Bring back hunting - and lose the General Election.

I AWOKE to hear a God-botherer on the radio assuring us that the Almighty was empathising with the relatives of those aboard the missing Malaysian airliner. It would be a lot more helpful if the Almighty told us where it is.

AND so Crimea strides off into the blood-red sunset with its new best mate, Russia. That curious entity known as "the West" is apparently furious at the result of the referendum, but not furious enough to do anything serious about it. This is understandable, given that Russians own half of London while Germany and France are tied into multi-billion dollar deals with Moscow. The abiding question is why would Crimea, or anyone else, want to become part of Russia? The lesson of history is that Russia is always eager to embrace her neighbours. The hard bit (as the people of Warsaw, Prague and Budapest can confirm) comes when you want to get loose. That's when you find yourself staring down the gun barrel of a Russian tank.

I REFERRED last week to highly paid BBC executives who feel the need to try out new comedy on smaller channels because they don't have the wit to recognise that series such as Gavin & Stacey and Little Britain are simply brilliant. The same lack of discernment seems to be happening in reverse with The Walshes (BBC4), a doomed effort which should have been quietly binned before it got anywhere near a studio. It was not so much a comedy, more an assembly of items which could have been taken from Father Ted or Mrs Brown's Boys (wacky Irish family, normal boyfriend, lurking DIY-mad neighbour) and should have been funny, but were not. It was like eating a cake made by someone with all the right ingredients but no sense of taste, and no oven.

THE Prime Minister is reported to be looking at ways of tinkering with the law to allow foxhunting "by the back door." So let me say it once again. If the Tories do nothing about hunting, they may not win the next General Election. If they reintroduce hunting, they will most certainly lose the next General Election. And then, by a strange coincidence, the Camerons will leave Downing Street - by the back door.

I INTERVIEWED Tony Benn in 1993 on the publication of his book Common Sense. I remember it with a shudder because it was one of those rare occasions when I used a cassette recorder, in order to preserve for my grandchildren this momentous one-hour interview with the great man. On the way back to the Tube I tried to play the recording. Nothing. Flat battery. I had taken only the sketchiest of shorthand notes and it says much for Benn's clarity and impact that I was able to write the 1,000-word feature largely from memory.

BENN shared Enoch Powell's dislike of the Common Market. He also shared Powell's delusion that the British people would riot at the drop of a hat. Powell said it would happen over immigration while Benn thought EU policies would light the fuse. As he told me: "When people discover that, whoever they vote for, they cannot change their economic, environmental or agricultural policy, they will go back to the usual method of resisting a grievance, which was to riot." Neither Benn nor Powell considered the possibility that so long as the average Brit has a wide-screen telly, a can of lager and a bag of chips, he won't riot about anything.

ECONOMICS for beginners. If a Government gives parents £800 extra towards child care, by how much will the local nursery put up its charges?