MANY moons ago, Mrs Thatcher famously told Bob Geldof that it wasn’t that easy, feeding the starving people of Africa.

In his inimitable manner, Sir Bob said it was. All they had to do was get the food, get it on a boat and get it to the people.

This helpful solution popped into my head after a particularly depressing few weeks reading of all the apparent difficulties the government is facing over various economic and social issues. Well, that’s the polite way of putting it.

But haven’t you noticed how often it is actually in politicians’ interests to say that? How they tell you they’d love to afford a new piece of equipment for the kiddies’ playground, or to keep the old folks’ lunch club open, but they just can’t.

Even though, mysteriously, they can always seem to afford a new mayoral car, higher councillors’ expenses and subsidised parking for their employees?

Most of the time we accept this because we are politely raised to believe that people in authority know what’s right. We believe that the person running the council/school/country Knows What’s Best and these folk encourage us in this nonsense.

Fact is that most things are really simple, once you take self, tribal and political interest out of them.

So, in this spirit I have decided to re-visit some major issues of our times. The solutions are quick and cheap but the reason they will never be implemented is because the people in charge would look foolish or have to admit they didn't know what they were on about...

The Problem: It’s recently been revealed that under the auspices of something called the Regional Jobs Fund it costs about £200,000 to create just the one job for a person who is out of work. If you’ve just thought hey, that’s a bit expensive, you’d be damned right. It is.

The Solution: Instead of handing out all this cash to the middlemen and women, loan or give it to all those hardworking little businesses that can’t expand because the stinking banks, whose fault it is we are in this mess, won’t lend it to them.

This will get the economy moving and provide a welcome slap in the face for intransigent capitalism. Alternatively, the money could be distributed to people like me, who could then spend it on cleaning ladies (my last one sacked ME), gardeners, taxi-drivers for the teenage boys and a butler to stand patiently for hours by the back door, letting in and out the Enormous Ginger Cat therefore creating jobs, and far less stress for journalist mothers.

The Problem: Despite biblical-style floods, the south-east is still officially ‘in drought’, making us look second only to North Korea as the Stupidest Country In The World.

The Solution: Tell the people running water companies that they will have to build a bigger hole to collect rainwater in on or, alternatively, stop flogging off reservoirs they used to have. Then, when they’ve done that, pass a new law saying that no bonus can be paid to anyone in their company unless every customer of that company has a guaranteed water supply, to include hosing the motor, and watering the veg. That will concentrate their minds.

The Problem: Massive and irritating queues at our airports, creating the impression that we are a disorganised and inefficient nation that couldn’t organise the proverbial do in a brewery.

The Solution: Recruit more border officers. Or just stop sacking the ones we do have. And rota more people for busy times, not the middle of the night.

The Problem: Royals behaving embarrassingly. Yes, even in the Diamond Jubilee year there’s always one, isn’t there? This time it’s Prince Michael of Kent who is alleged to have received payments from a controversial Russian businessman. And of course there’s always Prince Andrew, who appears to travel and live in much the same style as Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest cinematic incarnation.

The solution: If one is boracic, Stop Spending Money Like Water, shop at Aldi and get oneself a proper job. Just like everyone else has to.

The Problem: Bournemouth Borough Council tickets you because you are five minutes late returning to a public car-park yet not one of the travellers illegally camped on the same car-park apparently gets so much as a fine.

The solution: Claim you are a traveller yourself. Well, it’s got to be worth the fun of watching them try and prove otherwise, hasn’t it?