How much longer can this collective madness of government go on I wonder. As I have been saying for months, this incredibly destructive period of institutionalised idleness is the fault of overpraised Chancellor Sunak, who should never have been allowed to extend the ruinously expensive, and horribly abused, furlough scheme until the end of October.

Ultimately, though, the entire disaster is down to Bunter J. Even allowing for the fact that he was ill and nearly died – or so we are told – our ‘revered leader’ has failed to provide the kind of firm leadership that we are all entitled to expect.

I have never been a Johnson follower as such and have often wondered if he is a genuine person or just an over privileged buffoon, but I was impressed with his firm handling of the Brexit problem and that was reflected by the results of the last general election when voters gave him an overwhelming mandate to govern the country. I had my doubts but gave the man time to prove himself. I thought he could not be as bad as Theresa Maybe or the pompously useless Cameron.

Yet although he might not be worse, he is proving himself just as ineffectual. He certainly does not look like a man who is enjoying the job he’s spent his adult life trying to get. That claim from Svengali Cummings’s father-in-law last week that Bunter is on his way out in six months certainly has the ring of truth about it. There is still time to retrieve the situation, but the clock is ticking fast.

Johnson needs to show initiative now. He must call all those private sector bosses together and start bashing heads, ensuring that they to get back to business as usual before it is too late for this country. They might not want to listen but he must use his not inconsiderable powers of persuasion to ensure that they do.

He must also insist that civil servants, who after all are government employees return to work immediately. Having chickened out of a confrontation with the teachers’ unions, Bunter must not cower again when dealing with the civil service lot, who are already bleating that no more than thirty per cent of their members will be going back any time soon.

It is time to read the riot act damnit. Give them a deadline and promise that any civil servant not back at work by the due date without a doctor’s note, will be sacked immediately. With four million unemployed in the pipeline already, there will be no shortage of willing folk ready to retrain and take their place.

When financial disaster hit the taxi drivers, the sandwich makers, shop assistants, publicans and dry cleaners, Bunter J did nothing. Unless he acts now to get Britain back to work, it will be his turn next.

Yet it is amazing that whatever happens with this government, it is never their fault. Disasters crop up with ever increasing regularity but the defining characteristic of the cabinet members is a cast iron refusal to accept responsibility for any of them. Sometimes a deputy head will roll, but in general the buck doesn’t get anywhere near the top of the pile.

Take education secretary Gavin Williamson for example. He has lurched from disaster to idiotic disaster since schools closed six months ago yet he remains at his desk while the bodies of his civil servants pile up around him.

Last week it was Sally Collier who ran the examination regulator Ofqual. She resigned amid a barrage of recrimination over the A and O level result fiasco. A day later the departments most senior civil servant, Jonathan Slater was forced to clear his desk as news emerged of yet another last minute government U turn – this time over wearing muzzles in schools.

Something has to be very wrong when headteachers are better off following their own instincts about what might happen next than relying on what ministers say. Yet Williamson sails blissfully on while Slater goes. That surely cannot be right. The buck is supposed to stop at the very top, not half way up the ladder.

It would be worrying enough if this culture of power without responsibility were confined to the Department for Education, but Slater is the fifth senior mandarin ousted in a few short months, following the permanent secretaries of the Foreign Office, Home Office and Ministry of Justice, plus the cabinet secretary, Mark Sedwill. Either this government has had the worst luck in the world – coming to power just as the civil service produced a crop of uniquely hopeless leaders – or what the Tory grandee Nicholas Soames called the ‘worst cabinet in my thirty six years in parliament’ may have found an alarming way of covering up its own inadequacies.

I don’t often agree with Mr Soames – I once met his Father and it was not pleasant – but in this instance, I fear he is very correct. Alarm bells should be ringing. This is not some dusty constitutional question or political game, but a form of rough justice with real consequences for all our lives.

The education select committee hasn’t even started its inquiry into the exam grading fiasco, yet we’re already being invited to find Collier and Slater guilty. We could be years from a public inquiry into what went wrong in the early stages of the pandemic, but that has not stopped the health secretary abolishing Public Health England – the quango responsible for controlling infectious disease outbreaks. The clear message is that mistakes may have been made, but the guilty party has been safely taken out and shot – really, why bother with a trial?

While neither Ofqual nor PHE have covered themselves with glory this year and any inquiry might well find reasons to criticise both, for now all we are getting is one suspiciously flattering side of the story and I am afraid I have my doubts about most of it..

Is Bunter J really so uniquely ill-served by an organisation that may have its faults but doesn’t seem to have failed previous governments anything like so frequently? Or could there be something wrong with the collective political judgment of a cabinet where commitment and obedience to the Prime Minister is prized over competence?

Not all the advice ministers receive is good, and scientific advice in the middle of a new pandemic will not always be conclusive; sometimes following the science will lead to good decisions but sometimes it will be the wrong way to go.

But it is a minister’s job to stand back and see the wider picture; to ask the right questions, exercise his or her best judgment wherever doubt and uncertainty remains, and then have the guts to stand behind it.

An education secretary who never stops talking about what his Scarborough comprehensive did for him should not have missed the admission – buried in Ofqual’s own published notes on its algorithm – that it might disadvantage unusually bright students in poorer schools. A leader who prioritised rigour in the exam system above everything else and originally insisted that exam grades in this crazy and confused summer could not rise higher than last year, should stop blustering about ‘mutant algorithms’ and own up to the consequences of his own decisions.

If our ‘revered leader’ cannot confront his own mistakes honestly, then he has no hope of learning from them and sooner or later, he is going to run out of other people to blame.

It is a while since I commented on the state of the world, but I have been busy. That is my excuse at any rate.

It seems that nothing much has changed for the better – in this soggy little island at any rate. We have had a complete fiasco over school examination results and many people suffered. There was utter chaos over government handling of the problem and an entire generation of future voters are unlikely to trust the Tories with anything for the foreseeable future.

And where was our revered leader while this was going on? Leading from the front and picking up a broken nation with his rhetoric and bravado as his hero Churchill once did? Supporting his hapless and witless Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson perhaps?

Not a bit of it. Bunter J was in a remote corner of Scotland, pretending to rough it in a tent with luxury cottage attached. The only person who seemed aware of his presence for nearly a week was the local farmer who was left cursing the fact that the tent had been pitched in his field without permission and Bunter had even started a camp fire which the farmer tells the media was ‘bloody dangerous’ in the circumstances.

Leaderless and rudderless, the government has lurched along with it’s unimpressive handling of the Coronabug crisis. Imposing new lockdowns here and there, quarantining travellers without any warning, telling us all how we must live, encouraging people to use fast food outlets from Monday to Wednesday and generally seeming to pretend that we are on the brink of Armageddon.

Why damnit? Surely we have taken enough nonsense from this lot and it is time to worry about the huge rise in unemployment and the catastrophic damage that is being done to the economy. For the first time in history, the British government are over two trillion pounds in debt yet the clowns in power don’t seem to worry about it.

And you know, the Coronabug death rate has been declining for months. There has been a ninety five per cent fall since the peak in April. Coronabug casualties are now six times lower than deaths from flu and pneumonia. In the week to July 31, just over two per cent of deaths in England and Wales were caused by the bug.

There is still huge anxiety among parents and trade unions about the reopening of schools. This despite the fact that children don’t seem to suffer from the virus or spread it. Just one healthy child is known to have died from Covid in Britain, and there is not a single case recorded worldwide of a child giving the virus to a teacher.

We all know who is at greatest risk (the very old like me, the very fat, people with Caribbean and Asian backgrounds or with underlying problems such as diabetes and lung disease), and our clinicians have got much better at treating and managing the disease.

