'Bad lad' robbed of new life

“JUST give me a chance,” he begged. “I’m not a bad guy.”

No, this isn’t some feral youth begging for a soft sentence after knifing a teenager who looked at him the wrong way.

This isn’t a lout who kicks pensioners to death and photographs them on his phone as they die in agony.

This is an 18-year-old Bradford lad who committed a piddling offence when he was 16 and who, according to the bigoted halfwits at London’s Imperial College, will forever be a bad ’un who mustn’t be allowed to study medicine with them because he doesn’t have integrity.

Two years ago Majid Ahmed got a minor conviction for his part in a burglary. His punishment was four months community service.

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“It was a mistake,” he said, after a gang of youths persuaded him to enter a house they said was their hangout.

But having made one disastrous mistake, Majid was determined never to make another.

So he changed schools, he changed his friends, he worked like a demon to get the A-levels he needed, and he took a job with a local charity for the disabled.

And he did all this because the one thing he REALLY wanted to do with his life was become a doctor.

He wanted to make himself and his family proud. And initially Imperial College were impressed—so impressed they offered him a conditional place.

But Majid’s mistake was in telling them about the one and only time he’d stepped out of line. Within days the offer had been withdrawn and his dreams lay rotting in the gutter, along with any shred of self-respect his hard work and his new career might have afforded him.

And what, I wonder, would society say if this broken boy who’d bust a gut to redeem himself and was so eaten up with bitterness having realised it was all for nothing, joined some low-life gang and went on the rampage?

I suspect we wouldn’t bat an eyelid. We’d just say “Oh well, what can you expect?

How can the do-gooders and academics on the one hand say education is what separates the Savage from the Successful then deny people a chance of success because of something they did in a past life?

How many of those fools at Imperial College who made this decision can say, hand on heart, they’ve never done anything that would bring shame on them as people or on their profession?

Majid Ahmed had a noble ambition —incredible at a time when young people from his background are being demonised (admittedly some of them for good reason) for being violent and aimless. But Majid didn’t want to fit the stereotype.

And maybe THAT’S what’s bothering the idiots at Imperial College. Because according to their twisted logic he’s messed up once and so he’s programmed to do it again.

It’s incredible that while our courts give chance after chance to thugs who have no redeeming features and no ambition other than to rob and maim people, someone like Majid can’t be forgiven for doing something so trivial.

“Medical practitioners hold a position of responsibility in society,” say the nobs at Imperial. “The public must have confidence in the integrity and probity of its doctors.”

What? Do they mean those doctors whose careless mistakes all too often result in the deaths of children and adults—wreck- ing the lives of whole families forever? Do they mean those doctors who sexually abuse and assault their patients?

Doctors have the same personality flaws as everyone else. The difference between most of them and Majid is that THEY were born on the right side of the tracks and had parents capable of covering up their mistakes.

It doesn’t make them good doctors. It just makes them lucky.

MURRAY NOT MINT

I DON’T want to rub salt in the wound but does Andy Murray really think he should have been showing off those (puny) muscles in his match against the body-beautiful Rafa Nadal?

It’s a bit like Popeye (BEFORE his can of spinach) trying to take on the Incredible-y (handsome) Hulk.

And while he’s building up his strength for the next tournament, Misery Guts Murray might try doing it with a large slice of humble pie.

A miserable, bad-tempered winner we’ll put up with. A miserable bad-tempered loser we won’t.

DREAMS STICK IT

YOU wouldn’t think we were in the midst of a credit crunch judging by the disinterested, cack-handed way the bosses of Dreams Bed Company treat customers.

Last week at their shop in Kingston, Surrey, I was about to buy a mattress (and possibly two beds) when the manager told me it would cost £39 for delivery (I live just a few miles from their store), £42 if I wanted the men to take it upstairs, and a whopping £52 if I wanted it delivered on a Saturday.

I was about to swallow this until I was told that despite the rip-off delivery fee I couldn’t have an afternoon delivery even though I explained I wasn’t going to be at home in the morning.

Apparently Dreams delivery men ring you two hours before they’re due to arrive which means you can’t go out, you can’t make plans and your weekend’s ruined. When I told the manager it wasn’t acceptable she just shrugged and said: “It’s the rules.” Well stuff the rules!

I did what most sensible people would do—I went to John Lewis, where the staff were charming, helpful and went out of their way to arrange FREE delivery at a time that was convenient to me.

Consequently I bought everything I needed there. And will in the future!

There's no point crying rape now

I DON’T much like John Leslie. In fact it’s fair to say I think he’s a bit of a sleazeball.

But what I really don’t like is a justice system that allows an anonymous woman to come forward 13 years after the (alleged) event, claim she was raped by him and be taken so seriously that Leslie is arrested, questioned at length and once again publicly branded as a suspected rapist.

This girl, who unlike Leslie has the luxury of anonymity, had the chance to come forward after the alleged rape in 1995. Why didn’t she?

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She had another chance in 2003 when Leslie was big news—being publicly pilloried as a sex attacker, named as the alleged rapist of Ulrika Jonsson and hauled before the courts (and later cleared) of two charges of indecent assault. If ever there was a time to come forward that was it.

But no, this woman, whose life we’re told was ruined by what Leslie did to her, has waited until now. And it’s hard to understand why. It’s hard to understand how, despite her supposed pain, her devastation, she very quickly met and fell in love with a wealthy businessman, had his child and moved abroad to start a new life with him.

Her friends claim she later became an alcoholic because of Leslie. But was it because of him or are her problems down to something entirely different—the fact the big career she dreamed of never materialised? Failed romances? A predisposition to alcohol?

We live in an age where rape accusations are taken extremely seriously, where our rape laws are stacked in favour of women, and those women are guaranteed anonymity if they want it, which is why there’s absolutely no reason for ANY woman who has been raped NOT to come forward.

No one can know what has happened in this sad girl’s life. But we do know she’s alone, her relationship is over, she’s an alcoholic and she’s lost her child because of it. Presumably she’s broken and broke—and looking for someone to blame.

