MORE THAN half a century ago, my mad old great-grandpa told my mum, as he stepped blithely into the road: ‘They’re not allowed to run you over, dear.’ Not long after this he died of complications brought on after he was hit by a motor car.

Great-Grandpa was right. They are NOT allowed to run you over. But if he hadn’t kept walking into the road he might have lived that bit longer. Because prevention is better than cure. And it’s certainly better than being mangled by a Morris Oxford.

So that’s why I don’t understand the objections being raised against a new advert being put out by Sussex Police, in which they ask women: ‘Which one of your mates is most vulnerable on a night out? The one you leave behind.’ Something called the End Violence Against Women Coalition has taken against this, with its acting director, Sarah Green, reported as saying she found the advice ‘infuriating’.

“We need to get beyond police campaigns giving instructions to women on how to behave to be safe,” she says. “We need to talk to those who may perpetrate rape and deter them.”

I don’t know how many rapists she’s met but, generally, they aren’t the sort of people you can sit down and have a nice chat with, or, indeed, reason with. Mostly they are devious monsters who can’t see what all the fuss is about. They know damn well they shouldn’t rape women but they don’t care because they enjoy it. And the only thing that stops them is lack of opportunity.

I’m guessing Sussex Police already know this which is why they are trying to cut down these vile men’s chances to attack women in the first place.

Sarah Green says messages like these make women feel that what happens is partly their fault.

If that’s true then it’s up to outfits like hers to emphasise the message that just because we’re trying to safeguard women doesn’t mean we’re making excuses for the scum who would attack them. It’s two different issues needing two different approaches.

I am of the view that it would be a whole heap better if women did not get so trollied that they didn’t know what they were doing and who they were doing it with.

But my believing that doesn’t change one jot the fact that being drunk is not a crime, rape IS a crime, and that rapists are always fully responsible for their actions and guilty of a heinous offence, however the woman in question looked or behaved.

I’m sure Sarah Green means well and her organisation is one all women should support. But what Sussex police are doing is not so very different to what every mother of a teenage girl does when she goes out for a night on the lash.

They call out to her ‘take care’. Because they know, as we all do, that it’s better to be safe than sitting in a police station, the victim of a sexual assault.

  • I’M BORED already with all these letters about the election being signed by ‘100 leading businessmen’ or whoever, as if we were supposed bow down before their collective wisdom over what’s good for the rest of us.

Of course Britain’s wealthiest businessmen are going to moan about policies that’ll hit their pockets.

They would, wouldn’t they?

In the same way that criminals might write to the papers to say their lives would be easier if the police stopped arresting them.

Memo to ALL pompous letter writers: no one’s interested.

  • ED MILIBAND says he’d like to see a woman play James Bond.

But I suspect that maybe because Mad Hattie Harman has told him it’s a good thing to say to impress the lady voters.

The only reason women go and see James Bond is because they fancy Daniel Craig. The reason men go is because they want to be James Bond. And the reason Ed may not know this is because, I suspect, he’s never seen a Bond film on the silver screen in his entire life!

We need a female James Bond like a moose needs a hatrack. Trust me, Ed, there are no votes in this one.

  • TONY Blair (estimated worth: a lot more than £30 million) says he is ‘absolutely not’ rich.

Proving, yet again, how out-of-touch our so-called senior politicians are with how ordinary people have to live.

  • NEVER mind the all those reports saying Barry Manilow’s married his manager, Gary. I’m still getting over the shock that Barry Manilow didn’t write the song: ‘I Write The Songs’. But I hope they’ll both be very happy!
  • NASA reckons they will discover alien life within the next 20 years. If they’d only popped round the home of former Education Secretary Michael Gove, they could have found it five years ago.