Lewis Hamilton, the British F1 Racing Driver, has decided to leave the UK for the tranquillity, and no doubt the tax benefits, of Switzerland. Of the UK he notes:

"I can't go to the cinema. I go to the bathroom in a petrol station and people come in there for autographs. It's tough but I knew that was going to be the case."

While many of us can no doubt emphasise with these problems, Mr Hamilton has obviously not been reading the papers recently. If he had, he would have learned that, due to the colour of his skin, he is a threat to Swiss security. Last Sunday, the Swiss Justice Minister Christoph Blocher’s SVP party won 29% of the vote on the back of an election campaign dominated by an overtly racist anti-immigration campaign. The SVP’s election propaganda included a poster with three white sheep kicking a black sheep out of the country with the slogan ‘More Security!’.

Fortunately this was the tame version of the campaign poster that they wanted to use but had to pull, which featured a caricatured black face and the slogan “The Swiss are increasingly the negroes”.

For Hamilton, it would seem that pesky autograph hunters are going to be the least of his problems. Lewis come back!