Sir Ian Blair should think himself lucky. Rather than gently easing him out of his job, Boris Johnson could have left Sir Ian there to sweat out an inquiry into how lucrative police contracts were awarded to one of his friends

Now he's no longer in post, Sir Ian will not face the possibility of disciplinary proceedings over the 'cash for cronies' saga. Neither will he be there to face the cameras when the results of the inquest into the death of an innocent Brazilian resident of our capital are made known.

Jacqui Smith was quick to introduce politics into the arena, telling Boris publicly he should keep party politics out of policing without explaining precisely which Tory policy he was propogating.

In a decent world the Scotland Yard commissioner would have jumped before he was pushed. The buck has to stop somewhere and when you're the top man at Scotland Yard it stops with you.

Whoever was ultimately responsible for the tragic events that lead to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes on that tube train in 2005, it should have been Ian Blair who shouldered the blame and made an honourable exit.

First, Sir Ian hailed the police action as a great success, even though within Scotland Yard it seems to have been known that an innocent man had been killed. Maybe nobody bothered to tell Sir Ian.

And then from police sources came a succession of untruths about the events of that fateful morning and suggestions that cast doubt on the character of the innocent, now dead, Brazilian.

How painful must that have been for his grieving family. This was a young man who did not vault over a turnstile, was not wearing a bulky jacket with wires sticking out of it and whose picture, it has since been claimed, was computer enhanced for publication to make him look more like a known and wanted suspected terrorist.

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W.C. Fields, the early 20th century American misanthrope and actor, famously hated children. He is quoted as saying, 'Children should neither be seen or heard from - ever again'. He also said, 'I like children. If they are properly cooked.'

He'd have had a feast in Southwark, where about 400 children have been recruited to form a vigilante group, charged with spying on their elders and reporting perceived misdemeanours.

It is reported that Ealing council presides over 'hundreds of Junior Streetwatchers, aged eight to 10 years, trained to identify and report environment crimes'. This lot have even been given a name. Will they be fitted out for uniforms next!

This is not only a disgusting abuse of children; it is extremely dangerous. There is no-one more spiteful or vitriolic than a small girl with a grudge. Ask anyone who's ever been a small girl!

Some authorities are even offering money in exchange for information.

Have they never read Lord of the Flies, where a group of boys stranded and alone quickly turned into a bunch of savages? Or even the William books? William and the Outlaws would have had a ball 'reporting' their adult adversaries, especially if there was a shilling to be made in the process.

There are perfectly respectable youth groups - cubs, brownies, scouts, guides, a plethora of cadet corps - who would be only too pleased to organise themselves into graffiti cleaning or litter-picking work parties and whose leaders would blanche and run a mile at the prospect of 'telling' on the perpetrator.

Little kids in London calling a number keyed into their mobile phones to tell a disembodied voice their least favourite neighbour had put grey-bin rubbish in the green bin may seem a far cry from what happened in Germany in the thirties or in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, but from tiny acorns, mighty oaks do grow.

Take away moral restraint from a generation of children, introduce money into the equation, give children the impression they are doing a civic duty and you'll have them reporting queue-jumping grannies.

Let's leave children alone to play and to interact with one another and with the adult world around them. They shouldn't be made to feel obliged to save the earth or burdened with keeping the rest of us in line.

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It must be very confusing to be a child today.  Am I too fat?  Am I too thin? Do I play enough sport? Do I use my lap top enough? Do I even have a lap top?

Well, in the Government's idealised view of the world, yes, you will have a lap top; every single one of you.

But in the real world, only children whose parents are in the unfortunate position of needing to be financially topped up by the state are certain to have their own broadband lap top, after Channel 4 News reported that the Department for Children, Schools and Families plans to hand out computers to the poorest children.

Most children live in homes where parents are obliged make choices about where to spend their hard earned income.  For them, lap tops with broadband might not be a high priority, weighed against regular trips to the Natural History Museum or the Science Museum, or a family holiday in Cornwall, or even, these days, paying the gas bill.

