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0 shares 209 View comments A grieving nation: There have been echoes of the Diana lunacy over the past week, ever since the passing of Margaret Thatcher was announced The last time I felt like this was when Lady Di died. Who are these people? Where have they all come from? Has the world gone stark, staring bonkers? On the eve of the funeral I ran away to Majorca. It was like the last plane out of Saigon, with fugitives from the sobfest metaphorically hanging off the wings to escape the madness. London was carpeted with cheap floral tributes bought from petrol stations and teddy bears pinned to the railings as the nation appeared to succumb to mass hysteria. I can remember writing in the Daily Mail at the time that I felt like a visiting alien, marooned on another planet. Was it me? Soon it became apparent that I wasn’t alone. Readers wrote in droves to say that they, too, were utterly bewildered by the emotional incontinence apparently sweeping the nation. It was

0 shares 109 View comments As Gerry Adams said famously in another context: 'They haven't gone away, you know.' Yesterday, these four wannabe jihadists from Luton were jailed for a total of 44 years. They had planned to send a remote-controlled toy car packed with explosives under the gates of a Territorial Army base. Woolwich Crown Court was told that the antics of this home-grown terror cell read like the script of the satirical movie Four Lions. Their mug-shots resemble that 'Comedy Terrorist' who gatecrashed Prince William's 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle. They went on military-style manoeuvres in the countryside, where they were spotted jogging in formation and using logs as pretend weapons. Ringleader Mohammed Sharfaraz Ahmed suggested sky-diving, horse-riding and paragliding would be 'good jihad training' and thought bungee-jumping would be a great way to overcome his fear of heights. Zahid Iqbal (l) and Mohamm

0 shares 518 View comments His own man: Ken Clarke believes Britain should be run by foreigners. He's in favour of our laws being made in Brussels by people we didn't elect He likes a drink, smokes like a chimney and he’s not afraid to speak his mind. By common consent, he’s the kind of politician you’d most like to share a pint with. No, not Nigel Farage. Ken Clarke. With his scuffed Hush Puppies and ubiquitous cigars, Clarke stands out from the identikit crowd at Westminster. He’s more likely to be found stumbling out of Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Soho at midnight than plotting Press regulation over pizza. He’s taken on a few airs and graces along the way, but Ken is his own man. Even though I profoundly disagree with him over Europe, I accept that he’s a man of principle. Clarke fervently believes Britain should be run by foreigners. He is in favour of our laws being made in Brussels by people we didn’t elect. He is quite happy to surrender what remain

342 shares 262 View comments 19-year-old Kurtis Green, from Dersingham in Norfolk, has been for the past 12 years lovingly tending the war memorial opposite his parents' fish and chip shop Some stories make my blood boil. You won’t always find them on the front pages or leading the television news bulletins. But they tell you more about the condition of modern Britain than most of what passes for ‘news’ these days. Take the case of 19-year-old Kurtis Green, from Dersingham in Norfolk. For the past 12 years he has been lovingly tending the war memorial opposite his parents’ fish and chip shop. It began when he was just seven. Kurtis saved up his pocket money to buy gardening tools and started clearing litter and planting bulbs. Over the years he has devoted hundreds of hours of unpaid time to his task. When he was 15, he mounted a successful campaign to persuade councillors to spend £20,000 restoring the memorial with new flowerbeds, railings, seating and block

167 shares Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans was arrested in a blaze of flashbulbs and television lights and accused of rape by two men he had 'regarded as friends' Now it’s the turn of Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans to have his life turned upside down over allegations of sexual assault. He was arrested in a blaze of flashbulbs and television lights and accused of rape by two men he had ‘regarded as friends’. His house and car have been searched and bags of ‘evidence’ taken away by detectives. But, as yet, he still hasn’t been charged with anything. As with the procession of ageing TV personalities targeted by the Jimmy Savile Squad, I make no comment on the veracity of the allegations. They are all innocent until proven guilty. Last night, we learned that Jimmy Tarbuck has been added to the list of celebrities arrested and questioned. Let me reiterate what I wrote back in January when Jim Davidson had his collar felt at Heathrow Airport over an incident supposed to have tak

55 shares 113 View comments A working class girl: Julie Bentley, the new chief executive, says she wants to shed The Girl Guides' 'middle-class reputation' and attract recruits from more diverse backgrounds The Girl Guides have fallen to the Guardianistas. Julie Bentley, the new chief executive, says she wants to shed the organisation’s ‘middle-class reputation’ and attract recruits from more diverse backgrounds. She intends to demonstrate that the Guides are ‘cool’. When she was appointed, she raised eyebrows by describing Girl Guiding UK as the ‘ultimate feminist organisation’. Miss Bentley’s plans have been shaped by her own experience. ‘I am very working class and was never a Brownie or a Guide.’ Her aim to broaden the appeal of the organisation is commendable and she has promised not to ‘throw the baby out with the bath water’. But there are fears in more traditional quarters over how far she is prepared to go in order to make the Guides more ‘rel

197 shares 185 View comments First it was the banks, now it’s the oil companies. In the same way the bankers rigged interest rates to maximise their profits and bonuses, traders at BP and Shell stand accused of fixing artificially high oil prices. Just as manipulating inter-bank lending rates put up the cost of borrowing for everyone, so it is alleged that a conspiracy to inflate the price of crude oil has cost each British motorist £2,000 at the pumps over the past ten years. Fraud investigators working for the European Commission this week raided the London offices of three major oil companies in search of evidence. BP and Shell are two of the oil giants accused of fixing prices by claiming to have paid more for oil than they actually have, and passing these fake price hikes onto the consumer There’s no need to dwell on the minutiae of this kind of outrageous scam. Essentially, it boils down to traders pretending they have paid more for oil than they ac

986 shares 267 View comments Three months after the 1987 general election, Labour assembled in Brighton for its annual conference. The famous smoke-filled rooms were replete with recrimination and disbelief. How had the party managed to suffer a third debilitating defeat at the handbag of the hated Margaret Thatcher? Most of the dwindling band of delegates simply couldn’t comprehend why millions of ‘their’ people had voted Conservative yet again. Neil Kinnock, who even after the polling stations closed was convinced he had won a famous victory, enlightened them. In 1987, Labour managed to suffer a third debilitating defeat to Margaret Thatcher. Most of the dwindling band of delegates simply couldn't comprehend why millions of 'their' people had voted Conservative yet again In his keynote address, Kinnock posed a rhetorical question: ‘What do you say to a docker who earns £400 a week, owns his own house, a new car, a microwave, as well as a small place

9 View comments Splash the cash Ash. Newcastle United could do a lot worse than going out to sign Andy Carroll when the transfer window re-opens in January. Watching the former Newcastle No 9 bustling his way past Steven Taylor and Mike Williamson in the claret and blue No 8 of West Ham United just didn’t seem right. Carroll would be right at home in Alan Pardew’s team. Come back home: Andy Carroll, leaping above Mike Williamson, would be useful back at St James' Park Carroll has not scored for the Hammers yet, and only a brilliant save by Tim Krul denied him a deserved goal on Sunday. But he is still a menace and that partnership with Kevin Nolan is lethal, even if it is the older of the two who is scoring the goals.       More from Colin Young...   Northern Exposure: Sunderland are still a club in transition with Paolo