●POLITICAL correctness is the product of three factors – feeble intellect, poor schooling and arrogance. A few years ago, I had an argument with a fellow journalist after I used the term ‘raggle-taggle gipsies-o’. Naively, I had assumed that everyone in the words trade would be familiar with the traditional English folk song.

Ah, such a shame when expectation is brutally mown down by reality. “You can’t say that,” he squeaked. “That’s racist.” I tried to explain the phrase’s origins but to no avail.

This person was – and almost certainly still is – a Blair product with the regulation set of dogmas and boil-in-the bag doctrines.

Since New Labour came to power a miserable 12 years ago, general knowledge has been eradicated in our schools. History has fared little better – children’s understanding about the past is now gleaned mainly from ludicrous films such as Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan, rather than reading books.

The net result is ignorance along the lines I have described.

It’s enough to make me run off with the raggle-taggle gipsies-o.

●THE prospects of some form of national service draw ever closer. The mathematics speak for themselves. Britain has a growing population of young people and a shrinking work base. Something has to be done, even if popularity-starved politicians can’t bring themselves to admit it.

Many European countries offer a form of non-military service which is undoubtedly a good way of absorbing all the youthful energy that might otherwise make mischief.

In Turkey, you’re given a choice at the age of 18. You can do a spell in the army or opt for the equivalent period learning all about the tourist trade. This explains why the standard of service and general conviviality in that country is without peer.

When our political classes stop regarding the public purse like some enormous lucky dip bran tub, such an eminently sensible system might be introduced here.

●ONE sign of growing older is the increasing habit of shouting at the TV. Grumpiness is not purely the province of men, however – some extremely intelligent women I know are also highly skilled in ‘bashing the box’ as it is known in the trade.

This week’s main detonation occurred after a social worker repeatedly referred to prisoners being ‘excluded’. How on earth can this be, for heaven’s sake?

If you’ve committed a crime, you pay the price – and if you want to call it ‘exclusion’ then you have only yourself to blame.

“In the name of…” as Victor would undoubtedly have said.