Politics ramble
Ok, back on the horse and into the game. What do we have on the politics plate?
First up, let’s have a taste of that prison crisis. Apparently there’s about a dozen cells and a small cupboard left in Britain’s prisons. A major panic because we’ve got no places to put all the bad men any more (we can’t send them all to no.10).
Ok, some points - first of all, as a genuine fluffy, Guardianista liberal, I naturally want to see less custodial sentences for non-violent crime (because all us commie-pinko-socialist types want to bring down society! MUAHAHA!) . I much prefer slave labour (i.e. community service). I know people whine that it’s soft - but really, picture coming home from work every night to go out and do more work - no free time, just work, eat, sleep, work, eat sleep. I know if someone robbed me of my evenings and weekends I’d be banging on Broadmoor’s door. It has the added bonus of us not having to pay for their upkeep and council’s saving money by getting all the cleaning done with free labour - bonus. I really don’t see much need to put most non-violent criminals in prison - aside form anything else I don’t want to pay out vast sums to feed and house them when there is a better option.
But second point - a prison space CRISIS? What happened? Did a million people all get arrested yesterday? No? Did thousands of Butlins inmates manage to scale the wall and hide in prisons as a desperate attempt to escape the carnage? No? Has some scientist secretly completed his cloning experiments on prisoners and we are now dealing with the terrible consequences of his unethical actions? No? Ok…. THEN WHY DID YOU NOT SEE THIS COMING OH GOVERNMENT PEOPLE? Did no-one think when there was only room for an extra, say, 3,000 people in prison to say “we had better act now or we may have problems?” Good gods does our government really have all the forward planning ability of a sick goldfish? (Don’t answer that question, I have little enough faith in government as it is).
We move on to point 2 - the Great Veil debate.
Straw mentioned his disquiet about veils (which is fair enough, since he was OUTRIGHT expressing an opinion - though I think he may get grief for asking women to unveil when they come and see him) and I believe some Tory at the conference shot his mouth off (because that conference was just funny) about it. And I do agree that any women forced or pressurised into wearing a veil is deeply deeply wrong. But some don’t. Some like wearing it - and while it may make you uncomfortable I can swear your discomfort is NOTHING compared to the discomfort I feel every week at the pub when that guy comes in in his like green and bright orange jacket *shudder*. The country does not have a dress code for habitation. Unfortunately.
Now when it comes to schools and school uniform and businesses and business uniforms, then we have an issue for debate.
On the Tory party conference: Cameron, if you actually find a POLICY - JUST ONE - then you may not actually get your entire party squabbling at you on everything from taxes to school dinners for crying out loud. You looked pretty good with your endless, empty, meaningless soundbites. Now you kind of look like a man trying to herd cats - massive, feral, savage, rabid moggies at that.
First up, let’s have a taste of that prison crisis. Apparently there’s about a dozen cells and a small cupboard left in Britain’s prisons. A major panic because we’ve got no places to put all the bad men any more (we can’t send them all to no.10).
Ok, some points - first of all, as a genuine fluffy, Guardianista liberal, I naturally want to see less custodial sentences for non-violent crime (because all us commie-pinko-socialist types want to bring down society! MUAHAHA!) . I much prefer slave labour (i.e. community service). I know people whine that it’s soft - but really, picture coming home from work every night to go out and do more work - no free time, just work, eat, sleep, work, eat sleep. I know if someone robbed me of my evenings and weekends I’d be banging on Broadmoor’s door. It has the added bonus of us not having to pay for their upkeep and council’s saving money by getting all the cleaning done with free labour - bonus. I really don’t see much need to put most non-violent criminals in prison - aside form anything else I don’t want to pay out vast sums to feed and house them when there is a better option.
But second point - a prison space CRISIS? What happened? Did a million people all get arrested yesterday? No? Did thousands of Butlins inmates manage to scale the wall and hide in prisons as a desperate attempt to escape the carnage? No? Has some scientist secretly completed his cloning experiments on prisoners and we are now dealing with the terrible consequences of his unethical actions? No? Ok…. THEN WHY DID YOU NOT SEE THIS COMING OH GOVERNMENT PEOPLE? Did no-one think when there was only room for an extra, say, 3,000 people in prison to say “we had better act now or we may have problems?” Good gods does our government really have all the forward planning ability of a sick goldfish? (Don’t answer that question, I have little enough faith in government as it is).
We move on to point 2 - the Great Veil debate.
Straw mentioned his disquiet about veils (which is fair enough, since he was OUTRIGHT expressing an opinion - though I think he may get grief for asking women to unveil when they come and see him) and I believe some Tory at the conference shot his mouth off (because that conference was just funny) about it. And I do agree that any women forced or pressurised into wearing a veil is deeply deeply wrong. But some don’t. Some like wearing it - and while it may make you uncomfortable I can swear your discomfort is NOTHING compared to the discomfort I feel every week at the pub when that guy comes in in his like green and bright orange jacket *shudder*. The country does not have a dress code for habitation. Unfortunately.
Now when it comes to schools and school uniform and businesses and business uniforms, then we have an issue for debate.
On the Tory party conference: Cameron, if you actually find a POLICY - JUST ONE - then you may not actually get your entire party squabbling at you on everything from taxes to school dinners for crying out loud. You looked pretty good with your endless, empty, meaningless soundbites. Now you kind of look like a man trying to herd cats - massive, feral, savage, rabid moggies at that.