Sir Bellotti

is an insult

If David Bellotti is given a gong in the New Year's Honours, the whole system will take a bad knock.

The rumour sweeping Westminster, which has not been denied, is that Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has nominated the former Eastbourne MP for an honour of some kind.

Mr Bellotti may still have some standing among some Lib Dem activists although it's unlikely many of them hail from Brighton and Hove.

His spectacular win in the Eastbourne by-election was said to have hastened the downfall of Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister and has earned a place in party mythology.

But it was Bellotti's disastrous reign as chief executive of Brighton and Hove Albion that makes him unfit to be a recipient of any honour.

While he was there, the ground was sold under dubious circumstances and the club nearly went to the wall. Even today, when the club is trying to fight back from those dreadful days, his name is still mud among fans.

Good party man he may be. Deserving of any honour? Certainly not. If Charles Kennedy has been foolish enough to submit his name, someone in the Lord Chancellor's department should strike it off right away.

Justice for all

When black musician Michael Menson died as a human fireball in a London street, police wrote it off as a bizarre suicide because he had a history of mental illness.

But his family fought tenaciously for justice to be done and now at last there have been two convictions for his killing.

The case leaves a nasty taste in the mouth and not for the first time.

Let's make sure that the next time a black man is found dead in suspicious circumstances in London, and sadly it's bound to happen, police don't jump to racist conclusions.

A loving mother

Jean Forrest from Sompting may not be a mum in a million ,but she has certainly been a wonderful mother to 636.

That's the number of foster children passing through her highly capable hands and she's loved almost every minute of it.

Even she says if she'd had a pound for every nappy she'd changed, she'd be a billionaire today.

But she did it all for love, even though for most parents all that dirty washing would be beyond the pail.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.