A Tangled Web

Crime and Punishment, and the Idiot

 

These are two titles by Fyodor Dostoevsky, I hear you cry. Well, yes they are, but they are also suitable titles dealing with a thread concentrating on the new proposals put forward by Phony Tony to deal with a crime rate currently spiralling out of control here in the United Kingdom.  Blair apparently wants an end to the 1960's 'liberal consensus' (what will Cherie make of that?) he blames for creating a underclass of young people who have grown up without any form of parental discipline.

 

One must remember all this baloney comes from the same government which has just curtailed a parent's right to physically chastise children to such an extent, any consequent pain greater than the feeling of being tickled by a feather duster will be classed as 'child abuse.'   It is a government that would balk at the merest suggestion of re-introducing corporal punishment in schools, and a government which believes advocates of capital punishment (such as myself and 80% of the British population) are little better than cerebrally-challenged Neanderthals.

 

On the train coming back fom London, I was reading an article examining punishment methods in Singapore.  This is not some primitive banana republic, but a modern, stable democracy with a quality of life and levels of income comparable to those found in the West.  However, it is a country with a very low crime rate.  Serious crimes like murder and kidnapping are dealt with - appropriately - by the death sentence.  Lesser crimes (minor drug trafficking, mugging, vandalism, burglary, etc.) are punishable by rotan cane.  Mr Blair, I put it to you that serious crimes should incur a serious penalty.  Tinkering around the edges with ASBOs and the like will not solve the real and rising crisis of crime in Britain today.   Aping the Singaporean attitudes to justice might just do the trick.