Bag a Burglar for Chris

As the role of the police evolves more and more into that of a mercenary enforcer of purely corporate interests, the Conservative Party will require one or two new dog-whistles to persuade the little folk that it is on their side. That is perhaps the most rational of the various possible pretexts for Chris Graybeing's intention to modify the law, which already permits the use of force against intruders, so that use of force will be permitted against intruders. Graybeing, of course, was shuffled into the Ministry of Justice on the same grounds as Jeremy C Hunt was shuffled into the health ministry: Graybeing knows nearly as much about the law as Hunt, a fan of coathangers and other homeopathic remedies, knows about public health. Even more humiliating, Graybeing was Daveybloke's second choice, after his intellectual equal Iain Duncan Smith insisted on remaining as Supreme High Commissioner of the Idleness Police. Much like Duncan Smith with his benefit-fraud obsession, Graybeing evidently prefers to focus on the narrower picture: in the fifteen years to 2005, there were eleven prosecutions of people who attacked intruders, including seven who attacked domestic burglars. Perhaps, like so many in the present Cabinet, Graybeing is confused by large numbers.