Sober warning of what’s to come...

THE FRIDAY THING: AS we move inexorably towards next year’s general election we can expect a huge increase in ideas that have been conjured up by thinkers and non-thinkers alike.

The Prime Minister and some of his cabinet colleagues have led the way to what could either be a bright-new dawn... or more likely the year’s most ridiculous idea: giving drunken yobs electronic sobriety tags. They might as well ask them to stop breathing.

These so-called sobriety tags (dubbed Sosbos) will force drinkers to wear them for 120 days. The PM insists they will cut alcohol-related crime, but it remains to be seen whether the only cutting done will be by tag wearers, removing them before heading for the pub.

Sosbo wearers caught drinking face an £80 fine, community punishment or some time in jail.

And how long will it be before the smoking of pretend cigarettes will be banned, even in parks or your own front room?

It smacks of a poke in the eye for publicans already under intense pressure. Tea and coffee next?


HAVE the Tories moved further to the right than UKIP? I ask the question only because as the election nears there seems to be a sudden rush of attacks on migrants even before they have arrived.

Nick Clegg is saying child benefit for Polish children should be restricted to £18 a month, compared with the £80 a month paid out to British parents.

And Sir John Major says our small island can’t absorb the present and projected numbers without huge public disquiet.

Iain Duncan Smith has picked up on the influence of migrants coming here and aiming to stay in the UK and says that some of the new communities have changed the character of schools because many of them can’t speak English.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan takes a different tack, trying to downplay the impact of migration on schools. In some areas the impact has been enormous and, in places like Birmingham and the Midlands has led to friction and division.

Migration will have placed significant pressure on schools and it will be some years before we can fairly say how well or otherwise communities have benefitted.