The Good
 
I remember when I interviewed Ken Livingstone a few years ago and told him that congestion charge was just a tax raising exercise because cows passing wind did more damage to the ozone layer that vehicle exhaust fumes – he said that’s why he’s become a vegetarian!
 
As the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) - £12.50 a day - is introduced into London, scientists in Britain are breeding low emission cows into herds! Yes, honest! Almost 15% of the greenhouse emissions come from livestock as opposed to 14% from vehicles. Methane is 28 times more damaging than carbon dioxide.
 
Great news, but ULEZ is just a tax raising scheme, it won’t change the emissions or people using their cars and what about the folk who live in the zone? It is a 24/7 tax and whilst they have an initial exemption that will be reduced and phased out. It is the ordinary resident that will be affected. They will have older cars, but I have a 4-year-old car that is only £30 a year road tax but has to pay ULEZ. The answer is to take my highly toxic Triumph Stag into London, over 40 years old and exempt!
 
 Another good…
 
Like me, you are probably amazed that this wasn’t already happening. From July, online porn users will have to prove their age. Kids currently have unhindered access. About time, but not sure how it will work. It is well known that many sites on the internet are not safe and that people are stealing data and personal details. I’d have penny to a pound that the porn sites had a greater percentage of ‘thieves’ than say, BBC Food’s Recipe page! No idea how age will be checked, but is anybody really going to put, say, their passport details into a site when we already know that data theft is ripe and sophisticated on the net.
 
Great news that some effort is being made on this front… but I’d say to mums and dads, make sure your ID is safe. How will whatever is put in be checked??
 
The Bad
 
UNICEF tells us that half a million kids in this country didn’t get the measles jab between 2010 and 2017. As a post war kid, one of the great advancements of my generation was vaccination. All sorts of diseases were wiped out or controlled, but measles, which in extreme cases can be a killer, is still found in outbreaks across Europe and cases in the UK have now quadrupled in one year.
 
Why? Myths, complacency, misinformation and laziness. Yes, I really do believe that laziness is part of it, people simply cannot be bothered to have their kids vaccinated.
 
Another bad…
 
I wrote last week about Sir Philip Green, but not about gagging orders, the non-disclosure agreements which we are told he uses regularly. Well, he’s not alone, which of course we knew, but it appears that universities have shelled out £87m in the last two years, an average of £22,000 per case (do the maths) to gag victims. Victims of what you ask? Sexual misconduct, bullying, racial discrimination, sexual discrimination and more. And who is responsible for the need to pay folk off? It’s the staff. Are they sacked? After all, if money is paid to hush up the charges, it has to be assumed that they were valid.
 
Ironically of course, universities don’t have any money. It’s given to them by the taxpayer and the students to provide education, so students are directly contributing to these pay offs. And several universities are in a perilous financial state. I’ve got an idea… have the charges brought into the open and let the courts decide with power to make the offender, if guilty, pay compensation if appropriate; not have it covered up at our expense. But that might bring discredit to the university, and so it should! This is mad as well as bad, but it is very, very bad and goes to the core of so much that it so rotten in life today. This isn’t directly the unacceptable face of capitalism, this is institutional.
 
The Mad
 
Initially, I had this as a bad, which it is! But as I wrote about it, it just became more and more obvious that it is totally mad! Killing ourselves with food… one in six deaths is caused by the food choices we make - pure madness!
 
We have never had access to as much quality and variety of cheap food as we do now. When I was a kid we were almost force-fed bread, for one thing it filled you up, but we now eat twice as much meat as bread. I went to Tottenham Court Road recently because I wanted a bit of techno kit and knew there was an abundance of little techie shops there and I’d be sure to get it, but I’d not been for years. All knocked down and replaced with a smart new building with very nice shops on the ground floor and offices above. Almost all were food shops, mainly fast food. Now that’s different from when I was kid! If you walk for 10/15 minutes from the station in any town, you’ll be buzzed by fast food delivery bikes or even vans roaring past you!
 
Yes, we are told that one in six deaths is caused by the food choices we make. Um, I wonder, is the burger I ate at midnight at Victoria station as I caught the last train going to kill me? Of course not, but there are people who live on them, out and at home. I was on the south coast recently and going to look at a new washing machine on a retail park with a drive-in MacDonald’s. It was about 3.45pm and school was out. The queues from the drive-in jammed the roundabout 300 yards away! We’re eating too much food, and although it often tastes good, it isn’t nourishing us.
 
