Rob a shop in Britain and you might get away with it but drive over 20mph and you’re done for – the message is clear

EVERY summer, to escape the savage desert heat, a group of extremely wealthy young men from the Middle East load themselves and their snazzy supercars into a series of planes and head over to London. It’s quite a spectacle, watching them all prowl around the capital’s streets, and many people enjoy it. Small boys jump up and down and snatch at their tinkles. 120 officers were mobilised in London to seize a raft of Ferraris and Lamborghinis worth £8million… those of a Liberal Democrat persuasion hate rich people and they hate cars Credit: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire If you have a shop that’s just been targeted, the police certainly won’t mobilise a squadron of 120 officers to find the perp Credit: Getty Images Instagram influencers queue up for selfies. And car enthusiasts swoon at this extraordinary parade of art, noise and power. Unfortunately, those of a Liberal Democrat persuasion don’t like the spectacle one little bit. They hate rich people and they hate cars. So a handful of these Birkenstock, vegan people complained to the police who, these days, are trained to hate rich people and cars as well. The response was enormous. A staggering 120 officers were mobilised. Nigel Farage didn’t even get a handful after someone pushed an incendiary device through his letterbox. But to deal with some nice cars, they mobilised such a vast army of tooled-up law enforcement officers that within a matter of hours, they had confiscated a raft of Ferraris and Lamborghinis worth a whopping £8million. Fines. Court appearances and maybe a bit of prison time will no doubt be forthcoming. This week, a spokesman for the force said they were sick of foreigners treating the capital like a race track. I find this interesting because the wealthy foreigners who bring these cars to London every August are basically attaching a leaf blower to the gates of the capital and showering us with cash. They spend a fortune in hotels and restaurants and (whisper this) bars. And what we have made very clear with that enormous police response is: Go away. Now let’s compare and contrast this to the sort of people who come to London from other hot bits of the world. And spend no money at all. Call the police and tell them one of them has stolen your mobile phone as you walked down the street, and in all probability, they’ll call you a racist. They certainly won’t mobilise a squadron of 120 officers to find the perp. And if you have a shop that’s just been targeted by a gang of balaclava people with pick axe handles, it’ll be the same story. And it’s not just the police either. The deputy leader of Westminster Council, Caroline Sargent, said: “People who think it’s acceptable to drive illegally in Westminster are not welcome here.” Really? So anyone who breaks the 20mph speed limit has to sell up and leave? On that basis, Lynda La Plante, who lost her licence recently for doing 24mph, must pack up and spend the rest of her life, like Napoleon did, on a rock in the South Atlantic. That seems a bit strong. But whatever, the message is clear. If you come to London with a lot of money, you have to turn straight round and go home. If you come with nothing, you can do whatever you like, and the police simply won’t be interested. Unless you drive the car we give you at 24mph. Then you’ll be in all sorts of trouble. I KEEP being told that hydrogen will never be the fuel of the future. It’s too expensive to make, too difficult to transport and too impractical. This JCB car speared across the salt flats in America at 406mph Credit: ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock But this week, I watched that JCB car spearing across the salt flats in America at 406mph, and I thought, “Yes. Hydrogen is difficult. But there’s a vehicle, powered by normal, internal combustion, and all that’s coming out of the exhaust is water.” As JF Kennedy once said: “We choose to go to the moon and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” AXING BBQ IS DAFT Glorious leader Andy Burnham has decided the real thing that causes wild fires during a heatwave is the disposable barbecue Credit: Splash THERE are many things that cause wild fires during a heatwave. Faulty farm machinery, discarded cigarette ends, bored kids who think it might be a laugh to get a blaze going, and even a bit of broken glass. But our glorious leader, T-Shirt Burnham, has decided the real problem is the disposable barbecue. Of course he has. And now he has banned them. Of course he has. That’s standard practice for the Labourites. People are out in the sunshine, cooking up a couple of sausages and having fun. We can’t have that. Let’s ban it. WATCH ZACK LEG IT The greatest running scene I’ve ever witnessed is Zack Polanski arriving excitedly at a Green Party event last year Credit: Getty SOMEBODY on social media has compiled a list of the best “running” scenes we’ve ever witnessed. Naturally, Tom Cruise’s on-foot chases from the Mission Impossible franchise are on there, as is Tom Hanks’ Trans-America slog from Forrest Gump. Other notables are Daniel Day-Lewis, whizzing through the woods in Last Of The Mohicans, and the T-1000 chasing a car in Terminator 2. Interestingly, however, the guy who compiled this list has not included the greatest running scene I’ve ever witnessed: Zack Polanski arriving excitedly at a Green Party event last year. There’s a GIF online. Check it out. You won’t regret it. ROD BORES ARE GREEN LIKE HIS LAWNS… WITH ENVY An aerial photograph of the lush green lawns outside Rod Stewart’s sprawling mansion in Essex Credit: JOHN McLELLAN But the nation’s bitter people asked: ‘How did you manage that, mate, when there’s a hosepipe ban in force?’ Credit: Getty AN aerial photograph of the lush green lawns outside Rod Stewart’s sprawling mansion in Essex prompted the nation’s bitter people to ask: “How did you manage that, mate, when there’s a hosepipe ban in force?” Well, let’s think. Could it be, perhaps, that Rod, here with wife Penny, probably has a borehole? It’s not a difficult concept to get your head round. You dig a hole maybe 100 metres down into the ground, put a pump in it and water comes out. Water that’s not subjected to any kind of government interference. That’s what we did at my pub, which is why the lawns there are also weirdly verdant. IT’S NOT END OF WORLD WE were all warned by the scientific masterpiece that is the movie 2012 that, when climate change arrives, it will be sudden and catastrophic. And so, according to the hysterical doom mongers at BBC News, it’s turning out to be. Last summer was hot, and this one’s even hotter and so that’s that. It’s time to move immediately to a cave and beat yourself to sleep every night with twigs. But hang on a minute. We know, because Aristotle told us thousands of years ago, that one swallow does not make a summer. So surely it stands to reason that two summers do not constitute an extinction-level event. Let’s just wait and see what happens next year. My bet is that things return to normal. PIECE TIME Jeremy had a crack at doing this thousand-piece jigsaws, which feature a scene of Diddly Squat Credit: Unknown PEOPLE of my age watch kids spending hour after hour doomscrolling on TikTok and we roll our eyes in despair. Yes, but we’ve just started selling thousand-piece jigsaws, which feature a scene of Diddly Squat. And last weekend I thought I’d have a crack at doing one. And the next thing I knew, it was Thursday. Mealtimes came and went. The inner wine gong sounded, and I never even heard it. The dogs whimpered when they needed feeding and I didn’t hear them. I was consumed by the relentless need to find the next piece and then the next one, which has a bit of blue on it and a bit of a wellington. And when I finished it, I broke it up into its component parts and put it back in the box. At least when you doomscroll, there’s a vague chance you might learn something. With an olde-world, boomer-time jigsaw, there isn’t.