BY THE WAY

PRINCE CHARLES has fuelled speculation that he wants to make Camilla his queen when he succeeds to the throne. Anger over her “third person in the marriage” role has surely faded and Camilla has earned respect for the quietly conscientious and good-humoured way she has carried out her duties.

But attitudes on sex and gender issues have changed dramatically in favour of women and men having equality in every aspect of life. In the spirit of what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, if Camilla is to be queen should not Prince Philip be promoted to king consort for the remainder of his tenure?

And should not female children when they are the eldest have the right to inherit titles, as does the monarchy? We British pride ourselves on our sense of fairness but when it comes to women’s inheritance we are still in the time of the first Queen Elizabeth.

Why is it still correct for a married couple to be addressed as Mr and Mrs Joe Bloggs rather than Mr Joe and Mrs Jane Bloggs, or Mrs Jane and Mr Joe Bloggs? Why Sir Joe Muck but only Lady Muck rather than (except in some aristocratic quirks) Lady Jane Muck? Why does the woman’s name disappear? To paraphrase a current maxim, equality means equality. Or not.

TESCO has withdrawn a children’s fox-hunting fancy dress costume after protests from anti-hunt campaigners who said it was encouraging children to become “animal abusers”. Lee Moon, of the Hunt Saboteurs Association, said: “Fox-hunting is an illegal, archaic pastime that’s abhorred by the majority of the population.”

Here is a classic example of the puritan tyranny that is destroying freedom of thought and expression and substituting a beige world of “safe spaces”, in which nothing deemed offensive or inappropriate must be heard or seen. How long before pirate outfits are forbidden, along with cowboys and Indians, nurses, witches etc? We are in the midst of a real-life witch-hunt that grows more pervasive by the day.

THE teams of chemical warfare experts patrolling Salisbury after the nerve gas attack on a Russian spy and his daughter are kitted out in space-age outfits but the whole thing has the bungling air of a Dad’s Army episode or a science fiction farce. Except it’s not funny for residents and owners of local businesses. The Government or whoever is in charge there has created an atmosphere of secrecy and cover-up reminiscent of the 1940s. Repeated assurances that there’s nothing to be alarmed about, followed by panicky instructions to wash clothing, mean no one knows what to believe or do. It’s a combination of Fred Karno, SNAFU and FUBAR (look up on Wikipedia if unsure of meaning).

MANY cash-strapped local authorities are planning to raise car parking charges to boost funds but the consequences will be dire for high-street shops and food outlets already under pressure from higher business taxes. Rather than pay through the nose to park, customers will go shopping on the internet or drive to retail parks. It would be far more sensible to drop parking charges completely.

ACTOR Peter Bowles was refused a courtesy car when he took his own vehicle in for repairs because the garage said he was too old at 81 to be given a replacement or even to hire one at his own expense. They later relented after being challenged by a newspaper but that’s beside the point. Car hire firms’ ageist policy is a worry for anyone over 70 and it’s humiliating and demeaning.

Possession of a driving licence should give a legal right to hire a car at the normal rate. Trouble is the firm can easily claim they have nothing available on seeing the age of the applicant – but in that case they must be made to prove it by opening their books. Do not go gentle…

TALKING of cars, why do manufacturers bother producing fancy wheels? Within a week of purchase most of these expensive creations are scratched from rubbing against the kerb. Walk down any street of parked cars and you will see hardly any without damaged wheels. Why has no one created a self-repairing or scratch-proof wheel? Or is it hidden away on some inaccessible shelf along with the everlasting match, light bulb and battery, the pill that cures everything, the shoe sole that never wears out and all similar inventions anathema to the age of built-in obsolescence?

LIB DEM leader Sir Vince Cable is rightly getting stick for saying the Brexit vote was driven by “nostalgia for a world where passports were blue, faces were white and the map was coloured imperial pink”. The overwhelming impulse was to put a stop to undemocratic rule by Brussels officials and to regain our right to govern ourselves and live by our own laws. And no amount of liberal guilt-tripping and social engineering will change the fact that this is still a largely white-faced country, just as other lands are mainly different colours.

THE Labour Party protests at the £5billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Presumably they would be happy for the French to get the deal instead. France has no scruples about such sales and would jump at the chance to grab our business and put thousands of our workers out of a job.

I ALWAYS put the cream on scones first then the jam, as I spread butter on bread before other toppings. But I assure Cornish readers that jam first is cool. If odd.