A TRULY scandalous revelation crept into the daylight last week. An extra £12billion a year has been added by government to what we pay into the National Health Service.

CHAIN smoking feverishly as he lay naked on the floor of his Downing Street office, Britain's top civil servant babbled incoherently about Armageddon.

The cost-of-living crisis is not confined to Britain . It is not going to be resolved by the government alone. We have been through a pandemic followed by a war and could not reasonably expect to escape adverse consequences and now all of us have a part to play.

COUPLE goals is the Instagram-friendly phrase lavished on those celebrity couples who are thought aspirational. Occasionally, the other half and I are thrilled recipients of this glowing accolade. Rather than fling it in the direction of smooching celebrities, though, I'd like to express my boundless admiration for the relationship of Ukraine's courageous President Volodymyr Zelensky and his equally brave wife Olena Zelenska.

ENVY is one of the seven deadly sins, so I suppose I'm in double trouble when I admit to being envious of those who believe there is a God and have complete faith in Him.

The Platinum Jubilee is a unique milestone in the story of our nation. Already a mood of anticipation is spreading as the public prepares to celebrate this special occasion and express thanks to the Queen for her 70 years of dedicated service.

VICTORIA Beckham is about as thin as you can be and still have the strength to walk, but her surprising announcement this week that 'skinny is over' is welcome, since the fashion industry's fixation with size is the source of so much unhappiness for women, and anxiety for mothers of daughters.

COMPARE and contrast. Two police officers armed with nothing more than a truncheon, a can of spray and a chair storm into a church to confront a murderous terrorist who has just callously stabbed to death a politician.

WHEN Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer lock horns next week over the final report by the senior mandarin Sue Gray into unlawful Downing Street gatherings, a police inquiry will loom large.

IT seems that "scamming" - fraud and embezzlement of other people's bank accounts by deception - is now Britain's most widespread crime. It outclasses burglary, pocket picking and mugging put together. If I raise it in this column it is because a little old lady living down my lane nearly fell for such a "scam" and lost her life savings.

THE investigation by the Metropolitan Police into Partygate has ended, not in a bang, but a whimper.

THE conquest of inflation was one of Margaret Thatcher's central missions when she became Prime Minister at the end of the 1970s. She had seen how soaring prices wrecked jobs, businesses, savings and living standards. With her usual clarity, she said, "The lesson is clear. Inflation devalues us all."

Levi Bellfield is serving a whole life term for the murder of three people, including a child of 13, and the attempted murder of another and now wishes to get married to someone who has been visiting him.

AN ARRAY of adjectives have been used to describe Judy Murray, 62, foremost among them 'formidable'.

ANOTHER day, another "smart" motorway smash-up. The latest came when the much-vaunted SVD cameras apparently failed to register a broken-down lorry on a stretch of the M3, its former safe hard shoulder now a lethal live lane.

CAN YOU believe the shambles our House of Commons has turned into? It's so absurd I keep expecting the Prime Minister to don a red coat and top hat as he introduces the next act in the parliamentary circus.

IT'S NOT the sort of question where you might need to phone a friend or even ask the audience. Faced with domestic problems that mirror the 2008 financial crash and have grim echoes of rampant inflation in the 1980s, ask yourself: if you were running the country, where would you rather be?

From soaring inflation to government debt, the economic problems that face this country are serious enough. But now another form of trouble is looming. Across the rail industry, unions are threatening a wave of strikes that could bring Britain to a halt. The potential for a summer of chaos reflects a new militancy in response to plans for a major overhaul of the transport network.

THE storm clouds are gathering over the economy. As inflation soars and the Bank of England warns of a potential recession, the cost-of-living crisis looks set to worsen.

WHAT does your Sunday have in store for you? Or, obviously if you're settling down to read this at the end of what was hopefully a day of rest, what did you get up to?

Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb. Readers of a certain vintage will recognise those names as a roll call of the Trumpton fire brigade.

FOR once I appear to take the same view as the majority of people. According to polls, two thirds believe, Partygate is a waste of time and money.

It was one of the most electric moments of Margaret Thatcher's premiership. In October 1981, as her ratings plummeted and her Government ran into severe trouble over rising unemployment, spending cuts, inner city riots, and turmoil in Northern Ireland, she told her critics at the annual Tory conference that there would be no U-turn on policy.

I HAVE spent the last three weeks in Essex following the trial of Ali Harbi Ali, the terrorist who murdered my best friend, the late Sir David Amess, and who received a whole life sentence from the judge. Many have said that the death penalty would be more appropriate but, despite my support for capital punishment, I do not agree.

NO SOONER had the reading list for this summer's Platinum Jubilee been unfurled than a white hot lava of controversy erupted.

HOW MANY "parties" would be too many? That's the baffling question swirling around Westminster. The Prime Minister admits to breaking the law at one event, but possibly as many as six other "gatherings" could have had him on their guest lists. Some reports even have the number at a mind boggling twelve!

