expect from her?

Well, to my mind, it's not what she's done that is the problem - she, after all, is doing what's best for her children within her means - but what she now does in the future.

Within her means is the ability to rattle cages in Cabinet and point out that the system is wrong. To point out she is one of the lucky ones, who can fund a private education, and not one of the parents who have to fight for support to help their child.

Old Labour hands who want to hit out at her for appearing to say 'what's good enough for you is not good enough for me' have got it wrong. Three of her children are in state schools - which is more than can be said for the likes of Mr Blair's children - so, where possible she's shown she is perfectly happy to use state schools.

And perhaps the fact she has only turned to a private school now is an even greater ringing endorsement for state schools - that she felt they were so good for her other children that she didn't feel the need to put them into private schools, and only turned to one in desperations. That does rather contrast with Blair's determination to keep his sprogs away from the unwashed public.

Ruth Kelly now has the chance to make sure other parents don't face the same tough choice as her - or the even tougher fight to get what's right for their child when they don't have funds at their disposal - but to have David Blunkett telling her this when he's the one to blame for the problem shows where the real charge of hypocrisy lies.

Skip over, Freddie

So there you are. 5-0. The Ashes Whitewash. No longer will a giant home win football (say 7-0) be known as a cricket score, instead a heavy away win will be an England 'Ashes' score. 0-7.

As is typical when something goes wrong, a large-scale review is launched. This is cricket learning from Government. When in doubt, have a probe/review/investigation/public inquiry.

But for the sake of cricket, or English cricket at least, this one can't just be brushed under the carpet - so no need to call in Lord Hutton, then.

Even Andrew Flintoff agrees. In his home-town paper, the Lancashire Evening Post, he said it was important that the 5-0 whitewash wasn't a pointless exercise.

Of course it's easy to say that now, just as it was easy, if slightly odd, for Flintoff to say at 4-0 that England still had something left to play for.

He goes on to say that some of the players played well, some of the time. How true. Sadly, Freddie wasn't one of them.

He points to three players who scored centuries. One each. Australia had seven different players hitting centuries.

Most tellingly, although 'Freddie' probably doesn't realise this, he admitted: "Australia stuck to their plans and exploited weaknesses and that's something we can look at."

Spot on, My fellow once-a-Preston dweller. And here's weakness number one: Freddie as captain.

When is sport going to learn that natural ability - ie scoring runs and bowling fantastically well - doesn't naturally translate into being a natural Captain Fantastic.

Listening to his ramblings after each Test Match - It's just one game we've lost/there's still three more to go/We've got to take the positives from these three games/there's still something to play for in the last game/this can't be a pointless exercise - made me want to chew my hand off rather than have to listen to anymore.

So heaven only knows what it must be like being a professional cricketer, at the peak of your game, receiving pep talks from him ahead of a match. His speeches sounded more like those desperate screams you hear from the footie terraces on a Saturday afternoon when deluded fans believe they can still turn round a 2-0 scoreline in the last 10 minutes, than the careful prose of the captain.

The simple fact of the matter is that, with Freddie off form, we struggle. And what's changed between the Ashes we won and the Ashes we lost - other than the hemisphere played in? That's right, Freddie's the captain. Great honour and all that, but even he must realise for the good of the game, he's not the man for the job.

It was the same with Ian Botham. And in football, the same with David Beckham. The odd flash of brilliance here, a bit there, but certainly not what we'd come to expect from Beckham. And when players in a team see their captain struggling to reach peak form, they get distracted, concerned. The confidence as a whole starts to go.

The best teams in any sport are those captained by people who are an intergral part of the team but not always the shining light. Take Blackburn Rovers when they won (or bought) the Premiership. Who do you remember from that team? Alan Shearer. Was he captain? No. It was midfielder Tim Sherwood - a man whose role enabled him to lead from the middle. The team didn't rely on his goals. The same goes with Manchester United - look how successful they were with Roy Keane as captain.

So it's time to see Freddie take his own advice. Don't do a Blair and promise to fix something then blame all around you and paint yourself whiter than white. After all, I'm sure Freddie wouldn't want Blair doing a Freddie - and coming round to p*** in his back garden - something we should be entitled to do after the shower we've had to suffer down under.

Pure genius!

Just a brief one today, because sometimes, it's just better to defer to someone else. And today, I'm deferring to Hugo Rifkind, of The Times:

At the funeral of President Ford yesterday this country was represented by Sir David Manning, the British Ambassador to the US. Strange that Gordon Brown, for example, couldn’t be persuaded to attend the funeral of this former head of government who stepped in unelected to replace a disgraced predecessor, served a mere two years and was then booted from office at the ballot box. Whatever could have put him off?

Every little helps...

Well, it's started already. The Tesco-bashing, that is. All over the Sunday Times, the shock horror figure that Tesco snapped up half of all new retail space in 2006.

Straight away, out come the claims that Tesco is taking over the world, leaving shoppers with no other choice about where to go, and what to buy.

You'd think Tesco was so powerful it was ordering the Government to issue Tesco tokens instead of child benefits so those relying on the state had nowhere else to go.

But when you see Asda leading the charge of those complaining that Tesco is too dominant, you have to laugh. Why are they grumbling? Possibly because they aren't the ones taking over the world? A bit rich from a chain owned by Walmart, the company Asda was supposed to copy but which Tesco has aped more successfully.

After all, where do you prefer to shop? For me, it's Tesco every time. I particularly like going into my local branch on my way home from work, at about 11pm, and being confused by the night shift staff for management simply because I am wearing and shirt and tie. If you want good customer service, that's how to get it.

Unlike Asda, where beyond the usually inane greeter at the front door, all you get are the most miserable people on earth, who treat serving you as a favour to you as a customer and whose priority is to get to the bargain aisle ahead of the shoppers when the cheap bread comes out.

And ask yourself, why is Tesco so successful? Why will people travel miles to go to their nearest megastore? And why are their local stores in town, city and suburb centres so popular?

Could it, just possibly be, that they provide what people want, at a price they can afford, in surroundings which don't make you wish you had a machine gun?

Not to mention some canny business deals. In the Lancashire town of Rawtenstall, there used to be just one supermarket: Asda. It decided it needed a bigger store, obviously purely for the good of the shopping communinty rather than its profits. So it spends several millions building a new double-decker store.

And what happens to the old store? Asda sells it off to a property agent ... who sells it to Tescos. Bingo. One-store town becomes a two-store town. The shops on the little high street haven't suddenly closed. The fruit shop is still there, as is the bakery (several of) and the market, twice a week, seems as busy as ever.

Tesco isn't going to kill off the world with its clout. It won't kill off the little store if the little store realises that it has to raise its game and make personal service count over discount prices. And if it makes life harder for Asda, then good, perhaps they'll raise their game too. But I doubt it. Still, when it comes to improving a trip to Asda, any little bit would help!