LIKE many other people, I’m at a loss to understand what Health Minister Jimmy Perchard thought he’d achieve by denigrating the unfortunate individuals who suffer from mental health problems with his reference in his recent diatribe on so-called cyber bullies to the ‘mentally retarded’.

I think I’m being generous when I say that such a phrase being used by someone holding the ministerial office he does was extremely unfortunate to say the very least.

If Senator Perchard wants to know what real bullying means – bullying that is impossible to avoid because it happens in the workplace, whereas cyber bullying can be ignored and disposed of at the press of a button – he should instead have read the graphic account of former States Police officer Chris Holmes.

Mr Holmes, of whom I know only what I have read in this newspaper, had the courage not only to report three of his colleagues for unlawful activities but also to give evidence at the trial at which they were convicted and jailed.

I have no idea what Senator Perchard was on about – perhaps the waters would be less muddy if he’d actually told us – but several people have suggested that he has been the subject of criticism on what are apparently called internet blogs and this is the reason for his somewhat abstract attack.

If that is the case then it really is time he grew up politically. I know of one of that lot in the Big House who, perhaps because he’s a fairly high profile politician, has been subjected to all sorts of nonsense from anonymous (naturally) critics, and all that for a far longer period of time than internet blogs have become the vogue.

His home has been targeted and one of his children once had a pint of beer poured over them in a pub for the serious crime of being a politician’s child. No doubt Senator Perchard will suggest that two wrongs will never make a right and he’s absolutely correct.

However, as I pointed out earlier, there is the world of difference between getting often intemperate and even unfair criticism on a screen that can be cleared at the press of a button and being subjected to what Chris Holmes faced at Police Headquarters – so much that he and his now wife (also a serving police officer) upped sticks and moved just about as far away from here as it’s possible to get.

What is a mite worrying about his case (and the others if the comments on his account are anything to go by) is that, so far at least, there’s been not a word about an official inquiry from either Police Headquarters or the Home Affairs minister.

Why not?

I watched Gordon Brown the other afternoon giving his address to a joint session of the United States Congress in Washington.

Leaving to one side the fact that, by and large, he told American politicians pretty much what they wanted to hear, there was one aspect of his speech which sent those worrying shivers down my spine and that was his reference to offshore tax havens.

Whether he was simply pandering to President Barack Obama’s criticism of tax havens during the American election campaign or jumping on the latest British bandwagon – that of the Trades Union Congress, which last week urged his government to clamp down on ‘tax havens’ such as the Crown Dependencies – only he knows but perhaps he should talk to his erstwhile banking friends in the City of London.

They might well tell him that most of the money invested in these islands actually finds its way to the City where it is probably used for the very sort of inward investment in British goods and services that he has spent the last few months pleading for.

I’m old enough to remember when Mr Brown’s Labour Party made similar claims many years ago about the UK Treasury losing millions and millions of pounds to places like Jersey and they even despatched a couple of fact finding posses – our old friend George (now Lord) Foulkes was among them.

Eventually, the then General Secretary of the Labour Party – one Ron Hayward, if my memory is still functioning properly – admitted that precious little research had been done and it was very much a ‘back of a cigarette packet’ calculation.

It always strikes me as significant that once the Labour Party moved from opposition to the gravy train known as government, the attacks on places like this either eased off or disappeared altogether, until, that is, something like the present financial crisis hits them and then, having found themselves in the mire, instead of trying to get themselves out, they simply do their utmost to ensure that everyone joins them by slinging mud in all directions.

And finally … As the world and his brother knows, I make no secret of the fact that I like a slug or three of Calvados, albeit only for medicinal purposes so that I continue to be aware of those days which have a ‘y’ in them.

As you can imagine, I did not take too kindly to the suggestion by the Medical Officer of Health that in order to limit alcohol consumption the price should be increased.

Let me tell Uri Geller’s sister Rosemary that jacking the price up is unlikely to deter many, if any, of those who like their drink. Instead it will do two things. It will encourage those who can’t afford it to buy cheaper stuff and as Dr Geller knows, it’s not that great a step down between that and meths or even paint stripper.

Secondly, for those who can afford it, it will simply mean that their weekend trips in their fibreglass gin palaces to ports on the adjacent French coast will become that much more frequent.
As it is, you often can’t move for booze crates at the marinas and the east coast ports late on Sunday afternoons in the summer.