While the UK’s Department of Health campaigns against people becoming fat and urges them to slim down, there is a strong case for slimming down the Department itself.

Last week we pointed out that to solve the Birmingham binmen strike it is necessary to pay teaching assistants more.

One of those little proofs that if you put the word “political” in front of another - as with “social” in front, or “studies” after - then you have wholly destroyed the meaning of the word being so modified.

Apparently being able to leave Luton is a bad idea. So says Caroline Lucas: Almost 90% of flights from Luton are taken for leisure - in other words British tourists taking their money out of the country to spend abroad. Expanding Luton is not good for UK growth…