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A sinister snigger at the prospect of life without the Daily Hate

ATTILA THE STOCKBROKER muses over the thought of a world without the Daily Mail

In the name of press freedom - let's shut the Daily Mail.

Whenever I hear the likes of its editor Paul Dacre whining about "government interference in the freedom of the press" I always permit myself a sinister laugh.

Surely true "freedom of the press" in a modern democracy should imply some kind of equal representation of different views? At the moment, as we all know, we have a massive imbalance in favour of the right in the press in this country.

But I've got an idea. For the sake of true press freedom, let's have a cull.

Give the Tories the Telegraph and the Times, Labour the Guardian - sometimes - and the Mirror, the Lib Dems the Independent and we, of course, can have our beloved Morning Star. The rest should be shut down in the name of British intelligence. I've been working for British intelligence for years, and I'm still rather worried that there doesn't seem to be enough of it about.

Not only would it be better for democracy, the health and general good temper of the population would surely improve as well.

Former readers of the Daily Mail would straightaway find their immediate environment far less carcinogenic and would hopefully no longer feel the need to double-lock their conservatories from the inside against hordes of imaginary dole-scrounging, Cliff Richard-hating asylum-seeking squatters.

Ex-Express readers could just LIVE in their houses rather than worrying about how much they're worth from one second to the next. And former Sun and Daily Star readers could just switch to Viz. Yes, that's right, it's a comic. So no change there then.

A very rare trip to the theatre last week to see my favourite play ever, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, brought to life last week by our local Wick Theatre Company. A magnificent performance by all concerned and a big up to Bob Ryder for his portrayal of the messed up, rambling, self-deluding Willy Loman, sucked dry and spat out by the "American Dream" around which he had built his life.

Then to London for a benefit for the long-running activist magazine Peace News in the company of sharp Welsh singer-songwriter Tracey Curtis and the Songlines Choir.

"That was a very aggressive performance," my wife said afterwards as we were driving home. That's as maybe but it went down very well and the Songlines Choir's backing vocals on my song Prince Harry's Knob were lovely.

Last Monday I was at the Ropetackle Centre in Shoreham performing my epic poem Goldstone Ghosts as part of an evening to celebrate the building of Brighton and Hove Albion's new training ground and football academy, which will open next summer. Apparently, the new buzzword acronym at the club is "PLR" which stands for "Premier League Ready," but with all our strikers out injured the Premier League seems a long way off right now.

And, of course, the other buzzword doing the rounds in football at the moment is FFP, Financial Fair Play. As small clubs go out of business with debts which add up to less than one week's wages for a top Premiership player and Coventry City, "owned" by a hedge fund, play their "home" games at Northampton, something needs to be done.

But it'll take a lot more than a snappy acronym to change the face of modern football.

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