Subtle Distinctions

Another policy, another misunderstanding. The British electorate, which cannot grasp the fact that tripling tuition fees means people will pay less; whose trust in British politics has not been restored despite the Herculean moral effort involved in voting in favour of something one has pledged to oppose; which cannot understand why an NHS composed of GPs turned accountants on the say-so of Nestlé and Mars will be the healthiest thing to hit the body politic since the days of the Black Death; which has utterly failed to recognise the stroke of genius that is the privatisation of the nation's chlorophyll; the terminally slow-witted, police-horse baiting and ungrateful British electorate has now forced Theresa May to clarify her policy of moving beyond ASBOs. Like the Government's policy of doing away with control orders, the Government's policy of scrapping ASBOs consists mostly of changing the name. Additional measures include "encouraging communities to act together to deal with unruly behaviour", since cuts in policing levels will necessitate the use of properly controlled and officially sanctioned lynch mobs; and a "criminal behaviour order" which could mean that someone who is convicted of being drunk and disorderly might be banned from a town centre for two years, the ban no doubt being enforced via that infamous surveillance state which somebody or other promised to abolish. The police will get yet more discretion to deal with offenders in their own civil fashion, rather than having to rely on the old-fashioned, time-consuming and evidence-requiring institution of the courts. And yet the public still needs to be told how different it all is from New Labour.