Parents need to have trust

Published 9 October 2008

A TEACHERS’ leader says staff who have affairs with pupils over the age of 16 should not face jail.

Bring back Mainwaring to manage our banks

Published 9 October 2008

ALL this is our fault. Yes, you and me.

Is cannabis innocent?

Published 9 October 2008

THERE is a growing lobby persuading us that cannabis is a harmless drug.

Pratchett’s a true hero

Published 9 October 2008

THOSE of us of a certain age joke more and more about the unthinkable, hoping that it really is just forgetfulness that caused us to misplace that household item and not the first signs of something more serious.

A disgrace that only the courts could give Gurkhas justice

Published 2 October 2008

We’re a funny old country, but not always in the laugh a minute way.

Let’s give big bosses the cold shoulder

Published 2 October 2008

They think we’re all Beatrix Potty

Published 2 October 2008

IT’S official. We Cumbrians are living in a cliché.

Booths won fight for us all

Published 2 October 2008

You’d swear if you were Magpies boss

Published 2 October 2008

IF TV interviewers insist on sticking a microphone in the faces of football managers in stressed situations, what do they expect?

Give the Paralympics more exposure

Published 27 September 2008

PERHAPS by 2012 the Beeb will have realised that the Paralympics deserve more than being hived off for an hour or so each evening on to BBC2.

Mais oui, I’ll sort out financial woes

Published 25 September 2008

You wouldn’t hand over your month’s pay to a stranger in a betting shop and expect to receive much by way of a return on your ‘investment’.

We could all be criminals

Published 25 September 2008

AUTHORITY has a particularly cavalier attitude to information, especially when it comes to casually losing data.

Out in front is Cameron... on Foinavon

Published 25 September 2008

TALK about being damned with faint phrase. A Brownite described his great leader’s party conference speech this week as “adequate”.

Not so NICE when it’s playing God

Published 18 September 2008

Nice surely couldn’t be that nasty, not when patients’ lives are at stake. A couple of weeks ago I was preparing to write a qualified defence of the organisation which, in thousands of cases, has the power of continued life and death over seriously ill patients.

Stop your whining

Published 18 September 2008

I WONDER how many of you are, like me, sick and tired of hearing all about the trials and tribulations of Newcastle United.

Be honest, would you want ANY of these as Prime Minister?

Published 18 September 2008

MILIBAND, Balls, Johnson and God forbid, Harman. Even a man of Straw. Well would you? Would you really want any of them as your Prime Minister?

Good looks, shame about the voice

Published 18 September 2008

SHE’S a looker, I’ll give you that. But France’s First Lady, Carla Bruni, is no singer. She’s supposed to be sexy and sensuous. I think her voice is weak and reedy and not at all special.

Spelling changes are a terribly ‘dum’ idea

Published 11 September 2008

One of our local newspapers invariably had a marked copy thrust through the letter box every Saturday, the work of a pedant who had been through it with a fine toothcomb highlighting grammatical slips and any spelling mistakes.

Charities can cash in

Published 11 September 2008

IT SEEMS somehow wrong that hospices and air ambulance services have to beg for charity, that mountain rescuers not only give their time voluntarily, but have to raise funds for their own equipment.