SAVILE ROW W1

CITY OF WESTMINSTER

They’re always salamislicing products, using sleight of hand, to shave 40g off a packet of biscuits here, 5ml off a bottle of spirits there, often increasing the price at the same time.

One of the reasons they’ve been able to get away with it for so long is the metric system, which we were forced, like so much else, to embrace to ‘ bring us into line with europe’.

It’s fairly simple to shrink goods by a few grams or millilitres in the hope that most people won’t notice — particularly COUNCILS are being told not to name streets after local heroes in case those being honoured turn out later to be paedophiles. The advice from the Local Government Association comes in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

There’s always a danger, they claim, celebrities and others who have given their names to roads, parks and buildings may be linked to ‘inappropriate activities’. Is there no end to this madness?

If this goes through, Savile Row, the world’s most famous tailoring street, would have to change its name. Smith Square, in Westminster, is a non-starter, too, in case it makes people think of Novelty Northern Nonce Cyril.

The Scottish Isle of Harris would have to be rebranded, lest sensitive folk associate it with Rolf. No building could ever again be called a ‘hall’ because it could remind somebody of the sex crimes of It’s A Knockout host Stuart Hall. What does ‘linked’ mean, anyway? Plenty of innocent men have been linked to ‘historic’ sex offences.

Will Sheffield United have to stop playing at Bramall Lane because the former head of the Army Lord Bramall was caught up in the post-Savile witch-hunt? Will we have to rename the whole country in case those who can’t spell confuse Britain with Leon Brittan?

And given that the head of Wiltshire police is ‘120 per cent’ sure that Grocer Heath was a childmolester, how long before we have to change the name of Hampstead Heath? Meanwhile, Jimmy Savile and the Grocer remain dead.