PERHAPS Rishi was too keen to party but is he too rich? Well, specifically too rich to be Chancellor? Keir Starmer thinks so. This week the Labour leader appeared to say there should be a ceiling on an MP's personal wealth: have one too many noughts on your bank account's final statement or your shares portfolio, and that's it. Unfit for office.

IT'S EASTER, the weather is glorious and if you've braved the traffic jams on the M5 you'll be revelling in the magic of a Cornish spring. And if you're wishing you could spend the whole summer there, tempting news, the Cornwall Wildlife Trust is looking for a couple of volunteers to assist the wardens of Looe Island, a beautiful sanctuary 15 minutes by boat from the mainland.

MARGARET Thatcher once claimed always to be cheered when her opponents resorted to personal abuse because it meant they didn't have a convincing argument against her policies.

WE OFTEN see the word or reference to 'sovereignty' but seldom an explanation as to what it truly is.

IMAGINE an early meeting of the suffragettes. "Right, ladies, what do we want?" "The vote!" "The right to own a property!" "Equal pay!" "Never to be called 'good girl' again!"

WHEN DID did it start, this hopeless enslavement to the rule book at the expense of common sense and kindness? Priti Patel blames Brexit for the cruel, dilatory and nightmarishly bureaucratic system that is holding up Ukrainian visa applications but the whole point of Brexit was to allow us to take our own decisions and control our own borders.

I'M A Feltz. For all I know an illiterate clerk once made a slip of the quill and I'm just one misplaced consonant away from being a close relative of Brooklyn Beckham's bride Nicola Peltz.

From Dishi Rishi to Slippery Sunak - the transformation in the Chancellor's fortunes has been dramatic. Only a few months ago, he was Britain's most popular politician.

SINCE the dawn of time, crises have always exploited the glaring weaknesses of individuals and organisations. Faced with the most challenging of events and circumstances, their responses fall lamentably short of what might be expected, their flaws exposed for all to see.

POLITICS, it is said, is a rough old trade and Rishi Sunak and his family have been finding that out the hard way.

THE TSUNAMI of information flowing towards us about the Ukrainian situation is more than even our media can cope with. Most comes from Ukraine and is visible to all our reporters and cameramen out there. But what intrigues me is that the world of the tyrant Putin seems to be falling apart.

Judy writes fascinatingly about the nature of evil. But who, even a few weeks ago, would have predicted the utterly repellent, Nazi-like behaviour by Russian soldiers in Ukraine? Or the ruthless orders handed down by their oberführer, President Putin? And yet, and yet... we've been here before, haven't we? My parents' and grandparents' generations never really got over their shock at the return of world war to the heart of Europe in 1939.

PURE evil stalks the streets of Ukraine. Is it fanciful to believe Russia's barbaric massacre of innocent civilians is the work of the devil?

OH DEAR and how embarrassing. As if the Royal Family didn't have enough on its plate at the moment, letters have come to light that show Prince Charles asked Jimmy Savile for PR advice, with the repellent presenter even drawing up a media relations handbook.

WHEN I heard the music from the Dambusters film recently it reminded me of a visit I had paid to a pub near their base where legend has it that you can hear the ghosts of the squadron laughing after hours when all is silent and deserted.

THE barbaric onslaught against Ukraine is faltering. The invader is in retreat. Shocked by the strength of resistance, undermined by their own blunders, the Russians are unable to hold the territory they captured at the end of February. In many places the Ukrainian flag is flying high once more.

HE WAS getting ready to hand back the headphones as time was nearly up. Having talked tough about the need for increased sanctions on Russia, laid into the Government about how it was leaving millions facing possible poverty because no help had been provided by the Spring Statement.

NOT ALL that long ago and within the memory of most of us, this country was the home of a number of institutions and practices held up as the gold standard, not just here but across the world.

WHAT is a woman? Until about three years ago the answer was pretty obvious: anyone with two X chromosomes. Anyone with a cervix, uterus and usually, though not always, the ability to give birth.

AS the cost of living crisis intensifies, the Tory Government increasingly presents itself as the resolute guardian of the public finances. After the massive Covid spending spree, fiscal discipline has supposedly returned to the corridors of power.

IN all its precision, humanity and splendour, the memorial service at Westminster Abbey represented a magnificent tribute to Prince Philip.

Father Ted is one of the comic masterpieces of modern television. As one of the programme's writers, Graham Linehan should now be enjoying all the rewards of his wonderful creation.

THERE was pretty universal delight last weekend to witness the release at last from captivity in Iran of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to be reunited with her husband and daughter. But was this really a diplomatic triumph or a grudging sell-out?

KEMI Badenoch MP says school children should be taught a "balanced" view of the British Empire: not before blimmin' time.