WHEN speed cameras were first introduced they were grey and virtually invisible, so we knew for a fact they hadn’t been installed to slow people down.
They were there to catch people, so they could be fined.
In short, they were the tax man in a box.
However, when the Government realised that we’d worked this out, they said they’d make them more visible. So they didn’t.
Can you see the cameras on a motorway gantry?
Or the average speed checkers on dual carriageways?
Or the speed van that’s parked behind a bush?
But I’m beginning to suspect that fleecing the motorist is no longer the primary aim of these infernal things.
I reckon that actually they’re now there to get cars off the road so the Government can meet its stupid, zero-carbon green targets.
Why else would you bring in a 20mph limit?
Everyone, at some point, is going to break that. Even the local vicar in his Morris.
And there’s always a camera on hand to pounce.
Or a civil servant in a speed van, watching YouPorn on his phone as his video equipment catches you sailing down a hill at a lethal 32.
These days you can pop to the shops for some milk and come home ten minutes later with 12 points and no driving licence.
So that’s you off the road for a few months. Which is good for the zero-carbon target.
And we see a similar thing going on BEFORE people have even got a licence.
There was a time when passing your driving test was just a formality.
So long as you could reverse round a corner without mowing an old lady down, and use the brakes properly, you were away.
Not any more. Today, the theory test is as difficult as a quantum physics exam for the terminally socialist.
One question is “What does it mean if you see a pedestrian with a dog that has a yellow or burgundy coat?”
I don’t have a clue.
Or how about this one? “Which road users are most difficult to see when you’re reversing your car?” Dunno. A baby? Warwick Davies?
Then there’s this. “You want to reverse into a side road. What should you do if you aren’t sure that the area behind your car is clear?”
Er, not sure. Hope for the best?
The practical test is equally hard, which is why, today, a whopping 50,000 driving tests a year are being taken by people who’ve already failed FIVE times.
It’s like a twin-pronged attack on our freedom to move about.
They will take the licences away from those who already have them.
And they will make the driving test so difficult that they don’t have to issue any more.
So that what? We end up on the train . . . that isn’t running because the driver’s on strike.
Or stuck in our houses, that we can’t afford to heat.
FOR years, people have been saying that all cars look the same.
And now a photograph doing the rounds on social media shows they really do.
The problem is that all cars these days must be as fuel efficient as possible.
So there’s no room for wings or flamboyance or pizzazz.
And that means you just end up with a computer-designed shape that’s shaped . . . like a car.
I THINK most of us accept that Labour will win the next election and that, as a result, Sir Starmer will be PM.
On the face of it, this is scary, because we all remember that he supported Corbyn.
Which means that behind the Lego hair and the cheery smile he sits on the political spectrum somewhere between Stalin and Scargill.
Or does he? Tony Blair joined the Labour Party in 1975.
He was out there in his snazzy red rosette all through the leadership of Michael Foot, and Neil Kinnock. So he was a proper little lefty.
But today he’s going around telling anyone who’ll listen that Qatar isn’t that bad and that we should all tolerate its views on workers rights and homosexuality.
So who’s Starmer? What does he really think?
Well, to try to find out, I’ve had a look at his famously secretive family.
And it turns out his wife, Victoria, is a tennis fan and that the couple called their son Toby.
They’ve never revealed, publicly, the name of their daughter. Probably because it’s Humphreyetta.
Not sure I’m going to lose too much sleep, then, if he gets into No 10.
REMEMBER Covid? It was basically a new sort of flu, but it caused our Government to rush about as though their retinas had suddenly become detached.
Well in China, it’s back – and with a vengeance.
When the pandemic was at its height, China had 28,000 cases a day.
It now has 31,500 and, despite vicious lockdown measures, the number is climbing fast.
If the pattern is repeated here, and that’s a distinct possibility, we are in for an even trickier winter than we thought.
The only good news is that workers won’t be told to go home.
Because thanks to all the strikes, most will already be there.
I HAD a bonfire party on November 5.
Apparently, all farmers do that. It gives them a chance to set fire to all the stuff they’re not normally allowed to burn.
The problem is that I think I might have overdone it.
Because even after all the rain we’ve had, the pile of charred wood I can see out of my kitchen window is STILL smouldering today, nearly a month later.
That has to be some kind of record.
THERE are many things the police should be worried about right now.
How do deal with the Just Stop Oil loonies. How to solve burglaries. Or how to win back public trust.
Instead, however, Surrey Police is concerning itself with the not-at-all thorny question of what to do if a pre-surgery transgender female officer is “insisting on strip searching” women.
Hmmm. If they are insisting, there’s obviously something wrong with them.
So they need to be booted out of the force immediately. But that’s just me talking.
What the police boss said – and you need to read this carefully – was: “If a fully intact male is arrested and brought into custody to be strip-searched and is demanding that he, or if they prefer, she is identified as a female for that purpose (being strip- searched by a woman) I think most trans people would have a problem with that.”
Meanwhile, they still haven’t found the man who nicked my telly.
SO, the Americans have finally unveiled their amazing new B21 nuclear bomber.
Costing £500million each, these new super-stealth aircraft are said to be even more invisible to radar than a dandelion seed.
And the timing of their unveiling is obviously designed to say to the Chinese: “Keep your hands off Taiwan or you’ll suddenly find your house is on fire.”
I’m not sure the Chinese are listening, though, because they’re a bit busy at the moment dealing with a torrent of increasingly angry anti-government riots.
It’s strange, isn’t it? We like to think we are getting more civilised, but as each day passes, I’m beginning to wonder.
