Back to the fold?

HEALTH experts in France are alarmed at a sudden increase in "the Anglo-Saxon phenomenon" of excessive boozing, street crime and unprotected sex." Welcome to le binge-drinking. Another triumph for British exports.

DAVID Cameron is inviting (some would say begging) Ukip supporters to vote Tory again, like the true-blue folk they really are. It is easy to see why. Ukip holds about 12 per cent in opinion polls. If all those Ukippers defected to Cameron, Britain would have its first Tory government since 1997, with a good working majority. The snag is that, according to recent research, Ukip supporters are not quite that true blue; half of them once voted for Tony Blair. The moral? Before encouraging sheep to return to the fold, be certain which fold they will head for.

A DELEGATE at the National Union of Teachers' conference claimed new security rules aimed to prevent radicalism were turning teachers into spies. Or to put it another way, inviting teachers to be socially responsible. Would you want to be the teacher who, in the wake of a jihadist massacre in an English city, admitted that, yeah, you were always a bit suspicious about little Hamza in Year 12 but decided it was better to defend his right to privacy?

THERE is no doubt in the Bible-belt state of South Carolina how local boy Louis Jordan managed to survive 66 days adrift at sea in his wrecked yacht. It was the Good Lord who saved Louis. The missing man's family, friends and neighbours all prayed hard and, out in the wild sea, Louis was not only praying but reading the Bible cover to cover. And lo, he was saved. The mystery is that while the Good Lord was busy saving Louis, He quite overlooked the crew of a Russian trawler that sank in the western Pacific. Fifty-six perished. That's the strange thing about the Good Lord. He does move in mysterious ways.

THE discovery of oil near the Falkland Islands is the worst possible news. What made the 1982 conflict a "good war," and made so many British soldiers, sailors and marines proud to take part, was that is was not fought for oil, gas or fish but on the simple ethical issue that armed aggression must not be allowed to prevail. Reclaiming the islands for the islanders was justice in action. Extracting oil on the doorsteps of South American countries and claiming it as our own is nasty, old-fashioned imperialism and makes a new war more likely. And next time we will probably lose.

ED Miliband's crusade against zero-hours contracts is terribly worthy. But how many folk on such contracts are even on the electoral roll? How many will actually vote on May 7? And of those, how many are already Labour voters? In other words, as Tony Blair would certainly have said of such a campaign, where are the votes in it?

THERE'S a particularly nasty rash of bogus emails doing the rounds which preys on the fears of the unwary. Using an authentic-sounding company name they inform you that the firm has "issued the claim against you and passed for consideration to HM Courts." It looks like a county-court judgment on the way but it's just a scam. Bin it.

WORCESTERSHIRE has emerged in a survey as one of the most difficult words for foreigners to pronounce. They should be thankful that boundary changes have swept away that gem of a Scottish county in which not a single syllable was pronounced as it looked. I have fond memories of Kirkudbrightshire.