Best of Peter Rhodes - April 16

The best of this week's Peter Rhodes column from the Express & Star.

MARK Damazer, Controller of Radio 4, is retiring. Excellent. Damazer is chiefly remembered for scrapping the UK Theme, that much-loved medley of tunes from around the British Isles which was played each day at 5.30am. Let's have it back. I do miss the Drunken Sailor.

"GORDON Brown admits he mad," declared the strangely illiterate heading on an internet report this week. Turned out the full headline had been cut for reasons of space. It read: "Gordon Brown admits he made mistakes."

AND what an enormous admission it was. I interviewed Brown last year and lost count of how many times he used the word "global". His message was that the UK economy had been fine until those wicked American sub-prime mortgages struck. Now, he is finally admitting he blundered. He failed to regulate the banks properly. The good news? Mr Brown says he has "learned from that."

So that's all right, then.

DAVID (Doctor Who) Tennant is supporting Labour. That's just what the campaign needs. Another Scottish accent.

ONE of the drawbacks of democracy is that it depends on people pushing themselves forward to be candidates. Sometimes the result is a prat like 24-year-old Stuart McLennan, a Labour candidate in Scotland who seemingly saw no contradiction between the fine principles of the Labour Party and sending a Twitter message which read: "God this fairtrade, organic banana is sh*t. Can I have a slave-grown, chemically enhanced, genetically modified one please?" Meanwhile, in the wake of McLennan's sacking, what has become of that high-profile Twittermeister, the MP for Telford, David Wright? You may recall that in February Wright sent a tweet referring to "scum-sucking" Conservatives. The MP claimed these revolting words, which are clearly unworthy of anyone in public office, had been inserted in his message by a hacker. On February 17 the MP announced he was taking up the issue with Twitter and would be asking Government ministers to investigate the business of hacking. Since then, I have twice invited Mr Wright to tell us what progress he has made, with no response. Once again, over to you, Mr Wright.

ELECTION talk for beginners:

* We have no current plans to increase the rate of VAT = We will be raising VAT.

* Our planning is not based on the need to raise National Insurance = That'll be going up, too.

* We will scrap all those wasteful quangos and save £20 billion = After first setting up the Quango Reduction Authority (annual budget £25 billion).

* We will remove the hereditary peers from the House of Lords = And make room for my lad.

* We cherish Britain's free Press = The b******s.

* This country I love = Anywhere inside the M25.

* Government of the people, for the people, by the people = Me.

"AREN'T you that bloke who used to be funny?" The worst greeting in the world, as related by Tony (Baldrick) Robinson, presenter of the new documentary series Blitz Street.

WHY, when the Prime minister launched his manifesto in Birmingham, did the BBC gets its poor, windblown political reporter to comment on it while standing outside on the grass in Westminster? This trend for live location dispatches gives us the routine insanity of shivering hacks standing outside the empty Ministry of Defence on a Sunday night to comment on the latest dispatches from Afghanistan. Bonkers.

MEANWHILE, up in Self Pity City, Panorama (BBC 1) finds an epidemic of preventable diseases including obesity and tooth decay. Reporting from Liverpool, Auntie Beeb observes: "Doctors at the hospital say basic health messages are still not being understood by parents."

Not being understood? Oh, please. What is there not to understand?

* If kids stuff their faces 24/7 they will turn into porkers.

* If kids drink endless fizzy pop their teeth will go rotten.

* If you expose kids to cigarette smoke, their chests will suffer.

There cannot be an adult in Britain who does not know the difference between a healthy and unhealthy lifestyle. We make too many excuses for bad parenting.

GERMAINE Greer admits to an affair with the great Italian movie director Frederico Fellini in the summer of 1975. She "transfixed" him with her flimsy dress and he, planning to stay the night, turned up at her house with a pair of pyjamas. How strange. In English culture, when the pyjamas appear, the affair is over.

THIS Government has done some stupid things but it should not be pilloried over the swine-flu "pandemic" which turned out to be like normal flu, only not so serious, and cost us £300 million in unused jabs. After the bird-flu scare a few years earlier, Whitehall created a response system which swung perfectly into action when it was triggered. If we really need someone to blame, try the World Health Organisation which admitted this week it had made mistakes. My inclination is not to blame anyone. This was a dress rehearsal for Armageddon and it went well. It may yet prove to be the best £300 million we have ever spent.

THE first warm days of the year have produced a satisfying level of buzzing in English gardens. Can it be that the bees are making a comeback?

YOU couldn't help noticing how awkwardly the Polish honour guard carried their leader's coffin off the plane after the weekend disaster which killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others. That is how it should be. Contrast their inexpert fumbling with the practised precision of the British Army's reception party at RAF Lyneham where coffin after coffin from Afghanistan is unloaded and borne away with not a faltering step. When it comes to carrying coffins, our lads have had rather too much practice.

SO BRITAIN'S share of bailing out the knackered Greek economy could be £600 million. Have you noticed these days how anything less than a billion looks like a bargain?