Andrew Neil

I was scheduled to have dinner with Martha Stewart, America's very own domestic goddess, in London next week -- but not any more. She was due to arrive for an extended visit to the UK this weekend. But the Home Office has refused her application for a visa, presumably because of the time she spent in the slammer in America for a cover up over insider dealing.   The Home Office tells me that the government "opposes the entry of individuals to the UK where their presence is not conducive to the public good or where they have been found guilty of serious criminal offences abroad.”   Obviously, this American celebrity cook and home-maker is more of a danger to national security than Abu-Qatada or the many other jihad-loving, democracy-hating mullahs still in our midst.

To Liverpool to chair the annual conference of the British Chambers of Commerce, stout yeomen of the country’s small- to medium-sized businesses. I’ll let the train take the strain, I thought, and burnish my green credentials, even though I planned to travel on a Sunday, which meant the normal two-and-a-half-hour trip would take an extra hour. In fact, it was my wallet which felt the strain first: Richard Branson’s Virgin charged me £320 for the privilege of a first-class return from London, an obscene amount of money for a modest train ride. (I can fly business class to Nice and back for less!) Undaunted, I arrived at Euston in plenty of time for a 4 p.m. departure. That’s when it all went pear-shaped.

New York's famed zero-tolerance approach to crime continues to work its magic. This year murders are on track to fall below 500 for the first time since reliable records began 44 years ago.   As of Boxing Day, 484 murders had been recorded in the city during 2007, by far the lowest number since 1963, when there were 548. Before zero tolerance was implemented, New York City murders peaked at an incredible 2,245 in 1990. In other words tough and targeted policing has cut the murder rate by almost 80%.   I appreciate you are still more likely to be murdered in New York than London; but New York's trend is moving distinctly in the right direction.

On the way to a birthday party in Bucks on Sunday night we were delayed by a long tailback on the elevated section of the A4 out of London by what turned out to be a broken down van. On his way back to London over an hour later my driver reported that the van was still there, the police had eventually arrived but were doing nothing to move it and the tailback to get past it was now all the way back to the Hogarth roundabout.   Our inconvenience was small in the grand scheme of things: we were 45 minutes late for a party. But think of all the planes missed at Heathrow, the subsequent lost business appointments or family reunions, the delay in getting home for those who've been working all day -- or with a car full of tired kids who need to get to bed.