Nice to see that the Government has its priorities right:

If that’s not an Ass, I’m a horse

a gentle and respected friend got 28 days in chink for digging graves as an anti-war protest, and was therefore one of the 271 extra prisoners on Monday who took the prison population through the 80,000 ceiling...

So, a man who was due a six month sentence for downloading child porn (a crime, we are constantly being reminded, involving the actual abuse of actual children) is set free pending good behaviour. Another whose ‘crime’ is to protest against an illegal war - with particular regard to the killing of innocent children (the protest was on the feast of the holy innocents) goes down at huge cost to the taxpayer.

John Reid’s guidelines that were in the news yesterday were not new - they have been in place for quite some time. Reid’s letter was simply a reminder of a policy which was firmly in place on Monday - prison should be reserved for ’serious, repeat and violent offenders’.

[InMyHumbleEtc]

Who knows what kind of threat this serious offence might pose? Next they'll be serving Fairly Traded Tea, and then where would we be?