£10,000 for speeding?

LET'S be honest. The real reason we don't want Jean-Claude Junckers as president of the EU is that Junckers is far too much like Junkers, the manufacturers of the German bombers used in the last attempt (1939-45) to create a united states of Europe. We Brits would have similar difficulties with anyone called Heinkel, Dornier, Messerschmitt or Tigertank.

A REPORT by Cancer Research UK says nearly one teenager in 20 has used a sunbed, despite the 2011 law banning their use by under-18s. So why not ban them altogether? Sunbeds, that is, not teenagers.

YOU may recall that last month MPs were given a lovely long 19-day spring break because Parliament had run out of things to debate. Yesterday it was announced that limits on fines imposed by magistrates are to be quadrupled. Speeding on the motorway, for instance, could cost you £10,000 while not having a TV licence could set you back £4,000. Do you remember this ever being discussed in the Commons? Can you recall it appearing in any election manifesto? Was it raised in the pre-election debates? Quite suddenly, penalties faced by millions of folk have been hiked to a level where they could wipe out a family's life savings. We are told that the new limits will be laid before Parliament for a debate. But this has all the hallmarks of a ministerial diktat, to be rubber-stamped in minutes. That's British democracy in action. Blink and you'll miss it.

NEARLY 30 years after Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn wrote them, the scripts for Yes, Prime Minister are as crisp and clever as ever. Consider the explanation by Sir Desmond Glazebrook (Richard Vernon), from the recent repeat (BBC2), on how the City of London ought to be supervised: "City's a funny place, Prime Minister. You know, if you spill the beans you open up a whole can of worms. I mean, how can you let sleeping dogs lie if you let the cat out of the bag? You bring in a new broom and if you're not very careful you find you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Change horses in the middle of the stream, next thing you know you're up the creek without a paddle." We smile wryly not only because it's a wonderful stream of mixed metaphors but because the culture of croneyism and self-interest it exposed back in 1987 is still alive and well and dominating the City today. A laughing matter? No, prime minister.

IF the Taliban can attack Karachi airport, how long before they are capable of seizing Pakistan's stock of nuclear warheads? I like to think there is some incredibly clever and well-rehearsed plan to prevent such a thing. But then there was probably an incredibly clever and well-rehearsed plan to protect the airport.

WE can at least be thankful that the Taliban attackers were not listening to Twitter. If they had been, they would have heard tweets from terrified passengers trapped in airliners on the runways, helpfully pointing out that the planes were fully loaded with fuel and people. There are times, and this was one such time, when the best thing you can do is keep very, very quiet. Sadly, Twitter has made blabbermouths of us all.

One of my old regiment's few D-Day survivors sent his apologies to the monthly reunion pleading "trouble with the waterworks." The inevitable sympathetic noises were interrupted by his best pal who explained: "He's got to be in between 11 and 2 'cos the bloke from Severn Trent Water's calling."