Peter Rhodes on table manners, toilet embarrassment and why conscription is a great deal for babyboomers

After visiting a charming, rickety old Tudor restaurant where floors are uneven and the doors ill-fitting, I had a look at its online reviews and came across a harrowing account from a lady who, in search of the restaurant's loo, pushed a door. It opened just far enough for her to “make eye contact with a young person on the toilet.” The incident has clearly traumatised her and it's hard to know what to advise anyone caught in a similar pickle. Run. Definitely run.

A former home secretary Lord David Blunkett says issuing ID cards would drastically reduce Channel crossings by migrants. I have read and re-read his article and I'm blowed if I can see how. Blunkett declares: “If migrants need an ID card to work in Britain or claim benefits or get non-emergency treatment on the NHS, they would be less inclined to come here.” But how can that be? At present, the first thing many migrants do after sailing from France is to chuck all their documents in the Channel. I can only repeat my oft-repeated tip. If a politician claims to have a cure for people-smuggling, do not believe them. If anything worked, it would already be working.

A former head of MI6, Sir Alex Younger, says Britain should consider some form of military conscription. Good luck with that. I can't see today's under-25s willingly giving up their placid WFH lifestyle to spend time crunching the drill square at Catterick. However, for us Babyboomers born 1946-64, conscription is a brilliant deal.

Think about it. We have lived in almost 80 years of peace, drained the NHS, taken over the nation's housing stock and enjoyed free university education and triple-locked state pensions. In the twilight of our lives, we boomers own a massive slice of the nation's wealth. And now we are solemnly planning to conscript young people in order to hang on to that wealth. Democracy. Don't you love it?