Pay the kids for not smoking

JEAN-Claude Juncker is now President of the European Commission but criticism of him will probably continue. A reader writes: "If he reacts by hunkering down in a safe, secure building, will it be the Juncker Hunker Bunker?"

TONY Blair proudly boasted "we have no population policy." Maybe not, but New Labour's immigration policy of throwing the doors open wide is certainly having its effects on population. Latest figures show the UK population has risen by five million since 2001, of which more than half is the direct result of migration. No wonder there's a shortage of houses (although not for the Blairs who now own seven properties worth an estimated £20 million).

IT'S impractical, of course, but the British Medical Association's idea of banning anyone born after 2000 from buying tobacco for life is hugely appealing. Smoking is probably the stupidest thing you can do. It creates an addiction where none existed before, wrecks your health and destroys your family budget. And as the tobacco companies know full well, you don't need a lifetime ban to save a generation from the risk of lung cancer. The chances are that if someone doesn't start smoking by 20, they never will. Of course, some will argue there's a civil-rights issue. As one reader puts it: "The next generation has as much right to exercise free-will as our own." But when you're dealing with a highly addictive substance such as nicotine, where's the free will? So here's another idea. Invite youngsters born after 2000 to report once a month to their GP for a saliva test to detect whether they have smoked in the past few days. For every negative result they get £100. If they reach 21, the age the scheme ends, without a single positive result, they get a £1,000 bonus. The first smoke-free generation could become a reality with no-one's rights being infringed and in the long term it would be money well spent.

WELCOME back, Mock the Week (BBC2) which in its 13th series has dropped all pretence of being a quiz or panel game and is now billed as a comedy show. We knew it was scripted all along and there's no shame in that. If it were spontaneous you would never see Hugh Dennis, as a headmaster announcing: "We are not involved in extremism and any suggestion we are is deeply offensive to us all here at the Jihadi Death to the West Academy."

YEAR after year there is one band that's absolutely essential at Glastonbury. A band of rain.

BUT we should give thanks for the downpours. During the dry spell I found a young slow worm dead on a pavement. Despite its name, the endearing little slow worm is actually a reptile which means it should be able to cope with hot, dry weather. Sadly, its main food is slugs. As the slugs perish in the drought, the slow worms starve. Rain means life.

TRY to catch Police Under Pressure tonight (BBC2). I can't think of another documentary which better shows the difficulty of front-line coppers trying to manage impossible social experiments using utterly useless laws. It's like sending a team of swatters to deal with a wasps' nest and arming them with toothbrushes.

POLICE Under Pressure also answers that baffling question of why so many poor people spend so much of their income on gambling. When a neighbourhood falls apart, your only hope, as one anguished resident put it, is to win the Lottery and move out. Desperate.