When tourists from western countries visit even a country such as China, the visa application process is fairly simple and can be completed by post. The questions are much the same as is required by ESTA, and no interview is required. A decision is made and the documents returned by post. The main distinction between a visa and ESTA has been that the latter is free.

So it seems that in the future, ESTA will in effect be a visa that’s cheaper, quicker to receive, and doesn’t require sending off your passport. But it no longer gives the impression of being a waiver, or a special privilege for America’s allies. You still have to apply in advance, and have a decision made in your favour in order to avoid a trip to the US Embassy.

I think that if the US is going to require everyone to pay for this new type of visa, then we in other visa waiver countries should reciprocate and introduce a similar charge and process for American visitors. This isn’t the first instance where arrangements are one-sided in America’s favour. Just look at the extradition agreement that has famously left a British hacker facing a ludicrously long jail sentence if he’s tried in America. Then there’s also the fingerprinting of people on arrival in the States. Let’s have a little more parity and bring in similar measures for American citizens visiting Europe.

A balance has to be struck when it comes to preventing under-25s from driving, that’s true. Denying someone the ability to drive would cause them severe difficulties due to the terrible state of public transport in many parts of the country, and due to many employers still establishing themselves in locations inaccessible without a car (even public sector employers – but that’s going too far off topic).

However, drinking is not essential, it’s as simple as that. It’s not at all necessary or important. So why should some “right” to drink be put before the safety of other people? Try telling the bereaved relatives of innocent people killed by drink drivers that you’d put the driver’s right to have a drink before the dead relative’s life.

One respondent to a BBC “Have your say” on the same issue claimed that drink drivers only ever kill or injure themselves. In about half a minute, I found a number of articles from the last few years on the BBC website alone about innocent people who had been killed, and the torment their loved ones were going through, while in many cases the drink driver had escaped serious injury. I don’t feel the need to reproduce those links here, but it’s worth bearing in mind that many of the 168 lives saved would not be drink drivers themselves.

Despite supporting a reduction in the limit, I do have one reservation about the proposed 50mg/100ml level. Unfortunately, I feel it’s a view also being pushed by people who simply want the limit to stay as it is so that people can drink as at present, but putting that aside for the moment, it might have some merit. It is that reducing the limit will reduce people’s respect for the law, making it more widely ignored than at present. People will be confused about whether it’s OK to have a drink or not. Given that, perhaps an effectively zero limit is more appropriate (surely not actually zero due to alcohol content of medicines, and those naturally occurring in the body). That way it would send out an unambiguous and clear message, which is what the police still recommend, and was subject to an advertising campaign a few years ago: “None for the road”.

Alternatively, if the limit stays where it is, there should be much stricter penalties and enforcement. Police should have the power to randomly breath-test drivers, and anyone convicted of drink-driving should face a short prison sentence (a shock for otherwise law-abiding citizens, without being too much of a burden on the prisons) and lose their licence for a long time (5 years+) if not indefinitely, and should also face an automatic extended driving test if they are allowed to drive again.

There is often a view expressed in the media that drink driving is now socially unacceptable, yet I’m not sure it is to the extent claimed. While most people if asked would say drink driving in wrong, when it comes to the evening, and they are the ones enjoying a few drinks, I have found on a number of occasions otherwise perfectly decent, professional, middle-class people suggesting it is OK “just this once” because it’s a “special occasion” and they aren’t driving far. They still seem to consider drink-driving something a small number of alcoholics do, not something they could ever do. The change in attitudes still has some way to go, and a change in the law of one sort or another could be just what is needed.

David Laws, a treasury minister, claimed £40,000 in rent for a second home which he was actually paying to his partner. What I find slightly bizarre is that he claims, “My motivation throughout has not been to maximise profit but to simply protect our privacy and my wish not to reveal my sexuality.” Why, in that case, did he use taxpayers’ money to rent a room from his secret lover, an expenses claim that would then be on record and subject to scrutiny? Had wealthy former-banker Mr Laws not used public money, he would have had every right to keep his private life secret, and it would be no-one’s business how much rent if any he was paying to the man whose home he shared.

We can’t have a situation where politicians can use the excuse of keeping their private life private in order to avoid scrutiny of their expenses claims. If we did, they could make all sorts of unacceptable claims for their partners of either gender. Entitled to keep their private lives private, yes. Entitled to keep details of what our money is being used for secret, no.