So I fear there is no reason why Britain’s hapless politicians can’t change the record  and they must do so fast, even if it disrupts their precious holidays. For too long this country has been ruled by paranoia. But surely economic logic and common sense dictate that we can’t remain paralysed for much longer or the economic consequences will swamp us all.

The priority now must be to restart the engines of commerce and rebuild the economy. Life is never without an element of risk, and as long as we are sensible – as most of us are – we need to get back to normal and free ourselves from this terrible state of national funk.

So now must surely be the time for Bunter J to stop faffing about and don the mantle of a leader to issue a call to arms. He may fancy himself as the reincarnation of Churchill, but so far he has failed to match the great man’s courage at a time of national crisis. Now, more than ever, he needs to throw off his caution and rally the nation. In recent times he has been found deeply wanting and nothing better illustrates this than his invisibility during the unprecedented chaos over examination results.

Why on earth has he not come out and apologised to the kids who worked hard for years for their exam results only to be let down by a system run by the gormless Gavin Williamson? One day students were told they had failed, the next that they’d excelled, although their places at their chosen universities or colleges had been taken by others amid the bedlam. A* grades have now been scattered like confetti, throwing everything into further disarray and threatening untold consequences in the future.

Amid such chaos and so much disappointment, lie the broken dreams not just of today’s teenagers, but of their parents and their grandparents. Three generations of furious potential voters who will have given up on Bunter and his clowns. 

Any adviser worth their salt should have warned him of the damage his continuing absence is doing to his reputation. Politically and strategically it is an utter disaster I am afraid. What was our ‘revered leader’ – usually the consummate communicator – thinking, hiding away in Scotland when the country yearned for leadership? A couple of tweets was all we got. Who does the man think he is – ruddy Donald Trump?

So many of us who voted Tory are bitterly disappointed with him. He should have been on the airwaves telling us he understood the students’ pain and that of their families; assuring the nation that his heart went out to them; accepting that his government had let them down and promising that he would put it right.

I can only think that he and his Cummings-led advisors must think they are immune from the daily hammering being handed out by the media. I imagine they dismiss it as hysteria and froth, but in my humble opinion, Bunter J’s silence has done nothing but twist the knife in thousands of voters’ hearts – and caused the Prime Minister and his Government immense, if not irreparable, damage. If there was a general election tomorrow, I fear they would be even more humiliated than Labour was at the last one.

I did smile when I read that Gary Lineker had offered space in his £4 millon London mansion to a refugee. How noble of the man! In doing so, this overpaid football pundit tweeted, ‘Can we make it clear that not everyone in this country is heartless. These poor people deserve the help of their fellow human beings.’

It would certainly provide one solution to the current problem. Just a few days with that sanctimonious, virtue-signalling bore would have even the most desperate asylum-seeker begging for a ticket back across the Channel.

When news that the government is considering a complete lock down of the over fifties leaked recently, ministers started backpedalling and insisting that it was not being ‘actively considered.’ But the fact that it was considered at all, actively or otherwise is disturbing evidence of the madness and panic which has engulfed this hapless government since March.

Ministers have apparently been so surprised by the pandemic despite repeated warnings, they have lost all sense of proportion. How else would they even begin to entertain the notion that millions of we folk over fifty should be put under indefinite house arrest?

I disagreed with the lockdown from the start but gave the government the benefit of the doubt because nobody, including the so-called ‘experts’ seemed quite certain of what we were dealing with.

Since then, however, the messages coming from Bunter and his gang have been increasingly incoherent and inconsistent. There appears to be no logical thinking at all. For weeks, we have suffered contradiction after ridiculous contradiction. For instance, the chancellor happily subsidises hamburgers and pizzas, while at the same time increasing spending on gastric-band surgery to combat obesity.

Ministers urge people in the private sector to get back to their desks, but cave in to the Civil Service and teaching unions who refuse to tell their members to go back to work, citing bogus ‘safety’ concerns.

Last Monday was supposed to be the day Britain got back down to business, but office blocks and transport hubs were practically deserted, while restaurants and fast-food joints were doing a roaring trade knocking out half-price meal deals, courtesy of Rishi Sunak pouring money at them – money that Britain doesn’t have! The suburbs are teeming with people spilling out of pubs and cafes, yet city centres still slumber, as if in permanent hibernation.

As long as the Treasury continues to top up the salaries of some nine million people on furlough, there’s no incentive for anyone to go back to the office. Perhaps it is time ministers and private employers followed the example of Charlie Mullins, the boss of Pimlico Plumbers and started sacking anyone who refuses to return to work.

Instead, they’re considering a crazy scheme to force everyone over fifty to stay indoors,’ just to be on the safe side.’

Hell, I am in the latter half of my seventy sixth year so I have probably been around long enough to work out the risks or otherwise of catching the Coronabug and living suitably to avoid it. I am not going to bow down to this bunch of overgrown schoolchildren if they do decide to lock us up again.

Being over fifty does not mean that one is decrepit or suffering from a loss of marbles. In fact many of us still feel that we are in our prime. I am well aware that the older I get, the closer I am to turning my toes up and I also know that age increases the chances of succumbing to the bug, but the same goes for any illness damnit! Heart disease, cancer and a host of other medical conditions work the same way and none of them are being treated properly by our ‘Amazing’ NHS who seem to have followed the government line by giving up looking at anything other than the ruddy Coronabug

I am sure I speak for many if not all of my generation when I say that I have no intention of shutting my door and waiting helplessly for my wheels to fall off. I might be somewhat long in the tooth but I still have some living to do and the goons in government are not going to stop that.

For Bunter and his clowns even to be considering a lockdown on the over fifties is proof positive that this government has lost the plot on a truly staggering level. It would be economic suicide at a time when the country is already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Over fifties pay more tax than most and are relatively big spenders on everything from leisure to financial services.

They are the backbone of Britain damnit! The ‘Bank of Mum and Dad,’ the carers for elderly relatives; babysitters for grandchildren. Many are running their own successful businesses, creating wealth and much-needed employment.

All this, the Government appears willing to put into deep freeze because of an irrational fear of a virus we are learning more about each day.

Yes I know that the Coronabug had a hellish impact on Society to start with. It has killed thousands of frail elderly folk – most over eighty five – as well as those who are morbidly obese or afflicted with serious underlying health problems. I probably sound callous, but many of these people would have died sooner rather than later anyway.

Looking at the international league table of new Covid infections, Britain is way down the list. Most of those contracting the virus now are asymptomatic and surviving.

So why then has the government gone into another panic, cancelling at the last minute plans to reopen everything from beauty parlours to casinos and considering a ludicrous proposal to quarantine millions of allegedly vulnerable over fifties – many of whom – like me – will not comply this time?

From the outset, ministers have paid too much attention to the ‘science.’ They have been unwilling to challenge the assertions of tunnel-vision experts like the Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, who appears to have been our unelected Prime Minister these past few months.

I honestly feel that many of the more contentious decisions are based not on what is best for Britain, but what will protect individual politicians and their advisers when the inevitable public inquiry is held. Risk-aversion is the order of the day. There is no boldness, no willingness to trust us with detailed information so we can assess the dangers for ourselves. Bunter Johnson claims to be an admirer of Churchill, but Churchill made decisions and stuck to his guns so there is no comparison I’m afraid.

Much of the fatuous guff coming out of Whitehall at the moment seems to have been made up on the hoof, such as the stupid suggestion that if the schools are to reopen in September, then the pubs will have to shut. I’m afraid I can see no connection between the two. Yes, I appreciate that under-age drinking can be a problem – but surely things aren’t that bad? 

The Coronabug has infantilised the nation and caused a complete melt down of common sense among our so called leaders. Policy is made in private by unaccountable committees and scientists.3

With most MPs content to stay home in their constituencies since March, Westminster has been virtually abandoned. There has been no proper scrutiny of the Government’s handling of the crisis. And now, after the sweaty exertions of all those Zoom sessions, Parliament is in recess as MPs enjoy six weeks’ paid holiday.

