Possible Split in Westminster Lynch Mob

Even the Party of Big Society and Water-Cannon has its dissenters, and one of them has written to the attorney general about the policy allegedly adopted by the Metropolitan Firearms and Headbangers' Club during the recent echt-Bullingdon jamborees in England's cities. James Clappison, a Conservative MP who is, no doubt coincidentally, a barrister rather than a PR man, a journalist or a psychological circus freak, has asked for assurances that Britain's feral youth should be treated according to, of all things, "normal standards of justice". Clappison is worried that the Met's "prisoner processing strategy", which appears to translate into Standard English as bang 'em all up and sort 'em out later, may "risk the appearance of two systems of justice", rather than the Daveybloke ideal of no excuses for the proles and lots of second chances for the nice people. Clappison expresses the fear that any form of blanket policy would "create the risk of persons who are eventually acquitted in effect serving a custodial sentence prior to their acquittal in circumstances where they would not otherwise have done so", a prospect which he appears to believe might bother some people. However, the Met has already issued an eloquent denial of the charge that they applied a blanket policy of refusing to issue cautions: of 1881 people arrested, seventeen were cautioned and a mere 1116 charged and locked up.