I could be totally wrong about this girl but I know most women who’ve been raped wouldn’t—couldn’t—leave it 13 years to do something about it. They’d want justice or vengeance or both.

Maybe John Leslie has been a pest with women and maybe his ruined reputation is much deserved. But, like I said, I don’t care about him.

What I care about are hard-fought-for rape laws, and the protection they afford, being used and often abused by women who see them as a way to make money, assuage their guilt when they’ve slept with someone they shouldn’t have or to punish a man they’re angry with.

I don’t know what this girl hoped to gain by coming forward now but the length of time that’s elapsed means that Leslie almost certainly won’t be charged. But yet again his reputation is in the gutter.

As for this woman—what has she gained? Maybe just the knowledge that if a woman doesn’t respect herself or her body enough to act when she believes they’ve been abused, then who will?

SALMAN RUSHDIE has been knighted for his services to literature, which is farcical because I’ve yet to meet a living soul (me included) who’s managed to get through anything he’s written.

“The thing you hope for as a writer is to leave behind a shelf full of interesting books,” he said after the ceremony.

Just one would have been good!

SHERYL IS PERIL

I DON’T believe for a second Sheryl Gascoigne is thinking of getting back with Gazza.

Why would she? When they split he didn’t have half the problems he has now—drug addiction, alcohol addiction and personality problems. He’s been in rehab countless times, and countless times he’s fallen off the wagon. Why would any woman want to walk into that?

I think Sheryl’s doing what most decent women would— she’s helping a desperate man she once loved get back on his feet. Gazza might NEED to think it’s more to get better— but if so his recovery will be short-lived. Because the fact is his biggest addiction has always been Sheryl.

When their marriage went down the Swanee, his life did too. I dread to think what will happen if he finds out Sheryl’s just being a good friend.

She might well still love him but she’s smart enough to know it can never work. Gazza’s dependency—both on her and on the booze—are too big a burden for any mere mortal.

NOT ON NELLY

AM I the only one who’s gut- wrenchingly disappointed by Nelson Mandela’s half-hearted condemnation of Robert Mugabe?

As a global statesman, a man admired and respected the world over, a man who knows exactly what it’s like to live in the grips of a murderous regime, surely he should have had more to say about this cold-blooded killer than he’s responsible for a “tragic failure of leadership”.

It’s a damn sight more than that—and Mandela had the chance to denounce this dictator in the strongest possible terms. But he didn’t and already Mugabe has dismissed his words as being “of no consequence”. And he’s right —they aren’t.

Mandela knows too well the African states—the only countries that can topple Mu- gabe—hang on his every word, which is why it’s a tragedy those words weren’t more condemnatory, more galvanising. What he’s said won’t motivate any country, African or otherwise, to oust this killer.

Mugabe once said only God could remove him from power. Well maybe it’s time someone arranged for him to meet God — courtesy of an AK47.

Born the wrong colour... white

SARAH Desrosiers could be forgiven for being racist. She could be forgiven for thinking the world has gone crazy.

And she could be forgiven for thinking: “What’s the bloody point in trying to earn a living when one silly girl with a grudge can take it all away.”

Sarah is boss of the Wedge hairdressing salon in London’s King’s Cross who was found guilty of discrimination after refusing to employ Muslim Bushra Noah who said that, if she got the job, she wouldn’t remove her veil in the salon.

“I’ve worked hard all my life,” says Sarah. “How can it be possible that someone comes into my shop, is interviewed for ten minutes and then tries to sue me for £34,000?”

How indeed?

But then Sarah isn’t from an ethnic minority. She isn’t an immigrant. And she isn’t a Muslim. She’s a white, hard-working Brit and, these days, there’s no quarter given for them.

Nor is there any common sense.

How can a young woman who has bust a gut to start her own business, who’s tried to make her own way in the world without help from the state, whose proudest day was the day she picked up the keys to her own salon—how can a woman like that be found guilty of discrimination when she made a purely business decision and decided not to employ a hairdresser who refused to let clients see her hair?

If I went to a salon and a woman in a veil wanted to cut my hair I wouldn’t let her. Not because I’m racist but because I judge a stylist’s talent by how she wears her own hair.

It’s her shop window and if her hair’s a mess I wouldn’t let her within a mile of mine.

Noah claims she HAS to wear the veil for religious reasons—which is tosh because nowhere in the Koran does it say women have to.

They just choose to.

Or their husbands force them to, which is why this isn’t about religion.

Sarah, who has been found guilty of “indirect discrimination” by an industrial tribunal, now has to pay £4,000 to a woman she only met for ten minutes.

And she’s having to shell out this money for Bushra’s injured feelings. Well, what about Sarah’s injured feelings, her injured business and her injured life?

And what the hell has this world come to when people can sue people just because they upset them a bit? Moreover what kind of precedent does this set for other employers?

Because what it’s saying is, if a veil-wearing Muslim comes for a job she HAS to get it otherwise she can take you to the cleaners.

And if anything is likely to foster race hate it’s loony decisions like this because it no longer matters how talented you are, how much you deserve a job—the message here is if you’re a Muslim woman just stick a veil on and you’re home and dry.

In fighting for what she believes in, Sarah Desrosiers has spent every penny of her savings.

She’s lost £40,000 of her salon’s annual income in preparing for her legal battle (she should sue Noah for that) and now she has to find another £4,000 to pay her off which will very likely ruin her.

Where’s the justice in that?

To get a job people have to have a talent for it.

Their skills—per- sonal and professional—have to tick all the boxes.

And Noah, who had already been turned down for 25 other hairdressing jobs, didn’t fit the bill for a host of reasons. And in doing what she’s done you can see why prospective employers gave her short shrift.

It seems we now have a situation in Britain where our legal system and our law enforcers are so terrified of a Muslim backlash that any issue that involves one of their brethren is treated in a positively discriminatory way.

That’s not fair. It’s not right. And it shouldn’t be legal.

A CRYING SHAME

I’M wondering if Shami Chakrabati has ever heard the expression “Chill Out.” Because it’s what the uptight, Ms Goody Two Shoes civil rights boss needs to do right now.