Why for God’s sake? Britain needs government and scrutiny of government. The Commons should be recalled immediately. If it is safe for holidaymakers to sit cheek-by-jowl on aeroplanes or on beaches or even dare I say it, on huge demonstrations for BLM or other anarchic causes, and if it is safe for diners to enjoy cut-price piri-piri chicken and chips in state-subsidised restaurants, it should be safe enough for socially distanced MPs to reoccupy the green benches at Westminster.

Politicians should be leading by example, not relaxing on the beaches while our increasingly erratic leaders tinker with deranged schemes such as placing everyone over fifty under house arrest.

In the end, we are all going to die of something. We cannot spend the rest of our lives trying to postpone the inevitable. Short of an effective vaccine, we will have to learn to live with the Coronabug in a grown-up fashion for the foreseeable future – not keep stumbling from one emergency lockdown to another.

Let us please get on with life Mr Johnson.

I found it difficult to believe when I read it initially but I checked up and it is true. A woman has been fined £120 for ‘littering’ in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens.

Her crime was to throw a few crumbs from her Gregg’s sausage roll to the pigeons.

Kerris Fenn, who was visiting from Cardiff, was confronted by private security guards from the firm 3GS. By the time they gave her a penalty notice, which would rise to £150 if not paid within ten days, the birds had finished up all the crumbs.

When she appealed to the council, her plea fell on deaf ears. Councillor Rabnawaz Akbar, who describes himself as Executive Member for Neighbourhoods, said: ‘While we take no pleasure in handing out Fixed Penalty Notices’ (difficult to believe I’m afraid) ‘feeding the pigeons is littering, pure and simple.’ 

There speaks the authentic voice of your typical jumped-up local government desk jockey. Warden Hodges of Dads Army fame is alive and well and living in Manchester. When you give someone a modicum of power, they will always abuse it. The poor ruddy sausage roll was a vegan one too but after that, I would think it turned to ashes in Miss Fenn’s mouth.

What a dreadful anachronism is the House of Lords yet it still has a huge say in laws that affect all our lives. These people are appointed and not elected, with the inevitable result that cronies of whichever party leader is in government, suddenly become ‘Lords of the Realm’ and very rich – on our money.

Mind you, many of them are already very rich, which accounts for the fact that party donors, who have no experience of working politics end up wearing fancy gowns and behaving like entitled courtiers in the court of Henry the Eighth.

They also cost we poor taxpayers a huge amount of money! Darren Hughes, the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said that the thirty six new peers appointed this week are likely to cost a staggering sum to the taxpayer.

“Based on the average claim of a peer, the thirty six new peers are likely to cost £1.1 million a year in expenses.” Hughes told reporters. Why on earth are we expected to pay for that out of taxes so urgently needed elsewhere?

And who are these new peers that Bunter J has appointed? What have they done to deserve elevation to the heights? Ian Botham was a fine cricketer but is hardly a scion of political nobility. Like many of the other appointees, he supported Brexit, but so did I and nobody has asked me to be a big deal. Bunter’s brother Jo had a fairly undistinguished political career and finally resigned because he didn’t agree with his brotherly boss, yet – perhaps it is so that the Johnsons have an amicable Christmas – he too is now a Lord of the Realm – or about to become one.

In fact the list of appointees is a derisive one all round. It even includes a Russian oligarch who happens to be a friend of the prime minister. How on earth can the said prime minister get away with this absolute corruption. I am afraid there is no other word for it.

But the fact that he can get away with it only shows what a private member’s club this House of ruddy Lords has become. It was already the largest second political chamber in the world and there are now over eight hundred unelected peers, voting on our laws and enjoying our money for the rest of their lives.

In fact, the argument against Prime Ministers being able to pack the Lords with personal and political mates was made somewhat forcefully in 2003 when Tony Blair announced plans to appoint more peers.

His proposal was denounced at the time as ‘disgusting’ by one critic who said, ‘Think of the lunches; the hackery; the behind-the-scenes schmoozing and fixing; the quiet words from the Government Chief Whip; the winking, the nose-tapping, the soft belching in the Savoy Grill Room or Glyndebourne or Ascot.’

Quite right too but that critic was our current revered leader, Bunter Johnson!

Once again quoting my friend Mfanasibili (Two Boy) Nkosi – Nuff said!

And you know, the Bunter Johnson who is currently floundering about with the Coronabug crisis and worrying about our general health with a whole load of patently ridiculous proposals to make us all lean and mean is not the man I voted for.

Some people in Government have suggested his sudden grasping at the apron strings of the Nanny State actually represents the re-emergence of ‘the real Boris.’ That now the Brexit log jam has been broken, and Labour’s Red Wall demolished, he intends to return to the liberal, one nation Conservatism that secured him back-to-back terms as London Mayor.

The problem with that argument is the real Boris used to hate the ‘sin tax’ agenda as well. In 2006 he created a storm at the Tory conference by hitting out at celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver who was piously lecturing us all about what we should and should not eat. There was ‘too much pressure’ on children to eat healthily, he told a Bournemouth fringe meeting. ‘I say let people eat what they like. Why shouldn’t they push pies through railings?’

The last bit was a reference to a story about Mothers feeding their hungry children with meat pies when school meals were made excessively ‘healthy.’

That was the Bunter Johnson I voted for. This one, I just cannot recognise.

But last week the sanctimonious and increasingly portly Oliver – who once proudly proclaimed, ‘Give me Boris f*****g Johnson as our Prime Minister and I’m done. I’m out’ – was heaping praise on his new food initiatives. ‘This could be a pivotal moment,’ Oliver cooed. ‘Boris seems to be the one that’s got a plan here.’

Why is Oliver still here I wonder? Bunter has been prime minister for a whole year so that surely gave him enough time to carry out his threat and really, most of us can do without him.

U turns on both sides I’m afraid. Yet despite his bombastic reputation, I honestly believe that Bunter is a more sensitive character than his critics and even some friends perceive. His brush with death and his divorce, both coming in such close alignment to the birth of his and Carrie Symonds’ first child, has understandably affected him in ways the Westminster bear pit does not allow him to publicly acknowledge.

Okay I sympathise with that but at the moment, this nation cannot afford timid, negative leadership. Anyone with even the most basic understanding of economics can see this is not the moment for tax increases and advertising bans. Not on so-called junk food. Not on online goods. Not on anything. We are a country that is about to enter the fight of its economic life. It cannot do that with the likes of Jamie Oliver holding one hand behind its back, while Bunter pinions the other.

There is another harsh reality. Britain cannot afford for its Prime Minister to embark on a sudden mood of dreary introspection. Especially not this Prime Minister. Energy – optimism – enthusiasm. This is the Bunter most of us voted for and the nation responds to. And it’s the Bunter the nation has to have.

‘We should now squeeze the brake pedal to keep the virus under control,’ he told the country last week. But he was not elected to squeeze the brakes. He was elected to drive the bulldozer through the ruddy wall.

We cannot defeat the Coronabug one bowling alley and one casino at a time. And we are not going to stave off economic catastrophe by locking down Britain every time there is a marginal spike in infection rates. We have to get on with life.

Come on Mr Johnson; forget the apparent mid-life crisis you seem to be enduring and inject some hope into our daily lives.

This crazy summer of stupidity continues to become ever more over the top. Let me forget the political inanities that are affecting all our lives at the moment because now it has hit and badly shaken the rough, tough world of professional rugby union. Exeter Chiefs rugby club has been prevailed upon to ditch its Red Indian mascot to appease anti-racism campaigners, who complained it was offensive to Native Americans.

That would, I suppose be all those members of the Cheyenne and Commanche tribes living in Devon. Strange that I have seen no sign of them in my wanderings around Dartmoor.

