Anyone who knows David Prior will testify to the decency of the man. His former constituents in North Norfolk and the staff at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital will have been shocked at his very public arrest this week. But let us remember that arrest does not imply anything. What should shock us more is the very public way this was done. Someone somewhere wanted it to be in the public domain, and I don’t think we have too far to look to know where the news was leaked from. Whoever it was had an agenda.

 

This is not the first time it has happened. I well remember the case of Neil and Christine being arrested on suspicion of rape and being put through months of hell before they were completely exonerated. But in those few months the ‘no smoke without fire’ brigade had a field day. The Metropolitan Police had tipped off the press that they had been arrested and a phalanx of cameras was waiting to greet them at Ilford Police Station.

 

The same thing happened more recently to Lord Levy, when he was arrested in the Cash for Peerages inquiry.

 

Whatever happened to the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty’? It seems if you a public figure you have to put up with this sort of thing nowadays.

 

I don’t blame the EDP for splashing the Prior case as a big story. It is. But perhaps someone in Norfolk Police, or maybe the Norfolk Health Service, should be hanging their head in shame this weekend for putting a transparently decent man and his family through hell. And perhaps the rest of us should be asking ourselves what their agenda is.

 

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Cherie Blair seems to be almost unembarrassable, but even she must cringe at the antics of her half sister Lauren Booth. Miss Booth sees the sunsetting on her career as a media pundit, for after Cherie dances off into the sunset, Lauren's unique selling point disappears. No longer is she the sister-in-law of the British Prime Minister. Hence her appearance on I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here. It's a last desperate throw of the dice designed to keep her in the media spotlight.

This week she appeared to let slip that Tony Blair was intending to depart the scene in January. She then paused, and said 'oh, February, or March, or it might be April'. The intention was to make us all think that she is 'in the know'. The fact of the matter is that Cherie and her husband are more likely to confide in David Cameron than they are to talk to Lauren Booth about this or anything else. So if you become an addict to I'm a Celebrity and Lauren mentions anything to do with her famous relatives dip your fingers into the salt bowl and take a massive pinch.

 

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I discovered an alarming statistic this week. In India and China there are currently thirty million cars. In 2040 there will be 750 million. By that time both countries will be producing more carbon emissions that the United States does today. For those who think, like some people on Norwich City Council, that slapping a £25 congestion charge onto Ford Mondeos is a good thing and will save the planet, I have news for them.

 

Frankly, it doesn't really matter what we do in this country on global emissions if we can't persuade emerging economies like India and China to follow suit. Our efforts on climate change are misdirected. What we should be doing is convincing India and China that they will be the main part of the problem within half a generation, and then persuade (or even help) them to take the requisite action. But that may be more difficult than you think. A Conservative MP friend of mine met the Chinese Environment Minister recently, who told him that they did not intend to take lessons from countries which had mistreated the planet so badly. Indeed, he said they would only take action when they saw western economies hurting from environmental regulation.

 

We can all have windmills on our roofs and install solar panels, but if Indians and the Chinese do not cut their emissions too we might as well save ourselves the bother.

 

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Channel 4 Newsreader Jon Snow and I have something in common. We both wear the same make of bright ties (Duchamp, since you ask!) but that’s where we part company. Last week Snow got into a lot of trouble last week for refusing to wear a poppy on screen and coining the phrase ‘poppy fascism’. This wouldn’t be the same Jon Snow who delighted in wearing a Make Poverty History wristband on his programme, would it? He was ready to interview Michael Howard, when his producer said of the wristband: "Do you think you should be wearing that?" Snow said would continue to wear it because the wristband is "beyond contention". An example of ‘wristband fascism’, perhaps?