Ms Chakrabati—who I suspect revels in the title of “Britain’s Most Powerful Asian Woman”—is currently fuming over what she calls “tawdry remarks and attempts at character assassination” by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham who, in the wake of David Davis’ resignation, talked publicly about him having “late night, hand-wringing, heart-melting phone calls” with the Liberty boss.

Strange that the seemingly fearless Chakrabati, who spends her life challenging politicians and steam-rollering their views, would be so upset by this piece of baseless nonsense which Burnham says SHE has misinterpreted.

Now she’s threatening to sue him if he doesn’t apologise, claiming rather grandly that he has debased his office but also the vital debate about fundamental rights and freedoms in this country.

Well no, he hasn’t actually. What he’s done is upset MR Chakrabati and MRS Davis, which isn’t nearly as serious.

If Ms Chakrabati wants to play with the political big boys she needs to get a thicker skin. She could have dismissed Burnham and his daft comments with a bit of humour.

But then that’s Shami’s problem. She doesn’t do humour.

AS the 42-day detention row rumbles on, I’m just wondering why the focus is still on detaining suspected terrorists when the convicted terrorists we have in our midst are still living high on the hog courtesy of the taxpayer—no doubt plotting their next atrocity.

MODEL CITIZEN

WHAT does Naomi Campbell have to do to get thrown in jail—kill someone?

This foul-mouthed yob got just 200 hours community service for abusing the captain and assaulting two police officers on a BA flight.

But that’s 200 hours which will never be served because she’ll either be working abroad or frolicking on some millionaire’s yacht.

She’s also been ordered to pay a derisory £550 compensation to the people she abused and assaulted and £2,300 in fines–all of which is less than the price of a handbag to her.

So yet again Campbell is living proof there’s one law for the Celebrity and another for Joe Public. Because if you or I had caused that kind of a chaos on a plane we’d be slopping out in one of Her Majesty’s prisons by now.

Ms Campbell must be laughing her designer socks off at those gutless magistrates at Uxbridge Court who have all but told this lout she can do whatever the hell she likes—and get away with it.

Pity the next poor sod she batters who might still be daft enough to believe the law is there to protect the victim.

Truth is, Davis is decent

WHY is it we spend our lives criticising politicians for being corrupt, greedy and sleazy then, when one of them does something noble, we start looking for the angle?

We tear them apart when we hear about their expenses fiddles, their affairs, the fact they're only in politics for what THEY can get out of it, yet the minute one of them resigns on a principle our immediate reaction is one of suspicion and "what's in it for him?"

So when David Davis quit as an MP and Shadow Home Secretary last week over government plans to detain terrorist suspects for 42 days, it took just minutes for the whispers to start.

"It's a stunt," they said. "He wants Cameron's job," they said. "He's bonkers and just attention-seeking," they said.

Well, I'm sorry, I don't think he was.

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I think he was trying to draw attention to the fact that bit by bit this country's freedoms are being obliterated by a flailing, self-serving government which wants to control everything we do — the scary part being they don't have the wit or the collective intelligence to do it properly.

Respect

I don't agree with Davis's stance on the 42-day terrorism law (I'll explain why later) but I absolutely respect the fact he's willing to put his career and his reputation on the line for something he passionately believes in.

Can you see Cameron doing it? Or Brown?

The fact is (agree with him or not) most people in this country are behind Davis for the simple reason that at last here's a politician who sees what they see, who fears what they fear and is prepared to do something about it.

And yes, he may well have alienated himself from his party, he may well have walked away from a position of influence but he HAS connected with huge numbers of people who, like him, are terrified about the erosion of civil liberties.

I'm talking about decent, ordinary people SICK of being monitored 24/7 by CCTV cameras, SICK of having microchips put into their wheelie bins, SICK of being branded (and prosecuted) as racists because they disagree with the government's politically correct stance and SICK of having anti-terrorist laws used against them over trivia instead of against those monsters who want to maim and murder us.

Dirty

And all the MPs now screaming about how stupid Davis is, how futile his resignation was, are only doing it because never in a million years can they ever imagine themselves doing anything based on principle. Because in 21st century politics principle has become a dirty word and the Westminster gravy train is overflowing with politicians too smug, too selfish and too scared to step off it for anything as ludicrous as a principle.

As for those carpers screaming that, whatever Davis believes in, he can't achieve anything from the oblivion of the back benches?

Well, I think the British people might disagree, because whether they're with him on the 42-day issue or not, the fact remains he HAS distinguished himself as a man willing to stand up and be counted — even at the cost of his career.

That might make him niaive, but it also makes him a pretty special bloke, who people might think would have been a better leader than the lite, disingenuous Mr Cameron.

And just for the record (and unlike Davis) I think we SHOULD be able to hold terrorist suspects who pose a REAL threat to this country for as long as it takes to convict them. Because if detaining them for 42 days, 90 days or 420 days stops one single Brit being blown up — then it's worth it!

But what does it say about us as a society that when a politician does something decent, something moral and something at huge cost to himself, he's slated as a fool?

CRYING SHAME

I CRIED when I read about the 24 dolphins who died gasping for breath off the Cornish coast where the MoD (who have frantically denied responsibility) were using sonar equipment to map out the sea bed.

I cried because just hours before I'd been swimming with these glorious creatures off the Mexican coast.

For years I'd read about other people doing this but nothing prepares you for the wonder of these gentle animals — their intelligence, their softness, their innate trust of humans and the fact they will allow you to cuddle, stroke and kiss them without ever believing they will be harmed.

They fix you with soft grey eyes and immediately you feel a bond, a protectiveness and a responsibility.

And if the MoD were irresponsible enough to set off explosions and use sonar equipment (which disorientates them) where they knew there was a dolphin pod then someone needs to be brought to book over it.

There's no evil in these creatures. All they require from us in return for their gentleness and their trust is the knowledge that we won't deliberately set out to murder them.

WEIGH TO GO

HAVING furiously dieted for my holiday in Mexico, I have now returned to discover I have not only put on what I lost (five pounds), I've cleverly managed to add another three as well.