Maybe we need to bring back Billy Cotton’s Sunday lunchtime radio show, “Wakey, wakey!”
 
And finally…
 
Not sure this is really mad, but couldn’t resist including it! 
 
Research coming out of Georgia, which I’m told is the world’s oldest wine making country, says that Mars is an ideal place to grow white wine grapes! It may be the red planet, but it’ll be white wine!
 
There are still experiments to conduct and tests to do but there are 525 types of grape in Georgia and one of them, rkatsiteli, is thought to be resistant to ultraviolet radiation!
 
Can’t help but wonder if the Trade Descriptions Act will be needed when Mars starts exporting white wine to Earth and we see a surge of new wine bars… Mars Bars!

​The Good
 
This is coming at the subject of climate change from a different angle. The protests in London last week were bad for London and ignored the reality of the situation. They brought London to a standstill costing £12m a day. The protesters had plastic banners and signs, wore plastic and rubber trainers, drank beer from plastic glasses and water from plastic bottles! One of the ring leaders, Robin Boardman-Pattison, jets around the world while criticising air travel! Adam Boulton upset him when he accused him of being patronising and self-indulgent, so he stormed off! Can’t have seen Swampy doing that!
 
So, I hear you asking, why do I have this in good? Simple, the message has already been heard. As Margaret Thatcher said in the eighties, peace doesn’t come from chanting the word like some mystical incantation. It is hard work and the Governor of the Bank of England has already taken up the cause. Screwing up the economy of London won’t save the planet but Mark Carney joining forces with Francois Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France and writing to the heads of 34 central banks and linking environmental and economic prosperity just might. 
 
Protestors might feel good waving their banners and singing songs and maybe those of old are responsible for Carney’s initiative; but the fact is that we now know about the problem and need to find answers. Repeating the problem doesn’t help find an answer! We’re on to phase two, the protesters have the attention of the people they need to convince to achieve their objective. Work with them don’t alienate the hard-working people of London/ Practice what you preach!
 
Another good…
  
We are to get a dozen new Institutes of Technology - about time! They are alternatives to universities, and you know I think there are too many of them! It’s a great move which will use industry experience from employers and create the specialism our industry needs. OK, we’re starting small with a budget of just £170m, but we need to start teaching advanced technical skills so let’s welcome it and not just knock if for a political motive as the Labour Party has done by saying it’s not enough money!
 
The Bad
 
Odd this week that so many stories could be good or bad depending on the angle you take. But I’m coming at things from the heart of the problem, so this is bad. It appears that Shamima Begum was part of the Islamic State morality army - an enforcer. It is said she carried a gun, recruited others and may have played a role in equipping bombers. A far cry from the sob story she fed the media when wanting to come back to the UK. Good for the Home Secretary for taking the action he did and good that we are fair enough to allow it to be challenged in open court. A fair hearing is the way a democracy works but we need to protect the system that gives us that privilege.
 
Why did she really want to come back to the UK? It appears to infiltrate and take advantage of our fair society to do bad. 
 
Another bad…
 
Now I’m the last one to believe all that I read in the press, but I think we can accept that Sir Philip Green was pressurised into giving £50m a year to the BHS pension fund. But now he is apparently looking to half this. I come from a different world in every respect. When I agree to something, especially after a healthy discussion, I stick to it and most people I know do just that. 
 
We are now told that Green is looking to half that contribution. There is much in employment law that is heavily bias towards the employee and it is getting worse and makes life a nightmare for all SMEs, but the more people cheat, the more calls, and maybe justifiable calls, there will be for even more rights for employees that small businesses simply cannot afford. That threatens jobs.
 
Is it naive to say that the rules for employers employing five people shouldn’t  be the same as those who employ 500 people? Green’s general behaviour has been bad but if it brought focus on the problems the SMEs face there would be some good from it. Who was it in the 1970s that spoke about the unacceptable face of capitalism?
 
The Mad
 
Andrew Good, an ambulance chasing solicitor, has been struck off for being dishonest. That’s good you’ll say. Indeed, but let’s look a little closer at the madness behind it. He was charging £400 an hour, the going rate I’m told is £110/150, to sue the NHS for clinical negligence. We don’t know if it was no hay no pay but almost certainly was, so he only got paid if he won which would mean the NHS then picked up the costs. It took 22 successful cases for someone to challenge the fees, why?
 
