Safety first

Yet, while pleas from racegoers for the police to show some leniency towards Mr McCoy's extenuating circumstances, he was speaking to his mother, were rejected by Merseyside Police, there was no one speaking up for Mr Balls, the Schools Secretary, who was driving from Yorkshire to London with his young children sleeping in the back of the car.

And that is the point – the law has to be applied fairly to all, and mobile-phone users pose a danger, irrespective of whether they're driving in slow-moving traffic leaving a racecourse or on a relatively quiet motorway.

To his credit, Mr Balls has accepted that he was wrong and that the law on mobile phones exists "to protect the safety of all drivers,

passengers and pedestrians".

The issue is that too many police forces have been reluctant to enforce this legislation – even though the offence is, arguably, just as hazardous as drink-driving. It's high time that the police rectified this so motorists – however famous – have no justification for flouting the law.