The government professes itself bewildered every time some horrible little tyke up before the courts on account of a mindlessly violent crime is discovered to have been on bail for committing a similar offence the previous day. “Why was he bailed?” we ask aghast and the government, as one, shakes its head and says: “We don’t understand it either.”

Look at the case of poor Garry Newlove, for example, who was kicked to death outside his home in Warrington by a bunch of thugs, one of whom had been released on bail only 10 hours before and politely requested by the court to leave the area. The yob took no notice. Now the local Labour MP has called for a Commons debate and Jack Straw is conducting an inquiry into bail conditions. The implication from the government is that it is the fault of rogue judges or useless magistrates.

Well, let me help Jack out and maybe save the taxpayer some money. Two years ago the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) sent out advice to all those working in the courts advising that Her Majesty’s Courts Service (HMCS) had new stipulations on the granting and not granting of bail, regardless of the offence committed. The CPS advice reads: “Remands in custody should only be sought when only [sic] absolutely necessary, in circumstances when bail conditions cannot meet bail objections.” And, in 2003 the HMCS (for which we ought to read “the government”) “invited courts considering . . . custody to consider curfew”.

The latest advice from the government’s Sentencing Guidelines Council is even more simple and straightforward: “All youths appearing before the youth courts are entitled to unconditional bail” unless there are extraordinary extenuating circumstances.

Now this fog of mystery is beginning to lift. The government has spent the past 10 years telling magistrates, judges and the like: “Grant bail to the psychotic oiks who come before you – or else.” When judges and magistrates grant bail to sociopaths, it is not because they are out of their boxes on class A drugs (the judges, that is), it is because they have been told repeatedly by government to do so.

One brave judge, Ian Trigger, came close to making this very point in Liverpool crown court as he passed sentence on a teenager for clubbing a woman with a metal bar, having been released on bail for a stabbing offence. “It is the fault of politicians that bail is granted so readily,” he said. Indeed – and we know which politicians. Something to remember next time the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, appears on your television news wearing a concerned and bemused expression, and calling for an inquiry.

For the best part of 20 years we’ve been wondering if Russia is of any use to mankind whatsoever, save as a sort of vast and chilly gasworks full of mafiosi and secret policemen. But at last the Germans have come up with an answer as to how Russia might be of benefit to the world: as a receptacle for the feral young thugs of the West.

A young German offender has been sent by a court, through an exchange programme, to live in a house in the hitherto unknown settlement of Sedelnikovoa, Siberia, where the temperature today was -55C. He will be quartered in a house which has – like most in the area – no running water, heating or electricity. Sedelnikovoa is the sort of place which our young hooligans would describe as “minging”, it being entirely devoid of KFCs, night clubs and crack dealers.

The German miscreant’s first job, apparently, was to hack away at the permafrost to construct a toilet. What an excellent idea and one that we might adopt, given our dire shortage of prisons and a court system which encourages young people to continue offending until, at last, they kill someone. The thugs might die of cold, of course, but we would be spared their piteous whining about their “rights”. In Siberia, nobody can hear you whine.

It’s Frank, not Kate, down the line

How do we stop people snorting themselves out of their tiny brainboxes on cocaine? According to the latest government figures, almost everyone in the country indulges.

The tabloids try to put us off by showing us pictures of Kate Moss – who is said to have indulged – and telling us how tired and awful she looks as a consequence of the drug. Problem is, in their photographs she looks pretty good to me (although I’ve always had a thing about women with no nostrils and bleeding gums). Tell someone that if they don’t stop doing the charlie they’ll end up like Ms Moss and I reckon they’ll be on the phone to their dealer within a second.

But that affable old cokehead Frank Bough – now that’s a different issue. None of us wants to be like Frank, likeable though the former Breakfast Time, Nationwide and Grandstand presenter once was. Think about those bright jumpers, think Hush Puppies.

Also, it transpires that the man killed by a tiger recently at San Francisco zoo may have been a bit of a druggy. So there’s the pitch for the government: “Stop doing coke or you’ll be eaten by a tiger or end up like Frank Bough.”

Islamic terrorists given a bad name

The new government-approved term for terrorism carried out in the name of Allah is “antiIslamic activity”. I don’t know how this sits with Allah himself, nor the terrorists – or indeed the people they blow to smithereens. The latter two communities of people would be more tempted to use the phrase “Islamic activity”, I reckon. This new configuration is deployed by that famous Koranic expert Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, presumably as an attempt to appease large sections of the British Muslim community who do not wish to kill the rest of us. Appeasing Muslims is perfectly reasonable, but I wonder if Jacqui might go a little further and actually refer to Muslim terrorists as “Methodist terrorists” or blame it all on dwarfs or homosexuals, so as to divert attention even further from the Muslim community.

Jacqui also runs the risk of offending Britain’s real antiIslamic community. For moral and practical reasons, they have yet to blow themselves up outside our airports. We do not wish to be associated with acts of indiscriminate violence.

Nothing should surprise us, these days. The Labour MP and former health secretary Patricia Hewitt, a longtime opponent of private healthcare, has just taken a very lucrative job – with Cinven, a company that invests in . . . private healthcare. Everyone has their price, I suppose, and Pat’s happens to be about £100K pa with her Saturday job, advising Boots the chemist.

Meanwhile, even cheering stories become stained with cynicism. We were all delighted by Captain Peter Burkill, whose Boeing 777 crew averted disaster at Heathrow. Moved by his modesty, too. Now we learn his wife is in touch with Max Clifford to flog his story. If I were the engine of a Boeing 777 and someone told me Clifford was on board, I’d shut down immediately.

rod.liddle@sunday-times.co.uk

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