lI'M fascinated by the way everyone's jumping on the litter refuse wagon, as it were.

The reason why action is being taken in Worcester is purely because a handful of councillors and the Worcester News never stopped banging on about it. A universal wisdom is always the product of a few zealots. The rest are just hangers-on.

lTHE British National Party has toned down the more violent rhetoric as it seeks to become a mainstream party.

I wonder whether the same will apply to Respect, a nasty Leninist-Islamist amalgam. When it comes to hatefulness, the Left can sometimes leave the Right standing.

lTHOUGHT for the week. Why is it that dock leaves are never far from stinging nettles? On Wednesday, my hand collided with some angry young stingers - but I didn't have far to look for my broad-leaved healing friend.

lA HOSPITAL midwife of my acquaintance can't wait to leave the National Health Service.

She's simply had enough. It might be early retirement or redundancy, but one way or another, she's going to quit. Smug platitudes by politicians merely add insult to the injury that has been done to the once-great NHS.

lTHE great British public is being softened up to accept a war against Iran. The Americans will provide the script and the Labour government will dutifully learn it parrot-fashion.

Public opinion, the Press, all the good and the great will meekly accept the words of a certain political leader when he tells us that there's no alternative.

Britain will go to war against Iran, it's just a question of time. And then the world really will explode.

lCLEARING out some papers this week, I chanced upon an election leaflet from one of the candidates in the May elections.

This person seemed to think that a litter problem in a Cherry Orchard Street was the fault of the party of one of his opponents. That's a novel new line, I'll grant you that. Nothing to do with individual responsibility, then?