by Alan Tyers

The middle-classes, when not high on cocaine, binge-drinking or being given life in prison for getting a parking ticket, are now apparently mad for the shoplifting.

A report from snappily-named security and merchandising specialists Checkpoint Systems NCE reckons that shoplifting is up 20% - costing businesses an eye-watering £4.9 billion a year.

Says that company’s spokesman: “We are seeing more instances of amateur thieves stealing goods for their own personal use rather than to sell-on.

“This is epitomised in the recent uprising of the middle-class shoplifter, someone who has turned to theft to sustain their standard of living, and this is driving theft of items such as cosmetics, perfumes and face creams, alcohol, fresh meat, mobile phones, computer games and DVDs as well as small electrical goods like cameras, iPods and personal care gadgets.”

What can be done about these crazed fiends, with their insatiable desire for meat and cosmetics?

Seems to me that this is a result in the growing sense of entitlement that we all have: everyone wants a lifestyle rich in consumer goods and nice things, and the freely available credit of the last generation made it dead easy to get things on the never-never. Now credit is harder to get, but demand is the same, so we’ll have to nick what is rightfully ours. I blame The X Factor.

Aside from inflated expectations of what is our right, or even our need, some goods are just ridiculously overpriced and cartelised. Maybe people are just sick of forking over a fortune for products that they know are massively marked-up by greedy retailers.

If I wasn’t such a chicken, here are some items I would definitely nick from supermarkets: bin bags; tissues; razor blades. The items are not, despite what it might sound like, to form the basis of some horrific murder / clean-up kit, but rather just things that always seem staggeringly overpriced.

Oh, and I’d definitely trouser a few bottles of contact lens solution if I could get away with it. Five quid for that? Come off it.

by Alan Tyers

The ignoble sport of bear-baiting is alive and well: Gordon Brown has lurched into yet another crisis and his enemies at The Sun are getting stuck in.

The PM hand-wrote a letter to Jacqui Janes offering his condolences for the death in Afghanistan of her Grenadier Guardsman son, Jamie.

Brown managed to spell her name incorrectly, and made several other spelling (or handwriting) mistakes in the letter. Then - cringe, cringe - he phoned her up to say sorry, she recorded the conversation and handed it to The Sun. Manna from heaven to the Tory-backing boys in Wapping.

Personally, I think it’s a low blow: he wrote to her and phoned her personally and privately. I couldn’t argue that it’s not a matter of public interest, but it still seems a bit mean to serve him up to the unlovely red-top attack dogs.

Still, it certainly reveals a lot about the Prime Minister and his current state of mind. A lack of attention to detail, the inability to admit a mistake - “I think I was trying to say Janes, as your right name” - a total failure to communicate.

A more gifted politician and manipulator than Brown - Tony Blair, say, or Bill Clinton - would have played the card that he too has lost a child; or maybe even alluded to his disability and failing eyesight. It’s arguably to Brown’s credit that he didn’t. About all you can say is that he shouldn’t have written the letter if he can’t write her name correctly. It seems a modest amount to ask from the leader of the country.

Instead of grovelling, Brown tried to debate her on issues that she obviously knows a fair bit about, but is never going to bend on. That her son died because of underfunding is fixed 100% in her mind.

It’s not an argument he could ever win, and even if he could - who wants to defeat a grieving mother with stats and policy detail?

by Greg McDonald

As world leaders gather in Germany today to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the miracle of reunification should embolden us to believe that bold, peaceful, democratic progress is possible when we have the courage to act as if it’s so.

For Berlin owes much of its success to precisely that spirit: manifested in the bravery of ordinary Germans who faced down a seemingly unbeatable foe, and to sage German leaders who put long-term security ahead of short-term advantage.

In Berlin today, however, world leaders should recognise that peace and prosperity in a united Germany did not happen in a vacuum - but as part of the wider European miracle, which has given an otherwise historically bloody continent 64 years of relative peace.

And, reflecting on the iconic images of Berliners’ triumph over fear and division 20 years ago, we in Britain would do well to reflect on how fortunate we are to be a part of that Europe - and, for all the European project’s defects, how essential it is that our future is at its heart.

The German miracle is so inspiring because so little is easier in life than saying “I can’t” - and, when it seems that way, still acting as if “I can”. Or in Gandhi’s formulation, to “be the change you wish to see in the world”.