A recent internal NHS report found that if they were more efficient they could do another 290,000 operations a year. I’ve recently had some exposure to the administrative side of the NHS, the private sector wouldn’t get away with it, wouldn’t survive. But it is part of a greater problem which encompasses so many of the everyday problems in life. Madness.
 
And finally…
 
My second mad this week comes from Bristol - or Brizzel as the natives say!
 
Ornate lampposts dating from before the Second World War, odd to think that Bristol was at the extreme range of German bombers, have been removed from what are referred to as poorer areas of the city for safety reasons to be recycled. They have been replaced with modern LED lampposts.
 
But English is a great language. What does recycling mean in Brizzel? Much the same as in the 1980s and 1990s some say. ‘Asset stripping’ the city to make the upmarket Clifton area smarter. Yes, moving the lights to a smarter part of town… madness - why not raise the standard and have new ‘old’ lights in Clifton, someone had to pay for new lights somewhere anyway! And that would probably be cheaper, so a win, win!

The Good
 
Jack Shepherd the runaway speedboat murder is back in the UK behind bars where he belongs to serve his sentence, and he’s had another six months added on for going on the run. Not really looked into it but the original sentence looks short to me anyway!
 
Another good…
 
On the same theme, Julian Assange is also behind bars and facing extradition proceedings from the US. The founder of WikiLeaks could also, we read, now face fresh charges from Sweden. I am a great believer, as you know, in free speech and openness. At times, upholding our belief in free speech can actually expose us to threat as we have seen with hate preachers. There are people doing highly dangerous jobs that we don’t know about to enable us to enjoy this privilege. Maybe that is the price we pay and to have them exposed, as Assange did, to additional unnecessary risk I see as treason.
 
There’s a lot of good about this week so let’s have a couple of bonuses!
 
We learn that Audrey Hepburn wasn’t just one of the great actresses of her time, but that she helped a British paratrooper evade the Nazis when they were occupying Holland in 1944. She was only 15 at the time!
 
Sir Mick Jagger is out of hospital after his heart valve operation and All Right Now! Rock on, Mick!
 
The Bad
 
I had an argument with one of my sons, in his forties, recently when I was left on grandad duty for a couple of days. He said something about the Sky Box listening to us and I said rubbish! Yes, it knows the sort of TV we like but that’s not intrusive. No different to the supermarket knowing what beer I like
 
However, it has now been admitted that staff at Amazon can eavesdrop on us through Alexa. Well, not me because I haven’t got one! Apparently, the software exists to help check that the kit is working properly… that’s a novel after-sales service idea! It appears not to be limited to Alexa either, with Apple and Google being able to do the same with Siri and Google Home. I thought we had a Data Protection Law, but it appears that listening to me giving my bank details over the phone via a piece of kit I have for pleasure and didn’t know could do that, is OK. But if I send you an unsolicited email promoting something and creating jobs, then I’m a villain. Many of us gave a sigh of relief when 1984 came and went. Did George Orwell just have his clock wrong!?
 
Another bad…
 
I don’t know about you, but I find TV family game shows sickening! An investigation by the Daily Mail shows they are actually damaging society as they are enticing people to gamble. Matt Zarb-Cousin from the Campaign for Fairer Gambling (does that mean loading the odds in the punters favour?!) said, “Betting brands are becoming entrenched in popular culture. This has given rise to the misplaced perception that gambling is much safer than it is.”
 
I suppose I’m lucky that it holds no interest for me. If I draw a horse in a Grand National sweepstake it probably gets put down the day before. But what drives the gambler, what motivates them? Thrill of the competition, thrill of the risk? Why not try sport, tasks against the clock, or climbing Everest! Or maybe it is a symptom of modern life… get rich quick.
 
The Mad
 
If you want a night out on class B drugs, take a trip to the West Midlands aka the Cannabis Capital of Britain. You won’t get nicked because the Chief Constable, Dave Thompson, doesn’t want to ruin your life chances! I’ve never taken drugs, but if I was there and did, how would he justify that in my case?
 