As one London borough threatens to take fat kids into care on the grounds that overfeeding your child is cruelty on the same level as starving it, another local authority, this time in Nottinghamshire, is threatening to arrest and fine children up to £100 each if they play cricket, tennis or football in the street.

As a child I left my house after breakfast in the school holidays and returned when I was hungry, round about  tea time.  We played on bomb sites, in the local park, or in the street.  If we had an old sixpence we took a bus to the library where there were no computers but lots of wonderful books to borrow. None of us was fat and non-one was abused by a stranger.

Twenty years ago, the next generation of my family took themselves off to play in the street. If they felt the need,  they cycled or walked to the library, where books were still plentiful and free.  Those were the days when computers were the size of the average kitchen and only seen on the set of Dr Who.

Today there are fewer books but more technology in libraries, but they are still free and open to every child in the land.  Getting there implies a bit of physical effort but that can't be bad for today's poor kids who on the one hand can't play in the street, and on the other are threatened with banishment from their homes for being overweight.

If the government is going to give out laptops with broadband it should not discriminate.  Give one to every child and then stop complaining about kids today being fat.  What do you expect them to be, sitting on their bottoms from dawn to dusk, staring at a screen?

But better by far, Mr Balls, give every child a library ticket. There are computers galore in our local library and who knows, a new generation of children might, because they are curious by nature, pick up a book and  discover the immeasurable pleasure of holding and smelling it.

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How foolish of Tessa Jowell, our Olympics Minister, to boast London will put on the greatest games ever, even if she did qualify it with the slightly onimous phrase, 'in our own way'.

She must have seen the breathtaking spectacle the Chinese had just broadcast to the world from the 90,000 capacity Beijing National Stadium.  What on earth made her think that topping that was the way to go?

The UK is not out to prove to the world we are an emerging  power whose economic might deserves grudging respect.  We've had our day as empire builders; we are the old world - and nothing wrong with that.  Witness the number of flags in yesterday's parade that had a Union Jack incorporated in one corner.

Today, London is a magnificent, multinational city that welcomes the world and his wife to its bosom.  The mixture of races, traditions, attitudes and culinary specialities is what gives our capital its vibrancy; it's why stepping off a train at Kings Cross Station and joining the noisy throng of Londoners is always a thrill.

We don't have to spend millions on fireworks or put on synchronised dance or music using a cast of housands, to show the world we can do things efficiently and - more pertinently - to the huge benefit of participants and ordinary people who aspire to be fit and healthy through sport.

The Olympic movement has its detractors.  There's been the unpleasant suggestion that exotic gifts might have influenced the choice of venue in former times, not to mention the doping and drugs scandals that have dogged the games and continue to do so in 2008. 

London could set new standards that restore the Olympic ideal of achievement through endeavour.  Forget the razzamataz, there's no way London will outshine the Beijing Spectacular, and why should we want to? The buck has to stop somewhere.

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There's something of the infants' teacher in the tone of voice currently employed by women ministers and junior ministers of state which is extremely annoying to adults. It would be invidious to name names, but they will know who they are.

Please, Ms Minister, imagine me seated at my kitchen table, having just completed the Daily Telegraph codeword and half way through the day's 'moderate' sudoku, wondering whether to put the kettle on or dig out the reusable carrier bags and do a bit of food shopping, before you adopt that slightly exasperated, do-I-have-to-say -this-again tone.

Maybe I have more imagination than you, but I see you, your head on one side, leaning forward kindly towards the microphone - which is in effect me and the several million other listeners to the Today programme - with a resigned smile, telling us why we should be happy or at least not so complaining about the latest nonsense your Department is defending.

For the record, Ms Minister, if you were sitting across my kitchen table from me, telling me face to face the things you are attempting to tell me through the medium of radio, my guess is you would use a normal tone; that you would talk to me as an equal, that you would be keen to earn my respect and convince me through rational discussion.

Why let John Humphrys get between you and that lofty ideal. Just speak to me nicely, is all I ask, and I might listen and be convinced.

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