This has been laid bare by the PR material produced by Hull City Council's extensive publicity department ahead of a new exhibition at the Ferens Arts Gallery featuring the work of wartime heroine Anne Frank.

What perplexes me is the lack of perspective surrounding the fourth paragraph of the missive which reads: "It bears an historical and contemporary perspective to challenge Hull's young people to see how their own hopes, fears and experiences mirror those of the teenage Anne."

I'm sorry. I thought Anne Frank was the teenage Jewish girl who wrote a heart-rending diary in Amsterdam during the war about her family's desperate attempts to avoid the Nazi occupiers. She later became just one of thousands rounded up and sent to a German concentration camp where they were forced to strip naked to be disinfected, had their heads shaved and then tattooed with an identifying number on their arms.

By day, the women were used as slave labour; by night, they were crowded into freezing barracks. Disease was rampant and Anne perished from a typhoid epidemic weeks before the British liberated the camp.

Yet the story of Anne Frank helped define the wartime resistance to the Germans. It was a truly inspirational tale of heroism and courage. It is also incomparable to the social challenges faced by young people in modern-day Hull. Yes, their future prospects could be better. But they do not live under a dictatorship. And, in many instances, Hull's problems are of its own making.

For, if the city's schools were run properly, and parents were encouraged to accept responsibility for their conduct of their children, its pupils may actually know about Anne Frank – and want to learn more. But inappropriate comparisons will not achieve this objective.



AS Gordon Brown ponders the make-up of his first honours list – Yorkshire-born chat show host Michael Parkinson is tipped for a knighthood – will the Prime Minister adopt the hands-on approach of Winston Churchill?

Tony Benn discloses in his latest diaries how a Downing Street cleaner discovered by a bus stop some papers about the imminent Anzio landings of 1944. She took them to the War Office where she insisted on handing them over in person to a general. This only happened after much hoo-ha. And, when the great Winston was informed, he barked to an aide: "See that woman gets a Dame of the British Empire."

Yet, when this was put to Buckingham Palace, the request was turned down by the King. Churchill, however, had the last say. His resignation honours list of 1945 included a DBE for this unlikely hero. "A typical story," muses Mr Benn.



IF the Tories are to win the next election, David Cameron still has to overcome the BBC's inherent anti-Conservative bias. Its news bulletins last Sunday reported prominently the demise, and justifiably so, of a Parliamentary candidate who evoked Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech.

These reports included condemnatory remarks made by Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain during his interview with pundit Andrew Marr.

Yet what the report did not make clear was the feeble nature of Mr Hain's response when challenged over why his department does not know how many migrants are actually working in Britain. This was just as significant as the remarks of one candidate aspiring for election. For Mr Hain is, indeed, one of the Cabinet Ministers presiding over this mess and should not be immune from criticism – even from the BBC.



AFTER brushing aside calls for Parliamentary debates on the Armed Forces, Commons leader Harriet Harman was equally contemptuous, I see, of Beverley MP Graham Stuart when he pointed out how the Government had ordered 2,500 post office closures.

"The Government have done no such ordering. This is a question for the Post Office, and has been subject to consultation," said the Minister.

Hang on. Who funds the Post Office? Yes, the Government. Talk about passing the parcel.



ON the subject of postal matters, I am amazed that there has not been an outcry over the 26 per cent pay rise awarded to Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier, taking his total package to £1.25m. This includes a £469,000 performance-related bonus, despite the fact that Mr Crozier has presided over the worst postal strike for 20 years. When I asked what the criteria was that had to be met for the bonus to be paid, a Royal Mail PR jobsworth said this was a confidential matter.

Wrong. It's everyone's business when it takes a month for a parcel posted in London (first class) to reach Leeds. A carrier pigeon would have been better; certainly quicker.

As a postscript, let it be remembered that it was Mr Crozier who insisted this May that the pay increase for postal staff should be limited to 2.9 per cent. Such hypocrisy is truly shameful.



IF you thought the Blair wars were bad enough, then think again.

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was heard to say rather too loudly at the Gay Hussar restaurant in London, second home to many Left-wing thinkers, this week: "If China were Germany, we'd have to invade."

And there was me thinking that Lord K opposed military intervention in Iraq.

Come back. Tony Blair. All is forgiven. Almost.


IT was ironic, was it not, that the London media were getting so het up over the floods that never came yesterday, and Gordon Brown proudly chairing umpteen meetings of the Cabinet emergency committee, when Yorkshire was left under water for several days earlier this summer before they even acknowledged the disaster.