But the serious point is we are a United Kingdom with one set of laws. There are too many post code lotteries, especially the Health Service, but this is totally irresponsible. Now, oddly enough Dave, I’d be willing to give you a hearing of the value of reviewing some of our drugs laws and considering if they should be changed. Ben Elton makes a compelling case, but while it is the law, it is also your job to make sure it is enforced. The law of the land is not an a la carte menu where you can pick and choose the bits you want to enforce. On that basis, why can’t we then pick and choose the bits we want to adhere to. Madness that leads to a dangerous place!
 
And finally…
 
Well, we all know that we were due to leave the EU on 29th March. It appears no-one told the Passport Office that we hadn’t because on 1stApril, no joke, they started issuing United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland passports! Although, you’d have to actually read it to see that as it’s red and looks like an EU passport, not blue like a British passport. What happens if we don’t leave? It’ll become a collectors piece I imagine.
 
In addition, what if you find yourself in front of a job worthy immigration official in some country that doesn’t like the British? Maybe they won’t let you in! After all, it is not actually a legit passport. Are we that disorganised and shambolic that we couldn’t carry on with the EU passports? The answer, I am ashamed to say… is yes! I’m reminded again of that lovely Irish ballad, ‘When I was a lad!’ The really scary thing is this actually isn’t me being a dyslectic old GTI, it is how sloppy we’ve become! Madness.

​The Good
 
I’ve known a number of Down’s Syndrome people in my life, one living well into her sixties. They have all been such calm, peaceful people. OK, a mock tantrum from time to time, but gentle, happy folk.
 
How wonderful to see Rio Williams’ smiling 14-month-old face doing some modelling. He’s had major surgery twice and spent 45 nights in four different hospitals (about 12.5% of his life). There is a growing habit, in pubs and restaurants mainly, of adding 25p to bills which goes to charity – I hope the chain benefiting from Rio’s smile are giving something towards fighting Down’s Syndrome.
 
Another good…
 
Tesco is putting all the knives it sells in locked glass cabinets. We know there is an age limit for buying knives, but the trouble is the evil folk who are committing knife crime are not like you and me; they don’t queue up at the till to pay and get their bonus points, they just steal them! Whilst Tesco deserves the praise it is getting, this is a bit like what happens with neighbourhood watch schemes. In part, neighbourhood watch tends to move crime from one area to another and what Tesco has done will mean crime-goers will have to do the same. That will include DIY shops… and not just knives. What about screwdrivers, chisels and move?
 
How did we allow ourselves to get here? I’ve spent the last 50 years speaking out and fighting what at times feels like a one-man battle against the constant little concessions that have dragged society down. The Prime Minister’s meetings this week and ideas on knife crime are welcome and whilst I know we expect a lot of our teachers, I thought their response wasn’t good. They have a window on situations the rest of us don’t have. They are not being singled out as teachers, but as members of the community being asked to keep their eyes and ears open!
 
The Bad
 
There’s a lot of competition here for this week! But number one has to be Brunei… but how many bad is it? Of course, there is a limit to how much any country should meddle in the affairs of another, that is even part of the Brexit debate! But this is 2019 and the UN has banned “torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. While some of that might need defining, stoning to death falls right in the middle of it. Celebrities are queuing up to call for boycotting Brunei-owned businesses throughout the world. Oscar-winning actor George Clooney has called for a boycott of luxury hotels owned by The Brunei Investment Company, such as the Beverly Hills Hotel, The Dorchester in London and the Plaza Athenee in Paris.
 
The EU has protested, the UN has “slammed” the decision and the United States has criticized Brunei’s decision to implement the laws, urging it to ratify and implement the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
 
However, Brunei is just one of many countries in the world where same-sex relationships are punishable by death, and one of many more that are outright hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. The death penalty applies for homosexuality in nine countries: Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania (applies only to Muslim men), Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar (applies only to Muslims), Somalia, and now Brunei. In dozens of others, homosexuality can result in jail time.
 
The question that keeps nagging at me though, is why change the law, and why now?

Another Bad…
​
Brexit drags on… Well, I don’t need to tell you that or how bad the protraction is for the UK, but we now know that business activity is at its lowest for six years. Private sector output is also at its lowest level since late 2012. The index for the all dominant service sector, on which we rely so much, dropped from 51.3 to 48.9 in March, anything below 50 shows things are going south. We have been outperforming much of Europe… but that is changing. Economists are predicting growth of under 1% this year, but given all that is going on and all the uncertainty, I reckon British business needs a pat on the back for doing so well. All it needs is clarity and certainty and it will be out there giving its all, especially in the SME sector. You don’t need me to comment on politicians – well, about 55% of them probably.
 
