We’ve got a bit out of touch with the media for two weeks but it’s good to see nothing much changes.

    The first picture to catch our attention when we got a newspaper was José Mourinho at an awards ceremony. It’s nice that his daughter likes to ‘hang out’ with him, but both at once seems to be pushing it. He clearly has more control over Chelsea footballers than over his family. José gained two benefits though. His daughter will never be able to criticize his dancing at parties and John Terry was at another gig.

    The response to the refugee crisis was predictable as always when emotion replaces common sense. The rush of people offering homes, Nicola Sturgeon and Yvette Cooper to name just two, should ease the problem for local authorities. We hope a list of all those who offered was recorded and will be used for the first arrivals. We’ll look forward to the first reality TV series ‘Living With Refugees’. The programme should be repeated every six months for the first two years to show how easily the families have integrated. It will be a crying shame if those who offered don’t get the opportunity to put their money where their mouth has been.

    Then reality bit and Mama Merkel found she’d bitten off more than she can chew. It can be no surprise that her ‘all welcome’ speech would be taken literally, all routes leading to Germany. Now she has been forced to close her borders as the implications of her welcome have come to pass. As a major supporter of the Schengen agreement, she has become the first to set it aside, others quickly following. She will shortly be reiterating that Schengen is one of the key building blocks of the EU. Still, she’s a politician, so needs must and weasel words suffice after the event. As she introduces controls to monitor passports to check refugee versus economic immigrant status we wonder what might happen if she refuses entry to some of those massing at her border. Will Austria accept them? And as borders close, what happens to those in transit? It’s impossible not to feel for those who are attempting to escape war and/or poverty but the solution cannot be open access. Safe havens are required in the refugee’s home country or close by so the displaced can return home at some stage. Cameron seems to have it right this time. 

    Is it any wonder that the average person has little respect for council planners. Oldham council has just refused planning permission for a Wendy House in the front garden of a small house with no rear garden. A nice safe place for two small children to play clearly doesn’t enter their consideration. They simply state that the Wendy House breaks the rules. We can’t help comparing it to a water meadow near where we live. Water meadow may give a hint as to the purpose of the meadow. Still, what’s a bit of flooding between friends? A 'traveller' set up a mobile home there a couple of years ago and posted his planning application on a Friday night – thoughtful timing. Both the application and appeal have been turned down but surprise, surprise, a mobile home is still in place, used intermittently by two men who work for the traveller.  Regular calls to the planning department receive the same response. We have to follow the rules and it takes time.  What they really mean is that a law-abiding member of the public is an easy target on which they can flex their muscle. Regular culprits who play the rules get placed in the ‘too hard’ box while officials tip toe around the situation.  

     So the bookmakers were right. Some even paid out before the result was announced and JC swept to power as the Labour leader. To listen to his acolytes it already sounds like the second coming. Jeremy Clarkson is in a poor third place now. Corbyn tells us that his shadow cabinet is ‘a group of all the talents’ and we can’t dispute the comment having never heard of a large portion of them. We now wait with bated breath for his policy statements, already uncertain as his shadow team take to the airwaves. And Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday is sure to have its biggest audience ever as JC promises to pose questions received from £3 members. Who says politics is boring? It could easily gain a bigger audience than the rugby world cup.