Recalling the fall of the Wall, we can take heart that humanity constantly produces seemingly miraculous triumph over unbeatable odds - as anyone who saw David Haye’s Goliathan boxing victory this weekend will testify - and feel emboldened that progress is always possible if we act like it’s so.

by Greg McDonald

It was a winning week for Beyoncé, as the ‘Single Ladies’ star scooped a hat -trick of gongs at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Collecting her Best Video award, 2009’s Best Female dedicated her success to hubbyie Jay-Z for “putting a ring on it”, and fared rather better than poor Taylor Swift did at the VMAs when you might remember Kanye West making this infamous interruption.

It was a proud week for the Poppy Appeal as the British Legion reported that this year’s campaign is on course to raise a record- breaking amount. And although some – like the donations box thief caught in these shocking images – didn’t seem to have wholly grasped the concept of remembrance, generous Brits were set to give over £31m.

It was a week when Colin Firth’s behind-the-scenes role made a public splash as the laddie of the lake was named Humanitarian of the Year in a glittering Britannia Awards bash. Who’d have thought belly- flopping into a mud puddle with your clothes on could propel a man to such heights? Also honoured was Best Artist Emily Blunt – and there’s really no arguing with this performance from Gideon’s Daughter.

It was a rich week for Katie Price as the It Girl put her recent Bad Weeks behind her with the offer of a cool half a million to return to the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! jungle -– where you might recall a certain Peter Andre once, ahem, planted the acorn of love which grew into the oak of Katie’s their marriage, only to be chopped down some years later. Yes, it seems Brits want more of Ms Price in our lives – though around the Edenbridge Bonfire they seemed to have fierily different ideas.

by Greg McDonald

It was another tragic week for the British armed forces in Afghanistan as five British servicemen were murdered by a rogue Afghan policeman. And with polls showing three quarters of Brits now oppose the conflict, and the Prime Minister castigating his allies and countenancing defeat, it was left to the brave widow of repatriated Olaf Schmid to stir British moral courage during a sad seven days.

It was a slippery week for David Cameron as the Conservatives’ “cast- iron guarantee” on an EU referendum was cast out when the Czechs signed up to the Lisbon Treaty. Though iIt proved harder to iron out Cameron’s differences with the French as he was blasted by President Sarkozy and suffered this extraordinarily pitched castrato diatribe from French Europe minister Pierre Lellouche.

It was a sorry week for Liverpool FC manager Rafa Benitez, as his awful season just got worse when Lyon’s Lisandro Lóopez fired a 90th -minute equaliser to effectively dump the Reds out of the Champions League. Still, if not just one but both of your talismanic stars are going to spend a season with their feet up on the operating table, Rafa, it might as well be the one competition where there’s nothing left to play go for but the Fair Play Spoon.

It was a testing week for science as Ggovernment advisor Professor David Nutt was sacked for declaring ecstasy “safer than horse riding”. And as Nutt’s experiment with Alan Johnson’s patience produced these explosive results in the Home Secretary’s interview with Sky, we at GWBW wondered if the Government wouldn’t be better served by employing a more “street” advisor.: As Ali G once said:, “Science – is it good? Or is it whack?”

by Greg McDonald

The student caught on camera drunkenly urinating on war memorial poppy wreaths deserves the shame and humiliation he will live with for many years to come - but he shouldn’t go to jail.

Philip Laing has no excuses. His lawyers paint a picture of a student with a bright future, innocently caught up in a drinking culture and now struck with remorse. But being middle class doesn’t excuse you from equal treatment before the law, any more than downing 10 Stellas excuses you running the next-door neighbour down in the family car.

And as for remorse, it’s funny how so few of Laing’s fellow louts are as remorseful about the crimes that don’t get splashed across the front of national newspapers.

But while Laing’s misdeed is revolting, it’s also a single youthful mistake - and however disgusted we may feel, we should remember that few of us didn’t make a few mistakes of our own along the way.

Granted, many premeditated and evil crimes committed in Britain deserve a harsher punishment than our legal system has the resources or will to enforce. But as ugly as Laing’s drunken misdemeanor may be, his is not one of those.

The judge is right to hang the prospect of jail over Laing’s head for a fortnight while he awaits sentencing. But, while the student deserves his shame, in this instance – just for once – a custodial sentence would be excessive.

by Simon Glover

What's being said as Tory leader David Cameron heads to Westminster by tube following a walkabout in Ealing, west London? 

