Peter Rhodes on the spy in your car, the youngest MP and the church that died of silliness

Full marks for optimism to the BBC weather forecaster who told us: “ It is essentially dry – bar this drizzle.” Or to put it another way, wet.

“We still love the EU” reads the giant banner that grieving Remainers hope to hang from the White Cliffs of Dover as Britain leaves the European Union on Friday. I have no trouble with that and neither should any other Brexiter. I love the EU in much the way that I love the Royal Ballet. It is an amazing creation but I really wouldn't want to be part of it. We should continue to love the EU because it keeps 27 European nations locked together as one, making it easier to strike all sorts of deals from trade to defence. Or so we all hope.

At a murder trial in Wales, evidence was obtained from a black box in a Land Rover Discovery. Although the vehicle had been burned out, the box told investigators that it had been driven to the victim's house two nights before the attack. On the night of the attack it was driven to a nearby beach where it stayed for 90 minutes. The boot was opened and closed when the car arrived and before it left. It was driven away 12 minutes after the attack. All that from one little box. Note to those campaigning against the surveillance society: you lost.

Britain's youngest MP, Nadia Whittome (Lab) says she does not feel welcome in the House of Commons as a “working-class woman of colour.” Isn't it more likely that she feels ill-at-ease because the average age of an MP ís about 50 and she is just 23? The reaction of other MPs may have nothing to do with colour or class, just plain surprise at finding a child in their midst.

The most memorable statistic to emerge from Davos last week was that, while China produces 29 per cent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions and the United States is responsible for 16 per cent, the United Kingdom produces a miserly 1.1 per cent. So whether we piously cut our emissions to zero or wickedly doubled them overnight, it wouldn't make a scrap of difference.

In fact, just to keep things in perspective, it would be useful to have a large banner to unfurl at every green initiative in Britain, from planting more trees to the Church of England's solemn declaration to reduce its investment portfolio to net-zero emissions by 2050. The banner would read: “It really doesn't matter.”

Incidentally, can anybody see the Church of England surviving until 2050? Its latest move, as civil partnerships are made legal for mixed-sex couples, is a declaration that such partnerships should be “sexually abstinent friendships.” The CofE – the church that died of silliness.