Cllr. Gavin Ayling

John Sargeant exacerbated the nanny-state mentality that has been so prevalent in this country as long as I can remember on his programme tonight (Driving Me Crazy on ITV1)… Gah!

The test on screen now is to see whether children can be seen standing behind a 4×4. Some responsibility has to be held by other road users — it is just unreasonable to subject 4×4s to different visibility requirements than vans.

I agree with the point of the programme: it would be better if people didn’t drive 4×4s. But the implication is that banning these cars from particular areas or from roads altogether is the answer to this.

Today I have received several calls from “Lloyds TSB” asking for the user to press any “Any key” for security reasons. This is an automated call.

Unless someone can tell me otherwise, I would like to warn you — do not press any key!

Update: My parents have received similar calls on their home and work telephone numbers.

Malta is too small to show on the map of Europe that appears on Euro coins…

But the EU isn’t too concerned about such things and is exaggerating it’s size. A great result for our friends in the beautiful island of Malta! Of course this will only appear on new coins and so it will first appear on Slovenian Euro coins.

It’s Coeliac Awareness Week so tell any friends you have who have ‘Irritable Bowel Syndrome’ (note to the wise: that’s a description of symptoms not a description of cause) that they may have coeliac disease.

Tell them that they should demand a test from a doctor before cutting gluten from their diet. Tell them all!

It has been suggested that a Scottish Prime Minister with no mandate from the English people should have no say in Housing policy. Unusually for me, I am going to come to his defence.

First, I know immigration is often blamed for the housing shortage, but do we really want to get to a point where Vodafone cannot employ people they need from abroad where the position cannot be filled domestically? Immigration cannot be blanket-stopped in a First World economy.

Also one should note that the first cause of the housing shortage — the one that makes most difference to house prices and the number needed — is the number of smaller households. Single people and older people are living alone more than was historically the case and the number of divorces is also having an impact.

Finally, the people deciding housing policy in England are currently the unelected Regional Assemblies. Quite honestly I would rather Her Majesty’s Government, with the mandate of all Britain (including a majority of English MPs), was the one to decide where we have the new homes we need than Regional Assemblies.

We have a stark choice between having a European-style system of home ownership where only the rich can afford to buy and the majority rent, a country full of high-rise soul-less buildings or one of a few fewer fields. I know that the answer is no single one of those, but compromise must be sought in my humble opinion.