Laws also states (contradicting his other statement that he wanted to keep his relationship private) that he never considered he and Mr Lundie to be partners as they don’t have shared bank accounts and have separate social lives. I’m sure that’s no different from many married couples in the 21st century. If he’d been living with a woman for five years when the new rules came into effect in 2006, I doubt there would have been much question about whether they were “partners”, so what happened to equality irrespective of sexuality?

Finally, I have to pick up on Lembit Opik’s comment:

I think this is a national tragedy, not least because it suggests that – on matters which are nothing to do with a person’s personal competence to do a job – they can still be pushed out of Parliament.

Who is he referring to? Himself? David Laws has been pushed out of Government, not Parliament: he’s still an MP. Opik himself was pushed out of Parliament in an exceptionally large swing from the Lib Dems, presumably because of his antics, for example appearing on TV quiz shows and dating a Romanian singer 17 years his junior. So that sounds like sour grapes to me. I wouldn’t say the scandal has nothing to do with Laws’s competence to do the job. Ministers require a high standard of integrity, and £40,000 is up there with duck house MP Sir Peter Viggers’s dodgy claims. I’m afraid I don’t really think sending David Laws to the Back Benches is much of a tragedy.

The re-upgrading of cannabis to Class B is said to be the first time since the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was established in 1971 that the government have gone against the council’s advice. I can only say that those advisers have been extremely fortunate, then. Most scientific advisers to governments can certainly expect the government to go against a sizable proportion of their recommendations. Just imagine if governments around the world took all of the steps experts on climate change suggested: the world would certainly be in a much better state than it’s in now. It seems the drugs advisers were so used to getting their way that are now having a bit of a tantrum because the government has said no.

So why can’t the government simply follow the advice of its scientific advisers? It’s because the decisions have implications that go beyond science. In the case of drugs, there may be a particular substance that is causing problems because of its widespread use, even if that particular substance happens to be less harmful than other drugs. In the case of climate change, it’s because of the effect on the economy of shutting down industry and all transport for a start.

If the amount of harm is to be the only measure used in classification, as Professor Nutt (his real name) would have it, there are surely plenty of household chemicals that cause much more harm than any other drugs – if they were to be ingested. So shouldn’t those chemicals be Class A drugs? Of course they are not, because there is no problem of people abusing them. Equally, it may be a good idea to target a drug that is more widespread as it’s more important to discourage people from using it.

Professor Nutt then goes on to criticise the “artificial separation” of alcohol and tobacco from other drugs. I would agree with him that in a system that classifies drugs according to the amount of harm they can cause, those two drugs should be at least Class B. However, it is not currently possible to make use of those drugs illegal for various social and political reasons, even if some of us would be quite happy if it were to happen.

Clearly a system of classification that only considers the harm that each drug can make in a cold, clinical sense, is not the best way to determine penalties for the use of drugs. Many other factors need to be taken into account, and the final decision on policy has to be made by elected representatives. Professor Nutt overstepped the mark – even former chief scientific adviser Sir David King says so – and so had to go. If he disagreed with government policy so much, he should have done the honourable thing and resigned, rather than attacking the government while continuing to work for it. With such a high success rate of having his recommendations acted upon, perhaps he could consider a new role advising the government on climate change – assuming he can avoid producing too much hot air.

I came as little surprise to discover on the programme that Griffin is racist, admires Hitler, denies the Holocaust, is friends with Ku Klux Klan members, is Islamophobic, etc. But what people may not have realised, and which was revealed so spectacularly on the programme, is what a political lightweight he is. He was completely out of his depth, his arguments were feeble. He exhibited all the signs of someone who is nervous and unused to speaking in public, with the way he smirked and laughed nervously throughout and how he attacked Jack Straw right at the beginning, when the debate had barely even begun. Racists and bigots will always vote for parties such as the BNP, that’s a fact. However, the party’s recent gains have been due to them presenting themselves as a respectable party with a range of policies on different subjects. Hopefully people who may have been temped to vote for them will now realise that there is no depth to the party at all, nothing behind the racist venir. No policies, just prejudice.

Realising that the programme was a disaster for his party, Nick Griffin is now complaining about the make-up of the studio audience, and the questions that were put to him, claiming that it was “not a genuine Question Time”. I don’t think his claim is valid at all. A few members of the audience did clap following Griffin’s contributions, and a couple of those who spoke voiced opinions at least partially similar to his own. This reflects the population as a whole, where only a small minority agree with the BNP’s views. Certainly, if the programme had been recorded in Burnley, as he suggested, he might have found the audience more supportive, but that’s becasue it’s one of the small minority of areas of the country where his party have had any electoral success. Question Time is a national programme, so having an audience with such a high proportion of BNP supporters, not at all reflecting the rest of the country, would have been the type of extreme bias the BBC strives to avoid. As with certain other obnoxious minority organisations, the BNP and its followers like to delude themselves that everyone in the country shares their view. However, outside of their meetings and online discussion forums, this is simply a fantasy. Apparently, after the show, the Question Time website was flooded with support for Nick Griffin. This is hardly surprising. No doubt they were mobilised by websites, forums and messages, and encouraged to write in support of their leader. Again, they do like to delude themselves and say, “Look, everyone agrees with us!”

