Best of Peter Rhodes - July 4

Here’s a selection of the best of the Peter Rhodes column taken from the Express & Star for the week ending July 4.

HARRIET Harman wants to stamp out privilege in any form with her new Equality Bill. Harriet is the daughter of an eminent physician and niece of Elizabeth, Lady Longford. She attended an upper-crust public school and sent one of her own children to a selective school. Love her or hate her, no-one can deny that when it comes to privilege, Harriet knew exactly what she is talking about.

SHE also has that rare quality, found among families who come from grand homes and castles, of knowing exactly when to pull up the drawbridge.

SINCE the indoor smoking ban was introduced in England, there has been a six per cent drop in smoking with 2.6 billion fewer fags bought. This is social change on a massive scale. Forty years from now, when the lung-cancer surgeons are twiddling their thumbs for lack of work, it will slowly dawn on us that the greatest achievement of bullying, badgering, nanny-state New Labour was neither better schools nor hospitals but destroying the nation’s will to smoke.

IT IS reported that 450 university students in Wolverhampton have been given “formal warnings” after being caught cheating in exams. Look, sonny, I am formally warning you that if you carry on like this you’ll probably win The Apprentice.

TEN years ago 3,000 alcoholics were claiming the £60-a-week Disability Living Allowance. Today, that figure is nearly 17,000. No prizes for guessing what they spend it on.

WHAT to put on the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square? A Daily Telegraph reader suggests inscribing the words: “The honest politician” and leaving the plinth empty.

IN AN orgy of wishful thinking, the liberal elites of Europe predicted that African leaders would rise as one to condemn Robert Mugabe’s shameless power-grab in Zimbabwe. Oh, dream on. One or two prominent Africans, if pressed on the subject, might mutter a subdued word of disapproval. But expecting the African Union to condemn Mugabe is like expecting the crowd at Glastonbury to condemn cannabis. With few exceptions, Africa is ruled by despots, for despots, and the only aim of government is to stash away as many billions as possible before the starving mobs arrive on the presidential lawn with machetes drawn. Mugabe is a bloody-handed jungle savage in a continent where such thugs are not only feared but admired.

I CAN never think of Zimbabwe without recalling the night when my strict Methodist family provided accommodation for a visiting missionary from what was then called Rhodesia. My brother and I, a pair of smartarse teenagers, were ordered to be especially quiet and polite. All would have gone well if the missionary had not insisted on telling us about his seven wonderful years in Wankie. The town has since been renamed Hwange which must be a great relief to the locals who are now presumably known as Hwangers.

WHO cannot be stirred at the obituary of Squadron Leader Larry Curtis who has died aged 87? Sixty-four years ago he survived a forced landing after his RAF bomber crew used a steel ruler to prise the bombs free and jettison them. It gives real meaning to that old cliche about cheating death by inches.

IN THESE cash-strapped times it is important to prioritise your bills. Be warned, if you don’t pay your exorcist you may get repossessed.

THE actor who played the Fonz joined the Schools Secretary to launch the First News Reading tour to encourage literacy. Winkler and Balls. What a combination.

A FUNERAL director in Australia reports that the AC/DC hit Highway to Hell has become a much-requested funeral song. A colleague assures me that an old favourite from the Wizard of Oz is increasingly popular at funerals. Ding Dong, the Wicked Witch is Dead.

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