THE 'Ayes' still have it for one of the most relevant television programmes of the 1970s.

A series that is currently receiving high ratings.

And they are repeats ....

Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minster are timeless.

They are now getting the votes from the remote controllers with new generations on the nostagia / archive channel Yesterday.

The 38 scripts, written and performed more than 40 years ago, are happily repeating on us all offering comical but very real insights into Whitehall's decison-making.

We need it back on screen in 2017 - just like we would relish a modern day satire like Spitting Image to help us make sense of what is going on in Westminster.

It enjoyed a West End theatrical re-birth so why not a comeback on the telly?

Sadly, one of Yes Minister's two writers has died - Anthony Jay - but the other brilliant wordsmith, feisty Jonathan Lynn could update the series.

I once met him at a BBC launch and he told me that they were writing fictional scenes guided by 'great sources'.

But it was all about Government - not about politics.

He would have a field day with our current chaotic world.

We are now officially packing our bags in Brussels and leaving the EU after MPs voted to trigger 'Article 50' at the end of the month.

Brexit alone deserves its own sit com.

And even though the Union flag is coming down in Brussels, there is going to be so much uncertainty over the next few years that we need it explained to us - no nonsense comedy can actually help us at home cut through the red tape.

The Yes Minister franchise could also take us into the House of Lords to see the unelected ermine festival at work.

The fact that some Lords have been claiming up to £300 attendance pay is surely no laughing matter but well worth attacking.

Some of the money-grabbing, expense-claiming Lords need to be sanctioned.

There's also great scope in the proposed repairs to the House of Commons and the House of Lords costing billions.

Why not move them lock, stock and barrel (of Westminster wine) up North?

Now there's another great plot storyline.

There is a new occupant in the White House, too - surely that's worth a few episodes.

Forget Tracey Ullman's current well-meaning but desperately unfunny series.

She may look like Nicola Sturgeon but with calls for another Scottish referendum we need scripts with more punch.

A programme like Yes Minister is actually educational - like the hugely successful Horrible Histories.

These are strange but true times and we are living it now.

Yes Minister was like a 'fly-on-the-wall' where we saw the manadarins and the politicans cope with the media.

What would they now make of fake news?

Mrs Thatcher once said it was accurate and it was her favourite programme which is indeed praise from a politician who had no sense of humour.

TV Commissioners if you can bring back Tellytubbies - announced this week - then surely you can give us adults some serious comedy.

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IMAGINE the return of the Ministry of Silly Walks?

John Cleese would make a great minister.

Judging by his latest very convincing adverts for claiming PPI.

Following his disastrous commercials for a supermarket and his re-hashing of a much-loved car-thrashing Fawlty Towers sketch, he is back to his irreverent best.

When I first saw his PPI adverts I thought it was a genuine party political broadcast.

Maybe JC, looking the part in pin-striped suit, should become an MP.

He would give stand-up comic-in-waiting Chancellor Phil Hammond a run for his (and our) money at the Despatch Box PM's Question Time would never be the same again.

Comic relief for us all.

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SPYS used to come in from the cold.

Now they are coming out of the closets following some recent jaw-dropping allegations.

Already we have heard Ricky Tomlinson's claim that the late Countdown host Richard Whiteley was involved in a MI5-funded political documentary about him.

Now in a new book by his former manager, it is claimed that '60s singer Adam Faith was spying on Fidel Castro.

Now, having met both Richard and Adam, I  would say neither looked like a budding 007.

But fact is stranger than fiction.

There have now been claims that we could have been spied on via our televsion sets. More spooky stuff.

Yet I remember Noel Edmond's House Party and his NTV where - thanks to a hiddden device - the television set would suddenly start talking to unsuspecting viewers at home?

Cue music from The Twilight Zone.

Personally, I always had my doubts about Mr Blobby.

He had KGB written all over him

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BLEEP!

Actress Pauline Collins, who was brought up in New Brighton, appeared on Sean Styles show on BBC Radio Merseyside last week to talk about her new road movie with that other lovely legend, Joan Collins.

Both are in Time of their lives - a movie where two women escape abroad for some soul-searching.

Sean asked Ms Collins about her acute ability with accents and urged her to repeat "Your loop de loop you are" from the film Shirley Valentine.

Which she did in a perfect Scouse accent But then Pauline offered her own fave quote from the same Willy Russell script.

"Aren't men are full of ****" (ryhmes with wit ... you get the picture).

Sean was speechless as Ms Collins apologised accompanied by a throaty Wallasey laugh.

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SPRING is 'hare ... there and everywhere'.

Frank Lund, who with the wonderfully named  Major Mace, created the Black Pearl ship and helped provide a real free tourist attraction in New Brighton's stunning Fairy Glen at Vale Park.

Frank has just created pop-up driftwood hares - some sporting boxing gloves.

Alas at first some were vandalised by hare-brained types. Unruffled Frank made some more.

These egg-citing creations are made with love and not just for Easter.

Ideal for Spring selfies - unique hare-raising creatures.

And it's not long now before the Mermaid Trail makes a real splash.

Both concepts helping put New Brighton on the tourist map - for free, to be frank.

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And finally ...

IT's St Parick's Day on Friday so what better way to celebrate with some words of wisdom from one of Ireland's literary greats.

George Bernard Shaw was celebrated last week at the Liverpool Playhouse with an updated, politcally-tuned version of his classic work Pygmalion.

GBS was very outspooken and prophetic as this clearly shows: "An asylum for the sane would be empty in the United States".

If he were alive today, he would no doubt be getting angry tweets from Mr Trump.

Peter Grant