The Al Capone remedy

WHAT some Labour supporters really think of the Corbyn revolution. "We need clear ****ing leadership, not a gaggle of idiots making things up on the hoof." From the Guardian readers' letters.

A GROUP of elderly English gentlemen recently touring the United States asked for written instructions to help them use the electronic equipment in their hotel rooms. The Rolling Stones (for it is they) have clearly had a long-running, international bellyful of pointing the wrong remote control at the wrong screen, and suchlike. I sympathise, having once spent a night in a South African establishment billed as "the world's first six-star hotel." The management was especially proud of the touch-screen computers in every room which controlled everything from the TV channels to the air-conditioning. We fumbled as best we could. The next morning at breakfast one of our party was badly razor-cut. Having failed utterly to switch on a single bulb, he had been reduced to shaving his face by the dim glow of a TV screen.

BUT how long before even the Stones are denied a written guide? I heard of a woman who bought a new smartphone and was dismayed to find hardly any user instructions. She phoned the manufacturer to be told: "You should know all that stuff already."

"THE primary responsibility of the British government is to their citizens. He's a British citizen." It has a fine ring to it, doesn't it? Even if the British citizen in question is someone who, having chosen to live in alcohol-free Saudi Arabia, insists on making his own booze. Karl Andree, 74, was caught with six bottles of wine in his car last year and was sentenced to a public flogging (which has not been carried out) and a year in clink (which has been). And while his son Simon's words should certainly galvanise Downing Street, there are about 65 million British citizens scattered around the globe. While the UK Government may be responsible for all of them, a devotee of moonshine booze who opts to live in a country where booze is banned and public beheadings are regarded as street art is possibly not at the front of the queue.

WE have a solid-fuel boiler at Chateau Rhodes and, because anthracite is expensive, we think long and hard before starting- up the system for the winter. The milder the weather, the later the fire-lighting date. This year I did the deed a couple of days ago, which is at least a fortnight later than most years. I am not sure whether this proves the climate is getting warmer or I am getting meaner.

AL Capone was jailed not for murder, extortion, torture, drug-dealing or prostitution, although he was clearly guilty of all those crimes. Instead, the authorities nailed and jailed him in 1931 for tax evasion. One of the wonders of our modern age is why the taxman is not invoked to deal with today's Mr Bigs. We all know these characters. Every city has them. They never work yet they live in mansions and their drives are stuffed with Range Rovers and Bentleys. While England dithers, Scotland acts. It is announced this week that "unprecedented tax investigations" have been ordered against Scotland's 600 most dangerous organised criminals - including lawyers, accountants and other white-collar professionals and associates. Oh, joy. If it works up there, let's see it work down here.

BUT don't hold your breath. Remember how we were promised that the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act would strip the ungodly of their possessions? Hasn't exactly transformed the criminal landscape, has it?