Cometh the hour, cometh the man. The news from Afghanistan has been grim recently and getting grimmer - but now onto the battlefield strides Field Marshal Clegg, of the Liberal Democrat Light Armoured Division, a model of iron will, resolution and decisiveness. As Wellington once said of Napoleon, Clegg must be worth 40,000 men. And some helicopters and cluster bombs.

Here’s what Nick Clegg had to say about the war in Helmand province and what we should do about it: “We must think again. [Rousing applause]. Not about pulling out, but about doing things differently [all troops cheer and throw helmets in the air]. There are many options - the only one I would rule out is following the current course. Er, that’s it.” (Troops hoist Clegg on to their shoulders singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow” and suchlike.)

That was the end bit of the address made by the Lib Dem leader which got so much attention last week. It was flagged - by Clegg, of course, in order for it to get as much attention as possible - as being a breach with the cross-party consensus on Afghanistan, which he said had endured since hostilities began in October 2001.

But it was no such thing; the central charge outlined by Clegg - that the lives of British soldiers were being “thrown away” because of “inadequate equipment” - has been made, in rather less emotive language, by his own defence spokesman, Nick Harvey, many times in the past three or four years. And that does not, in itself, constitute a breach with the cross-party consensus. The Tories have said much the same thing, now and again, also in more measured language.

Both opposition parties have made the point but have not committed themselves to increase defence spending to buy all those new helicopters they think the troops need - fair enough: that’s politics, I suppose. But, remarkably, the Lib Dems have repeatedly criticised the inadequacy of resources for our boys while pledging to cut defence spendingandcancelling Trident (so once we’ve lost the war on the ground we won’t even be able to nuke them).

Clegg made his address at the end of a horrible week for the British forces, with a soldier killed on average every day and then eight servicemen killed at the end of the week.Ithink this is a case - once you’ve stripped away Clegg’s more-in-sorrow-than-anger expression - of political opportunism of the nastiest kind.

So, too, his casually lofted grenade into the British barracks, to the effect that our forces had been “relegated to the background” by the US push in Helmand and it must be “demoralising for British forces to feel that they had been bailed out by Uncle Sam”. Well, I’m sure that observation improved their morale no end, Nick. And is it your opinion that we should have drafted in an extra 5,000 or so of our troops to facilitate the rather embarrassingly named Operation Panther’s Claw and kept the US out of it?

Or are you simply saying that the British troops have done a poor job in Helmand, that they’re not really up to it? And while we’re on the questions, how many troops would you have us commit to Helmand - more than the current 9,000? Fewer? Do you really think that the lives of those 184 British servicemen and women killed since 2001 have been thrown away?

Paddy Ashdown recently made the point that attempting to impose a civil and social democracy on Afghanistan may well be beyond us and we should perhaps be a little more pragmatic about what might reasonably be achieved in that dusty, medieval and virtually ungovernable hell-hole. In other words, keep killing the Taliban whenever they raise their heads above the parapet, as much for our own security as for the good of Afghanistan.

This seems to me sensible and, in a way, preferable to the crusading liberal evangelism which underscored the original invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq, even if it is a sort of admission of defeat. There can surely be no objection to politicians, retired or otherwise, making such observations, especially when they bother to outline an alternative course of action.

+ Has anyone else had enough of that sanctimonious television advert from the power company EDF Energy for “Team Green Britain”?

Yes, I know all adverts are irritating (we need to sort out that bloody meerkat sharpish, I reckon - a tub of Warfarin down its burrow should do the job. Simples).

But here is a company cloaking itself in the British flag and environmental piety when it is (a) not British and (b) about as ecologically minded as a night out in a Lamborghini with Jeremy Clarkson.

The wholly French-owned EDF Energy specialises in stinking, coal-fired power stations and, according to The Ecologist magazine, its French parent company invests next to nothing in new renewable energy projects - at the last count, something like 0.08% of its total capacity.

Even I’m greener than that, and I throw empty crisp packets out of the car window. It has also filched its green Union Jack logo from Ecotricity - a company which really is (a) British and (b) green.

When companies start lecturing you about the environment, it is time to start counting your spoons.

Team Green Britain indeed.

Dumbed by a blonde, as usual

I once tried to pull Madonna when she was waiting in a Washington hotel lobby. I didn’t know it was Madge. I thought it was just a fit blonde woman at a loose end. I think I said something like, “Fancy a burger and a good time?” I think I also told her that my suite had a whirlpool bath (I was there for the BBC, natch). At this point a large black man came along and manhandled me on to the pavement. Depressing, really. But all explained in a piece of research published last week: men suffer an immediate decline in IQ when speaking to an attractive woman. The more attractive, the more their IQ declines. The woman’s IQ stays the same. I suppose this is nature’s way of evening things up. But it explains away most of my life.

Honestly, dear? You look ghastly

A Matalan survey says women spend an average of almost one year of their lives getting ready to go out. Noteverytime they go out, obviously, although it may feel like that on occasions. (“When will you be finished in the bathroom, love?” – “Oh, early November, I expect.”) But over a lifetime. You can’t begrudge them this expenditure of time, especially when all that agonising has paid off and they emerge as radiant and tastefully attired as, say, Amy Winehouse or Peaches Geldof.

It is the next six months of their lives which is truly wasteful, the total period in which they ask us how we think they look, in expectation of a helpful and sensible reply. Best to short-circuit this frittering away of precious minutes and ensure it doesn’t happen again.

“Do these jeans make my bum look fat?” “No, the jeans are fine. It’s your arse that makes your bum look fat. Come on, look lively, the taxi’s been waiting outside since spring.”

Ladies - if you’re planning a holiday in Egypt this year, take a few precautions when you use the hotel swimming pool. And I don’t mean water wings. A Polish woman is suing a hotel there because her daughter emerged from the pool in an unexpectedly expectant state. Or, at least, that’s how mum explains away the fact that her daughter is now pregnant - it was the rather, uh, murky water in the hotel pool.

Must have been that - because the girl didn’t go near any men for the whole vacation, apparently. I wish I’d had a mum as trusting as Mrs Kwiatkowska. And, indeed, her lawyers.

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