No I do not suppose it has anything to do with the local feathered braves and their squaws. The Big Chief Must Fall campaign is spearheaded by the usual bunch of privileged, white middle-class morons who attach themselves to everything from Extinction Rebellion to Black Lives Matter. (I wonder if I will be in trouble for using the word ‘spearheaded?)

Anyway, after twenty one years, Big Chief has been forced to hang up his head-dress. No more will he lead supporters in their traditional tomahawk chop salute and war cry. The Exeter followers will have to content themselves with a round or two of polite clapping.

Club directors said in a statement that they had ‘listened to the response of our supporters, the wider rugby community and certain sections from the Native American community.’

Where on earth did they find sections of the Native American community in Devon damnit? Is there perhaps an Indian reservation tucked away in Chagford or Widdicombe in the Moor? Perhaps the Sioux nation pitched their tepees in the Exeter Chiefs’ car park after the illegal travellers’ camp was moved on by the police.

It could even be that while Border Control was watching the Channel, flotillas of canoes were landing at Budleigh Salterton, containing huddled masses of Cherokee refugees prepared to risk a perilous Atlantic crossing in order to seek asylum from Donald Trump supporters.

Whatever the background, the directors of Exeter Chiefs have bowed to the intolerant masses and decided – reluctantly they say – to dump the mascot, rather than be accused of cultural insensitivity.

But that won’t be enough for Rentamob I’m afraid. The Big Chief Must Fall shower will not be satisfied until the club changes both its name and logo, which features an Indian Chief.

‘As human beings, we are horrified that we still live in a society where a major sports club can treat indigenous peoples like this. It reflects badly on rugby, Devon, and the UK and we should all be thoroughly ashamed,’ spluttered an outraged spokesman for Exeter Chiefs 4 Change.

I am sorry but this is just another depressing example of the lunatic Left in Britain jumping on the latest bandwagon from America. Once the Washington Redskins NFL team caved in to demands to change their name, the woke warriors on this side of the pond were always going to seek out similar targets here.

Before you know it, rugby will have gone the way of football and cricket. Players will be forced to wear Red Lives Matter logos on their shirts and – never mind taking the knee – they will probably have to perform a traditional ruddy rain dance before play starts.

It still won’t be enough though. The name Exeter Chiefs is doomed to disappear for ever. Although the club claims ‘chiefs’ dates back more than a hundred years, it was only adopted in 1999 – as part of a cynical marketing exercise aimed at flogging overpriced merchandise. It was the same kind of commercial thinking that led to Leeds rugby league club being rebranded ‘Leeds Rhinos.’

Mind you, they will probably be the next major target when the animal rights brigade spot the chance. After all, rhinos are an endangered species and you don’t find too many of them in West Yorkshire.

Elsewhere the madness continues. Snowflake civil servants are demanding the Churchill Room at the Treasury is renamed. How in the name of all that is holy did anyone who denigrates arguably Britain’s greatest Prime Minister, the man who defeated Hitler, as a ‘racist’ ever get a job at the heart of government? It really does beggar belief.

Churchill once said that history would be kind to him since he intended to write it. I wonder what he would think of the ignorant, statue-toppling Left-wing fascists who are trying to rewrite it.

Having emasculated every other organisation, the diversity Nazis have inevitably turned their attention to the Armed Forces. The RAF is introducing ‘dress-down’ Fridays, to promote a more ‘inclusive’ atmosphere and it is reported that the Royal Navy is dropping gender pronouns and replacing titles such as ‘seaman’ with the more neutral ‘seafarer.’ They also want to ban the use of words such as ‘unmanned’ and ‘manpower’ in a bid to avoid being called out by the mob for sexism.

First Sea Lord Tony Radakin has called for the changes to be rolled out to avoid female recruits feeling excluded.

Sources said there was an acceptance within the force that some terms are no longer appropriate and considered problematic and that leaders wanted to get rid of gendered terms where possible.

On the other hand, one very senior officer told the media that ‘This is a pathetic, woke distraction from keeping Britain safe. The only reason to change the labels is if it’s a barrier to recruiting women, but recruitment has never been stronger.’

These are fighting forces damnit and employed to protect us all, not to humour the politically correct zealots. Why oh why will nobody stand up to these crazed people?

Our revered leader tells us that he wants to clear ‘Backlog Britain’ by the end of September. Somehow, I can’t see that happening. Bunter hasn’t a hope in hell of persuading cosseted civil servants back to their desks for a long time yet.

And why would they go back damnit, when MPs have just taken off for their six weeks’ summer holiday? If the Government was serious about getting the country up and running again, Parliament would surely have scrapped the summer recess.

It is not as though our overpaid MPs have been rushed off their feet lately. Most of them have been content to stay at home, working out how to spend the extra ten grand they awarded themselves to cope with the coronabug crisis.

They should be at Westminster damnit, subjecting the Government’s increasingly baffling and inconsistent Covid response to proper scrutiny. But while MPs are enjoying their holiday perks, the unions would howl outrage if their precious civil servants were ordered back to work.

Given the way ministers caved in to the teachers, I cannot see the remotest possibility that the Civil Service will be back to normal by September. The backlog of passport applications, driving licences and birth certificates will only get worse.

Of course, the Government could have set up a simple system which would have allowed people to download the documents online. They could have issued six-month or one-year extensions, complete with readable bar codes, to be attached to licences and passports.

It surely should not be any more complicated than Amazon’s system for returning unwanted or faulty goods, but it would call for innovation, flexibility and political courage and that would seem to be in short supply at the moment. However, the all-powerful unions would never agree to it, so I am afraid it won’t happen. 

I can’t see the backlog being cleared before the middle of next year I’m afraid and even that might be wildly optimistic The way things are going, I am not sure we will ever catch up. Civil servants have no incentive to get back to their offices. Like the rest of the public sector, they are all drawing their full salaries. 

There is a clear distinction at the moment between those who kept the country ticking over – the police, NHS frontline staff, supermarket workers, dustmen, etc – and the vast majority currently ‘working from home.’ By and large, it was the private sector that ensured Britain was fed and watered during lockdown. Even BT rose to the occasion, maintaining reliable broadband connections for the most part. Yet this hopelessly muddled government are handing out pay rises to public sector staff – not including nurses and carers!

Last week, even teachers were given increases of between 2.75 and 5.5 per cent. I am sure there are dedicated teachers out there but surely, they don’t deserve that pay rise when unions have been refusing to let them report for work.

Imagine how that must have gone down with low-paid delivery drivers and others who have worked throughout, trying to make ends meet. Plenty of parents have lost money because they have been unable to go back to work while the schools remain closed. The news that teachers are getting a pay rise must have been a real kick in the teeth.

It’s not only pay, either. The mounting job losses over the past few weeks have all come at private companies, from Marks & Spencers to Rolls-Royce and many other major companies. I certainly have not heard of anyone working for local or national government being made redundant.

I seem to recall Mr Johnson telling us with apparent sincerity that ‘we are all in this together’ but those words sound somewhat hollow at the moment and it is not only confined to the public/private sector divide. Even though the Government has eased social distancing regulations and encouraged the economy to start opening up again, millions are reluctant to return to pre-lockdown normality.

Some major firms, including the banks, have no intention of reopening their offices until the New Year at the earliest. By then, it may well be too late for the shops, bars, cafes and restaurants which rely on the custom of office staff to turn a profit and keep people in jobs.

Unfortunately, the white-collar classes have become accustomed to ‘working from home.’ So much so that they now look on it as an entitlement. Listen to the phone-ins, read the surveys. They are loving their new work/life balance.

Crisis, what crisis? To adapt that famous quote from Harold Macmillan – some people have never had it so good.

