War and Peace.
I rather hope that the recent story about Sir Paul McCartney is true. For those who don't know what I mean, I refer to the incident in which he is alleged to have become involved in a scuffle on Tower Bridge on a visit to see David Blaine.

As I teenager, the political issue that I felt about most strongly was nuclear deterrence. I hated the CND with a passion. I could not understand how people could be so breathtakingly naive as to think that destroying ones own weapons would lead to greater security, when the history of WW2 had shown that Britain's military weakness in the inter-war years had almost cost us the war. The loudest voice for disarmament in my school was a boy named Matthew Leigh. We argued about it many times. He also played chess for the school, as did I. One day, during a game, I said that if he sacrificed his strongest weapon by needlessly losing his queen, I would offer him a draw. He declined.

McCartney has spent much of his time since the end of the Beatles writing dismal songs about 'peace'. He did so in an era when the Soviet Union was like a prison to much of its population, was holding the citizens of Central Europe captive within its orbit and was fighting a bitter war in Afghanistan, while all the time pointing nuclear weapons at us. None of this provoked McCartney to say that Britain should retain the right to use nuclear force.

But when a photographer wanted to take his picture on a night out, he was goaded beyond endurance and, according to reports, pushed the photographer in the chest shoving him to the ground.

Perhaps he needs to see a threat to his freedom right in front of his eyes before he recognises that sometimes force must be used.