The dreadful events in Paris hammer home certain truths that should focus the minds of politicians.

1.     Small well organized groups of terrorists will succeed in this sort of

murderous venture whatever the authorities do.

2.     Once it is under way, only rapid reaction armed force can limit the   

casualties.

3.     It is logistically impossible to protect every soft target with a

 large attendance.

4.     Open borders contribute to the terrorist’s ability to plan, travel

and  implement attacks.

5.     The current flood of refugees offers an ideal route into

Europe for radicalized ISIL fighters.

6.     Right wing groups will thrive on the back of these events, tit for

tat attacks almost inevitable.

    Enough reasons to warrant a change of strategy, but it will be interesting to see how European governments react once the hand wringing and breast beating comes to an end. The first priority of any government should be the protection of its citizens. A first step to achieving that objective must surely be control of your own borders. The second should be a clear picture of who lives in your country. For the UK neither are in place, nor likely to be as our government dithers.  We have the benefit of living on an island and should be using it to our advantage.  ID cards have been suggested and rejected several times. The majority of our citizens would be relaxed about carrying a card. Stop pandering to the noisy minority and introduce them. If nothing else, we’d get some idea of who resides in our country.

    It seems we are just beginning to understand the Olympic legacy that we were promised in 2012. Drugs win medals seems to sum it up, with the Russians (according to the report by the World Anti-doping Agency) using them to maximum effect. We find it hard to believe it was only the Russians! It reminded us of the cold war space race in the 50’s/60’s as Russia and the USA went head to head. Both countries were using German scientists, well versed in the use of rockets after their experience building V1’s and V2’s to drop their payloads on London during WW2. The joke when Gagarin became the first man in space was that the Russian’s German scientists were better than the American’s German scientists. It may be that some countries untraceable drug enhancement scientists are better than Russia’s. Time will tell.

    After transgender toilets, a panel of MP’s being assembled by Speaker John Bercow, will also consider job-share MP’s. The optimum solution to that must be a pair of transgender MP’s, one male, one female, during their transition. They would make the ideal job-share couple. They wouldn’t mind sharing a toilet, and size permitting, could also do a clothes swap to minimise their personal costs. Pass the tablets, somebody.

    Mr Corbyn thinks it would have been preferable to arrest ‘Jihadi John’ and put him on trial. We would suggest that JC be sent to carry out a citizen’s arrest of other jihadi's!

    Conservative Minister Tracy Crouch caused offence last week with her comment that people on benefits should cut down on ‘luxuries’ like Sky TV to balance their personal books. It seemed like a reasonable comment to us but our definition of deprivation is based on our youth. Even with two of us working fulltime we never had money to spare, a fridge one of our first ‘luxuries’. My wife kept going into the kitchen to stare at it but why not, we hadn’t got a TV. Come to think of it, with the crap we are now offered on TV, staring at the fridge might be a better way to kill time!

    Gayle Newland has just got eight years in prison for pretending to be a bloke as she made love to another woman. We know she blindfolded her partner and lowered her voice, but fooled her? Who’s kidding whom? At least Gayle will have plenty of time to write her ‘how to’ book. I just hope we live long enough to see the film of the book. Fifty Shades of Grey is for amateurs now!