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MANY of our most toxic secrets from the apartheid past are still buried in files. Yet ironically – and tragically – our new “liberation” rulers seem almost as dedicated as South Africa’s depraved ancien regime to keeping these secret police files as far from the public gaze as possible.

WAKING up to be told that someone wants you dead is never a pleasant way to begin your day. But that is exactly the news that greeted me when I woke to hear the headlines on Radio 4’s Today programme. Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary would like to see me stoned to death. It’s nothing personal, you understand, he just hates queers. I’m not too keen on religious maniacs who rave from the periphery, but that’s not quite the same as wanting to kill them. Does my magnanimity make me a better person than Choudary? No, but it makes me a better neighbour and isn’t that what religion is supposed to be about?

THE tragi-comedy of politics in Doncaster is moving into its final act. Another play is being written, with the prospect of better players. Martin Winter, the directly-elected Mayor drummed out of the Labour Party last year (“self-expelled”, in the official jargon) is going, after Schools Secretary Ed Balls sent in a hit team to overhaul the council’s “inadequate” children’s services.

IF EVER there was overwhelming evidence that performance targets and foundation trust status have no place in the National Health Service it is the case of Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust. Senior managers were apparently so obsessed with meeting Department of Health targets, ticking the right boxes and winning freedom from Government control – which foundation trust status gives hospitals – that they did nothing to correct serious failings in the care of patients in the accident and emergency department.

IT IS 1am on Saturday morning. You receive a phone call from a social worker telling you that your daughter has overdosed on heroin and been rushed to hospital. While you are still reeling from this news, in her next sentence, the social worker asks whether you will take on the care of your grandchildren who are aged two and seven. The local authority has to decide whether or not to place the children into foster care. You have to decide whether or not to step in at that point to prevent this from happening. What do you do?

A RECENT opinion poll for the BBC revealed that the majority of universities favour increasing student fees, with one in 10 vice-chancellors wanting the freedom to charge whatever they like. However, the general public does not agree, and how the political parties position themselves in the great fees debate will influence voters at the next general election.