‘I’m better off than I’ve ever been,’ they say. ‘I’m not missing the usual commuting, I am saving on my season ticket. Why would I want to pay a fiver for a sandwich from Pret or buy an expensive cup of coffee from Costa? Plus, I am seeing more of my kids. Go back to the office? No I don’t think so.’

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to these people that this is not the way any economy works. Money makes the world go round and there can be no prosperity if nobody is spending.

Most of the big cities have now become deserted parking lots. Those stores and cafes which opened again recently are starved of customers. If they don’t see a dramatic increase in takings soon, they will have no alternative but to shut for good.

If city centres die, millions more will lose their jobs. The tax base will collapse, the benefits bill will go through the roof and there won’t be any money to spend on the NHS – or anything else for that matter – let alone pay the interest on the billions of pounds the Government is borrowing every day.

And with the entire economy in free fall, it won’t be long before the jobs of all those ‘working from home’ start to disappear, too. Those lucky enough to be kept on will have to swallow substantial wage cuts. The rest could see their jobs outsourced to cheaper people working from home in Bangladesh or Eastern Europe. That could happen sooner rather than later unless the Government takes the lead and hits the restart button with a vengeance.

Never mind the latest madness about having to wear masks to buy takeaway food, but not to eat on the premises – and in shops, but not pubs. Had they decided that from the start, then perhaps, but at the moment, it seems rather like old Nero doing his fiddling gig while Rome collapsed around him. Formerly Great Britain is on the brink of economic collapse, yet MPs head off on their summer holidays!

It can’t go on. Parliament should be recalled and the Civil Service ordered back immediately. Instead of continuing to chuck money we don’t have at everything from the extended furlough scheme to half-price hamburgers, the Chancellor should be offering generous tax breaks or whatever else it takes to get factories and offices back up and running again.

Never mind Backlog Britain, it’s Bankrupt Britain we should be worrying about now. 

But there was minor good news last week. An award-winning charity boss who was sacked for criticising the Left-wing agenda of Black Lives Matter was happily reinstated by a new board of trustees.

Last month Nick Buckley was dismissed by the trustees of Mancunian Way, a ground-breaking charity he himself founded nine years ago, after an online mob accused him of ‘inappropriate’ and ‘insensitive’ views and demanded his removal.

He described BLM’s policies as ‘neo-Marxist’ and said they risked dividing communities in a blog published in June after protests erupted in the UK following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Campaigners immediately branded his post racist and set up an online petition demanding he be removed.

Within a week, Mr Buckley was sacked by the trustees but he was supported by the Free Speech Union – whoever they may be – which got behind a counter-petition and found him a top lawyer in Geoffrey Davies of Keystone Law.

. Mr Davies said: ‘In their anxiety to be politically correct the trustees simply ignored their contractual obligations. When these were drawn to their attention the trustees realised the dreadful mistake they had made and agreed to resign and reinstate Nick as CEO.’

Mancunian Way, which helps young people in Manchester avoid a life of crime, said the trustees have resigned and a new board has asked the fifty two year old Buckley to return to his former role. 

The ‘crime’ for which poor old Buckley was fired came when he wrote about Black Lives Matter ‘What is happening in the UK over the last few months has very little to do with the horrendous death of George Floyd in the USA. 

‘It is better described as part ‘new fashion craze’ and part ‘an opportunity for anarchy.’ Do you know who Black Lives Matter are? Do you know what this self-proscribed political movement wants? According to their website, they want to end white supremacy, disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear family and dismantle the patriarchal practice. These are fancy words but what do they mean?

‘They are exactly what post-modern, neo-Marxists use when they call for the destruction of Western democracy and our way of life.’  

Referring to Floyd’s criminal convictions, he questioned why the demonstrations were focused on the ‘unlawful death of a career criminal’ in the US rather than UK issues including knife crime, female genital mutilation, honour killings and a lack of house-building.  

The response was immediate and furious. Writing on Mr Buckley’s LinkedIn page, Reece Williams, a poet who works for a mental health charity in Manchester, said: ‘Please know that we will be doing everything in our power to have you removed from your position. Expect us.’

A few days later, an online petition calling for Mr Buckley’s removal was posted on Change.org by Karlet Manning, who also works for a mental health charity. 

The petition claimed his views ‘undermine the Black Lives Matter movement whilst working in a diverse community’ and were ‘inappropriate, insensitive and have since been deleted.’

The row then exploded on Twitter when the petition and Mr Buckley’s comments began to be tweeted by Left-wing campaigners and anonymous accounts. Two days later, Mr Buckley received an email from the charity’s trustees informing him their relationship with him was ‘terminated.’ A red flag and the word ‘victory’ was later posted on the Change.org petition page.

Mr Buckley said he stands by what he wrote, although he accepts that he could have better conveyed some of his arguments. He said he had declined an offer from his trustees to issue an apology for the blog. 

‘That’s the coward’s way and I’m not a coward,’ he said. ‘If I had the guts to say what I said, then I need the guts to stand up and continue to say what I said.’ 

He holds no ill-feeling towards the trustees. ‘They are lovely people but they weren’t ready for a fight. They found themselves in a terrible situation not of their making – pressure online.’

I had never heard of Nick Buckley or his charity but I am pleased for him. More people need to stand up to the bullying of the social media pratlets and let us all get on with our lives.

Yes, black lives do matter, but this whole movement is out of hand and making life miserable for the very people they profess to be looking after. If racism is to disappear from society, then this is not the way to go about it. 

The Coronabug crisis has rather knocked Britain for six and exposed hideous faults in the workings of a petulant government. But to my mind there is a far more dangerous disease than Covid 19 threatening the very existence of this country and it is being largely overlooked.

This hugely infectious ailment is of course the current climate of political correctness – for some reason referred to as ‘wokeness’ by the chattering classes.

Universities for instance have always been bastions of left wing ideology but now they seem to have lost the plot completely. To students and lecturers alike, any dissenting voices to their own beliefs just have to be silenced. A growing number of schools seem to be joining them in propagating this woke orthodoxy too.

‘Critical race theory’ is a sub-Marxist ideology in which ‘white privilege’ is invoked to explain all kinds of injustice and it is increasingly being taught as part of ‘decolonising the curriculum.’

I would have thought that only applied to history, but it seems that no subject is immune from this re-education campaign in our schools and universities.

Academics at Birmingham City University have proposed that Mozart be eliminated from music teaching (was he racist I wonder?) and replaced by the rapper Stormzy. Eton College has announced it will change the teaching of history, geography, religion, politics and English, along with school assemblies and societies, in order to ensure that ‘decolonisation’ is enforced across the board. What on earth does that mean and how does it apply to geography, religion, politics and English?

Of course, the young of every nation have always been full of ideological theories but this woke agenda seems to go way beyond education and infiltrates every other institution of public life – the very pillars of our so-called civilisation.

The head of the Church of England, Justin Welby has for example, suggested that it is wrong to portray Jesus as white. Different cultures portray him in different ways, the Archbishop of Canterbury points out. Sure they do but the fact is that Jesus was neither black nor white. He was a Jew, who spoke the ancient Semitic language of Aramaic – something Welby doesn’t seem to consider.

Our police force has also been affected by woke attitudes. Yes modern coppers face many difficulties that did not exist in those long forgotten days when I pounded a beat. There have recently been violent attacks by protesters on them in Hackney, Brixton, White City and other parts of London. Also, it is true that some have been tainted by racism, but in any large organisation, there will always be a few bad apples.

In the current conditions with everyone howling for their blood, the police are bound to be cautious. But that does not explain officers dancing along with Extinction Rebellion protesters, as some did in April last year at a demonstration at London’s Oxford Circus. There were also scenes of police officers ‘taking the knee’ during the recent Black Lives Matter protests.

Why are police officers virtue-signalling their wokery for God’s sake? The task of the police is to enforce the law and maintain public peace, not show sympathy for any political movement.

