The sentencing of nine men for sex offences against teenage girls has dominated headlines this week for all the wrong reasons.

The gang were all Asian, the victims were all white. To the BNP and their ilk, this has been an open and shut case of foreign paedophiles coming here and abusing English girls. On the Daily Mail website yesterday, the comment with the most likes simply said "Castrate & Deport".

The trial opened weeks ago in Liverpool, despite the offences taking place in Rochdale, amid concerns racial tensions would boil over.

George Galloway's triumph in the Bradford West by-election should shake the Labour Party to the core.

Here was a seat we've held since 1974, and we should have held onto in a dire week for the ConDems.

But instead, a maverick Respect member and one time one of our own George Galloway ran away with the constituency and a majority of more than 10,000 votes.

ACCORDING to a ComRes poll today, the Cam Dine with Me scandal had given Labour a 10 point advantage over the Tories.

It's good news and shows how we are connecting more with the people in this country.

The latest error of judgement from Cameron follows the same pattern of his past gaffes - it has exposed his elitism, his bedazzlement by wealth and the cosy clubbiness of how he does business.

The list of those who've broken olive and sun dried tomato artisan bread with the PM is headed by Michael Ashcroft, the peer who effectively bankrolled him into Downing Street, and a load of others you won't likely have heard of but have far too much say over Government policy.

At least we know the government has the ability to listen - now how about a whip-round for a few grand each to go along and give him his just desserts...

The reedy voice of Gideon Osborne rang out from the dispatch box today as he trumpeted his party's plans to make life worse if you're not rich like him.

The Chancellor, who can barely disguise his contempt for the state, has been determined to make life better for millionaires since he took the keys to Number 11.

The 50p tax rate for those on £150,000 or more will be scrapped - great news for the richest percentile, while public sector workers in places like Liverpool will have their pay frozen to pay for the spending cuts.

Meanwhile another announcement, already being dubbed the "Granny Tax", involves phasing out the higher income tax allowance around half the country's pensioners enjoy.

He'll raise about £5bn, while OAPs will be between £63 and £197 worse off a year.

It's back to the same old One Of Us Conservatism.

Way back in 1946, Winston Churchill first used the phrase "Special Relationship" to describe the bond between Britain and the USA.

Then experience of the Second World War still fresh in the memory, the Cold War hadn't started to heat up, the superpowers hadn't emerged and Britain was still a lead actor on the world stage.

Since those times, every UK prime minister has seen it as their duty to keep this diplomatic and cultural marriage going.

In a Liverpool city centre street today, I saw a well-groomed young woman step out of an expensive Mercedes coupe.

Ordinary enough, but it was what she did next that shocked me.

She whipped a yellow plastic parking violation notice out of her ginormous tote and slipped it under the windscreen wiper and sauntered off.

It's a pretty crude dodge. I was more angry someone with a car that costs more than most household annual incomes was so tight as to defraud the city's coffers out of a couple of quid.

And it was so brazen. Anybody else seen such blatant rule breaking? Or does anybody think this is fair game?

News today that Prime Minister David Cameron probably rode the police horse leant to News International bigwig Rebekah Brooks gives an almost comedic twist to an unsettling tale.

The former Sun editor and favourite of Rupert Murdoch used to host the Camerons at her Cotswolds farm - oh how they must have laughed and joked and plotted world domination.

The drip feed of scandal attached to NI just keeps on coming. We already know senior officers in the Metropolitan Police were regular "dining companions" of hacks at The Sun and now defunct News of the World. Now the force is giving horses away - though I doubt Brooks saved the old steed Raisa from the knacker's yard out of the goodness of her heart...

Labour snuggled up to Murdoch too, in 1997 Blair secured the support of the antipodean press baron.

It's time the mutual backslapping between press and politicians be brought to an end, because in the end the electorate are the ones taken for a ride.

Up until this morning, the only time I'd heard of a "drunk tank" was in the Pogue's Christmas hit Fairytale of New York.

But then today Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to deploy these as part of the battle against binge drinking.

Alcohol abuse costs the NHS £2.7b per year, so the incentive to drive down this bill is obvious, but another American slice of slogan politics isn't the answer.

60 years ago today, a new Elizabethan age dawned in Britain.

The monarch, then a recent bride with young children, had her life changed forever.

But for the abdication of her uncle and early death of her father, the young princess would have led a life very different from the one intrinsically tied to postwar Britain.

An elected mayor could be a great thing for Liverpool.

David Bartlett, the headmaster of this school of philosophers, will be sure to keep the world up to date on the runners and riders in the race between now and May.

Whoever it is though has a remarkable opportunity - they will be not only an ambassador for this city, but also wield real power.

This is a place not short on civic pride, but it's also a place not short of detractors.

The mayor must be cheerleader-in-chief for Liverpool, and should be aware they'll be watched like a hawk to ensure they deliver for city.