Does anyone really believe that an opposition front bench spokesman is arrested after revealing information embarrassing to the Government and the Home Office or Downing Street knew nothing about it?

It might be common place in Zimbabwe but not here so either the police are out of control or the Government is. Take your pick.

For those who don't know I started a pub theatre this summer at The Station, a splendid old pub which, by a strange coincidence, is next to the station in Sutton Coldfield. Pub theatre is a very intimate experience with the actors and audience on top of each other,

I did think of calling it the grumpy old playhouse but decided instead to go for the Royal Sutton Coldfield Actors' Workshop. "Oooooh. Now there's posh," you might be thinking. Well not exactly. It was just so I could call it The Other RSC.

Anyhow our first professional play is on next week on Tuesday and Wednesday December 2 and 3 when we have a black comedy called Contractions about the way corporations try to control and manipulate staff. It is being put on by a London company, C54, where one of the stars, Natasha James, actually hails from Sutton Coldfield.

It starts at 8pm and there is a Q&A session after the performance. Admission is £8, pay on the door and park your horse in the stables. More details on the grumpy old playhouse website.

The idea of the theatre is to encourage small, fledgling companies, new writers and actors and hopefully unearth a bit of talent If you are that soldier, then get in touch. You could be the first star discovered by blog, a bloggastar.

Surely I am not the only one to think that reducing VAT from 17.5 to 15 per cent to help us all out of the financial Armageddon is a bit of a half baked idea.

For a start it does not really help the low paid, pensioners, unemployed, hard pressed families and the like. For it to have much effect on your pocket you need to be spending enough for the reduction to make much difference which is just what the poor and pensioners are struggling to do in the first place.

Even if you do have enough spare cash to go on a splurge two-and-a-half pence, an old tanner, in the pound reduction will hardly have them queuing around the block - even on a £10,000 car it is only £250 - which brings me to the next point.

Do the Government honestly believe that our charitable and altruistic retailers and manufacturers will wipe two-and-a-half per cent off their prices overnight? Put your money on the flying pigs, it's safer. I suspect that the VAT returns will be the only figures falling by the full amont.

We will have a rush of price increases which, by a stroke of sheer bad luck, have been in the pipeline all along which will take up most or all of the VAT reduction where people can get away with it and even when the reduction in price is made there will be a rounding up of prices which, by a happy coincidence, will always be in favour of sellers so they should make a few bob out it - or maybe I am missing the point and that is really the idea after all.

What is it about Cliff Richard that seems to upset a large chunk of the population?

It was interesting to see the reaction of people when it was discovered I reviewed his show at the NIA this week. It varied from sympathy to mild derision from a few quarters.

Now I am not his champion or greatest fan but anyone who can still fill the NIA after 50 years in the business has got to have something a bit special. Let's be honest if you look at his discography he has more material than Laura Ashley so could probably manage another half century just singing that lot and as anyone who has every bothered to attend will tell you, he puts on good shows.

He is pretty much an institution yet he is sneered at in the same category as the likes of Michael Bolton or Chris De Burgh and I have no idea why they get so much flak either. Any ideas?

One assumes that those who decide on the width of spaces in car parks drive around in Mercs, BMWs or 4X4 leviathans wider and longer then the average living room so why do they seem to assume that the rest of us, the peasants, all drive around in 1934 Ford Populars and all weigh about 9 stone so don't have to open doors that wide to get in and out.

We must be the only nation in the world where a car parking space is the width of a car with so little room for opening doors that drivers and passengers would find it easier to clamber in and out through the sunroof.

I reviewed Cliff Richard at the NIA last night and I have the greatest respect for the man. He has always put on a good show and even at 68 after 50 years in the business is still doing it.

But this is more a message for the guy with short gingerish hair and a beard in the navy blue jumper with red piping. Just in case he is not sure then he was the chap, when my wife and myself were standing in the queue for ice cream at the interval, who came along and just walked in front of us, and of course the people behind us in the queue, then stood staring into space ignoring the abuse aimed in his general direction.

I would just like him to know that I bear him no ill will and that if he contacts me in a few years, when the time is right of course, then not only don't I bear him a grudge but I am even quite happy to let him have my slot at the crem.

No matter how much the economy and world financial markets are in meltdown we can always rely on the good old British businessman to keep traditions alive, such as ripping off the consumer.

With frost forecast, like many people with a greenhouse, I popped in a DIY store for some paraffin to stoke up the old heaters to find the price had gone up by a staggering 20 per cent in 12 months. I won't say which store but it begins with H, ends in E and has eight letters.

This time last year paraffin was an already eyewatering £4.99 and is this morning I found the price had increased to £5.99 for just four litres which is a staggering £1.50 a litre. Nice one H******E.

I don't want to go into the rights, not that I can think of any, or wrongs of the British National Party but it is a recognised political party and it is not illegal to be a member which makes the witch hunt of some of those who found themselves declared as BNPites on the internet all a bit scary.

The whole point of freedom of speech, of religion, of association, assembly, beliefs, Press and thought is that the same freedom we expect for our beliefs should extend to those who beliefs we find abhorrent, offensive or even just plain loopy. That is what freedom is all about, the only thing that gives it credence.

Whether a member of the teaching profession, police, armed forces or any job for that matter is a member of the flat earth society, Labour, Tory or Tupperware party . . . or the BNP . . . should matter not a jot. If membership is legal then so be it. Once the state or authority starts to decide what organisations or religions we can or cannot belong to then the road becomes downhill and slippery very quickly.

I hate to say it but the right of someone to belong to the BNP has to be defended with the same vigour as every other right and freedom otherwise they are all devalued.

Strictly Come Dancing is not really my bag and I must admit I am no fan of so called realty TV, particularly when it has the C word, celebrity, attached to it.

But I must admit it is rather sad that John Sergeant has felt obliged to pull-out after all the controversy and criticism. My wife is a fan of the show so I must admit I have seen a couple of his performances and all I can say about them is that he is a better dancer than I am - but as I dance like a three legged arthritic camel with gout that is not much of an endorsement.

That being said I thought that the whole object of this sort of show, apart from making as much cash as possible from the punters phoning in with their votes of course, is for the public to actually say who they want to stay in, the people they actually want to see again. To be forced out by somewhat cruel criticism of judges laying into him because he is not a blossoming ballroom dancer hardy seems fair.

Anyone with brain cells stretching into double figures knew he was not going to miraculously turn into John Travolta overnight when he was first approached to appear in the show which tends to indicate he was brought in as the joke contestant, the bit of a laugh couple to be the butt of a bit of friendly banter for a couple of weeks. When it turned out the public rather liked the joke somewhat more than the less likeable although more twinkle-toed contestants and wanted to see John week after week then it all got a bit nasty from the judges.

The lad was pretty dreadful as a dancer but so what. The show was supposed to be entertainment and he entertained.. The same hypocrisy could be seen with Daniel Evans' singing on the X-factor . He was a decent pub singer at best who should make a living for a few years in summer variety at the end of some pier or other.

In his case it was even worse as it was the judges who had first put him through to the final televised stages then had the audacity to slag him off at every opportunity despite the public voting for him week after week. He was never going to be a star but the same could equally be said of most of the winners of that show and its like.

I take my hat off to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, she is brilliant at glibly answering questions that were never asked while ignoring all those that were. She could even turn a response to 'hello, how are you?' into a party political drone.

She was on Breakfast TV this morning to announce her crackdown on prostitution and no matter what questions were thrown at her she stuck to her guns and managed to avoid answering pretty well every one.