Swift Justice

Lest anyone should imagine that the breezy Johnsonian attitude to the law is confined to Westminster, the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Nottingham has admitted to multiple speeding offences before, during and after her election on a platform of cracking down on speeding offences. Independently of her defence solicitor, Caroline Henry delivered a grovelling mea culpa to the court, announcing with a Johnsonian flourish her sorrow, embarrassment and shame, and presumably expecting the matter to be forgotten there and then. It is essentially the corporate approach: commit the crime, pay the fine, make a few appeasing noises and carry on as before. Doubtless coincidentally, and entirely without reference to her blue Mercedes and silver Lexus with personalised number plate (the personalised number plate is a delightful populist touch), Henry is the wife of Darren Henry, the most assiduous expenses claimant in the House of Commons, who cost the taxpayer almost three hundred thousand pounds last year, thanks to an "exceptionally busy year for correspondence."