DICK Turpin didn’t have the brass neck of some of these bankers who, a year after being bailed out by the taxpayer, expect to trouser big bonuses.

We know that many politicians don’t get it over their greedy expense claims. But they are small beer compared to these modern day casino capitalists who are more than prepared to try a bit of blackmail to grab their money.

Angela Knight, from the British Bankers’ Association, warns we could lose these wonderful altruistic souls to foreign countries where their financial acumen would be appreciated.

Well, let them clear off to Switzerland or wherever. Taxpayers have provided cash and guarantees which could amount to nearly £1,000 billion when all this is done and dusted. And still banks have the cheek to carry on charging punitive overdraft charges.

We were told that, in return for our cash, bonuses would be cut back and the whole banking system would become more accountable. What have we really got? The same old boys’ network, but with just a few different old boys running the show.

If you and me run up a debt we are expected to clear it before we start asking for more. These high end earners have no shame, and when they are threatened with capping or a bonus tax, they squeal like rats in the jungle.

When it comes to not getting it, these guys are in a league of their own.

INITIATIVES THAT SPELL TRUBBLE

WE ought to be shocked to hear that the number of children leaving primary schools with no more than a basic grasp of literacy and numeracy has gone up by one fifth.

So much for the education, education, education manta spouted by former Prime Minister Tony Blair when he came into power.

What we’ve witnessed is a Government made up of serial interferers, particularly in schools where headteachers and staff must be bamboozled out of their wits at times by each new initiative that is handed down from Whitehall.

No wonder confidence has been lost when politicians are more concerned with teaching five years old about sex and gender issues than they are about reading and writing.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Government stopped all these edicts and initiatives, most of which crumble into oblivion in time anyway, and just let schools get on with the job of giving children a proper education.

If 11-year-olds go from primary school without the essentials of literacy and numeracy they have no prospect of leaving secondary school any better off.

The sad fact is that, for many kids, the only “career” they can envisage is a life on benefit, being housed by the local council and having numerous children of mixed parentage along the way.

One schools minister said last week that it was down to local councils to get their act in order. Surely more important, it’s time for the Government to stop poking its nose unnecessarily into education and let the teachers teach. A back to basics lesson for ministers wouldn’t come amiss.

WATCH OUT MAN U

WAS it really 46 years ago that a bunch of lads off Wetheriggs Rise in Penrith got together and formed a football team?

I have mixed reasons to remember their first game back in 1963. I took a team through from Keswick to play them and we stopped counting when it got past a dozen goals. They were so excited with their victory that apparently the ball, which had been purchased by the grandparents of one of the Wetheriggs players specially for the match, disappeared and was never seen again.

On Saturday Wetheriggs, now with a United added to the name as a result of a 1995 amalgamation, pulled off one of their most prestigious results when they beat an admittedly very youthful Carlisle United reserve team in the Cumberland Cup third round.

We played them at Southend Road. These days home is Castletown Rec. Peter Brookes, who took part in that first game, is still around as chairman.

According to the program notes on Saturday, the old changing hut is about to become redundant when Wetheriggs move into the Community Centre. Just like Manchester United, the teams will trot out from one corner of the pitch, wrote the author. Nowt like setting your comparisons high.

It’s a great little story of a community football club that, in football parlance, has “done good.” Bet the lads were over the moon on Saturday night. And the pies aren’t bad either.

A WELL CONNECTED TOWN

WELCOME to Cybermoor. In other words, welcome to Alston, the town that can no longer justify the title of “England’s last wilderness”.

I remember being despatched to Alston in the 1960s as a callow Herald junior. You may have seen the odd hippy drift in on a haze of dubious smoke from the outer limits of Nenthead, but that was about the limit of local activity.

Industry was a factory called Precision Products where they manufactured the heads of golf clubs. Mrs. Woods could really have done some damage with one of those.

For years one of the shops had a fading picture of a Tyne Tees television weatherman in the window. Celebrities were thin on the ground until a movie maker discovered Alston’s Dickensian atmosphere and, for a while, it became “Charles Dickens’ Alston” in the souvenir shops.

But now Alston folk are among the best connected in the country. Where the hippies once roamed you are now likely to come across nerds and geeks. Well, pretty smart businessfolk really, who have discovered some of the fastest Internet times around.

Alston Moor is the centre of the computer universe. It has Britain’s first broadband co-operative and, according to one Sunday supplement, it’s boosting property prices and turning Alston’s hi-tech highway into the perfect place to get away from the rat race and work from home.

Cottages that once didn’t have a phone line are now surfing the worldwide web. All those megabytes confuse me, but I’m assured it’s blooming quick. So fast they will soon be downloading entire TV programs is a couple of seconds.

Dunno what the great unwashed would have made of it with their communal goats, wacky baccy and guitars. But it’s certainly transforming Alston into a do-it-yourself technology centre that’s the envy of city dwellers. Who’d have thought it?

Just A Paper Tiger

JUST a thought on this Tiger Woods business. We all thought he was out practising his strokes 12 hours a day. Apparently he wins golf tournaments with a different kind of practice, which must make him an even more amazing talent.

When I won the monthly medal at my local club a few years ago I didn’t have a stream of nubile cocktail waitresses, club hostesses and “party managers”, whatever that’s a euphemism for, queuing for my attentions. So where did I go wrong?