HERE we go again -- bash the motorist. The government is proposing that drivers caught doing more than 30 mph over the speed limit can be jailed -- to reduce the estimated 2,000 road deaths a year caused by excessive speeding. Yet, the government's own research has found that excessive speeding was a factor in just four per cent of road accidents. Isn't what we are talking about here is more harassment of a soft target by police who could far better occupy their time harassing real villains?

Still on cars, there's no surprise in the finding of Japanese research that at the head of a tailback of traffic, you'll find a caravan driver causing 'waves' of congestion behind him as he slows down to struggle uphill. But since these sorts are a pest on the roads and the begetters of an environmental blight when they are stationary, isn't it time that their nuisance 'vans' were taxed -- to the point of discouragement?

What's the reason that the government has dropped plans to make visitors from the Indian sub-continent pay a bond of up to £10,000 to enter Britain -- which would be forfeited if they failed to leave by a set date -- when, we are told, the scheme is to apply to tourists from North Africa instead? Could it be that there are fewer voters of North African origin in this country than of Asian origin -- though the alleged abuse of the temporary visa scheme is common to visitors from both parts of the world?

'Like it or not' our future is in Europe, minister Peter Mandelson warns. But what if the majority of people don't like it? Are we to take it that Euro-groupies like Mr Mandelson feel free to ignore the majority and will immerse us deeper into a federal Europe because they imagine they know better what's best for us? For that's what this like-it-or-not talk sounds like.