Recently by George Tyndale

RELATIVES of Ronnie Biggs say that the release of the Great Train robber will make a big 'spiritual' difference to the family.

Well, that's nice.

I'm sure that the family of train driver Jack Mills, who never recovered from being beaten up during the 1963 robbery, will be delighted.

Mr Mills, you may recall, was 58 at the time of the attack.

He was battered with the handle of an axe, and handcuffed.

He never returned to work. In 1970 he died of leukaemia.

Biggs was handed a 30-year sentence but escaped after 15 months and went on the run for more than 30 years.

The vicious thug lived the high life in Australia and Brazil, held up two fingers to Britain and was treated like a VIP when he decided to come back for free medical treatment in a stunt engineered by The Sun.

Now he is all over the national news, thanks to Justice Secretary Jack Straw's shameful U-turn.

After previously blocking the release, saying that Biggs had shown no remorse, Mr Straw decided to let the robber go on "compassionate grounds" - because he is frail and suffering from pneumonia.

Michael Biggs says his father has expressed regret for the robbery, but does not regret "living the life he had".

Jack Mills, of course, has been all but forgotten in the mass hysteria.

He did not have chance to live the life he might have had.

THEY say there is no fool like an old fool.

Certainly, there is no fool like an old football manager.

Ron Atkinson, the former West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa coach, did not win many friends when he unwisely uttered remarks about black footballer Marcel Desailly live on television.

The Cafe Latte society immediately labelled him a racist.

This despite the fact that he has been instrumental in encouraging black footballers throughout his career.

Now you might think that the old adage 'once bitten, twice shy' is sensible.

Not Atkinson.

He agreed to appear in a forthcoming fractious episode of Channel Four's Celebrity Wife Swap, which will be aired next month.

The Conservatives want to launch dozens of new TV stations across the nation to broadcast local news.

Why?

If existing regional TV news programmes have any useful function at all it is to demonstrate that television is totally ill-suited to localised news.

In some areas both BBC and ITV regional news is little better than a joke.

And even at this level ITV says it can no longer afford to produce and transmit the service.

Which is why the Government wants to slice £80 million a year off the cash received by the BBC from licence payers in order to keep ITV regional news on air.

There are more than a million unemployed people in this country who have not worked a day since New Labour came to power twelve years ago.

The best part of another two million have been without work for seven years or more.

There are any number of explanations for these bleak statistics just revealed by the Department of Work and Pensions.

Some of the jobless are, of course, simply bone-idle and enjoy sitting on their backsides while living off the rest of us.

Ronnie Biggs is a despicable old crook who deserves to die in prison.

But Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision to ensure he does just that poses one very large question.

What about the rest of them?

Biggs was given 30 years for his part in the Great Train Robbery back in the Sixties.

The irony is that under our laughable parole system all he had to do was behave himself, say he was sorry and in 10 years he would have walked free.

That would have been a quarter of a century ago.

Dismay and hostility has surrounded the appointment of the new Speaker of the House of Commons.

Which overlooks a crucial point.

John Bercow says he wants to be the face of the House.

Which makes him the perfect choice.

Read on to find out just why ...

The Home Office is inviting us to be shocked and amazed that the number of women fined for being drunk and disorderly has risen by a third in the past three years.

What we should be outraged about is that the numbers aren't even HIGHER.

The statistics show that total number of females who paid a penalty for being legless reached just 7,930 in twelve months.

That's a mere 21 a night for the entire nation.

An enthusiastic young copper could find that many female drunks in any town centre on any Friday night.

Boys as young as 12 are to be given "condom cards" so that they can pick up free contraceptives.

We are all supposed to be taking our share of the blame for the TV abuse that has left Susan Boyle in a luxury psychiatric unit.

Well, hang on a minute.

Seventeen million people watched the final of Britain's Got Talent and maybe they should cop for a twinge of conscience for their part in the most spectacularly profitable freak show ever staged.

And, of course, you can add in Gordon Brown who shamelessly attempted to use the plight of the collapsed 48 year-old virgin spinster in a an utterly hopeless attempt to demonstrate that he is human and is in touch with popular concerns.

Barack Obama has now twice invited Subo to Washington. And, for that matter, her brother Gerry who relentlessly pops up to fuel the media frenzy.

But 43 million of us didn't watch the programme.

We certainly did not invite, cajole or encourage any of the contestants to take part.

In any case, the glare of publicity and the demands of celebrity are exactly what these people wanted when they filled in their application forms, wasn't it?

Just look at Rachel Rice, last year's winner of Big Brother.

She is now in the hands of an agency which is advertising her availability for parties and promotions at £500 a time.

What she wouldn't give for the kind of pressure and attention that leads to a couple of nights in The Priory.

A quarter of all violent attacks are now carried out by women.

Every day 240 females are arrested for violent attacks.

We are supposed to be shocked by these new Home Office statistics.

But why?

Obviously what we are witnessing here are women demonstrating some long-hidden natural inclinations.