And I can't for the life of me think how. The lovely people running the Rosewood Hotel in Mayakoba assured me that the divine six-course dinners we had every night, the homemade jellies, fudges and cakes they put into our rooms every day, the honeyed walnuts they served with our drinks every night and the buffet breakfast that every morning involved five huge tables groaning with food were all terribly healthy and calorie-free.

Or did I just dream the "calorie-free" bit?

Suffice to say I'm now back home and the full horror of what I looked like in those final days on the beach has just hit home as The Husband starts printing up the photos.

I'd like to say I regret eating my own body weight in dessert, that given the chance again I'd be more restrained.

But I'd be lying. In fact I'm already trying to work out when I can decently go back and do it all again!

Lazy docs make me feel sick!

HOW many people have a story about a loved one who might still be alive had their GP a) SPOTTED they were ill, b) DONE something about it and c) BEEN AROUND when their condition worsened, instead of offloading them on to some faceless agency that knew nothing about their medical history and cared even less?

My dad might still be alive today if HIS GP had spotted the early signs of bowel cancer (incredible he hadn't, as they were pinned on his surgery wall) and sent him to a specialist.

How many of us feel conned and betrayed by GPs who in the past three years have had a 63 per cent pay hike? Their average earnings in 2006 were £118,000, while some pocketed a staggering £250,000, in return for which they have shaved funds off patient care and drastically cut their working hours.

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There was a time, not so long ago, when GPs took responsibility for their patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Now, if you're unlucky enough to fall ill after 6.30pm, at weekends or on bank holidays your fate is put into the hands of a doctor you don't know and who often doesn't have access to your medical notes or doctors are flown in, at 3,000 quid a throw, from some far-flung corner of Europe.

Worse still, you could end up on the phone to a nurse who knows as much about your condition as the bloke in your local kebab shop.

And despite pleas from the government that in return for their six-figure salaries GPs might like to reinstate a teensy bit of overtime to help patients who say seeing their own GPs makes them feel less scared. Despite the fact one presumes these doctors have a vocation and actually give a damn about the fate of their patients, many are refusing to budge from their new 9 to 5 lives—whatever distress that might cause people in their care.

They've hit the jackpot and nothing as trivial as a patient's terror is going to change that.

And now, guess what? They want our help. Having betrayed not only their patients but the whole ethos of what being a GP is all about, they want us to help them fight government plans to close 1,700 GPs' surgeries in favour of superclinics that would be run as a commercial enterprise.

Obscene

And yes, they're right to shout that it will affect patient care. They're right to say it will leave thousands of sick, vulnerable people without direct access to a doctor. But they need to ask themselves whose fault all that is. It's THEIRS!

Had they heeded requests to justify their huge salaries with a few hours' overtime. Had they not insisted on taking an increasingly obscene share of NHS funds. Had they not used much of that extra funding to boost their own salaries instead of using it to improve services, the government would not now be forced to save money by opening superclinics.

And while GPs will end up the losers, the biggest losers here will be the sick, the frail and the vulnerable who already get passed from pillar to post like some pesky inconvenience. And who even if they ARE forced to go to superclinics could not feel any more isolated, abandoned and terrified than they do now.

Maybe some of those doctors who think a fat salary is more important than patient care ought to re-read the Hippocratic Oath—the supposed guideline for the medical ethics of doctors. There's a line in there that says: "I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability."

Nowhere does it say that help should only be given for a six-figure salary and be limited to office hours from Monday to Friday.

Trying to kid

SO, it isn't just Kate and Gerry McCann who have refused to go back to Portugal for a police reconstruction of Maddie's disappearance.

We now learn that at least four of the Tapas Seven have also refused because they too left their kids alone when they went drinking that fateful night.

Are they worried that like the McCanns, they might also become suspects?

Er, so what happened to the "We'll do whatever's necessary to find Maddie" mantra? Did that come with the proviso that they'll do "whatever's necessary" as long as it doesn't embarrass them, inconvenience them or put them in any personal danger?

Anyway, I don't see the problem. If these people have nothing to hide, if they really DO want to help find Maddie, why haven't they already hauled their backsides back to Portugal?

I've a spring in my step

WHEN Louis Walsh and I ended up singing a duet at our works Christmas Party (it was the worst ever rendition of Sonny and Cher’s I Got You Babe) I told him Bruce Springsteen was my all-time rock god.

Louis said he was coming to Dublin in May and would try to get me and The Husband tickets. Yeah, yeah, I thought, he’ll forget as soon as the euphoria of our duet (and the wine) had worn off. But true to his word, Louis (now officially my hero) got us within feet of The Boss at the RDS Arena in Dublin last Sunday night.

A week later my eardrums are still ringing and I’ve just about recovered from the soaking we got when the heavens opened.

But I can’t stop humming Dancing In The Dark and the word “magic” keeps going through my head. So Thank You, Bruce, Thank You, Dublin and Thank You, Louis!

The Queen mad at great PR? Hello!

DOES anyone actually BELIEVE all this tosh about how the royal family—the Queen in particular—are incensed that photos of them at Peter and Autumn Phillips' wedding have been splashed over 100 pages of Hello!?

The very idea that the 11th in line to the throne and his very nice girlfriend—who I suspect would rather eat horse manure than upset the Queen —have gone ahead with a £500,000 deal without seeking HM's approval for every cough and spit of the day's events is nothing short of preposterous.

It's also an insult to the intelligence of the British people.

Call me an old cynic but I think this is one of the best PR stunts ever pulled by the House of Windsor.

They know full well that they have to get more "down and dirty" with the masses.

They know they have to modernise, be more accessible, and what better way to do it than across the pages of a celebrity mag where they look like the perfect, happy—albeit incredibly well-heeled—family?

It's also well known that despite their vast wealth, most royals are tighter than a fish's backside, so the idea of them getting 100 pages of free, much-needed PR, as well as earning half-a-million quid in the process, must have been irresistible.

