Peter Hill

GLASTONBURY isn’t just a music festival. For many it’s a journey to some imaginary idyll: camping, roughing it, communing with like-minded souls, sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. And the chance to show off their “progressive” Left-wing credentials.

This year Glastonbury turned into a Corbyn worship weekend. Emerging from their designer yurts and even more expensive luxury pop-up hotels, the faithful gleefully joined the chant of “Oh, J-e-r-e-m-y C-o-r-b-y-n” as their messiah went among them, shaking hands, pulling pints and hugging. Lots of hugging. Or was it “O Jeremy Corbyn” as in O Caesar?

Corbyn has become the focus for an epidemic of wishful thinking, false memory syndrome, bogus nostalgia and misplaced hope among the guilt-ridden middle classes. Forget the reality that a Corbyn government would bankrupt the country, tax them to penury, allocate their chi-chi homes to the dispossessed, shut the private schools where they send their children and the private hospitals where they avoid the queues.

They’re livin’ the dream. q I FEAR that Britain will end up making many concessions in the Brexit negotiations but severance from the European Court of Justice must be our line in the sand. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, says it is “inconceivable” that the ECJ will not oversee the rights of EU citizens in Britain. No way. There must be one law for everyone here: British law.

The court is a poisonous institution that has little to do with justice. It is a political hammer used to impose the Eurocrat will. Britain had a legal code established over centuries that became a model for fledgling democracies. The Brussels elite hated it because it was a challenge to their authority and have done their damnedest to extinguish it. In order to get our country back we must first get our laws back. q PRINCE Harry needs to stop shooting his mouth off. It’s bad enough that he and his brother William insist on parading their mental health anxieties before the public but to say that no member of the Royal Family wants to be king or queen is very foolish.

Much more of this tosh and the Prime Minister should take Harry aside and tell him that his wish to be “ordinary” can be granted. He can find a job – fancy public relations companies will queue up to hire him – buy a nice flat, marry the love of his life, shop at Waitrose and live happily ever after. Enough. q HEY, I agree with Jeremy Corbyn about something: that teenagers should be paid a decent wage. Responding to the Labour leader’s suggestion that 16-year-olds should get £10 an hour the British Chambers of Commerce warns that this could price them out of the market. The minimum pay for under-18s is a shameful £4.05 an hour, barely enough for bus fares and a sandwich. That is exploitation. q HOLIDAYMAKERS who pay in sterling on card machines abroad are being ripped off to the tune of £60 per trip for every person travelling, according to a report. Some card companies charge fees from six to 10 per cent and banks also charge for card use abroad. You can avoid some fees by paying in local currency but many travellers don’t realise this and the card sharks don’t go out of their way to tell you.

It’s just one of the many ways in which holidaymakers are robbed of their hard-earned cash: the “duty-free” con, airline baggage charges and seat booking fees, cruise ship tipping rackets, local taxes, rip-off exchange rates, school holiday price premiums, over-priced insurances.

Many companies regard the long-suffering public as herds of milking cattle. q A KOREAN firm has invented a more friendly car horn that sounds like a duck’s quack. They claim this is less aggressive than existing hoots. Some drivers use their horns to intimidate other drivers and pedestrians. I hate those who blast away the second the traffic lights change to green before you have the chance to take your foot off the brake.

For these hogs the horn is a tool for bullying and asserting dominance and quacking would not be the answer. What I would like is a button that instantly immobilises their engines, subjecting them to the fury of drivers behind them. q A RECORD number of families are falling into the inheritance tax bracket as a result of high property values. The total raised by the Treasury topped £5billion for the first time last year, up nine per cent. Older people who want to downsize are discouraged by the huge increase in stamp duty (another tax), cost of moving and legal fees.

Inheritance tax is a disgrace because it is a further levy on income that has already been taxed. Slightly more generous allowances are coming in but I remember the Tories vowing that they wanted to abolish death tax altogether, as has been done in some countries. Dream on. q FORMER Daily Express columnist Henry Blofeld, who is retiring from Test match commentary, told me of his first meeting with the swashbuckling batsman Ted Dexter, one of my boyhood heroes. Moments after going into bat with Dexter in a university match, the young Blofeld disgraced himself by running the great man out.

As he passed Blowers on his way back to the pavilion “Lord Ted” uttered just three words: “F-ing little s***!” “They were the only words he spoke to me that day,” recalled Henry, one of the most delightful people anyone could wish to meet.