Is Ed too young?

So Ed Miliband is the leader of the Labour Party just five years after he entered the House of Commons. If David Cameron calls a general election in 2009 rather than the following year, Ed Miliband could become Prime Minister just nine years after he became an MP.

By coincidence, David Cameron moved into Number 10 nine years after he became an MP.

We are now ruled by a political elite that have never had a proper job in their lives (I exclude David Cameron's stint as PR for Carlton TV) and are getting younger and younger. Surely, those who seek to govern us should have had some experience of life before getting their hands on power or at least have a dozen or more years of being a back bencher before moving into government.

I have been looking back over the most recent PMs.

Gordon Brown was an MP for 24 years before he became PM.
Tony Blair had 14 years' experience.
John Major was an MP for 11 years before entering Number 10.
Margaret Thatcher had 20 years as an MP.
Jim Callaghan waited 26 years before becoming PM.
Harold Wilson took 19 years to climb the greasy pole.
Alec Douglas-Home took 33 years between becoming an MP and becoming Prime Minister but his spell was interrupted by going to the Upper House.
Harold Macmillan also spent 33 years before he moved into Number 10.

Some of these were good premiers and some bad but they all had 10 or more years learning the ropes. Our future politicians should take note...

Well done to Ed

I would like to offer my congratulations to Ed Miliband, the new leader of the Labour Party.

However, his victory is yet another example of where the "experts" got it wrong. A minute or two before the Labour lady announced the result, BBC political editor Nick Robinson predicted that Miliband major would win. Other "experts" claimed that as well and also said that Ed Balls would finish last when, in fact, he won the bronze medal.

So as Miliband minor takes over, beware the "experts" - they are usually wrong as they have been on Aids, climate change, bird flu, the Millennium Bug and so many other topics.

Cut back strictly gay projects

In the Nineteenth Century Oscar Wilde described homosexuality as "the love that dare not speak its name".

In the Twentieth Century Kenneth Williams commented that the love that dare not speak its name now won't stop shouting from the rooftops".

The public has been assailed for many years with the knowledge that at least one in 10 people are gay and thus governments of all hues have spent millions of taxpayers' money on what really amounts to homosexual propaganda: that a gay relationship is as valid as a heterosexual one; that gays should be allowed to adopt children; that the rights of gays should be paramount to the religious beliefs of many, etc.

Now, new research has revealed that Britain does not have one in 10 gays but that the real figure is more likely one in 100. The Office for National Statistics said that 1.3 per cent of men are gay and 0.6 per cent of women are lesbian.

Another 0.5 per cent consider themselves bisexual, according to the figures gathered from questions put to nearly 250,000 - the biggest survey possible outside a full national census.

This means that, in total, around 1.5 per cent of the population is either homosexual or bisexual.

The number is far lower than the estimate used as a basis for the distribution of millions of pounds in public money to sexual equality causes.

When the last government framed civil partnership laws, it accepted an assumption that at least five per cent of the population was homosexual.

Will the coalition scale back on lesbian outreach workers and their like and spend public money on schemes that benefit the whole public not a tiny but nonetheless vocal majority?

Root out the bad apples in the police

Sergeant Mark Andrews was jailed last week for an unprovoked attack on a 59-year-old lady. He was sent down for six months after he had been found guilty of actual bodily harm.

Now another man has come forward to claim that he, too, was assaulted by Andrews.

What I find surprising is that Andrews was not immediately sacked on conviction. Further two of his colleagues lied on oath when giving evidence for him. They were PC Mark McIntyre and Acting Sergeant Kate Smith. They alleged that the 59-year-old lady had been violent but Deputy District Judge Peter Greenfield said on sentencing Andrews, "You called two officers whose evidence I didn’t accept... I was so concerned about the evidence these officers gave me, I asked my comments to be brought to the attention of the Chief Officer of Wiltshire."

A police spokesman said, "Two officers will be receiving words of advice from a senior officer on how to present their evidence."

"Words of advice"? Isn't that more often called attempting to pervert the course of justice?