Don't tell me that if the royals had really wanted this wedding to be private and discreet then Princess Anne couldn't have stumped up the money to pay for it. I can see how it might have been a bit of a stretch for Autumn Kelly's mum and dad to throw a wedding fit for a queen—but Princess Anne, who lives in one of the most beautiful stately homes in the land, is also the Queen's daughter and has a personal fortune of millions.

And if she couldn't be persuaded to dip into her savings for her own son's wedding (and to give him a nice little deposit for a house), why didn't the Queen do it as a wedding present?

Control

She'd already given them St George's Chapel and Frogmore House for the day for free.

And I'm sure any caterer and wine merchant worth their salt would have happily given their services at hugely reduced rates if they were given the go-ahead to boast about their royal customers.

We're also told that Peter and Autumn had absolute control over what photos were used, which makes an even bigger nonsense of the suggestion they did this without the Queen's consent.

Remember, this is a couple who conducted their entire courtship away from the cameras, and the idea they could step out of line now—so spectacularly—is ridiculous.

If the Queen had been at all bothered about the Hello! cameras, she wouldn't have gone to the wedding. (She didn't go to the civil ceremony when Charles and Camilla's married.) But it was necessary for the Palace "suits" to tell us the Windsors were all spitting nails to avoid accusations of crassness and tackiness.

I started to smell a rat when I read that Harry, Chelsy and Kate were "deeply upset" at being photographed because they thought they were letting their hair down at a private event.

Eh??? Is this the same Harry, Chelsy and Kate who regularly, and often very drunkenly, let their hair down in full view of the paparazzi at clubs all over London?

As for the royals not knowing about the Hello! deal—pull the other one!

Smiley

They're also smart enough to know that no publication (especially Hello! magazine) would pay half-a-million quid for a wedding then allow the exclusion of most of the people there.

I'll take a punt here and say that this was a test run, and in the next couple of years more royals will take the Hello! route. Because however you cut it, 100 pages of happy, smiley photographs are great publicity for anyone—especially a family that in recent years has found it hard to move with the times and has made lots of mistakes in its efforts to do so.

Love them or loathe them, celebrity mags are where most people who matter show up.

Which is why 21st century logic seems to dictate—if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

And make shed loads of cash in the process.

Cherie hasn't got a leg to stand on

IT'S obvious when you think about it—Cherie Blair is the political doppelganger of Heather Mills.

Both come from nothing yet despite their accrued wealth and privilege, both are still as common as muck.

Neither of them has even a smattering of class or style. Neither has any sense of when to keep their big traps shut.

Both are obsessed by money, yet spend their lives denying it, and both have the capacity at the most inappropriate times to behave like nutters. The pair of them are horribly unattractive characters, and both are eaten up by the fact their men have power and influence which they believe should rightfully have been theirs.

But, as much as I despise Heather Mills, the fact is she's a street-kid who grew up with no advantages and did what she had to to claw her way to financial security.

Cherie, however, had the privilege of a fantastic education and an obscenely well-paid career at the Bar.

She had untold personal and political influence yet her vulgarity, crudeness, lack of morals and unerring capacity to denigrate the PM's office make her a damned sight more despicable—and dangerous—than Mills.

And, now, ex-senior judge Gerald Butler QC says she's also denigrating the legal profession with her trashy memoirs which, he says, show "a complete lack of any kind of decency".

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Cherie's own husband summed it up on his last day in power when, as a parting shot to the media, Cherie said something crass and embarrassing. "You just can't resist it, can you?" said Tony. "For God's sake, you're supposed to be dignified and gracious."

Dignified and gracious? Two words no one could ever associate with the low-rent Mrs Blair, a woman who spent years hiding behind the "invasion of privacy" excuse when she didn't want to explain her gaffes, her greed, her blatant attempts at self-advancement, her dodgy dealing with a conman and her inability to fulfil her role as PM's wife with any kind of decorum.

How dignified was it to regale us with smutty details about her sex life—how and where her children were conceived? And even more nauseating—tales of her contraceptive equipment?

And exactly how important was "privacy" to the woman who has hawked hers—and more grossly her family's—to the highest bidder?

Ruthless

How does Leo feel about the fact his mum told the world (for money) about his MMR jab? And what will he do when he discovers the only reason he was born was because his mum was too embarrassed to take her "kit" to Balmoral?

How does David Kelly's family feel about the fact Cherie used his tragic death to sell her book?

How angry does the government she so ruthlessly exploited for her own ends feel about her cheap betrayal of its secrets? And what does Gordon Brown think about her efforts to undermine him at a time when this country is on its knees? And Mrs Tittle-Tattle upset all these people for what? So she could buy a flash £4million country mansion where she can show off and say, "Aren't we grand?" Doesn't she realise the people she mixes with (apart from C-list celebs she keeps close because they afford her the respect she thinks she deserves) will only ever see her as a gauche, flappy-mouthed woman who—no matter how much money she has—will always stand out like a sore thumb in sophisticated company?

Doesn't she see that people will forever mutter behind her back that never was a woman so lucky as to marry a charmer like Tony, who's patently too good for her?

It was never Cherie's place to sell the secrets of her husband's tenure or his government-especially as many members are still serving. But mainly because, in political terms, she's an irrelevance— just The Wife passing on a bit of juicy gossip.

Her equally silly half-sister Lauren Booth says people are cruel about Cherie because of snobbery about her back-ground—the inference being she's "too poor to be in Downing Street".

Tosh! People dislike Cherie NOT because she's working class but because she SHAMES the working class. She's spiteful, greedy, self-serving and can't be trusted with matters of confidential-ity—pretty shabby for a supposedly resectable judge.

Mrs Blair has not only damaged herself with this book. She's damaged the PM's office and the legal profession. More importantly, she's betrayed, hurt and upset people who never wanted any part in her squalid money-making circus.

I'll also wager her book hasn't done her marriage much good either, which might explain the rumours that she and Tony are leading increasingly separate lives.

Maybe he's just starting to see what we always have...

Disgrace of OAP care

AS Gordon Brown pushes his (latest) blueprint for Britain in a last-ditch attempt to save his political neck, the suicide of Tom and Nancie Hughes says everything we need to know about our so-called socialist government.

