Undiminished Responsibility

The desire for all parties to be tough on rioters, and tough on even more rioters, is leading to a weird kind of macho culture where all parties clamour to show how tough they are. Maybe it was the reflection that Tottenham's not far from Islington that made Labour come down all authoritarian. More than anything else it reminds me of the old sketch from Not the Nine O'Clock News where the right-winger claims the only way to deal with trouble-makers is to "cut their goolies off". The left-winger (social worker, if I remember rightly) counters that she knows these kids, she's alongside these kids. And that they need their goolies cut off. But now we have the inevitable demands that we introduce National Service, cut off their benefits and throw them out on the streets. Maybe it's just me, but the thought of a bunch of homeless, moneyless ex-rioters with military training roaming the streets - with or without their more sensitive glands - is even scarier than the thought of what it must be like at home with Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper.

Have you ever considered what it would be like in the Balls/Cooper household, if they speak to each other at home like they speak to interviewers? The thought of Yvette requesting the salt, in that earnest way she has,  and Ed explaining that under a Labour government each person would have a salt cellar of their own - a salt cellar that would have been supplied by the Government, as part of its salt industry job creation scheme. And then Yvette explaining to one of the little Cooper-Ballses that hurting themselves by running into the door like that was their own silly fault - they'd gone too far, and too fast.

Sorry, a rogue thought went off there. But this last week I've seen more anti-social behaviour than the night  the posh kids let off all the fire extinguishers at a Brasenose party in the 80s. And it cost them 50 quid each in fines plus a refilling fee. Although, naturally, they paid in advance.