Creaky Danglers

It would, as we know, be grossly unfair to imagine that the only things to find favour in the Conservative moral code are poor-bashing, cripple-kicking and wog-bombing. The Conservative moral code is nothing if not expandable, and has always included a large and comfortable space for hanging and flogging as well. Accordingly, one of the party's expenses claimants has written to the Ministry for Profitable Incarceration suggesting that the Government might perhaps compensate the courts for the loss of all that Legal Aid by giving them the option of an occasional stringing-up. Fortunately, the expenses claimant in question is the ridiculous John Hayes, who once decided to overrule his bosses in the coalition on the grounds that British energy policy was too renewable; hence the Ministry extruded a flunkey to brush the matter off with the usual statement that Her Majesty's Government "opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances" except by its chums in the head-chopping House of Saud and some good Christian folk in America and whenever the Home Secretary feels inclined, and has no more plans to reintroduce the rope than it has plans for anything else.