Saying 'here's a story about the UK. I think it'll happen to us eventually' - isn't actually worthwhile Tom.

Why are you so scared of saying what you actually THINK about these stories, instead of leaving us guessing.

AS a disclaimer, I would vote Conservative if there were an election today. The parallels between US and UK political party are not especially clear - but in some aspects, we have a Democratic government with a Republican opposition.

Fireworks. More controls? Yes please. I would fully support a complete ban of fireworks being sold to the public. These are explosives, and there is no limit on what you can buy, how much you can buy, and what you can do with it. For weeks either side of Bonfire night (Nov 5th - our main annual fireworks excuse) fireworks are going off for much of the night. Living in Leicester, which has a significant Asian population, there is also Diwalli, their major celebration of the year - and that invovles a lot of fireworks as well. The net result, for about 6 weeks, up-town Leicester sounds like down-town Baghdad.

I would much rather fireworks were only made available to licences display firms - and that the city had maybe a dozen proper, well organised displays that you can get to, instead of hundreds of displays in peoples back gardens for hours and hours and hours, terrorising everyones pets, scaring young children (with the recent trend for volume over visuals in Firework design), and, most importantly, keep them out of kids hands. They put them thru letter boxes, they put them in post-boxes, they throw them up exhaust pipes, and they'll even find ever more inventive ways of setting them off in, on, or around their own bodies.

Who knows, keep the fireworks out of the publics hands, and A&E might be a little quieter....talking of which - have you have had reason to call upon the A&E dept of a UK hospital. I have. I am also fortuante enough to work in a job where I regularly visit the local hospitals, and have spent many days in the Leicester A&E, the largest (so they tell me, with 1 million heads of population under their jurisdiction) in the UK. Have I ever seen a queue of people on trolleys at A&E, no. Have I seen people waiting for an hour because they had a small accident chopping carrots - yes. But the people who needed it, got care right away, by brilliant staff. Is the NHS perfect? No. Does the NHS provide the critical care to everyone that needs it? Yes. My mother has spent many months in hospitals over the years - I would say the ammount of time I've spent in UK hospitals ( for work and for 'home' reasons ) is way above average, and I never continue to be amazed by the talent of the staff, the quality of the service, and the simple fact that, if there's something seriously wrong with you - world class care is there for you. I spent a morning filming a laparoscopic nephrectomy - (keyhole surgery to take a donor kidney) - it was just amazing to watch these people working. And I was very proud of the fact that a little bit of my tax was paying for it. I can't even imagine what it must be like for that to not be available for everybody, regardless of income, status, etc.