As for the questions, these are always chosen by the Question Time studio audience. If this time the audience wanted most of the questions to be about the BNP and its policies, it isn’t the programme’s producers’ place to prevent that. If the programme wasn’t a genuine Question Time, that’s because one if its panellists wasn’t a genuine politician, and the audience knew that.

Various and figures and statistics will now be twisted to suit the agenda of whoever is writing about them. The BNP will claim they gained extra members. Others will claim it was a disaster for them. I can’t really see that it will do the BNP any good in electoral terms. Eight million people watched, but that means the majority of people didn’t. So who did watch? Probably people who either support the BNP already, or who totally oppose what they stand for and wanted to see Griffin made a fool of. Even if some of the former group have now decided to join the BNP, they would have voted for them anyway. As for all the working-class people in places such a Burnley, they probably have little interest in politics, so will have been among the 40 million or so adults who didn’t watch. So their votes won’t have been influenced at all.

In conclusion, I don’t think this programme will have much effect on people’s voting either way. A more serious issue is that more people are voting for the BNP (in most cases, uninformed people who don’t watch Question Time) simply because they are disillusioned with the mainstream parties. Some of the senior politicians, in particular in the Labour Party, should try concentrating their energies into doing something about this, rather than protesting about a TV programme. That’s the real way to beat the BNP.

I have wondered about certain practical aspects of a ban on tobacco displays. What will shops be allowed to display to indicate that they actually do sell cigarettes? They will need a sign of some sort. Presumably they will produce a price list or “menu” of products that customers can see if they ask for it. Perhaps I should read the Bill to see if this is explained.

I certainly believe displays of tobacco products in shops encourage young people to take up smoking. I don’t believe the tobacco industry when they claim the only purpose is to inform people who already smoke what is available. Time and time again they have used this argument to oppose restrictions on advertising, yet the fact is millions of their customers die through the use of their products every year, so if they didn’t find ways to attract new ones, they’d be out of business! The shop displays are just another form of advertising, and therefore represent a loophole in the present legislation banning tobacco advertising.

The Health Bill currently going through parliament contains legislation that would ban shops from having tobacco products on display. This post was originally written as a comment on Lord Norton of Louth’s post on the issue on Lords of the Blog.

Most protesters will retort that the people who were involved in violence and vandalism were a small minority, and that most of the protesters were peaceful and well-behaved. This isn’t an unreasonable line to take. However, the same people will use examples of police brutality, such as the assault of Ian Tomlinson (who died of a heart attack shortly afterwards) as evidence that all the police were violent and that the policing of the event was out of order. This is hypocrisy. Protesters, and the media who jump on their bandwagon, are happy to explain violent protesters as a minority, but then tar an entire police force with the same brush after the unacceptable behaviour of one officer is in the spotlight.

There have been some reports that Mr Tomlinson wasn’t simply an innocent newspaper seller on his way home, but had actually been hanging around for some time, and had previous confrontations with the police, including blocking a police van, possibly under the influence of alcohol. Maybe in the heat of the moment, an officer later recognised him and out of frustration attacked him. That’s certainly no excuse for what the officer did, and he should face criminal proceedings in due course. However, it is no reason to criticise the entire police force. Officers that day must have been under a huge amount of stress, yet the majority of them will not have lashed out or have attacked any members of the public, but will have behaved with professionalism and restraint – and that can’t have been easy given the circumstances.

If the entire Metropolitan Police Force are going to be found guilty by media trial, then it’s only fair to hold every single protester partly responsible for Mr Tomlinson’s death. After all, if there were no protests, he would have had no encounters with the police in the first place, and the violent disorder committed by some of the protesters will have fired up the police officers and caused some to retaliate. Collective blame can’t be heaped on one side and not the other.

A similar thing is true for Lewis Hamilton, said to be the first black Formula One driver, let alone champion. I’m clearly not the only person to consider this, as a letter to a national newspaper this week shows.