One reason why British institutions have been captured by the forces of illiberalism is contagion from the US, where the movement has been most extreme. Even the citadels of capitalism have fallen. Giant corporations instruct their employees in diversity training but fail to provide them with medical insurance, childcare facilities or decent incomes.

At the same time there has been a general witch-hunt which has seen leading figures driven from American institutions. Last week, the senior curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art resigned, accused of ‘white supremacist language’ after he stated that refusing to collect white artists would be ‘reverse discrimination.’ The fact that he was correct did not help him at all.

And an opinion editor and writer at the New York Times resigned, citing ‘constant bullying by colleagues’ who attacked what they called her ‘forays into Wrongthink.’ This reference to George Orwell’s novel 1984 – where people are punished for ‘thought-crime’ – is surely significant.

What is more, major American news providers and magazines are now operating a system in which staff are encouraged to tell tales on their colleagues and denounce one another on Twitter. I may be right off the mark, but to me this hounding of people is strikingly reminiscent of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which convulsed communist China when I was a young man and wrecked much of what remained of the country’s ancient civilisation.

The only way someone accused of thought-crime in those days could escape punishment was through public confession, ‘re-education’ and abject apology in so-called ‘struggle sessions,’ in which they were humiliated and tormented by their accusers.

Tragically, the woke movement has reinvented this vile ritual, with teachers, journalists, professors, politicians and others seeking to hang on to their jobs by desperately begging forgiveness. Why damnit? Stand up for your views even if they go against the febrile opinions of the great unwashed.

In some ways, today’s Twitter Maoism is worse than the original Chinese version. Mao’s Cultural Revolution was unleashed by a communist dictator, who used the upheaval to consolidate his power. It was wrong and everyone knew it was wrong but that did not stop it.

In Britain and America today, our leading institutions have shamefully surrendered their own authority to another destructive ideology and it is surely vital that this ideological rampage does not rage on for a decade as Mao’s did in China.

Otherwise we will find our freedom lost to a movement that aims to dictate how we live and think, and British civilisation will suffer irreparable harm.

As I said, this is a far more dangerous and infectious disease than the Coronabug.

Since I started this piece, I looked up the word ‘woke’ and it would seem to mean being alert to injustice in society, especially racism.

“We need to stay angry and stay woke.” 

The computer dictionary did not tell me where the quote came from but it reinforces my belief that this really is a load of hysterical nonsense!

The Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle – a vast improvement on his poisonous predecessor – this week invited a police sniffer dog to sit in his chair in the Commons chamber. Poppy is an explosives detection specialist and was awarded a ‘canine OBE’ for her work during the 2017 Borough Market terror attack. She has since been employed sweeping the Houses of Parliament for bombs. 

Meanwhile, Scotland Yard is considering scrapping the terms ‘Islamist terrorist’ and ‘jihadi’ to describe Islamist terrorists and jihadis. Why?

Well it seems that from now on they will be called ‘faith-claimed terrorists’ or ‘terrorists abusing religious motivations.’ This ridiculous idea has come from the ambitious anti-terror chief Neil Basu, who seems to think that the greatest security threat Britain faces is from the ‘Far Right.’ What rubbish! In recent years, all the Far Right have done is stage a few demonstrations and cause the odd punch up on the streets of London. Almost all the other attacks from Borough Market to Manchester Arena and a few places in between were the work of Islamist terrorists or as they like to call themselves, Jihadis.

Basu, who supports ‘taking the knee’ and thinks the Black Lives Matter violence – in which forty nine of his own officers were injured – was a triumph for enlightened policing, seems to fancy his chances of becoming Commissioner when Dame Dick hangs up her truncheon. 

He obviously believes spouting woke drivel will improve his chances. I think we would all feel safer they gave the job to Poppy.

Sorry about the varieties of text in the following paragraphs but with my limited technological knowledge, I don’t know how to adjust them. The larger letters are not meant to be in any way significant.

So much for Bunter Johnson’s claims that this is a land of liberty. Since half way through June, people have been visiting the shops that are open without masks and the Coronabug figures continue to improve.

Yet, the Government has now decreed that we must all wear masks in shops. Science is divided over the effectiveness of masks and the effects of the disease are lessening daily, but Bunter seems to be changing his mind as often as he – presumably – changes his socks. I wonder if he feels that he has to be seen to be doing something, even if it makes no sense at all.

Whenever he is interviewed or filmed now, he has a mask on, but why damnit? He has had the bug and had it badly so he must surely be immune and he hasn’t bothered to wear one until recently.

Consistency and logic have been sadly missing in this government’s approach to the pandemic and most of us are horribly confused. For instance, I met up with a friend in the local pub yesterday and we sat maskless, but when the new regulation comes in, I will need to don a mask to visit the post office directly across the road.

I do not like wearing a mask but have religiously done so for weeks now when visiting supermarkets. Somehow it seemed like common sense but now I am to be forced to wear one whether I like it or not and if I don’t cover my face up, I can be fined. A land of liberty did the man say?

I am not the only person I know who does not enjoy wearing a mask and I fear that most ‘mask-haters’ will now avoid shops in general and won’t be spending money at all. Yet spending money is what our Revered Leader and his Chancellor keep urging us to do.

After my visit to the Prince of Wales – the pub not the man – yesterday, I settled down to watch Prime Minister’s Questions on the iplayer. I am sorry but it is becoming ever more like a strange version of Tom and Jerry. No, that probably isn’t fair to the little mouse and old Tom! At least they are funny.

In his first few outings against Keir Starmer, Bunter was completely out of his depth and he has remained so I’m afraid. Unable to cope with the detail in Starmer’s questions, he lashes out and blusters, either accusing the Labour leader of doing something thatn he obviously has not, answering a different question to the one he has been asked or generally playing to his non existent gallery of Tory back benchers.

But I am afraid it is not working. Every week, Bunter shows what he is really made of. He is a thin-skinned unprepared opportunist who not only wants to be supremely popular but cannot tolerate scrutiny or criticism. It is like dealing with a spoiled toddler. If you are not one hundred percent behind him and telling him what a clever fellow he is, then you are an enemy out to get him. In terms of emotional development, I am afraid that our elected leader is barely out of nappies.

How else can you explain his performance yesterday as other than a full-on narcissistic breakdown? Starmer had started by asking about the lack of sector-specific support for aviation. Boris was outraged. Labour had broadly backed the chancellor’s bailout plans for other industries last week, so why was Starmer now choosing to make a fuss about widespread redundancies and BA’s somewhat nefarious plans to fire thirty thousand employees and rehire them on worse terms and conditions? This was just talking Britain down.

 “The Labour leader says one thing one week and another the next,” Boris yelled, hammering on the dispatch box with his index finger in a temper tantrum. I couldn’t help thinking about pots and kettles at that one! In recent weeks, we have had U turn after U turn from the motley crew of failures running this country.

Starmer moved on to a report from the Academy of Medical Sciences that has apparently warned that Britain risks another hundred and twenty thousand deaths from the coronabug this winter. He suggested that now might be a good time to make sure that the government’s test-and-trace system was working properly?

Now Boris just leapt into the realms of fantasy. Britain’s test-and-trace system was the envy of the world. The best there was. The very bestest, bigliest best. In which case the world might as well prepare for its end now as the test-and-trace figures are getting worse by the week.

Where once the system was reaching eighty percent of the contacts – of the twenty five percent of infected people it was managing to track – we are now down to barely seventy percent. At the current rate of decline, the whole system will be little better than guesswork in a few months. Or less if Mathew Hancock’s ‘world-beating’ app makes an appearance in the meantime.

