Probably Not Future Strivers

Given the way Daveybloke's Cuddly Coalition treats real children once their parents fall below a certain income bracket, it should come as no surprise that its promises on the treatment of problem children have been kept much in the manner of Daveybloke saving the NHS. Doubtless owing to the weather, the Euro-wogs or the last Labour government, children in custody are routinely being subjected to humiliation and, arguably, sexual abuse. During the lifetime of the coalition to December 2012, over forty thousand strip-searches were carried out, with contraband items being discovered in fully eight out of a thousand cases. The contraband in question was most commonly tobacco, which ought to please the former Minister of Justice, Kenneth Clarke; in no case were illegal drugs or knives found. Two years ago, the Youth Justice Board announced that the practice would stop, and gave out a press release full of sensitive noises about inmates' "feelings of anger, humiliation and anxiety"; but children in institutions don't own banks or newspapers.