Peter Rhodes: An extra £1,700 a month for everyone?

AFTER the recapture of Flaviu the Carpathian lynx, a reader asks how it can be that a lynx roaming Dartmoor is a big problem yet, according to some wildlife experts, reintroducing lynxes to Scotland would not be a problem? Fur point.

STILL in Scotland, there are renewed calls for a second referendum on independence. Which is fine and dandy and none of our business. What is our business, however, is their use of the moronic term "rUK," standing for "Rest of the United Kingdom" to describe the UK without Scotland. Let us make it absolutely clear that if Scotland leaves the UK, the UK will still be called the UK. We will also fly the Union Jack. Why? Because UK is our name and the Union Jack is our flag. End of.

AND before you pedants insist that the correct name is Union Flag, it isn't. Union Jack is a fine old name, well worth preserving and celebrating. The oft-repeated claim that it's a Jack only when flown from a ship's front mast is, to quote the world's leading authority on such matters the Flag Institute, "a relatively recent idea."

IT is announced that Princess Beatrice is to become a business consultant. In a fairly gloomy week, we can always rely on the Yorks to cheer us up.

THE Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that the cost of dealing with the effects of poverty in Britain is about £78,000 million a year. This reminds me of a report from the United States many years ago which added up all the public money being spent on "poverty alleviation" projects and concluded that if they gave the money straight to the poor people, there would be no poverty. It has never been tried but, a few weeks ago, Switzerland held a referendum on a plan to give every adult about £1,700 per month whether they were employed or not. This "basic income" scheme recognised the fact that, as automation increases, there will be fewer jobs. The hard-headed Swiss voted heavily against the scheme, taking the rather Victorian view that there is virtue in working for your dosh. But let's not dismiss the idea. After all, the Bank of England has created hundreds of billions of pounds of new money through quantitative easing which, by a complex process of buying bonds and keeping interest rates low, is supposed to stimulate the economy. Imagine the stimulation we'd all get from £1,700 a month dropping through the letterbox.

IF you believe the Sunday Times: "At least four active terror plots in Britain are being investigated by the police and the security services." Think about this. If the authorities really were investigating these plots, why would they tell the Sunday Times?

THANKS for your suggestions on how to deal with unwanted drones hovering over your homes. Front-runner, by a mile, is a .22 air rifle, but I fear they don't have the range or the power. Where are all those old Bofors guns?

MEANINGLESS sales slogans of our time. I love the latest twaddle promoting the Porsche Panamera which probably works best when spoken in a rich, deep American accent: "Courage changes everything." But cobblers goes on for ever.