They killed themselves after 60 years of marriage because they were terrified they were about to be put into separate care homes.

When are the idiots running this country going to get it through their thick skulls that old age, infirmity and illness are terrifying enough, but when the state forcibly separates you from the one person in the world who can ease that terror, it's nothing short of barbaric? No other civilised country in the world treats its elderly with such disdain, such cruelty.

Their pensions are pitiful, care homes are a national disgrace and hospital staff leave old people lying just a few feet away to starve to death. Elderly people have no voice, no clout, so because they can't kick up a fuss their needs get ignored.

Tom and Nancie were devoted to each other. After 60 years together they still held hands when they went shopping but Nancie, 86, was suffering from dementia, and Tom, 82, who wasn't in the best of health himself, was terrified he couldn't look after her and they'd be separated.

And he was right to be. Because it happens—often!

Perhaps our PM and members of his government might like to imagine some inept social services bod bursting into THEIR home uninvited and removing their partner by force, saying: "It'll be better for everyone."

What's better for old people is that they feel safe and secure, and how the hell can they feel that when social-services Nazis tear them away from the one person left in the world who loves and understands them? The only person who remembers them as they were—strong and vibrant—not dependent on a state that doesn't give a stuff about them?

As for Abergavenny Social Services, they might like to conduct their own investigation into why this couple felt so desolate, so hopeless after a visit from them, that they felt they had no option but to kill themselves.

I wanna see red

THE Red Arrows have been banned from performing at the 2012 Olympics because organisers say they're "too British" and their militaristic background could be offensive to people from other countries.

I've heard some PC drivel in my time but this takes the biscuit. The whole point of the games being held here is that the rest of the world can see, enjoy and celebrate every-thing that makes us proud to be British. And the Red Arrows make us proud!

I don't believe for a second anyone will be offended but if they are I suggest they don't come! The officials who made this decision should be named, shamed and sacked on the basis they're bloody idiots.

If you agree, sign this petition

Sack judges for 'criminal' errors

HOW much longer are our batty, silly, out-of-touch judges going to be allowed to get away with decisions that, at worst, cost lives and, at best, make the law look a bigger ass than it already does?

Last week Judge Martin Picton allowed roofer Lee Jones—who'd repeatedly punched a policeman in the face—to suspend the conditions of his curfew to go on a Spanish golfing holiday.

Then there was Judge Graham Cottle who listened to some cock-and-bull story from heroin dealer Andy Morgan (whose friend actually DIED after taking drugs supplied by him) about how his electronic tag didn't look fashionable with his surf shorts then decided that because Morgan had actually got a job (selling surf boards) he should be allowed to take it off.

Now we have Judge Robert Atherton who allowed paedophile Jon Dixon to walk free after he admitted attempting to rape an 11-year-old girl in her school lunch break, because, said the judge, the girl had "welcomed sexual activity".

Never mind that a probation report insisted that 20-year-old Dixon was predatory and posed a high risk to children. Never mind that his young victim told him her age long before he arranged to meet her. Did Judge Atherton think the 11-year-old was a modern-day Lolita who deserved what she got?

He reckoned the explicit texts sent to Dixon by the schoolgirl would have made "many twice her age blush", and seems to have decided they were proof positive that she actually invited the attempted rape in an alleyway outside her school.

I'm sorry, has this dinosaur forgotten we're talking about a child here and no matter how grown-up she thought she was being talking to Dixon on the internet—she's still a minor?

Mauled

The adult in all this was supposed to be Dixon, who left Manchester Crown Court punching the air, no doubt muttering "bring it on, t*ssers" to the stupefied coppers who had to stand by and watch this pervert walk free—no doubt to target his next victim.

What is it with men like Judge Atherton and Judge Julian Hall, who two years ago was slated for jailing a child rapist for just two years?

Are they so far removed from real life that they think any girl who throws a provocative look at a man (even if she doesn't know what she's doing) deserves to be raped or molested?

Do they think girls who wear clothes that make them look older than they are deserve to be mauled by men on the basis they're "asking for it"?

Do they believe that men shouldn't be expected to control their sexual urges if they decide a girl is offering it up on a plate?

Just how long are we going to have to put up with lawmen who might know the letter of the law but are embarrassingly devoid of common sense? Men who completely undermine everything our police officers are doing in trying to get violent criminals and sex offenders off our streets and away from our kids?

And just as in business, where people get sacked for making cock-ups, just as in government, where politicians who don't perform get voted out, why can't judges who make a mockery of the legal system they're paid to represent, be kicked out?

The girl Jon Dixon tried to rape is still alive.

Maybe the next child victim won't be so lucky.

And the man to blame for that will be Judge Robert Atherton.

THATS A BIT RICH CHERIE

IN her new book Cherie Blair says she wants to make clear she's not the greedy, grasping freebie queen we all thought her to be. Nor, she says, does she suffer from illusions of grandeur.

And yes, despite the fact these protestations come just days after she and Tony splashed out on a £4million country pile in Buckinghamshire to add to their expanding property portfolio of a £3million house in Connaught Square and two other investment properties, the fact is we can now see we were wrong about her.

Poor thing's had one hell of a struggle these past ten years in Downing Street on her £350,000-a-year salary and Tony's £180,000. How can anyone be expected to survive on that? And even though Cherie got more freebies than anyone on the planet there was the worry of those mortgages—the investment properties, the Connaught Square mansion. "It was very scary," she says. "Because whatever happened we had to meet the monthly payments and it was all down to me."

And yes, you might think that living free in a grand house in Downing Street she didn't actually NEED a £3million mansion down the road. But then you have to remember Cherie's a New Labour Socialist and they're different from ordinary socialists. They believe everyone else has to live in penury—except them.

But let's get back to how she suffered because it's the dominant theme of her book, Speaking For Myself (which from the amount of monumental cock-ups she's made, I presumed she always did.) There were all those weekends at Chequers where she and Tony entertained the Great and the Good (but mostly C-list celebrities). Now, THAT must have been hard. Lining up all the people who might have been able to help them post-Downing Street and plying them with champagne paid for by us. Well, you can see the stress she must have been under.

