Is this a good idea?

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/4jlqn9e

I once admired Clarke, except for his pro-Euro ideas, but now with this latest announcement I think he is going off his rocker.

One expects these kind of things from Labour or liberals but not from the Tories.

[McMouse]

Why not? The inmates will be buying their preferred gear from their own funds.

[R1Geezer]

Perlease, what is happenning to Ken? He should definately join th Lib dems!

[venator]

it's probably the European equality / discrimination madness and the Legal Aid compensation industry.

If the government stopped silly Legal Aid categories, we'd not have this sort of rubbish

[anotheoldgit]

McMouse

/// Why not? The inmates will be buying their preferred gear from their own funds.///

Because they are in jail damn it.

They should be forced to wear the prison uniform.

If I had my way that would be the old one with the arrows on it.

And if they have that much money to play around with, I would make them contribute regularly to a victims support fund.

[McMouse]

Better to by knickers and bras in nick than drugs (which seem to be readily available).

[jackthehat]

You would prefer that the tax-payer paid for the uniforms rather than the convict ?

Well, that makes complete sense............!?!

[WELSHYORKIE]

Yet another farce. Can you imagine Sheila 'The Shoplifter' Smiff parading in his/her bra and knickers in front of the prison population - I don't think so

[VHG]

Yet again we are panderiong to the CRIMINALS and as usual nobody does anything for the VICTIMS.

We seem to have reached a point with so many "health and safety" and "human rights" rules that we cant do anything to punish people any more.

Makes you wonder if we will reach a point in the future where a prisoner wins his case that sending him to prison breaches his human rights.

[WELSHYORKIE]

VHG - I was always taught that prison was a punishment - prisoners these days have more in the way of luxuries than I do at home, where is the punishment in that? BTW AOG - nice Spitfire

[anotheoldgit]

WELSHYORKIE

/// BTW AOG - nice Spitfire ///

Well thank you, yes we thought the world had gone mad in those days....if we had only known.

[youngmafbog]

He should be put out to grass or join the liberals. (Same thing really I suppose)

[jackthehat]

If I was a victim..........I think I may take more satisfaction in knowing that my assailant was having to fork out for *his own clothes whilst serving time for his crime against me than I would in knowing that 'my' taxes were keeping him clothed..........
(*disclaimer - other genders are available for this scenario)

[New Judge]

It is no use keep moaning about things such as this.

Unfortunately this is to comply with the prisoners' "Yuman Rites". If the government did not comply with their special needs they would undoubtedly fall foul of the European Court of Human Rights and be liable to pay compensation.

The only way to stop such nonsense is to repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act and withdraw as a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. (I think I may have said this once or twice before).

[Huderon]

You know, someone posted a bit about the state of the UK in Society & Culture on Saturday which said, among other things, that we have become small minded and unpleasant. As much as I disagree with that post, reading some of the comments in News makes me wonder.

Now, while I am fairly sure that some people round here consider sex change unnatural and kinky, it might be worth while suspending your attitudes for a while and finding out what is actually involved in the process before getting on your high horses.

Apart from a psychological assessment, counselling and mentoring, one or the requirements for people undergoing a sex change is that they live as a member of the sex they wish to become for a period - if memory serves it is a minimum of one year. And I'd guess that is the reason for the changes to the rules.

Going through the sex change process is hard enough for people who are not in prison, going through it in prison must, I imagine, be a lot worse, so anything that can help someone a bit in that situation is, to my mind, a humanitarian thing to do.

[R1Geezer]

perlease! they are in prison because they are criminals the last thing we should be doing is pandering to their deviancies.

Yes judge, I know oooman rites would be involved somewhere!

[whiskeryron]

aog/// yes we thought the world had gone mad in those days....if we had only known./// Oh how I do agree with you I def think that at the moment the lunatics are running the asylum. Just a couple of points that I find very difficult to understand, we join up to belong to a club who's rules hardly any of us believe in ( EU) & then my beloved United Kingdom is broken up into devolved bits & pieces,& we now have to do what some clowns in Belgium tell us.When are we going to get a government with backbone who will tell europe to stuff it ? 2nd point< when will we get a voting system that will hopefully represent the majority of the electorate ? to illustrate this point take a hypothetical figure of 1000 electors< 400 vote Labour<300 vote Tory<200 vote Lb/Dem & 100 vote other parties.
In this election Labour would win but it is clear that 600 voters were against the winning party. Can someone explain to me how this can fairly represent the interests of the majority of voters.Ron.

[Huderon]

Ron, with regard to your second point, we did get a government that represents the view of the majority of those who voted. Not by much admittedly, but they do represent the majority of voters.

Total turnout in the general election was 29,691,380, the Conservatives and Lib Dems between them got 17,563,438 votes which does amount to a majority, The source for those numbers was http://news.bbc.co.uk...election2010/results/