HE might think it's all right to spend public money like water on hand-printed wallpaper for his apartments in the Houses of Parliament, but the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, is in tune with ordinary folk when he walks out of a London theatre at the interval of a play containing a vile swear word in almost every other sentence. The trendies will call him a prude, but I call him brave.

Full marks to Labour's deputy chief whip Keith Bradley for caring about his son's education and pulling him out of his local comprehensive and sending him to £5,000-a-year Manchester Grammar. If he is determined his lad should have the best schooling, what's wrong with that? Nothing, except that Labour's hypocritical policy is to deny to every parent without the resources the choice of sending their children to a grammar school.

Three decades of feminism has, a survey says, failed to produce the subservient, house-trained husband that these equal-rights harridans demand. "Men don't shop, even for their own underpants," said nearly 60 per cent of women respondents. Why the angst? Don't they know that's what wives and mothers are for?

Liar, traitor and a sure disaster if he becomes Mayor of London. On every count, I agree with what they are saying about go-it-alone Labour turncoat Ken Livingstone. Nonetheless, he has my best wishes for hitting back at the scandalous and corrupt system Tony Blair imposed to stop him running.

Readers of this newspaper gave £10,000 in just four days to help the victims of the dreadful Mozambique flood disaster. David Beckham and Posh Spice splashed out the same amount on a circus-style birthday party in a luxury hotel for their one-year-old son, Brooklyn. Readers, you got the better deal. But the no-class Beckhams could spend a year up a tree surrounded by flood water and still not realise it.

Hands up those of you who think that the trucks on our roads are too big and too many already. What, then, of transport - and environment - minister 'Two Jags' John Prescott's readiness to increase the maximum weight of trucks from 40 to 44 tonnes and the pressure from the EU for us to let 60-tonne monsters on our roads? Madness? Of course it is and it should cost him his seat if he lets it happen.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.