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Given that it was the courts that ordered that even roadside GATSOs had to be painted yellow so they were visible from afar, how do Essex police think this will be ruled legal:

At £1000 an hour, as the Taxpayers' Alliance points out, this is an extremely expensive speed camera!

I've always taken a slightly different view of the inbuilt age discrimination in the minimum wage legislation for under 21 year olds than many it would appear. When I was a councillor in Oxford we had a few instances of employers of young people - mostly restaurants - pushing the limits of the legislation anyway. I never did approve for example of including tips in the minimum wage. If someone's working they get paid, if their customers think they've done a good job they should feel free to enhance that, not make up the employer's shortfall.

But mostly, I felt that young people, people starting out on life's employment journey, are the very ones that need a bit of a boost. They're the ones potentially with the expenses of setting up home and so on, living independently for the first time. So I really never liked the differential wage for under 21s. I can, just about, accept that 16-18 year olds, who if I recall correctly were not even protected by the initial legislation (which was a total outrage if I'm remembering it correctly), may be paid less in order to encourage them to stay in education, and to encourage employers to give them added training related benefits.

So I'm quite pleased to see the quandary apparently being created by this weekend's implementation of anti-ageism legislation:

Age law 'threat to minimum wage':

Young people get a lower minimum wage than the over-21s

Laws being introduced on Sunday, which ban age discrimination at work, could endanger the minimum wage system, a business group has warned.

Workers aged under 21 can currently be paid less than their older colleagues.

But the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) said this may be considered discriminatory and be open to legal challenge under the new legislation.

I hope there are some test cases, and I hope personally they win. Eighteen to twenty-one year olds are adults. Why should they have any fewer rights than anyone else?

So, on Monday a committee of MPs produced a report calling for more taxation of airlines. Immediately a plan that had been hatched just over a month ago now with the announcement of the Lib Dems' intentions to do likewise when they take over Narnia swung into action. 21 tax shift activists are arrested after clandestine shipments of San Pellegrino and Nestle baby milk formula were discovered being stockpiled in a south coast convention centre town, revealed by defective chip-superindenter Fotheringham of Neill's Yard as Brighton earlier today.

The airline industry is again clearly doomed and deserving of tax breaks. iPods are banned from airlines as Microsoft announce that their rival, Zune, will be terror-free. Malicious code demanding the recall of parliament has been found circulating amongst Blackberry users.

Meanwhile, Tony's gone to spend a fortnight with well known God botherers in the Caribbean, and a caravan has been seen maneuvering onto the lawns at Chequers, while John "not fit for purpose" Reid takes control of the biggest threat since the blitz devastated many of our cities.

A crack team of stylists has just been helicoptered into Chequers, supplied by the MP for Caithness from his nearby pamper-palace, and the sound of industrial hairdryers is heard from inside the building as John and Pauline play catch up with Cherie's hairdo bill, about which Pauline has been privately fuming for over six months now.

Tony's not getting back any time soon methinks. But his friend George mentioned there might be an opening soon for a Catholic despot on an island nearby somewhere and Cherie will be able to show off her new hairdos properly when Benedict comes to call once they're crowned.

But you will be grateful for your forty-eight hours on a beach, even if you are dropped there out of the aircraft window when you get cramp and start dancing around the cabin because they weren't allowed to bring the bottled water on board.

Oh, and Blogger.com keeps giving me a "server certificate expired" error message trying to post this. Proof, if any were needed, of the lengths the authorities will go to to prevent you reading the truth! Coincidences? I think not. We should be told!

The author has not been in a plane since they banned smoking and has not held a valid British passport for twenty something years. And they're not going to force me into either now.

I meant to pick up on this from Sunday's Observer - The Chancellor's got his eye on a new best friend

Jasper Gerard says that:

David Cameron should place a bug on BA's shuttle to Edinburgh. For with the filthy Chilean sauvignon, dry roasted peanuts and sundried delights from the All Day Deli Counter, Gordon Brown and Sir Menzies Campbell, returning to their constituencies for the weekend, could be making a light snack of the Conservative party.

Half-decent sources tell me that Brown has, at the least, made tentative overtures to the Liberal Democrat leader about what might happen in a hung parliament. And an inconclusive result is what bookmakers predict. Brown is desperate to break from Blair. Upon entering Number 10, he wants fireworks with announcements even more dramatic than his first act as Chancellor, granting independence to the Bank of England. Many of his prize rockets hoarded in the Treasury have already been set off by that twisted fire starter next door, Blair. So Brown needs a spectacular. And what sparkler would light up the political landscape more brightly than electoral reform?

Now, forgive me if I'm overly skeptical, but I reckon we've "been there, done that" and had the tee-shirt stuffed right down our throats. I know that there are a lot of Labour electoral reformers that somehow blame the Lib Dems for allowing the PR issue to go off the boil and thereby, as they see it, jeopardizing the chance of PR happening before now. And don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that it is one of the most important issues in politics in the UK at the moment. And I know that sounds real wonkish compared with terrorism or crime or whatever else there is to worry about but I cannot accept that we live in a democracy when 22% of the electorate decided more than half the seats in parliament and all of the government.

But...as the article goes on, Gordon may believe that "It could produce centre-left government for yonks, securing what [he] calls 'the progressive consensus'". I don't regard PR as a way of keeping someone in power for ever. As the argument against PR is frequently trotting out - it is about "weak government", about limiting the power of the executive - to reduce its ability to interfere with our lives unopposed as the last ten years have seen. And so we need to persuade the Tories too of the idea. If they really mean that they want small government, let them put their money where their mouth is.

Holding the balance of power, if that's what it comes to, means just that - being able to decide after the votes are in whether the people have rejected a failing, lying and corrupt Labour government and by how much, and which side's policies, mixed with our own of course, are likely more in favour with that electorate. Ming knows that, and made great play of it during his election campaign for leader.

No deals Gordon, get ready to beg. We're not going to have spent ten years attacking nearly your every move, on liberties, on constitutional reform, on illegal warmongering, on centralizing, and a whole load of others only to be seduced by a mere bagatelle of half-baked PR in the hope of creating a long lasting hegemony in which we may play some part.