The chance of success was nil and I'm sure in his heart of hearts he knew it.

It was merely an exercise in trying to show us he was trying to do something.

Far more creditable would it have been if he had shaved a few pence off the astronomic fuel duty we're being forced to pay.

Why we have to pay the highest taxes in Europe is beyond me. Sky-high fuel prices is causing serious damage to our economy and risks business collapse and people being thrown out of work, yet this government keeps taking more and more tax from us every time we fill up.

That, in my book, deserves drastic action, not playing games going over to the Middle East knowing that they will never do us any favours.

All they're interested in doing is amassing huge fortunes at our expense to lavish more architectural craziness in Dubai.

Creating islands in the Red Sea is one crass extravagance, a skyscraper with every floor revolving 360 degrees is another and we're paying for it, bit time.

"Petty" offences can be serious for those having to put up with problems

LOCAL councils have been rapped by the head of the Local Government Association Sir Simon Milton for using snooping laws to compile evidence to prosecute "petty offences".

While he defends covert surveillance such as cameras to combat benefit fraud, rogue trading and fly-tipping, he attacks its use for such things as dog fouling, littering and abuses of school admissions policies.

Councils cannot win, can they? On one hand they are swamped by residents' complaints about dog fouling and such things as anti-social behaviour by neighbours and then we have the human rights lobby doing their utmost to tie councils' hands behind their backs when they attempt to combat a problem in a highly effective way.

Dog fouling on pavements, parks and public places is still a menace because there remain too many dog owners not prepared to clear up after their pets.

It's human nature to moan to councils about the problem but people show great reluctance when it comes to going to court to give evidence against an offender, particularly nowadays through fear of reprisals.

A camera placed in a problem area provides the evidence a council needs to bring a successful prosecution.

Sorry, Sir Simon, I and I'm sure many other people do not consider dog fouling to be a trivial matter. It's filthy, disgusting and a health hazard.

And if it takes a camera to provide evidence against a dog owner who each day goes out and doesn't clean up after his/her pet, then so be it.

Sir Simon also criticises councils for using cameras to fight littering. Sorry, you're sending out all the wrong messages here.

We want to persuade people not to be irresponsible and drop their litter around the streets or leave their rubbish on our beaches and parks.

Unfortunately, there are people in this country who couldn't care less and seem content to live in filth.

Littered streets lower the tone of an area, lead to other things like graffiti and other anti-social things.

Local councillors have a wish to improve the areas they serve and, given people's reluctance to stand up and give evidence in matters like dog fouling and littering, camera surveillance may be the only defence.

A council was also heavily criticised for using such tactics to provide evidence on breaches of school admission.

OK, on the surface it may be trivial, but is it fair that a family uses deceit to gain an advantage over other children when it comes to school admission, and how can councils gather relevant evidence without some "snooping"?