Grandmother Courage

This is 71 year-old Ann Timson, who last week attacked six sledgehammer-equipped young men bent on robbing a jewelry store in Northampton and has become an international heroine.

I am genuinely astonished that she has not been arrested for her unprovoked assault on the thugs - not to mention showing up the police and shaming every man in sight. 

The Express reports that she is flying to New York, first class, to appear on the "Today" show. Why has she not been invited to appear on British TV? Oh dear, we wouldn't want to encourage this sort of thing, would we?

It seems she has form and was the mainstay of a highly successful "take back our neighbourhood" campaign that cleaned up the once-notorious Spring Boroughs estate.

And guess what? As a reward for having worked so hard for her community, the local Labour party rejected her as a council candidate in favour of an outsider.