Even now Cherie's had to settle for something she knows isn't really good enough for her. The new house IS grand, she says, "but it isn't anything like Chequers."

Now all the poor cow's got to scrape by on is the £1.5million for HER memoirs, Tony's £2.25million deal with JP Morgan Bank and the £4.6million for HIS memoirs. Let's face it—life's always going to be hard for them.

How could we ever have thought her cheap, greedy and nasty?

EVIL AND A COWARD

JOSEF Fritzl, who caged his daughter in a dungeon for 24 years, who fathered seven children by her and who raped his own grandchild, says: "I'm not a monster."

Course he's not. His daughter asked to be repeatedly raped, as did his grandchild. They really enjoyed living in a windowless dungeon. Oh yes, and Fritzl was just being big-hearted when he incinerated the body of a baby (his baby) who died because it needed but didn't get medical attention after he left his daughter alone for three days following the birth.

"I'm not a monster. I could have killed them all and no one would have been any the wiser," said Fritzl.

I suspect for every one of the children forced to live in that dank, dark cellar, death would have been preferable to what happened to them at the hands of this bloated pervert.

Yes, he could have killed them all. But it might have been better had he put his balls to better use—and found the courage to kill himself. Save Austrian taxpayers the price of a trial.

I wept for Kate but still blame her

I WAS glued to ITV's two-hour documentary about Kate and Gerry McCann. I also watched their interview on News At Ten and I read all their tormented revelations which dominated last week's front pages.

The upshot is I'm now more confused than ever about how I feel.

However some things have become clearer. My feelings for Kate McCann for a start. Because while you can sympathise with the gut-wrenching horror of what these people have been through, while you can pray for the safe return of their little girl, you don't have to like them.

And I didn't. Kate in particular seemed cold, detached, lacking in warmth and, even though I understand she was riven by grief, the fact is when you want to galvanise millions of people to look for your daughter YOUR feelings have to take second place.

But on Wednesday, for the first time, I saw the real Kate McCann.

I saw her fear, but I also saw her determination to fight for her little girl and do whatever's required to get her back. I saw that she isn't a whinger or a woman who expects others to do what she won't. I saw how insane it was for anyone ever to have suspected she or Gerry had been involved in Madeleine's disappearance.

I listened while she talked about what life will be like if Maddie never comes home. How they will never greet another day without wondering, "Is today the day they'll find her?"

And yes, I wept for them — for what was. And for what their lives will be if Maddie is gone forever. But what will never change for me is the circumstances in which she disappeared. I cannot get past the fact that if this little girl hadn't been left on her own, for five nights in a row, if she and the twins had been with a babysitter which would have cost these well-off doctors just ten quid, she'd be with them today. And, one year on, the McCanns can't just dismiss that, saying: "It's done. We can't change it. We have to move on."

Because how do you move on from that? They can't just say, "We didn't think there was a danger," because anyone with half a brain knows there's danger everywhere.

The fact remains the McCanns could still be charged with neglect for leaving their three young children alone on that fateful night.

And while they've admitted they made a mistake, while it's clear no one blames Kate for leaving her kids more than Kate herself, this is actually more than a mistake.

Screaming at someone you shouldn't is a mistake. Eating a Mars bar when you're dieting is a mistake. Leaving three little kids alone in an unlocked apartment while you go eating and drinking with your mates is irresponsible.

And we can't dance around that any more. We can't NOT say what we think when the McCanns continue to ask for publicity and money to help find their little girl. They got us involved and they have to accept that we might have an opinion about what they did.

I've asked every parent I know if they've ever left their kids alone in an unlocked apartment on holiday. From most the answer was, "Absolutely never." The few who said, "Yes, we've done it and there's nothing wrong with it," are just trying to assuage their own guilt.

Disaster

Because if they say the McCanns were wrong they'd have to admit they too had been negligent and stupid— albeit luckier. Because, never mind paedophiles and kidnappers. Three kids under the age of four alone in an apartment is a disaster waiting to happen—however you cut it.

They could have set themselves alight. The twins could have fallen out of their cots. Maddie (having watched Mum do it) might have tried to put the kettle on and scalded herself.

Susan Healy, Maddie's grandmother, said what we all wanted to say when Kate and Gerry told her Maddie was missing: "Where were you? And why did you think it was OK to leave them?"

And why DID they think it was OK to leave them on the very day Madeleine asked where they'd been the previous night when she'd woken up crying?

We must all keep looking for Madeleine and we must applaud the McCanns for their determination NEVER to give up hope of finding her.

But there's a lesson here for ALL parents. And no one, especially the McCanns, should dismiss what happened as a mere mistake.

It's much more serious than that!

It's Boris day now

OK, I voted for Boris. Yes, I know he's a loon. Yes, I know he probably isn't going to make the best Mayor of London.

But mine was a protest vote and I'm not ashamed of that because my vote is the only way I can make my voice heard.

More importantly, there comes a time when the electorate has to show whisky-swilling, arrogant, morally bereft politicians like Ken Livingstone that his job was about serving us—not his cronies, not himself and not terrorist sympathisers.

His job was about doing what's best for the people of London—not punishing car drivers just because he hates cars. And it wasn't about using his power to inflict damage on anything that happened to be bothering him—while pretending it was for the good of the city.

IPOD Generation's Getting Me Down

SAVE for the fact we're having a bit of bother getting a mortgage, the economy's a bit wobbly and the teachers are squawking about how harddone-by they are, the fact remains people in this country are pretty damned lucky.

Yes, food prices are rising but the supermarket shelves are still full and no one's belly is empty. Yes, fuel and power are expensive but no one's freezing to death or sitting in the dark scrabbling around for a candle. Yes, the NHS could be better—but at least we've still got one.

In fact, compared to some countries, it's a pretty fantastic life.

Which is why a new report from The Children's Society has left me seething. Apparently the nation's teenagers are depressed. And why?

Well, tragedy of tragedies, girls are claiming they're increasingly under pressure because they have to wear the "right" make-up to school, they also have to have the "right" figure and 70per cent of them are always on a diet.

