Let's reclaim the swastika in the name of love

A conversation I had with a Jewish friend last week. Me: "Well why does Ariel Sharon think he can get away with it?" Him: "What you forget is that the State of Israel is surrounded by people hostile towards it." Me: "Yes but by driving in with tanks, surely he's only provoking people?" Him: "It's not as simple as that." Well I say it is. Killing is killing and it's wrong. And I'd say as much to Mr Sharon myself. So if you're reading this, Ariel, can I suggest you rethink your strategy because I for one can't see how it will work.

But it's bad isn't it? Just this week some thugs broke into a synagogue in London and daubed the lecturn with a swastika. Quite rightly, people of all faiths have condemned this cowardly act including the minister of fibs himself Stephen Byers. But what a lot of people don't realise is that the swastika is one of the oldest symbols in the world, with even the Egyptians using it to mean love, life and all sorts of other positive things. What I say is that if we want to show these thugs up for what they really are, why don't we reclaim the swastika back from the Nazis? Put them up in all churches, mosques and synagogues. Then we'd quickly see the back of these awful people.

I always try to start my sentences with the word "I". It's not because, as some have suggested, that I have some overwhelming opinion of myself, I don't, it's just that I believe in being honest with people. There's nothing worse than reading something and then you suddenly realise it's all basically just someone's opinion but pretending to be objective. Next time you pick up a newspaper, try it. The columnists are the worst. One national columnist, whose name shall go unmentioned, had just five "I"s in their column last week but the entire piece was basically their opinion. It's just not honest.

And talking about honesty. Tony Blair claims to have opened up the government to closer scrutiny by getting rid of the lobby system for special hacks. Well, while I have always hated the exclusive club of lobby journalists, opening up the system like this is such a blatant example of control freakery by trying to water down the chance for people like myself to get a word in, that I'm amazed Parliament hasn't had a debate on it. It should. And yes, you can take that as me putting the first name down on a petition.