These days, though...

These days, though, there seems to be a new and cynical news management system allowing vital information to seep out from the back door at predictable times of trouble. What, for example, was the one and only story on the front page of The Times on 5 November after possibly the worst week of Tony Blair"s political life? A huge article about the advance of speed cameras being abandoned and a promise that they will no longer be used as revenue-raising devices. Nothing like feeding millions of car-driving voters a few scraps of comfort to get them back on side, is there?

Sky News rang and asked if I"d like to drive to its studios to comment on the proposals, and I agreed - as long as I had time to grab a copy of The Times and absorb the story before I went on air. As I stopped at a forecourt shop to buy the paper - with its "March of speed cameras halted" headline - I also spotted the front of a local rag which read "Seven new cameras on the way!" One minute we"re told the "cash for cameras" scheme under which police forces keep a proportion of fines to pay for more Gatsos is to be abolished; the next, a credible local paper not only warns of plans for additional speed traps on its patch, but states exactly where they will be.

So which of these messages are we to believe? All I can tell you is that Lincolnshire has done the nation a big favour by concluding that spending less on cameras really does reduce road deaths. Consequently, the red-faced Government has no choice but to use Lincs as the model for its new approach to speed enforcement, as the county has exploded the myth that the only way to cut road deaths is to put up more Gatsos.

There"s further evidence that even if you give the police clear evidence of someone deliberately damaging your car, nothing will happen. I discovered this when I saw a yob destroy the windscreen of my parked motor, detained him until the officers arrived, identified him as the vandal in a crystal-clear statement... only to be told the hopeless Crown Prosecution Service would take "no action" against the little vandal.

Gordon Cogger of Canvey Island, Essex, captured thugs trashing his car on CCTV, and gave the tape to police. The footage was pin-sharp and the criminals easily identifiable. Yet the CPS won"t prosecute them due to a "lack of evidence". It should now be in the dock facing charges of perverting the course of justice. Yes, I am absolutely serious.