I have no interest in the nocturnal habits of John Terry but I do think that Justice Tugenhat has taken an important step in maintaining press freedoms by allowing the story to enter into the public domain.

 

For months now there has been a steady stream of occasions where the high powered and expensive lawyers engaged by the rich and famous have succeeded in suppressing media stories that embarrass their clients.

 

Whilst there are certainly cases where the media conducts an unwarranted invasion of individual privacy this has to be balanced against other important principles that ensure the health of a democracy - not least of which is freedom of the press.

 

Many pubic figures gain wealth, prestige and kudos from their carefully created and maintained media image.

 

I have no great problem with this but when it seems that an individuals personal conduct is at odds with that image surely the public has a right to know?

 

I wonder if Mr Terry's attempt to suppress the stories about his alleged infidelities was motivated more by his desire to limit the damage done to his various sponsorship deals than anything else?

Did anybody read this or hear the interview with Mr  Mancini on BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday morning?

 

Is it any wonder that so much of the good work undertaken by the police forces around the UK (I refuse to call them police services!) is ignored when we have Police Officers who behave like this?

 

Richard Littlejohn regularly writes about the bizarre behaviour of some of the boys in blue in his newspaper column - I somehow thing PC Gray will get the Littlejohn treatment fairly soon.................

Is my lame excuse for failing to post anything on my blog for weeks!

 

There seems to have been so much happening in my life since early January that I haven't had the time, inspiration or energy to sit at the computer in the evening.

 

However my end of January resolution is to try to be back, boring you all, with my various rants on a regular basis.................

I thought the charges against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are curious.

 

I can understand why he has been charged with the attempted murder of 290 people but what about the charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction?

 

I can't really get my head around a small bomb being described as a weapon of mass destruction.

 

What does this make the much larger bombs that the USA has dropped on various countries in recent years?

 

Still, perhaps this explains where we have been going wrong in Iraq.

 

Instead of wasting our time looking for poison gas, nuclear materials and biological weapons we should have been searching for semtex lined underwear!!