Good Old-Fashioned Discipline

Saudi Arabia, which is such a paragon of New Labour values that its army was invited to help the government of Bahrain trample on some inconveniently springing Arabs, has shown itself still worthy of its allies by sentencing six orphans to ten lashes each for "acts of mischief". The sentence was carried out at a prison in Medina, the second holiest city of those who surrender to the Compassionate and Merciful. The public relations manager at the kingdom's ministry of social affairs gave a note-perfect New Labour/Cuddly Coalition comment to Reuters, pleading the independence of the courts and stating that the ministry would "rehabilitate and take care of the girls' social wellbeing". International human rights groups, excluding Her Majesty's Government, have criticised the Saudi régime over its enthusiasm for corporal and capital punishment, which embraces physical mutilation and beheading and is surpassed in few places other than the Conservative back benches and the more foetid reaches of various Home Office crania.