I recently got invited out to my pal Roger’s villa in Spain for a long weekend – mainly for ‘high level international business talks’, but there was a fair bit of R&R chucked in.

Great, I thought. No kids, no wife and little luggage, I’d be a 55-year-old free spirit.

I arrived at Manchester airport and then it hit me I’d forgotten the dreaded airport security. The care-free traveller soon turned into a bear with a sore head as I joined the sweaty, shuffling, snaking queue and found myself shouted at by little dictators obsessing about liquids and the right-sized plastic bags.

Next I was nearly stripped naked while my bag whizzed through an X-ray machine.

Who in a million years would think that two middle-aged, middle-class blokes like Roger and I could be potential suicide bombers? Why are we going through this charade?

In my opinion it’s political correctness gone mad and a classic example of the Liberal lawmakers attempting to force multiculturalism on us.

What really needs to be introduced is positive vetting at airports. Instead, every time there’s an incident, politicians and ‘security experts’ run around like headless chickens introducing ever more draconian measures. In the States they are talking about no one using the loo an hour before landing! Boy, there will be some crossed legs about.

Positive vetting would do away with much of this. If they want to introduce micro-chips for human beings, I’d be the first in the line for one if it meant I no longer had to queue.

Back to my high level transactions on the Costas, we had an interesting meeting with Choppy the Spanish builder, Walter the Austrian estate agent, Eddy the Serbian pool builder and the likely lads from Rossendale.

All ended amicably and we all agreed what a wonderful world it would be if negotiation was left to ordinary blokes now and again, rather than career orientated panjandrums.