“He should be building up the system, not undermining it,” Boris roared at his opposite number yesterday. He seemed blissfully unaware that no one has done more to reduce public confidence in the government’s response to the pandemic than him – Dominic Cummings excluded of course. Because at every opportunity, the prime minister has done too little, too late, which is one of the main reasons why the UK death figures genuinely are world beating.

When Starmer asked the prime minister whether he had actually read the report, it would have been comical to watch if it was not so tragic. ‘Um…er…um… er…. I am aware of it,’ was his feeble reply. In other words, he had not.

The Labour leader ended by basically accusing the prime minister of lying about the success of his government’s response and wondering what he might like to say to the families of those who had died – and of those who would die in the future – as a result of his negligence. It was a serious, solemn question. And one that was treated as a joke as Boris responded by saying Starmer had ‘more briefs than Calvin Klein.’ I’m sure that gave all the bereaved relatives a good chuckle. The prime minister’s ability to misjudge the mood of the nation he leads is verging on sociopathic I am afraid.

I switched off when it came to the run of the mill and sometimes sycophantic questions but I really did feel vaguely ashamed of having voted to put this clown into power. Prime Mister’s Questions is supposed to be a serious event but this was an utter travesty of its true purpose and an insult to us all. People are dying. People are losing their jobs. People are terrified about the future. And yet to Boris it all still feels like a big game where the only thing at stake is his fragile ego.

I wonder who he will blame when he finally consents to holding a full enquiry into the Coronabug fiasco. At times like these, Britain needs a leader who commands respect. What we have instead is a prime minister who urgently needs a bout or two of serious therapy.

He was humiliated again yesterday when that master of ministerial disasters, Chris Grayling who was his choice to lead parliament’s powerful intelligence and security committee, was unexpectedly rejected by fellow MPs.

The former cabinet minister was defeated by another Conservative, Julian Lewis – prompting an embarrassed Downing Street to kick the victor, who was accused of duplicitous behaviour, out of the parliamentary party.

One source said Grayling ‘didn’t see it coming’ as the nine members of the MPs’ committee voted five to four in favour of Lewis, with the four opposition members all voting against Grayling.

But how is this possible? Even Theresa Maybe was forced to fire Grayling for incompetence and his knowledge of security and intelligence must be miniscule as he has had no experience of such things. Lewis on the other hand chaired the committee in the past and chaired it well.

A furious Downing Street responded by stripping the whip from Lewis – a Tory MP since 1997 – ‘because he worked with Labour and other opposition MPs to his own advantage.’ Surely it is time we had adults rather than petulant children governing this country – or is that too much to hope for?

A week or so ago I mentioned the unexplained deaths of four hundred elephants in Botswana and I have been following the situation as closely as I can from five thousand miles away.

It would seem that the deaths are reasonably attributable to tannin poisoning, which is borne out by the words of Ron Thompson, arguably the doyen of Southern African elephant men and now an adviser to the Botswana government.

In an article earlier this week he attributed the deaths to starvation due to elephant overpopulation. Let me quote.

‘The first person of authority to declare that there were too many elephants in Botswana was the late Dr Graham Child who, in 1960, was working in what is today called Chobe National Park. He was then employed by the United Nations FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation). He witnessed and recorded the destruction of the Chobe riverine forest which, that year, was already in an advanced stage of damage. He took the trouble to count and to identify all the big trees comprising that forest. Today none of them are still standing. The forest has gone! All the trees were killed by the feeding pressure of too many elephants.

He also recorded another forest at Chobe. Six hundred giant camel-thorn trees growing in a single valley away from the river. He determined that these trees were all some four hundred years old – which suggests that they grew out of a once extensive and later abandoned agricultural cropland (which is where the seeds of this tree species best germinate en masse). Despite their great size in 1960, today none of those ancient camel-thorns are still standing. All were killed by the feeding pressure of too many elephants after 1960. There were also smaller forests of Commiphora (Kanniedood) trees growing on sandy hillsides. They too have now all gone.

Graham also recorded the multiple isolated occurrences of various quite common Acacia tree species; African ebonies and many others that were commonly scattered and/or growing on anthills throughout the Ngamiland game reserve habitats between Chobe and Maun. They, too, have all disappeared!

The once common and ancient Baobab tree – some said to be five thousand years old have mostly already disappeared or they are damaged beyond redemption.’

As a result of this forest decimation – and this is me ‘speaking’ – elephants will always turn to small trees and scrubland for their food. In most of Southern Africa this is primarily mopani scrub and when the youthful mopani is attacked, it gives off tannin in an effort to drive the attackers away.

Botswana claims to have an elephant population of one hundred and thirty thousand yet in 2013 an official government count established that population at two hundred and three thousand. Personally, I do not believe that the elephant population has dropped by seventy thousand in seven years. If so, where are all the carcasses and why has there not been a fuss from the bunny hugging fraternity? At the moment, they are railing at the Botswana government for not coming up with a definitive cause for four hundred deaths damnit! Yet even if there are only one hundred and thirty thousand animals, according to the scientists that is seventeen times more elephant than Botswana can sustain.

So there are too many elephants and not enough trees. An impossible situation for the elephants I’m afraid and they are literally killing themselves by eating extensively of the mopani scrub. It is tragic, but whereas in days gone by, elephants could decimate an area of vegetation, and then move on, allowing the damaged area to recover, now they are confined by the ever expanding human population. I fear that many more ‘unexplained’ elephant deaths will occur over the next few years.

As I say in my talks on elephants, we have to either cull elephants or cull people. I know which I would prefer but it is illegal.

Even without the ivory problem, elephants seem doomed unless harsh decisions are taken by those in authority. They are there on the ground while the ‘celebrities’ and supposedly conservation supporting organisations that regard hunting and control of elephants as obscene are a long way from the problem.

I try not to comment too often on this black lives matter nonsense, but the situation really is getting out of hand. A few days ago a black athlete Bianca Williams was stopped in her car by the Metropolitan Police and immediately claimed to all and sundry that ‘the UK is very racist.’ She has called for the Metropolitan Police commissioner to quit after what was an entirely legitimate stop and search.

Yet when one examines the facts of the incident, a different picture emerges. She was in a car which was observed by police officers driving erratically, repeatedly braking hard before speeding off, and on the wrong side of the road. It accelerated away from a police car, and when it stopped, both occupants refused to cooperate with the officers. The driver refused to get out of the car.

This incident had nothing to do with the colour of Ms Williams’ skin or being an athlete or a woman or a representative of team Great Britain. If this woman feels the law should treat her differently for any of those reasons, perhaps she should resign from the British team.

An official Police statement has described the incident.
‘

‘Officers from the Directorate of Professional Standards have reviewed both footage from social media and the body-worn video of the officers and are satisfied that there is no concern around the officers’ conduct.’

Surely that should be enough?

As ever though, the BBC and other mainstream media have taken the side of the athlete rather than the cops. They have chosen to distort the facts, even editing and omitting some details from the official police statement on their websites and articles.

Police stop-and-search tactics are often criticised as being used disproportionately against people from ethnic minorities but if crimes in a particular area are committed mainly by those same minorities, is this not an inevitable corollary? I am often rude about modern coppers but they don’t stand a chance in the febrile situation with Black Lives Matter.

Believe it or not, the Met and their commissioner Dame Dickhead ignored the official findings and apologised to Bianca Williams. Why for God’s sake?

I had hoped that when the formerly royal Biscuit and his Yank departed these shores, we would have heard the last of them. But no, it seems that Harry is going to spend the rest of his privileged life lecturing us all from his magnificent borrowed mansion ‘over there.’ Whether it be climate change or racial issues, do we really have to put up with him pontificating from his luxurious quarters while the rest of us try to keep cheerful as coronabug devastates our care homes and our economy?

The Biscuit has nothing to do with Britain any more damnit! He has made his choice. He should get on with making a living in California, relieving his Father of the burden of supporting him.

