Remember the famous words of President Clinton, who ducked and dived and twisted and turned semantically, over his pathetic attmeps to avoid guilt in a sex scandal? Andrew Mitchell’s behaviour took me back a few years. So the words attributed to him were not true? Well then, what did he actually say? Let him tell us, presumably after the 9pm watershed.

It is agony and cringeworthy to watch Andrew Mitchell cling on to his position. A hard day at the office ? So now we have an excuse for a bad behaviour. People in high places need to exercise extra control over their behaviour especially when under stress. Just resign Mr Mitchell and get it over with, instead of acting like a pleb.

I spent yesterday in a communist country bordering the EU. In order to get round indifference by the miserable conscript who has unlimited powers to create diffcuIties which are of his or her own fabrication it is recommneded to offer an inducement. You know what I mean, nudge, nudge, wink, wink comrade. 10 USD per soldier seems to lubricate the machinery and lift the barrier, or a set of 2 of them to be precise. Had this been a business trip would the Act have rendered a passenger on the bus liable to prosecution for failing to grass up the tour guide or is the tour guide himself guilt of a heinous crime? If so, is it better to do nothing and spend the rest of the month in a snaking mile long queue of vehicles?

According to this morning’s news a judge told a habitual burglar that it “takes courage to burgle a house”. I haven’t done it so I cannot comment from experience. I am sure it took a certain amount of guts the first or second time but after that the risk of getting caught is merely an occupational hazard. David Cameron saw fit to comment on the case, so it gives  an indication of how insensitive and outrageous the learned gentleman’s comments were.

I wonder how gushing the judge would have been if it was his house and his privacy that was violated?