22nd July 2018

On Friday our local Conservative councillor knocked on our door. He was interested to hear we’d spent some time in France and inevitably asked: why did you go and why did you return? Clearly I pointed him to my books Pensioners in Paradis and From Paradis to Perdition. But we also discussed the increasing problem of urban knife crime, not just here in Bham but around the world. In France, Macron’s security aide is facing the sack for violently beating protesters. Elsewhere, with Trump, Putin and Kim seemingly now bosom buddies, seems to me that defence spending needs to be rationalised away from old, war-type troop deployments to inner city protection from youth gangs and cyber warfare. Local police just can’t deal with it any more. With Mrs May too busy making a Brexit camel from the idealised thoroughbred horse, and the EU leader Mrs Merkel busy agreeing gas deals with Putin, who’s going to solve local, urban issues? Maybe I should write another book.