Peter Hill

IT TOOK off with the death of Princess Diana – this business of leaving flowers to express sympathy over some tragic event. Now it’s become an everyday sight. A street corner where a cyclist was crushed by a lorry has been clothed with wilting blooms for weeks. On Friday I passed a mass of tributes at the spot where a teenage boy was stabbed to death.

It’s marvellous for florists but what is the point? I understand that people might want to make some gesture for as John Donne said, “No man is an island… each man’s death diminishes me.” But wouldn’t it be better to spend the money on something useful: a donation to medical research, hand a fiver to the ragged beggar cuddling his dog outside the supermarket, or do a kindness to a complete stranger.

Mourners at funerals are often advised, “No flowers, by request,” and instead asked to give to the deceased’s favourite cause, such as a hospice – so much more meaningful than a wreath which disappears who knows where immediately after the ceremony.

In recent times the British have grown mawkish about death, especially when sudden. It’s an unpleasant trend. q TO SAVE a lot more tedious repetition it would be simpler if the tiny minority of celebs who haven’t been sexually abused or inappropriately propositioned would identify themselves. Then all the rest can continue to nurse their various traumatic experiences in private. As many of them apparently have been doing for many years without the need to share them with the world. q WHAT is to be done with the jihadis who travelled from Britain to fight for Islamic State in the Middle East? In almost every case they should be killed rather than be allowed to return, says MP and minister Rory Stewart, a former Army officer.

Yet just days earlier Max Hill QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said they should be allowed back to rejoin society. He claimed that hundreds had already come back and the authorities had decided not to prosecute them.

If true it’s an example of liberalism gone way too far. We face the greatest danger from terrorism in our history, according to the head of MI5. Anyone who joins IS knows what the organisation stands for and subscribes to its campaign of murder, terror and torture. Too late now to claim they have changed their minds.

Not a single one of these traitors should be allowed to return to Britain. What happens to them is their own responsibility. q THE Government says it will end gazumping, the rotten practice where house sales break down at the last minute when the seller accepts a higher offer. It happens to thousands of deals, costing a fortune, breaking up chains of purchasers, causing heartbreak and ultimately crippling the housing market.

Certainty would be a fine thing but I doubt if anything will change much. An inquiry is to be launched – as if the problem isn’t totally understood already and needs no further investigation.

There is even a ready-made solution. In Scotland once an offer is accepted it has to go through. Let’s just get on with it. q ANOTHER pronouncement also looks dodgy: the instruction given to hospitals that they must check patient credentials to ensure they aren’t health tourists. The NHS loses millions of pounds because it treats thousands of foreigners without bothering to get payment.

We are constantly told it is in the middle of a critical staff shortage. Are people really going to embark on paper chases for documents proving that patients are entitled to surgery? Especially given the NHS’s semi-religious creed of “free on demand”.

I’ll believe it when I see a big reduction in the deficit. q MY SON is on a dreaded gap year and needs to earn some money to go on a diving expedition. It has been heartbreaking to see him trudging around places with “staff wanted” signs only for them never to respond when he leaves his CV. Happily Boots has taken him on as an assistant and we are all delighted. I just wish that more businesses would take the trouble to say yes or no to applications instead of treating hopeful young people like dirt. q WE KNOW that Einstein was a genius but his philosophy of life wasn’t that impressive. Instead of a tip he gave a courier two notes, one saying: “A quiet and modest life brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest” and the other simply, “Where there’s a will there’s a way”. My Uncle Beckett’s broad Yorkshire maxim as told to Wilfred Pickles was more, er, original: “Keep tha mouth shut and tha bowels oppen.” Well, he’s famous in Saddleworth. q NEXT to me on the train there were two young women. Oblivious to all around they arrayed a selection of make-up articles on the tables in front of them and embarked on a titivation routine that was still going on when I got off an hour later. A harmless activity perhaps but some functions are better done in private. Whatever happened to mystique? q EXPLAIN this: there are nearly twice as many police officers per head of population – one to 461 against 807 – than there were in the 1960s yet they have no time to investigate “low level” crimes like burglary and are seldom seen patrolling the streets. Presumably they are fully occupied filling in forms and following up hate crimes.