DNA

all to have a number

We have the democratic deficit of: an unelected Prime Minister, unelected ministers who are Peers, an economy that is in a slow tailspin whilst business reacts negatively to the insecurity in government, failing institutions and rising unemployment.

In the meanwhile we have Alan Johnson as our new Home Secretary. He has voted strongly in favour of ID Cards and Labour's anti-terror laws and in an interview in the New Statesman he tells us that:

"I wasn't a Trot," he insists. "I was more CPGB [Communist Party of Great Britain]. I did consider myself to be a Marxist - I read more chapters of Das Kapital than Harold Wilson."

Safe in their hands
Not so many weeks ago a senior policeman started a debate on the lines that ALL teenagers are horrid little things and so cannot have a drink until they are 21 years old. This idea, if passed into law, ignores the fact that a family Christmas would become a rather frigid affair if the law were obeyed and thirsty teenagers were present.By the way, they are not as little as you might think and, now they are grown up they spend so much more time away with their friends, it would be so lovely if we could all sit down together now and then. However, by contrast,a family celebration could become a rather furtive affair if father in an expansive mood poured his offspring a glass of wine: "pull the curtains Dad, you never know".