Recently by Roger Clarke

We have become used to the Government treating us with absolute contempt while the average MP is given hardly any more consideration than the rest of us by an Executive which sees itself as beyond both criticism and the reach of Parliament.

Yet when our elected members have the chance to say to the Government that enough is enough and that the rights of Parliament and democracy are paramount, transcending partisan politics, what happens? Enough Government toadies and lickspittles scurry though the aye lobby to make sure the Government survives. I hope the yes men remember that when they get the knock on their door.

The inquiry into Police marching into Westminster and searching the office of an MP and taking away confidential documents, many involving constituents whose rights have been reached, has been effectively shelved with a hand picked bunch of Labour jobsworths issuing a whitewash report sometime long in the future on a day when it can be hidden beneath other news.

Having come back from Dusseldorf over the weekend to find my car hidden in a canyon of 4x4s towering on three sides, which meant that boot and passenger side doors could not be reached let alone opened, the time has come for a rethink on car parks.

Accountants, who seem to control everything these days, see the ideal car park as one which crams in as many cars as possible, with people leaving and entering their vehicle through the sun roof, and with charges that rival a night's stay in a hotel. So there is not a lot of room for an ordinary car, let alone a Tonka truck.

So may I offer the simple solution that 4x4s are provided with a special section with wider bays which will make life easier for their drivers and for the rest of us - and charge them extra for the privilege.

It was the first show at my pub theatre at The Station Pub in Sutton Coldfield last night and it was a good one. Contractions is a play which at times is very funny but slowly, among the laughs, it becomes quite disturbing as you see the way large companies try to control and manipulate their staff.

It might seem a bit far fetched but then again a couple of years ago no one would have ever believed a British Government would propose a law giving the police, and no doubt a host of other agencies hidden in the small print, the right to stop anyone they felt like in the street and demand ID for no reason beyond being a bit bored or feeling a bit vindictive.

So a play taking corporate policy to extremes might just be a warning of dangers to come if we don't wake up to the fact we are already living in a police state.

But back to the play and Natasha James and Bronagh Lagan were excellent in what is a difficult play for the cast with a torrent of dialogue.

The play is on again tonight if anyone is interested. It is £8 on the door and it starts at 8pm with a Q&A session afterwards.

I suppose I ought to mention that the sound and lighting were particulalry excellent and myself and Tom Roberts, from the Lichfield Garrick Rep, will be doing the job again tonight.

What is it about mobile phones that means anything remotely approaching good manners goes out of the window as soon as they are used?

Not everyone is a mobile lout of course, some people them discretely without involving everyone within earshot in their conversation. But we have all come across the oh so important corporal of industry who wants an entire railway carriage to know what a key cog they are in some minor empire or other as we are forced to listen to their loud, tedious one sided conversations.

Equally annoying are the people in shops who treat sales assistants with utter contempt by conducting conversations with a mobile phone while supposedly making a purchase. Last week a women spent more than £90 in my local supermarket while on the phone for the entire transaction. Not once did she acknowledge the assistant on the till, even handing over a couple of vouchers and a loyalty card, and there was certainly no room for hello, thank you or good bye in her conversation which, I have to be honest, hardly seemed to be about anything pressing or important. Banal would have been regarded as a compliment.

This week I saw a man buy a packet of cigarettes by mime (badly) in a newsagents rather than interrupt a conversation with a mate which seemed to be about getting legless and finding a way home from some pub or other the previous evening. In the days before mobiles if you were not at home, work or in a phone box you were out of touch and civilisation managed to not only survive but thrive. We even managed to land on the moon without mobiles.

We have happily banned smoking in public places because it a health hazard so perhaps mobile phone users should be encouraged to be more considerate with their usage for the same reason - mobile phones are very useful but they can be a serious health hazard particularly when they ha

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.