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by Alan Tyers

PM-in-waiting David Cameron screwed Britain for the first time this morning: it probably will not be the last.

In September 2007, Cameron wrote in The Sun: “I will give this cast-iron guarantee: if I become PM a Conservative Government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations. No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum.”

That seems pretty clear to me.

Today, he has backtracked from that referendum promise and is attempting to sugar the pill with some tough talk about how he won’t let those nasty Eurocrats tell us what to do.

In a cunning stroke, Cameron has managed to make himself look like a weasel and a windbag.

Handed the biggest open goal any politician could dream of - putting the hopeless, unelected Gordon Brown out of his misery - Cameron has today given an unpleasant snapshot of what life will be like under his Tories.

I’m sure I’m not alone in being unsure what Cameron stands for or what his policies are. Is he a Eurosceptic? What will he do about our national debt? Will he cut taxes? What will he do about crime? How will he extricate our forces from Afghanistan?

I think it’s fair to say that most people are not clear. He needs to let the electorate know what his plans are once he comes to power, and try and convince people that he will stick to those commitments.

At the moment, the impression is of an opportunist who will say what he needs to say at any given time - and this u-turn doesn’t do anything to dispel that.

by Alan Tyers

The surprising thing about the row between Olympic double gold medal-winning swimmer Rebecca Adlington and the BBC is not that people are queuing up to be offended by Mock The Week panellist Frankie Boyle’s jokes, but that Adlington herself gives a hoot what he thinks or says.

Imagine the sheer willpower and strength of character that she must possess to get up before dawn every day of the year, train her guts out and bring home two gold medals at just 19 years old. It’s amazing that a couple of gags on a TV panel show are anything but water off a duck’s back.

Anyway, they obviously aren’t, because she has made a formal complaint about the BBC Trust’s response to the situation. Just to catch you up, the Trust rebuked Boyle for saying Adlington had a face “like someone looking at themselves in the back of a spoon” and speculating that the fact her boyfriend is much more attractive (according to Boyle) proves she must be “very dirty”. Adlington reckons Boyle got off too lightly.

The jokes were a bit mean, but I’m glad Boyle has the freedom to make them. It is, after all, only a joke, on a show that’s flagged up for having adult humour. However, the BBC Trust found that, in essence, Adlington was not fair game because she has not courted celebrity or fame.

I seem to remember Adlington appearing on A Question Of Sport and The Charlotte Church Show, and I note from her personal website that the swimmer has signed a deal to be “an official partner” with British Gas, presumably involving the utilities supplier giving her money in exchange for access to her name, image, time or status.

And why the hell not? Good luck to the woman if she wants to make a few quid after all her hard work - but it’s debatable that she has “not courted celebrity or fame”.

This stand-off is further ammunition for the BBC haters who won’t be happy until the entire shebang is shut down, and also for the country’s self-appointed moral guardians who spend their days looking for comics to be offended by.

A joke’s a joke; let Frankie Boyle - and Jimmy Carr, with his squaddie gags - get on with what they do.

by Greg McDonald

Members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs are right to resign over the Home Secretary’s knee-jerk sacking of Government drug adviser Professor David Nutt, just as Nutt is right that it is not the role of scientists to “rubber stamp” pre-determined Government positions.

Alan Johnson’s disingenuous argument that the Professor’s views amount to a campaign against the Government no more chimes with the evidence than does the Home Secretary’s backward drugs policy.

For far from the ravings of a substance evangelist Nutt’s words are not personal views at all, but the findings of a scientific study. The Professor is no more guilty of campaigning against the Home Office line by stating them than a maths teacher is guilty of railing against straight lines when explaining the definition of a circle.

Yet there is a wider issue here. It’s little wonder Joe Public, fifth Stella in hand, is shocked to hear a scientist say that “ecstasy is safer than horse-riding” - because Joe’s view of drugs, as with so much of British politics, is based more on heated headline hysteria than cold evidence.

And as one department after another backs a counterproductive policy to placate such prejudices, until the hysteria typified by Nutt’s sacking is challenged we’ll all keep paying the high price of knee jerk policy-making.

Members of the Advisory Council are right to make a stand - for until British governments are forced to confront reality, destructive policies will continue to be made not in the lab but in the pub.