ANOTHER VOICE
The junior boy who sits in judgment on us all
AUBE RON WAUGH
The vulgarity and ignorance of these populist responses are distressing enough, but perhaps such distress is the price we must pay for keeping Roy Hattersley at bay. It is more alarming when we see fawning ministers introduce White Papers and eventually Bills to give instant effect to these Dial-a-Quote opinions. But at least these wretched Bills, laid before the House by a red-faccd Home Secretary, speaking far too vehemently to carry conviction, are then subjected to the normal democratic process. The Child Sex Offenders (Castra- tion) Bill will be hailed as a truly statesmanlike measure in the Times and Sunday Times, the Sun and News of the World, also on Sky Television, and it will be passed by a very large majority in the House of Commons. Perhaps Mr Hurd will come under fire from a few Dial-a-Quote MPs for not having gone far enough: the time to castrate these perverts is before they have been able to commit an offence, not when it is too late. But he will be able to put these snarling, frustrated men in their place through the quiet strength of his convictions.
At least, as I say, we will have the opportunity to discuss the measure, make a few jokes comparing Mrs Thatcher's prop- osals to castrate the citizenry with Mrs Gandhi's campaign for mass vasectomy in India, and complain that the Prime Minis- ter has grown so demented with conceit since the success of her Gibraltar shootings that the days of her government must surely be numbered.
But what is more terrifying than this shoot-from-the-hip legislation to which Enoch Powell drew our attention last week is surely the knowledge that in addition to its legislative function, which we can observe and mock to our heart's content, this Government of Thatcher sycophants also has an executive function within each Department of State about whose opera- tion we know very little indeed, and are unlikely to learn anything much, for 30 years at least. In other words, the frightful figures with names like Dave Mellor whom we see capering across the public stage, making idiotic remarks in slavish imitation of their leader, also have a secret role, heavily protected from public scrutiny, in which they make administrative decisions which seriously affect the life, liberty and happiness of ourselves and our fellow- citizens.
Just occasionally the curtain is lifted an inch or two. On Wednesday, a House of Lords select committee examining life sentences received evidence to the effect that in the six months from April to September last year ministers in the Home Office considered 106 life sentences which had come up to them from Crown Court judges via the Lord Chief Justice with, in every case, a secret recommendation from the trial judge (sometimes amended by the. Lord Chief Justice) for the minimum period to be served. In 34 of these cases, we learn, the Minister concerned agreed with the judge's recommendations. In nine cases the Minister reduced the recom- mended sentences. In 63 — more than 60 per cent — he increased them. We are not told the details, but I understand that a normal practice was to increase any 12- year recommendation to 15 years.
The authority to set minimum terms for life prisoners resides with the Home Secretary, but this power is currently dele- gated to Douglas Hogg, a Home Office minister. I do not know Mr Hogg, who is five or six years younger than I am. From his public utterances over the years, I should judge that he is an objectionable little squit. He trained as a barrister, but scarcely practised long enough to give him the experience to over-rule the Lord Chief 'Hello, is that Child Line?' Justice, who recommended that minimum sentences should be increased in only 16 cases.
Hogg justifies the system which gives him unsupervised power to increase some wretched prisoner's sentence thus: Release of a prisoner on licence from a life sentence is an act of clemency. It is entirely right, taking into account their wider respon- sibilities and accountability to parliament, that the decision on the length of time to be served before a review of an individual's case should rest with Ministers.
I like the plural form in which he plainly sees himself. 'Ministers must remember to clean their teeth before going to bed,' he no doubt says every night. But the sugges- tion that Ministers (i.e. the squit Hogg) are accountable to Parliament for the leniency of judges was quite simply untrue until they chose to make themselves account- able in that way. And the idea that this objectionable young man should be able to work off his sado-legal Etonian power- urges by adding three years to prison sentences without public debate, or scru- tiny, or even awareness, is repugnant to everything which is Christian, or Euro- pean, or remotely white. I did not learn of the Home Office evidence to the House of Lords select committee through pacing the corridors of the Palace of Westminster, or diligently taking notes. I learned of it because the Daily Mail, having presumably had its attention drawn by a ministerial private office, chose to lead the day's news last Thursday with the opposite conclusion: EXPOSED: BRITAIN'S TOO SOFT JUDGES. HOD Office figures released for the first time last night confirm the extent of liberal leniency among Britain's judges when it comes to major crime. In 60 per cent of cases studied, Ministers have over-ruled them because they were too soft. . . .
I suppose we must all play the game by the rules. Perhaps that was the only way the Daily Mail could draw our attention to the filthy things which are going on, with snotty little Etonian sadists having free rein over our penal system. Douglas Hogg is a major public health hazard, but we mug play by the rules. Even he can't keep the entire prison population incarcerated inde- finitely. One day someone will have to be released who, like Mr Loveday, will cele- brate the occasion with a rape and murder of truly epic proportions. Then we can all jump on the squit Hogg and kick him to death.
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