It seemed rather pointless of Jeremy Paxman to badger Tony Blair last week on how many illegal immigrants there are in Britain. If they are all illegal, how could anyone possibly know how many there are?
In this same sterile debate, the Conservatives talk about the importance of defending Britain's borders. They do not seem to have noticed that this country is surrounded by sea and, therefore, cannot possibly be protected, unless they want to build a Sharonstyle wall all round the coast.
With his ill-judged attempt to badger Blair over the question of the illegal immigrants, Paxman let him get away with some fresh lies about the Iraq story. Asked about the suicide of Dr David Kelly, Blair replied that it was 'a terrible, terrible thing', adding that he had had no option but to disclose Kelly's name, something he has always claimed he had nothing to do with. 'I think, had we failed to do so, that would have been seen as attempting to conceal something from the committee that was looking into this at the time.'
Blair knows perfectly well that this is nonsense. The only reason for bringing Kelly out into the open was to satisfy Alastair Campbell's crazy desire to get his revenge on the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan. Blair should have stood up to him but instead feebly connived with his scheme to drop so many hints to the press that Kelly's name would be bound to come out.
It would have been nice if Blair had been put on the spot over all this, as well as being asked why Campbell was now allowed back into Number 10. It might have made for rather more interesting viewing than a pointless debate about illegal immigrants.
I'm on the train
I think I may be a dromomaniac. In an interesting survey of some of the more obscure addictions that may affect us, my friend Dr Thomas Stuttaford mentions one that is new to me - dromomania. The doctor writes: 'People with dromomania have an intermittent compulsion to travel and get relief from the increasing sense of tension at home and office only once they are on their next journey.'
I would have to admit that I do experience such intense pleasure, for example, leaving the office and sinking into the back of a London taxi or even, for that matter, heading off from home down the road in my own modest little vehicle. Is this something to do not just with the pleasure of motion but of being, for a short time at least, totally cut off from the outside world?
If so, it no longer applies to train journeys. Those of us who have a financial rather than an addictive compulsion to travel on trains used to experience that relief from tension of which Doctor Stuttaford speaks, but now, since the invention of the mobile phone, no longer.
We dromomaniacs may have our problems, but can they compare with the sad condition, as yet without a name, of those who cannot endure silence and peaceful inactivity for a single second but have to be in contact with friends or business colleagues either by phone or text? You can see these pathetic little people clutching their mobiles with the same crazy kind of tension that a drunk hangs on to his tumbler of gin. How long can medical science ignore what is plainly a dangerous illness, compared to which, dromomania seems a mere harmless form of eccentricity?
Twins' pique
How to account for the massive coverage given to the election of the new Pope and the death of his predecessor, John Paul II? This is not, after all, a Catholic country and, according to the statisticians, is not even a Christian one. We are told every day that we now live in a secular society.
One possible reason is that although few people may have strong religious feelings, a great many more have strong anti-religious feelings, just as powerful and obsessive as the religious equivalent. Hence the many, often ferocious, attacks on the new Pope last week by people who have never set foot in a church.
On the other side, the reason for the Daily Telegraph's more devotional approach is not hard to find. The new owners of the paper, the reclusive Barclay twins, are Roman Catholics, as is the editor of the paper, Martin Newland, as was the man who appointed him, the previous proprietor, Conrad Black, now facing possibly prosecution for fraud in the US.
Catholicism is not the only thing the Barclays share with the ill-fated Black. Like him, they are keen litigants, obsessively concerned to protect not just their privacy but their reputations. Last week, they took the very unusual step of suing their rival newspaper, the Times, only in the French courts, where the editor faces what is, in effect, a criminal charge for publishing an allegedly libellous article about the Barclays' business.
Perhaps because of their reclusive life on one of the more isolated Channel Islands, the Barclays may not have grasped the incongruity of objecting to invasion of privacy while at the same time making money out of newspapers that do the very same sort of thing all the time.
Nor do they seem to realise the folly of resorting to law when they have the means and the money to answer their critics in the pages of the Telegraph.