I was never an admirer of Harry but most of the British population seemed to like him and enjoy his antics. But these are the people he deserted and now speaks patronisingly to.

Listen, I don’t mind if he decides that he wants to spend his life in wherever he wants. I don’t care if he needs to rub shoulders with so-called celebrities, but I wish he would face up to the fact that by denying his birth-right he’s lost another right – to expect us to pay any attention at all to his chiding burbles, just because he was once a member of the Royal Family.

Speaking of which, his wife’s lawyers in her High Court action against the Mail on Sunday have claimed her wedding to Prince Harry generated one billion pounds in tourism revenue, arguing that her wealth and privilege has no bearing on her right to privacy.

I believe everyone has a right to privacy, but how on earth can her legal team know how much money her wedding made for us all? That’s an awful lot of mugs and tea towels.

I watched part of his latest diatribe and it made me feel vaguely queasy. This time he was attacking the Commonwealth and prattling about a need to ‘acknowledge the past.’ I couldn’t help wondering how the two were connected.

Meghan gazed at him throughout with the air of a proud mother watching her slightly stupid child recite a poem off by heart, nodding approvingly as he reeled off the approved platitudes before joining in and adding that ‘we have to be a little uncomfortable right now.’ 

Is that right, Dear Lady? And exactly how uncomfortable are you ‘right now,’ in your eight-bedroom Hollywood mansion with all your bills paid by your father-in-law?

And let’s face it, the Biscuit obviously has little knowledge of history. The modern Commonwealth was born as the Empire shrivelled. It was and is, an entirely voluntary organisation created in 1949 with ‘the King as the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth. The whole point was that no one HAD to belong.

Yet given the choice, almost all the free and independent nations which had once been part of the British Empire gladly signed up to this new creation. To this day, fifteen of them (not including Britain) freely retain Queenie as their head of state. 

A few of those have even had the odd referendum on replacing her with a president but each time, the voters have vetoed the idea. No compulsion there, either.

Just as no one has ever been compelled to join this club, so those who leave or who get kicked out soon end up trying to get back in  – the Maldives have just been readmitted after a few years in the cold.

It is hard to think of an organisation which has had a better record in confronting oppression in modern times, be it bringing about the end of white rule in Rhodesia or fighting apartheid in South Africa.

One of Nelson Mandela’s first executive acts on being elected president of a new and supposedly democratic South Africa in 1994 was to resume its membership of the Commonwealth and that was before it returned to the United Nations.

The Commonwealth may not be the force it once was. It might embrace diversity (encompassing every major faith on every continent) but it can also be equally diverse when it comes to human rights. 

Many members, for example, still criminalise homosexuality while more than twenty of them still have the death penalty. It doesn’t pretend to be perfect, but gets things done among nations with a shared language and legal code, all of whom have pledged to improve their democratic standards.

Come on Biscuit, what does this organisation really have to be ashamed about? I fear that your Yank did not prepare you properly for your little rant or perhaps she allowed her own anti-British sentiment to creep in. You probably meant to say the British Empire but surely even you, can not confuse the two?

I can’t help worrying about Dame Cressida Dickhead’s strategy of permitting large Black Lives Matter demonstrations to go ahead in contravention of social distancing rules – and even encouraging officers to signal their support by ‘taking a knee.’ If this was supposed to prevent widespread disorder in general, it certainly has not worked. Instead, large night-time street ‘raves’ have sprung up with a criminal minority exploiting the size of the gatherings to attack officers.

Trouble has also broken out in several cities apart from London, including Liverpool where police were pelted with bottles by a thug element in the crowds celebrating Liverpool winning the football Premier League.

The worry is that the mistakes of the softly softly approach taken towards disturbances in Tottenham in 2011, which quickly led to riots and looting across the country are being repeated.

At the same time, many officers also worry that faith in them is fading away among the traditional, law-abiding majority of the British public. Of course it is. Most thinking people are dismayed by what they view as police appeasement of criminals and about Bobbies adopting supportive positions in respect to particular political causes.

Videos of squads of dancing officers at Gay Pride, Extinction Rebellion and other events, might have started out as harmless fun, but are now seen to signal that something is very wrong. Instead of being conscious of the need to behave as authority figures who naturally command respect, some younger officers have at times seemed to view their vocation as primarily an opportunity for self-expression. This is unfair on those whose lives and livelihoods they are supposed to be protecting. Life on the streets of urban Britain is far from a ruddy cabaret I’m afraid.

Policing by consent – a principle dating right back to Robert Peel’s inauguration of the British force – is one thing. Trying too hard to be everyone’s mate is something else. A fairer and more sensible way forward clearly needs to be found and I am sure most coppers would agree. For all my criticism of modern policing, I realise that the majority of officers are courageously doing their jobs.

The unarmed officers who recently tackled men on the rampage with knives in Reading and Glasgow put their own lives on the line in pursuit of public protection. Glasgow’s PC David Whyte sustained injuries that almost killed him.

We cannot help but give our wholehearted support for such people.

But what happens when such lions are led by politically correct donkeys? The situation becomes farcical and Priti Patel faces a major task in doing something about policing’s most senior ranks. In my coppering years I saw many incidents of police incompetence and that is natural in any job. However, we were apolitical and the idea of actively supporting one side or another in matters of politics or of regarding criminals as ‘clients’ whose preferences deserve to be listened to would not have occurred to us and should not be allowed today.

A police officer’s job is to enforce the law without fear or favour and that must be returned to be the norm. Let’s face it, there will never be one hundred percent satisfaction with the police. If the villains are not complaining about them and no longer resent their presence, the cops are doing something wrong.

On the other hand, successive gutless governments should stop making the lives of coppers more difficult. Cutting twenty thousand policing posts over ten years in which the overall population rose by more than four million was surely the height of folly and a recipe for disaster. Now Bunter Johnson promises to put another twenty thousand back, but where is he going to find them?

Another quick road to disaster was imposing upon the police a duty to intervene in matters of free speech and expression even where the criminal law has not been broken – so-called ‘non-crime hate incidents.’ What a load of politically correct nonsense that is proving and how terribly damaging to the reputation of police officers. If I am burgled or robbed, little action is taken. If I call someone a name they don’t like, I am hauled into the local nick. What a dreadful waste of everybody’s time!

The requirement for new recruits to have graduate-level academic qualifications, which is already temporarily in abeyance, needs to be permanently put out to grass too. Restoring a Dixon of Dock Green straightforwardness to the policing of this complex modern society will be no easy task. But it has to be done as a matter of urgency or anarchy will rule in Britain.

I have to laugh at the Green Party. Since their arrival on the scene, they have been committed to abolishing the ‘undemocratic’ House of Lords’ and that was a policy that certainly had my support. They wanted to replace it with a fully elected second chamber and that too seemed eminently sensible.

But why then are the Greens who already have two peers, now asking their few remaining supporters who should be put forward for the said House of Lords if it needs to appoint an additional member?

What a load of hypocrites! For a bunch of self-proclaimed save the world environmentalists, their principles seem like a load of hot air to me I’m afraid.

But I have to say a word or three in praise for the team of scribblers working for Hansard. Their job is to deliver official verbatim reports of what is said in Parliament and that must be hugely difficult at the best of times.

Last week they were really put to the test by the new Conservative MP for Workington, Mark Jenkinson.

As the son of a binman and an office clerk, who himself was once a British Steel apprentice, Jenkinson told the Commons that the traditional way to identify a fellow Cumbrian was by asking: ‘As thou e’er sin cuddy lowp a five-barred yat?’

(It translates as: ‘Have you ever seen a donkey jump a five-barred gate?’)

Naturally, the Hansard writers reproduced it word for word and without mistake. It seems there is a little bit of efficiency somewhere in that mausoleum known as the Houses of Parliament after all.