The Mad
 
Couldn’t resist this one. Ladies jeans with three legs! Not sure why, but hey, that’s fashion! I’ve only seen a picture, not a video and am wondering what image is given when you walk in them! Condemned by many on social media (which of course is as alive and well as ever and still attacking our values and our intelligence!) but selling out all over the country! It is mad! OK, a bit of a laugh and maybe fun for a party, but… is it part of a much bigger problem?
 
And finally…
 
Two brothers Hamzah and Hassan Hussain have an African lion that they drive round with in their car! You can get a permit to import wild animals from Africa and they have raised Simba, now 26 months old, since he was two weeks old. He now eats 5 kilos of beef a day and Hassan says he’s like his baby. He can even put his hand in Simba’s mouth! Although, he recommends the rest of us should stand still if we see him… even if he’s been fed!

​The Good
 
NatCen, the social research organisation, tells us we trust the Government and the media more on official figures than we used too! Well, that is good, if of course they are both honest, and I believe they are.
 
In 2018, 31% of people believed Government figures were honest, an increase on the 26% of 2016. Additionally, 23% thought the media were honest with figures in 2018, up from 18% in 2016. 
 
Interesting that should happen during the Brexit debate, but we must remember it also means that somewhere between 65% and 80% of people distrust the figures!
 
In fact, this takes me back to something I’ve said for decades. People believe what they hear in the supermarket, in the pub and on the bus, but not what they hear through legitimate channels. Social media didn’t exist when I began saying that, but maybe the theory was proved with social media’s role in the 2017 election. Now I can understand why, but have you ever stopped and listened to what people actually say in the supermarket, the pub and on the bus? It’s usually less than accurate and I’m reminded of what my old Dad, dead 30 years, used to ask people talking nonsense, “do you get a vote?”
 
Why is this in good I hear you ask? Well, it’s better than it was so let’s cheer that and move forward!
 
Another good…
  
Now, I’ve put this in the good bracket because I thought it was great to see a young lady hold a door open for John McDonnell in the Commons. Did the fact that she was a Tory influence his response, “Cheers, daring”!? I thought under Comrades Corbyn and McDonnell we were all equal and Political Correctness banned such phrases. Now, he may have meant it as an endearment, but are we still allowed? I wasn’t there but the recipient clearly didn’t think it was an endearment. As they say, if looks could kill! Mr McDonnell would have been turned to ashes and his dream of masterminding the total destruction of all that we hold dear in this country would have been a pile of ashes. I feel sorry for the millions of decent Labour supporting people, and number many of them as friends, for what has been done to their party. Britain is a strong nation because we mostly move gently back and forth from right to left of centre politically… or we did anyway.
 
But it’s a ‘good’ for the millennial young lady, maybe sanity will return!
 
The Bad
 
The very, very, very bad! Yes, you guessed it Brexit. I voted Remain, but I accept the Referendum result. I could speak for hours on the flaws of the whole saga, but in a democracy, we have to accept the will of ballot box. It’s no good saying people didn’t understand what it meant when you lose… that can be said about something, possibly very significant, at every election.
 
Parliament asked what we wanted and we told them. I can understand the arguments about what form Brexit should take, but people are brazenly using those arguments in an attempt to stop it altogether. BOTH major parties in their last election manifestos said they would support the principle of leaving. Most of the Labour Party, the DUP, the SNP and some Tories failed to honour that commitment. When Speaker Bercow ruled against the third offering of the May proposal I laughed and said, “you’ve been set up and fallen right into the trap!” People laughed at me. It meant the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration were split. But still the future of Britain was used as a political tool by the Labour Party, or should I say by Corbyn? Maybe that makes it a draw, as the whole idea of the referendum was used as a political tool by the Tories, or should I say by Cameron?
 
Overall, it’s a bad, bad day for democracy. There will be short-term economic damage on the UK as a result of Brexit. It isn’t from the act of leaving the EU, but from the way it has been handled by all involved. Britain will become a strong independent country one day, but it will now take a lot longer. Within 20 years the EU will have imploded anyway. I wanted us to be there to help shape ‘mark two’, but on our handling of negotiating a better deal before the referendum, the setting up of the referendum itself, and the management of the withdrawal, maybe we wouldn’t bring the sense to the setting up of mark two that I thought we would!
 