Of course, I don’t want to belittle either achievement. It’s welcome that someone of any ethnic minority group can break through the ultimate glass ceiling to take up one of the most powerful offices in the world, or take the world championship crown in a wealthy and glamorous sport.

Lewis Hamilton deserves much praise for the sentiments he expressed to the BBC:

But he added that, like Obama, he did not see himself as a role model exclusively for minorities.

“I don’t sit here and say I want to be an inspiration for one generation or race,” he said.

“The great thing is it opens up doors for all groups – anyone can get into it. I want to be as positive a role model as possible because I don’t believe there are that many out there.”

Hopefully in the not too distant future, no sport or other field of excellence will be considered so exclusive. When anyone receives a distinction, they will be praised for their achievement and not for belonging to a particular ethnic group.

And hopefully, the day will come when, whatever the background of the American president, he or she will be congratulated simply for winning the election on their merits as an individual (or due to having the most money – it is the USA after all!)

So let’s say well done Barack Obama for becoming nothing more or less than the 44th President of the United States of America.

Unfortunately, there is one group of small-minded politicians, the SNP, who simply can not bring themselves to support anything in the name of Britain or the UK. The party’s leader, Alex Salmond, used the return of “Team GB” to call for a separate Scottish Olympic team. This idea was immediately rubbished by multiple medal-winning cyclist Chris Hoy, who called the idea “ridiculous”. Hoy later qualified his remark, explaining that while he would be proud to represent Scotland, there simply aren’t suitable facilities for any of the Scottish Olympic medallists to train in Scotland. One wonders in how many other aspects of life the same situation would arise if Scotland were independent. No doubt the SNP and other people in favour of independence realise they could continue to use many facilities provided by the remainder of the UK.

Last week, there were also calls for a Great Britain football team to compete in the 2012 London Olympics. Unsurprisingly, this idea doesn’t go down well with Alex Salmond. The constituent parts of the UK have their own football associations, and therefore field separate teams in international football competitions, for historical reasons. Salmond and the Scottish FA are concerned that a British team in the Olympics would highlight what is seen as an anomaly, and spell the end of the Scottish FA. Salmond said it could, “jeopardise or sacrifice the future of Scotland as an international football country.” Strangely, this is the same Alex Salmond who thinks Scotland will be an independent country in the next few years. Surely, if that were to come true, it wouldn’t matter if there was a Great Britain team in 2012. Once Scotland was independent, the existance of its separate football body would no longer be an anomaly. Perhaps Mr Salmond knows something about the likelihood of independence that he’s not letting on in public.

An equally barmy suggestion came from Labour’s Cathy Jamieson, who suggested there should be a play-off between the home nations, with the winner representing Great Britain in the Olympics. Surely that is just changing the method by which the GB football team is selected? The team appearing at the Olympics would still be the Great Britain team, even if they happened to all be players from the England or all players from the Scotland team. So presumably the situation from an international point of view would be no different than it would be if a single team was composed of the best players from across the UK.

In the end, it simply comes back to politics. The SNP will seize any opportunity to drive divisions between the British people to further their political ideals, whether it’s by promoting separate Scottish institutions, and suggesting that Scottish people are unpatriotic if they don’t agree; or by building resentment among people in England. I think I’ll finish with words from cyclist Chris Hoy:

The thing that baffles me is why people perceive Great Britain as England. It’s not. That’s why you can be proud to be British as well as Scottish because Scotland is part of Britain, same as Wales and Northern Ireland.

I couldn’t have put it better – someone should give that man a medal!

I’m glad the government have seen sense, and are rectifying their mistake in this way, rather than introducing some new, complex system of benefits or credits. They are also adjusting the 40% tax band so that higher-rate taxpayers won’t receive extra money. However, they aren’t going to lower the threshold so as so bring enough people into the band to pay for the tax cut at the lower rate. Instead, the tax cut is going to cost £2.7 billion.

Ominously, the BBC report that people will gain £120 this year. We should be under no illusions that this will be a permanent tax cut. Next year, the personal allowance won’t increase nearly as much as it would have done, and over time, further reduced increases in the allowance will mean that the £2.7 billion is eventually clawed back. But as no-one can know what the increases would have been without today’s announcement, they won’t be able to complain about losing out. The amount of tax collected will be the same in the end, but I suppose at least low earners won’t be hit with a big increase in tax all at once.

Unfortunately for the Labour Party – and Brown and Darling in particular – I don’t think this measure will do anything for their electability. They are already badly damaged by the original policy error. Maybe a change in leadership is needed before the next election.