Mark Andrews on Saturday: Don't blame it on the red light, blame it on the Brexit

WELL that didn’t take long, did it? Last week I suggested that within 12 months someone would have found a way to ban Wolverhampton electrician Ray Taylor’s security device, which delivers an electric shock to people trying to break into his van. Now a police chief has invited him to pop in for a chat, which will presumably go along the lines of ‘We understand it’s a bit if a pain having your tools stolen, but you really can’t go around electrifying members of the thieving community.’

Our reporter tried Ray’s device out himself this week, and lived to tell the tale. It can’t be that dangerous.

It reminds me of a story a friend told me a decade or so ago, about somebody who was restoring a disused building in Stourbridge. After repeated break-ins over a sustained period of time, the long arm of the law finally decided to intervene. And told the builder to put up some health-and-safety warnings for the burglars.

TALKING of the Old Bill, have you clocked the barnet on Rachel Swann, the assistant chief constable of Derbyshire police, who criticised families that refused to be evacuated from Whaley Bridge? She looks like she has been checking the doors on Ray's van.

The police are supposed be figures of authority, but that's difficult to pull off when you look like a Jedward tribute act. Still, I suppose it will come useful in sweeping up after the floods.

LOUISE Redknapp has been fined £666 by magistrates for driving through a set of traffic lights 'approximately 1.4 seconds’ after they turned to red.

She has also been ordered to pay £65 costs and a £66 ‘victim surcharge’.

In mitigation, her solicitor explained “she was going through the personal trauma of a divorce which was made that much harder from the interest of the media.”

Now I really don't know how a divorce causes you to go through a red traffic light, but you might have guessed it was all the media's fault.

I do think she missed a trick though. She should have said it was down to Brexit.

SPARE a thought for the poor airline pilots, who have agreed to delay a planned strike for further talks in their pay dispute.

British Airways pilots receive an average of £95,000 a year, rising to £148,000 for a captain, and you do wonder how they manage to make ends meet. Worse than that, they have been offered a pay rise worth just 11.5 per cent over three years. Faced with such hardship, how many of us could honestly say we wouldn't go on strike and ruin the holiday plans of thousands of ordinary working people? Let’s hope BA sees sense and gives them whatever they ask for.

INCIDENTALLY, why do they always talk of ‘strike action’? I thought the whole idea of a strike was taking part in as little action as possible.

IT appears Panorama is in a spot of bother after reporter Stacey Dooley mistakenly accused British women at a Kurdish detention camp in Syria of giving an ‘IS salute’, when they were actually making a common Muslim prayer gesture.

Yes, you read that right: 'Panorama reporter Stacey Dooley'. Remember when Panorama was fronted by the great journalists of our age, such as Richard and David Dimbleby, Robert Kee, and Robin Day? Now it’s fodder for someone whose main claim to fame is an appearance on Come Dancing.

Not that they’re dumbing down, you understand.