Another bad…
  
I learnt a lot about the issue of mental health in January. I didn’t just look into Blue Monday on my weekly Faversham Natters programme on Radio Faversham, but dedicated half an hour to exploring the issues around it every week for the month. Indeed, I was invited as a guest on many other larger programmes as a result. At the heart of any solution is the need to talk about the problem. Obviously, there will be a need for tablets, pills and drugs. Do you remember my piece a few months ago about words assuming new meanings? There’s two right there… tablets and drugs. In the last decade the number of prescriptions for anti-depressants has doubled to almost 71 million prescriptions, that’s 195,000 a day at a cost of £200m!
 
Now, I’m sure those with angles and points to prove from all sides will have explanations, or more accurately somewhere to point the finger of blame. But like so much, it’s not the mythical ‘they’ or even the politicians that are to blame. It is us… all of us. When I write a letter of condolence one of things I say is if you need to talk or maybe even scream, especially about the feeling of injustice if someone young has died, I am here to listen.
 
Tracy is hard training for her Land’s End to John O’Groats cycle ride in May and June to raise money to fight Sepsis. Sunday was Mother’s Day and Tracy and her sister took out their mother. I’d spent two days at the end of the week looking after two of the grandchildren, so I was at home in Weymouth on my own. On Saturday, I met my neighbour in the hall, he’d just become a grandfather again and was off to his sons to help tidy the garden. We’ll have a beer later we both said and just after 8pm he banged on my door. I had three pints and he had three wines (naughty us!) and as they say, we put the world to rights. But we both know that if we wanted to talk about a problem, the other one is there to listen… what’s that old saying? A problem shared is a problem halved.
 
I’m listening to Irish folk music as I write, and the lyrics are poignant; When I was a lad, neighbours were neighbours; when I was lad, doing you favours; when I was lad, people giving a hand no matter how small; when I was lad, the greatest days of all.
 
Now, life wasn’t that great and I’m not on a nostalgia trip. There was much we could have been depressed about, but neighbours were neighbours and would pass the time of day, even if only briefly. We spoke to each other, face to face, not on social media. When we got a phone in the mid to late fifties, a party line shared with someone else, I thought it was great. Indeed, it was and still is, but did it start a revolution that is now destroying us as human BEINGS? For that’s what we are, human BEINGS. The word human is the adjective, but we shorten the phrase to just human. We forget that we are beings, and that is the important bit!
 
The Mad
 
In Sweden, the publicly funded Public Art Agency is spending £500,000 to hire a person to do nothing… yes, officially do nothing! As long as they clock in and out every day they can do what they like forever while they are there. No duties, no responsibilities and they get about £2,000 a month, increasing at 3.2% for the next 120 years! I suppose if you don’t work you might live to be 140/150 years old! I don’t know who will be eligible, but applications won’t be accepted until at least 2025. Maybe they need time to write the job description in a politically correct way. Madness, maybe I’ll apply. After all, my family left Sweden 400 years ago to go to France before coming here, but we were then called Selve so maybe my lineage won’t be immediately obvious, but if I got the job I’d have plenty of time to prove it!
 
Is this mad, bad or both?
 
Well, what is both mad and bad is that some irresponsible idiot sprinkled peanuts on the desk of a teacher with a known nut allergy at Rochester Grammar School. The school has a ‘no-nuts’ policy, but why should it need one? What does that tell us?
 
Two girls were believed to be responsible and sent home. Accused, tried and convicted on the evidence of being seen giggling outside the room where it happened. Now, Poirot wasn’t called in but one of the girls’ fathers bought a £600 lie detector kit and took it to the school to test the girls. It said there was 97% chance his daughter wasn’t lying. Not sure if the second girl was actually tested… maybe his daughter was an accessory before or after the fact, who knows? But the school refused to overturn the 20-day exclusion.
 
It all sounds barking mad to me. Folk in their mid-teens, at least when I was in that age bracket a long time ago, should have understood the danger. Another example of trying to solve a problem, and one that shouldn’t be there, with a policy. It will never work. John Major was slated for his ‘Back to Basics’ policy, but he was right. If people are that irresponsible, then having a policy won’t work. It’s no different to Neville Chamberlain’s piece of paper.