Day 2105: Full Up

Sunday:


That nice Mr Dr John Reid must be VERY PROUD this weekend as he is close to reaching his TARGET and filling up all of our prisons.

Both Liberal Mr Nick Clogg and Conservatory Mr Davis David have pointed out that it is a bit incompetent of Mr Dr John to have got to his target without enough places to put everybody.

But instead of asking: "Why do we not have MORE than 80,000 prison places in which to put people?" shouldn't we ask: "Why do we need as many as 80,000 places in the FIRST PLACE?"

The number of people that we are putting in prison has very nearly DOUBLED since 1993 (which COINCIDENTALLY is when Lord Blairimort started using this as a stick to beat the Conservatories with). We now lock up more of our population than any other country in Europe: 4 out of every 3,000 British People are at Her Majesty's Pleasure.

(Which is a VERY odd phrase: it cannot be THAT much of a pleasure to keep thousands of people chained up!)

Why do we do this?

Are British people just more desperately HORRID than people in the rest of Europe? Is BINGE DRINKING to blame for it all? Was Iraq not ENOUGH of a war to get violence out of our SYSTEM?

Looking at what crimes have been committed, this graphic from the BBC shows that the runaway winners are Violence against the Person and Drugs offences. So these are not people that we OBVIOUSLY want to let out again.

(Although it might be better if people hooked on drugs were sent to a place to get them unhooked from drugs rather than an ordinary prison.)

But I think it is VERY IMPORTANT that we try and work out what is the CAUSE of this apparently huge rise in criminal violence!

Lord Blairimort said he was going to get TOUGH ON THE CAUSES OF CRIME, but this does not appear to have been the case AT ALL.

I do not think that anyone thought that he meant "Crime is CAUSED by the people outside prisons, so the solution is to put more of them INSIDE prisons."

It is only a short step from that to "The Crime isssss Life; the Ssssentensssss isssss…" something nice Mr Dr John can work out for himself!


It is said that it costs £37,000 a year to keep a person in prison. So for 80,000 prisoners that makes the cost the best part of £ 3 BILLION a year. Or about FIFTY QUID FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US – even the NOT PRISONERS!

(Although in fact this is less that the government want to spend on I.D.iot cards!)

I have this silly idea that we would all be better off if the government just PAID all the prisoners £18,000 a year to NOT commit crime and gave everyone in the country £25 back!

Anyway, one crime that has been avoided apparently, is a FIGHT between Mr Dr John and Mr Frown, as rumour suggests that they have come to a deal. Those always works out well for Mr Frown!

Here's the agreement: Mr Dr John will not spoil Mr Frown's election as leader by standing against him and Mr Frown will not spoil Mr Dr John's being Home Secretary by firing him the day after he is elected.

In celebration of this new accord for peace and understanding, Mr Frown has been allowed to make a speech on the Home Secretary's usual turf: terrorism!

Now Mr Frown is going to start freezing the assets (no it is NOT rude!) of… well, pretty much anyone he decides is a terrorist.

I'd say Lord Blairimort had better visit a cashpoint!