IT can't be an easy job, being Prime Minister. It would be impossible to please all of the people all of the time. I wouldn't want to be in Tony Blair's shoes for long, although a day would be nice. Here are just a few changes I'd rush through in my 24 hours in charge of the nation...

- Shorten the football season

October to mid-April is quite long enough to put up with the Saturday night musings - "Let's see that corner again, just in case you missed it the eighth time," of Gary Lineker and Co. And the rest. As a rule of thumb, it should not overlap at all with the cricket season.

- Introduce a fixed-term contract for marriage. Like a contract of employment, it would be renewable every couple of years - on agreement of both sides. It would certainly lower the divorce rate.

- Ban loud music from shops, pubs and caf-bars. Particularly those that you can hear half-a-mile down the street. How anyone orders a drink in one of those places without the use of a megaphone amazes me. As for having a conversation...

- Limit celebrity chefs, gardeners and interior designers to one TV programme each a month. Turn on the telly between 8pm and 9pm at the moment and you're 99 per cent guaranteed to get Charlie Dimmock or Alan Titchmarsh wielding a trowel, Diarmuid Gavin messing about with multi-coloured breeze blocks, Nigella Lawson trying to look sexy but homely with a ladle, or that irritating American woman from House Doctor who earns a good living rearranging furniture and putting stuff in cupboards.

- Limit the ownership of giant four-wheel drive vehicles to hill farmers and anyone who lives more than a mile down a cart-track.

- Impose severe penalties on anyone seen dropping litter. A month working salt-mine style on Strensall tip would sort offenders out.

- Lower the retirement age to 40. I don't know how this could be funded but wouldn't it be great? I've already got my copy of the Saga cruise brochure.

I was going to suggest a three-day week, but as I'm already part-time I really don't want the rest of the workplace threatening my peace and quiet on days off. Selfish, I know, but as PM, what would be the point in introducing policies that are going to get up my nose?

- A one-off payment of £100,000 for each child under five, to clothe them, feed them and see them through school would be helpful. Of course, it would probably mean the £15 or so a-week child benefit would have to be scrapped, but people would get over that in time.

Oh, and there's one last thing. Now this I really would like to do:

- Ban all fixed, false-looking grins, kissing of strange babies and sucking-up to all-and-sundry in a horribly sycophantic way in the lead-up to any political election. I'm sure most people would back me on that one.