For too long, Britain has been complacent about the progress made by its former colony. Now we risk missing out on the important part India will play in the new economic world order. Jo Johnson on the Prime Minister’s attempt to woo New Delhi David Cameron is, by instinct, sceptical of the Heseltinian tradition of herding businessmen onto aeroplanes bound for faraway countries. Yet when he heads to India next week, he will be accompanied not only by perhaps the largest trade delegation the country has ever seen, but by his Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Business Secretary and other assorted ministers.

Crooks who are in prison are not burgling your house, says Theodore Dalrymple. They themselves understand that perfectly clearly: it is only sentimental mugs who don’tWhen Mr Clarke went recently to Leeds Prison, prior to announcing in a speech that prison wasn’t working and that therefore fewer people ought to be locked up, he was reported to have been much affected by the story of a man he met there who had been imprisoned for six weeks for having failed to pay child support.

All too late in the day, I have come to worry about the stuff I put out in my waste bins. It is not the recycling issue that bothers me, but what council officials, poring over my detritus with rubber gloves in some sanitised hell in Maidstone, might find out about me, and what they might decide to do as a consequence. Obviously, nothing good. It never is anything good. They are not going to ring me up and say sir, as a consequence of your rubbish inspection, we’ve decided to reduce your council tax per year to what it would cost to feed a family of 12 in Mali for seven decades.