SOME say that fox hunting should be banned because it causes unnecessary pain. If that's a valid argument, then we should ban football. How many people have been injured and terrified by the hordes of hooligans who, not just in Euro 2000, but since the 1960s, have ensured that big time football matches are surrounded by an air of menace? How many billions of pounds have had to be spent on the repair and restoration of civic centres after supporters of the beautiful game have been to town? If we're talking about the sheer amount of pain and distress caused, then football beats fox hunting hands down.

The trouble is not caused by "the mindless few". To borrow a phrase from the race relations industry, football is institutionally violent. The crazed gangs of drunken, marauding thugs are only one aspect of this violence. Just look at the behaviour of the players. Late tackles, fists, elbows in the face - anything goes. And they usually get away with it. Did you see Beckham at it again in last Saturday's game against Germany? True, the players have great skills, but these skills are eclipsed by the dirtiness of the play; the sheer unsporting, win-at-any-cost attitude that pervades the game. Just look at the hatred on their faces and the violence in their foul language. The whole spectacle is an offence against civilisation and decency. Someone should introduce a Bill in the House of Commons to get professional football banned.

The rule of political correctness under which the country is being gradually turned into an open-air lunatic asylum produced a prize piece of insanity last week. Police sergeant Belinda Sinclair was awarded £500,000 compensation because her lawyers proved she had been discriminated against at work. The extent of this discrimination was truly horrific. A female colleague described her as "dominant" and added that she was "very confident for a woman". My word, this is strong stuff. Compare this half a million quid with the £11,000 awarded to PC Barry Hargreaves when he was severely stabbed. The police need to be tough and strong. It makes you wonder just how tough and strong some of them are when they burst into tears over a bit of name-calling. Political correctness is a rampant evil and it threatens to destroy society: not simply because it is insane, but because it is palpably unjust.

The new President of the Methodist Conference said on Radio 4's The Sunday Programme that "nice, white, liberal chapel-goers" are "unconsciously racist". I have difficulty with this sort of doublespeak, so I listened very carefully to make sure I was understanding him correctly. He went on to explain that "unconscious racism" means "not noticing the colour of a black person's skin; being colour blind". I see: so if you discriminate between blacks and whites, that's racism; if you don't discriminate then that's racism too. Come back George Orwell. Come back Humpty Dumpty. Look at the mess we're in.

The Millennium Bridge is five minutes' walk from our front door, so last Sunday after Evensong we went down in the hope of walking across to the south bank. Which reminds me of the best quip I've heard this week... The bridge goes from the splendour of St Paul's Cathedral to the nonsense of the new Tate Modern gallery and this prompted a friend of mine to remark: "We can now get from the sublime to the ridiculous more quickly than ever!" Except we can't, of course. The bridge is closed until it has been stabilised. Isn't it merely the latest example - see also roads, trains, phones, hospitals, schools, etc - of the general proposition that modernity doesn't work?

Happily at last, the wheels have fallen off the Blair project which is of course built on that adjective "modern". In every Government's term of office there comes a defining, critical moment. Blair's came at the Women's Institute. It suddenly became clear as day that the smile and the clich are all he's got. I've observed this at close quarters, and nauseating it is. I was at the Barbican theatre when Tony, Cherie and two heavies came into the row in front. He had to pass a couple of people who were already sitting there. Did the Prime Minister of Great Britain say: "Good evening" or even "Excuse me"? He did not. He switched on the banana-split grin and said: "Hi!" Yuk!