This report also says that rampant materialism is causing teenagers psychological distress, which presumably means if Mummy and Daddy refuse to cough up for the latest trainers or Paris Hilton's must-have handbag, the result is a rapid spiral into depression.

Oh yes, teenagers are also stressed because they're being "over-tested" at school.

Presumably these are the same kids for whom too much homework can induce a psychotic episode, and for whom competitive sports have now been banned because it's just too upsetting for the losers.

Well, no, losers is the wrong word—too un-PC. I should have said: "Young adults who don't win."

This would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. How can we take this kind of report seriously without admitting parents have totally lost their way with kids and we now have a nation of teenagers who've been so cosseted, so spoiled that they can't cope with anything?

Because while TV advertising CAN encourage kids to demand everything they want, the fact remains that if Mum and Dad (the people who pay for all this stuff) said the word NO now and again, TV advertising would have zero effect. Well, not unless the teenager concerned wanted whatever it was so badly he/she got a job and earned the money for it themselves—which would teach them a whole different (and very valuable) lesson.

But just who are these depressed teenagers? I'll hazard a guess and say they're second-generation kids with no notion of what it's like to go without, kids who can't conceptualise the fact that something might not just be there for the taking. But it isn't entirely their fault. Like their parents, they've got used to living in a Land of Plenty, where if you really want something there's no waiting, no saving, no telling yourself you can't afford it.

In 2008 if we want something we just whack it on the credit card and worry how we're going to pay for it later.

I'm old enough to remember what it was like to live in a home where every penny was accounted for, when sometimes we didn't have enough money for food AND the bills. And no, I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm just saying how it was. If I asked my mum and dad for something, there were always four considerations. Could they afford it? Did I need it? Had I earned it? Or to hell with all the aforementioned—should we just give it to her as a treat? (The latter was pretty rare.)

Fast-forward to 2008, where we have an underclass that's never worked yet believes the government ought to pay for everything—not just for what they need but for what they want as well.

And we have an aspiring middle class that believe it's their absolute right to have a top-of-the-range car, three holidays a year and a house with all the latest mod-cons.

The truth is we've sent ourselves into this recession. The STOP signs have been there for months but we didn't take any notice. We just kept buying the kids iPods and Wiis. We kept getting mortgages we couldn't afford and we kept spending money we didn't have, on a dozen different credit cards.

So are we surprised our kids are depressed? Are we surprised they think the worst thing that can ever happen to them is if they can't have the latest iPhone?

Teenagers have always been victims of stress—some of it real, most of it imagined. It goes with the territory.

But if today's teenagers really think that a "crisis" is about not having the right make-up for school or not getting the latest computer game, then God help them.

Anne's a Fat Head

ANNE Diamond—who has proved outstanding in her inability to lose weight (although she's had no problems making shed-loads of money out of it)—has been appointed patron of the National Obesity Forum.

And my question is, WHY?

"What we need is a greater understanding from the medical establishment," says Anne.

"We also need action from politicians and compassionate help for individuals whose lives are being shortened or impaired by this debilitating condition."

EH? What debilitating condition?

In 90 per cent of cases people are fat for one very simple reason—they eat too much. It only becomes debilitating when you're so fat you can no longer lift the crisp packet.

I did Celebrity Fit Club with Ms Diamond and witnessed the lack-lustre efforts that stopped her losing as much weight as the rest of us (even though she'd cheated and had a gastric band fitted while we had to slog our guts out in the gym).

She'd regularly find reasons not to finish an exercise session or a tough training circuit—her back hurt, she felt sick...

I also know that in the past three months I've put on a stone—not because I've got a "debilitating condition", not because the medical establishment has turned its back on me, but because I've been stuffing my face with crisps and chocolate and not doing enough exercise.

This isn't rocket science, and I don't believe it's anyone's responsibility to get this weight off but mine.

A lesson Ms Diamond needs to learn.

Does she think it's the government's responsibility to put a security guard on her fridge? Does she want an NHS carer to stand between her and that Mars Bar?

Obesity isn't cancer. It's self-inflicted. More importantly, it's self-cured. "If obesity can happen to me it can happen to almost anyone," whines Anne. When is this woman going to get it into her silly head that fat didn't just happen to her? She eats too much and she can't or won't put in the effort to stop.

The problem for her is that if by some miracle she did get thin, how would she make a living? In recent years she's made hundreds of thousands of pounds out of being fat. It's a career. Which is fine for her.

The tragedy is other people might just believe her nonsense that "fat just happens" and decide they can't do anything about it.

A Bit Too Hamazing

I'M sure Richard Hammond's a nice bloke, and I'm very glad he survived the car crash that nearly killed him. But am I the only person suffering from Hammond Overkill?

This week's story about "Brave Richard" (because there always is one) is that he put off an emergency appendix op for two hours so he could have lunch with a competition winner who'd cancelled his holiday to meet him. Big ahhh...

My gripe is twofold. If your appendix is on the point of bursting, there's no way you can sit around chatting for two hours over lunch. So it couldn't have been as bad as was made out.

Second is that a so-called "friend" of the Hamster immediately told a newspaper (the one he writes a column for, coincidentally) about this noble act, so we would all know he's a hero. Which he may well be.

However, I prefer my heroes to be a bit more subtle, a bit less contrived and not quite so hungry for headlines.

A Sigh-Fi Mystery

IF Fiona Phillips hates her job on GMTV so much, why doesn't she shove off and be a full-time mum—and give us all a break.

I'm sick of hearing this very lucky, very highly paid woman droning on about how awful her job is (and, judging by the furious comments from groups on Facebook, I'm not the only one).

This week viewers have been auditioning for the Sofa Factor, where the winner gets to stand in for presenter Richard Arnold.

And all we've heard from Prin-cess Fiona is how she can't understand why anyone would want the job, how she has to get up at 5am, how the money's not that great.

So leave, luv!

Best comment was when she said: "If I had to audition for this show—I wouldn't be sitting here."

Well at least she got THAT right!