Digital television is coming. You can't have helped but notice. A less-than-subtle promotional campaign for it is already at work, softening us up for the prospect of either having to change our old television for a new one or buy a special box to sit on top of our existing set to convert it to digital mode.

That's good news for the people who make televisions and conversion boxes. The switch-over is creating jobs, a fair number of them in this area. So it's an ill wind that blows no-one any good, as they say.

But as far as I'm concerned, digital television IS an ill wind. It will cost every household a lot of money, when the present system is phased out and we have no option other than to go digital or leave our screens blank, bearing in mind that most households have more than one set these days.

But that isn't the worst aspect of it. Digital means lots and lots of channels. There isn't enough good writing, acting and directing talent about to fill the existing terrestrial channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV, C4 and C5) with quality material. At least half the stuff we're presented with isn't worth a place on our screens.

Imagine what it will be like when there are thousands upon thousands of air hours to be filled each week. What depths of dross will be plumbed?

Those who thought we'd reached rock bottom with Moment of Truth might well find themselves, a decade from now, looking nostalgically back on this show, hosted by Cilla Black, as quality television.

What a nightmare Moment of Truth is. What a dreadful idea. Set a family a difficult task. Get them to choose one member of the family (usually mother or father) to master that task as best they can in a week. Invite the whole family to select luxury prizes for themselves.

Then bring them into the studio, let them meet their prizes - and then have that selected family member try to win them.

If they succeed, all is well. There are smiles and congratulations all around, amid lots of that terrible whooping and hollering which now seems to be compulsory for studio audiences.

But if they fail? Mother or father devastated -- a failure not only in their family's eyes but before the entire viewing population. Children horribly disappointed and probably resentful for years. A family plunged into crisis.

Talk about a theatre of cruelty! Whatever next? Family Russian Roulette?

Moment of Truth is appalling. "I love this show!" gushed Cilla last week, just before I switched over. Well I don't. I hate it.

And I dread a future in which digital television spawns countless cut-price equivalents of it in which ordinary people driven by greed are persuaded to risk ritual humiliation in the name of entertainment.

Persuasion is the only way to solve our drugs problem

Claire Wilson's poem about her heroin-victim brother Matthew moved me deeply. It was loving and it was true. Claire's lines "I wish that I could touch him/And make him better again" must have reflected the desperate yearnings of countless families who have seen a son or daughter, a brother or sister, transformed by heroin into a tormented, lost soul unable to see anything beyond their next fix.

Sometimes those young people are able to be made better again, though they are seldom the same as they were before. Sometimes they spend many years in the twilight world into which addiction leads them. Too often, as in the case of Matthew Wilson, the outcome is tragic.

There are many ideas put forward to combat the spread of drugs. Jail the pushers for life. Force addicts to detoxify and go into rehabilitation. Decriminalise drugs to take away the profit motive.

But the best and possibly only real solution is to cut off the demand by persuading young people never to try drugs in the first place; to get them to realise that once they do try them, there's a strong chance that they will be stuck with them, possibly for the rest of their life - a life which might turn out to be much shorter than it should be.

And the best chance of getting that message across surely must come from young people talking to other young people.

Claire Wilson's poem comes from the heart. Let's hope that other youngsters take it to their hearts and somehow find the wisdom and the courage to say no to the destructive chemicals which are now so readily available to them.

Bernie's so lucky to be a slave to freedom...

Labour MP Bernie Grant (pictured left) has apparently let it be known that he wishes in future to be known by the Swahili name of Babatunde, an honorary title bestowed on him by students on a recent visit to South Africa.

It's to replace the Anglicised "slave" name given to him by his Guyanan parents.

Fair enough. We're all entitled to ask to be called whatever name we choose for ourselves. But the decision does seem to suggest an unnecessary racial chip on the shoulder of the MP for Tottenham - a man who made such a good impression as a down-to-earth Old Labour type when he spoke at the St George's Hall memorial meeting for the late Bob Cryer the other year.

Babatunde Grant perhaps should remind himself that, slave name or not, he's done pretty well for himself in this free country under the name of Bernie.

Sinking feeling all over again

The Government is not to be deflected from its present economic course. The Prime Minister and Chancellor made that clear enough at this week's Labour conference. Keeping down inflation remains its priority. The Bank of England will be allowed to do its worst to that end, via high interest rates.

Never mind the thousands of job losses which now seem to be announced almost every week. Never mind the companies which can't sell their products abroad because of the strength of the pound, and are having to wind down their factories.

Never mind the tourists who are staying away for the same reason, or the ones who do come here but decline to buy any souvenirs because everything in the UK is so much more expensive than they can buy at home.

We must keep on taking the medicine prescribed for us by Mr Brown and Mr Blair, even if it kills some of us. They know best, and they are not for turning.

Margaret Thatcher pursued her premiership in a similar arrogant, pig-headed way, treating anyone who questioned her policies as a traitor. Tony Blair made it clear at the start of the Labour Party conference that he would tolerate "critical support" but not "outright opposition".

In others words, anyone who dares to suggest a change of course for the boat will be tossed overboard. However, those who merely suggest that an extra biscuit a day could help the crew to row faster might get away with an affectionate slap across the head with a wet oar.

To my mind, this Government failed the credibility test very early on in its life, by failing to cancel the hated Millennium Dome project despite the opposition of almost everyone apart from most Ministers and the developers. It overstepped the fine dividing line between stubbornness and stupidity and showed that it is hopelessly out of touch.

Any Government which demonstrates such an appalling lack of judgement is a Government which deserves to have all its policies treated with scepticism and, if necessary, met with outright opposition from those who care about this country and, indeed, about the Labour Party.

Enjoy Mike Priestley's Yorkshire Walks

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