'Lock 'em up' says Dave.....

Back in Cameroon’s Brave New World poor old Ken Clarke, ‘Minister’ of Justice (a post that pre-Blair only existed in regimes where there is very little of it) and last of the Thatcherite generation got himself into trouble for making a statement of the bleedin’ obvious that there are different degrees of severity in rape, as if a misunderstanding between two teenagers deserves the same punishment as a violent assault by a couple of brutes on a lady walking home across the park. And the news that the Libyan Lunatic has been using Viagra-fuelled rape as a deliberate weapon of terrorism against his own womenfolk is just about as low as it gets. Let’s hope that the Apaches, rather than the ICC, do the business.

He escaped from this when he again rose in public estimation by sleeping all through Obama’s address to the high and mighty in Westminster Hall. (As an aside I have been in Westminster Hall many times. It is the most extraordinary place and you do feel that you are walking with history. It was built in 1094. It is one of the cradles of western civilisation, and quite awe-inspiring. I hope O was duly impressed).

Now his entirely sensible plans to reduce the prison population have been rubbished by Cameron in response to the Daily Wail claque. It is abundantly obvious that our magistrates send people to prison who ought not to be there (and fail to send those who should be).

Example; old lady of 73 with an unblemished driving record who draws out of a side road, is struck by a motor cyclist who is killed, is charged with causing death by careless driving (a new offence created by the Blair reign of terror) and is given three years. What possible public purpose was served by this?

Example; 24 year-old hard working man, never in trouble, never lost a day’s work since leaving school has a party. A gatecrasher causes trouble’. Young man thumps him and gets six months where he is daily offered (but doesn’t accept) class A drugs.

A different example: Muslim agitator publicly burns poppies on Remembrance Sunday, a clear hate crime and public disorder offence. Fine: £50 – less than a fixed penalty notice for dropping a sweet wrapper in the street.

These are not untypical. Every day there is a new scandal of undeserving people being sent to the nick and professional criminals being given community service or counselling – or nothing. There is definitely a problem with the judiciary. My take is that they are from the ‘60s generation who addled their brains with wacky-backy and too much nookie.

Why send people to prison, a hugely expensive form of punishment? Well, it seems to me that there are certain commonsensical criteria – that the crime is so serious imprisonment is the only appropriate punishment (and I don’t mean not paying your council tax, like the old lady who was dragged away in handcuffs a while back), that the accused has ‘previous’ for imprisonable offences, that the accused is likely to reoffend, that the accused is likely to seek vengeance, to name just a few.

Cameron must have a care that he keeps Ken onside. Ken is a bruiser, as tough as teak who has been an MP since before Cameron was born. He would be real trouble if he joined the disaffected heavyweights who occupy the backbenches, such as David Davies.

Cameron confirms that he operates on the basis of ‘If you don’t like  my principles, I have others’ - so slippery that he could crawl under a snakes belly wearing a top hat.

Here’s a piece of Barmy Britain for you.

A local hotel is employing a very pretty German catering student on work emplacement for a few months. She rides a motor bike. She was riding into town when she came to the 20 mph school speed restriction. So she slowed to 20 mph, Germans being punctilious at obeying regulations. Immediately there were flashing blue lights and wailing sirens, and she was pulled over by the Old Bill who demanded to know why she was going so slowly. They told her that the 20 mph only applied when the 20 mph sign was flashing and ordered her to produce her papers.

She didn’t have them with her, so when she got back to the hotel she asked her boss what she should do. He told her to do nothing. Sure enough in due course Plod arrives demanding to see the girl. The boss tells him to get lost and send the Inspector. Out comes a Sergeant. Same response. So the Inspector duly arrives; is given a stern lecture (probably in Anglo-Saxon) on the topic of abuse of authority, and sent on his way empty handed. There has been no further word from the Constabulary.

In the same week, we hear of two detectives who, having recovered a headless corpse from a river, insisted on the attendance of a doctor to say that it was dead.