Peter Rhodes on a big wait for small beer, a digital strip search and Corbyn's terrible timing

BACK in the 1980s I visited an old soldiers' home in Norway with a party from the Royal British Legion. The ale flowed like water and all was very merry. My Norwegian host turned to me and said: "Of course, all this beer is non-alcoholic." Turned out the entire home was a dry zone. Yet the zero-percent beer tasted like the real thing and had a pleasant placebo effect.

I WAS reminded of that trip this week when it was reported that alcohol-free beer will soon be available on tap in some British pubs. It is part of a growing fashion for a teetotal lifestyle. Recent research suggests that almost one in three kids aged 16 to 24 do not drink alcohol. And the latest brews are claimed to be as tasty as the real thing. In fact, just like the stuff we were drinking in Norway nearly 40 years ago. Probably the slowest innovation in the world.

"DIGITAL strip search" is the melodramatic term invented by critics of the plan to allow police to inspect the smartphones of victims of crime - including rape victims. But how bizarre it would be if cops were expected to examine CCTV footage, phone logs, car records, DNA and fingerprints yet were denied access to a device which could reveal crucial evidence about a rape. You might assume that the only alleged victim who would deny access to a phone would be somebody making a false accusation. Yet life is never so simple. What if a woman had been raped but was also a career shoplifter and her smartphone contained details of her crimes? Would police overlook the lesser crimes in pursuit of a rapist? I can see this ending up with an independent phone-scrutiny agency with a brief to examine only "relevant" data before handing it to police. The snag, as any detective will tell you, is that you never know what's relevant until you see it.

JEREMY Corbyn's decision not to break bread with Donald Trump is a triumph for political principle but a disastrous error of timing. He turned down the state banquet when the 75th anniversary of D-Day was weeks in the future. Since then we have seen the unbearably poignant display of 749 pairs of boot prints in the sand commemorating the fine young American soldiers who perished training for the Normandy landings at Slapton Sands, Devon. Expect more of the same between now and June 6. We will see old soldiers polishing their medals, union jacks flying alongside the Stars and Stripes. The skies will hum to Spitfires, Hurricanes and Dakotas. We will remember the rare and enduring alliance between UK and USA, forged in blood and honour.

AND then, as the country goes into nostalgia-overdrive, we will be reminded that Jeremy Corbyn has absented himself because he disapproves of the current president of the United States. While the world commemorates the heroism of the greatest amphibious invasion in history and the destruction of Nazism, Jezza shows off his sixth-form politics by tut-tutting about Trump being a misogynist. Right battle, wrong time.