I HAVE been pondering whether or not to go into politics.

Not mentioning any names, but I have all the qualities needed judging by the behaviour of certain MPs: An ability to change my mind and delete people who are no longer of use to my career are just two self-serving attributes.

As leadership elections now take place in three parties acting as a curtain-raiser for the summer recess (giving you and me a well-earned parliamentary break) I will prepare to campaign on my own Inferno ticket – my slogan would be: 'Join the None-the-Wiser Party. Back-stabbers welcome'.

I envisage support from those who, like me, are bewildered and baffled by recent Leave and Brexit fiascos.

Next week The Merchant of Venice opens at Liverpool Playhouse which will see a businessman demanding his pound of flesh. And this was written 400 years before the common market.

The TV series House of Cards and Game of Thrones graphically illustrate that power corrupts – it also reveals that it inevitably dissolves in bloodbaths.

But am I two-faced enough?

That is the question to be ... or not to be while dodging the slings and arrows of a hostile media and placard-waving electorate.

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MAYBE I should concentrate on local politics.

I will listen to my public. I was sent an e-mail with a proud CH postcode this week that gave me such pause for thought.

It declared: "If the UK can break away from the rest of Europe why can't we in Wirral break away from Merseyside and return to being Cheshire?"

Is this the start of Mexit?

As a radical revisionist (I heard that phrase on Newsnight) I would also like to see Wirral re-branded as "THE Wirral." (I wouldn't. Ed).

I wouldn't just impose it if I became council leader, of course.

I would offer a referendum.

On second thoughts ...

Politics ... I definitely have the experience – after all I have been writing about showbiz for most of my life.

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AUSTERITY is nothing new.

We may despise it but, that hasn't stopped us paying good money to see plays about it.

Her Benny tells the tale of an orphan struggling to cope in Victorian poverty.

Sadly, it hasn't dated.

It is coming to New Brighton Pavilion in September and stars Johnny Kennedy ex of Wirral Radio who is enjoying life as a much-in-demand tenor.

And Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Wirral's Rob Fennah is on a North West tour.

It features a young poverty-stricken girl desperate to escape Liverpool and find happiness in Wirral.

Two reminders that we can all eventually overcome austerity with help from family and friends.

I might send tickets to George Osborne.

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I HAVE solved a Wirral whodunnit.

I found a dusty copy of Literary Wirral in a car boot sale a book featuring writers and their links with the peninsula.

From Malcolm Lowry to Adrian Henri – a celebration of Wirral wordsmiths. There was also a reference to one Carl Dreadstone.

Who?

After some Sherlock Holmes work, I found out it was an early nom de plume for our very own Ramsey Campbell.

"It was a name I used early in my career," Ramsey confided to the Inferno.

"He has now gone to another place." 

Carl Dreadstone – ghost writer with a difference.

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AND finally ... I was talking to an American psychology student who told me her thesis was on the subject of childhood.

She has argued the case that due to 24/7 social media youngsters do not not enjoy a proper childhood anymore.

My learned friend believes there should now be a stage in life called "Pre-Adulthood."

Sad, indeed.

Americans seem to grow up quicker than us.

Take Hollywood legend Shirley Temple who publicly revealed that she knew that Father Christmas didn't exist when she was just six years old.

Shirley said: "Mother took me to see him in his grotto – he asked ME for MY autograph."

Peter Grant