It must be darned hard to be a conservative these days, considering the quality and status of the opposition.

Police are out on our roads in force this week making sure vehicles are roadworthy and drivers are behaving in a responsible manner.

The thing about whales is not that they are beautiful goliaths of the sea - although they are - but that they and their cetacean cousins may be as intelligent as humans.

There have been a few suggestions made in the past 48 hours about what may or may not have been said to provoke a grown man into attacking a 12-year-old boy.