Monday, May 25, 2009

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Rutland prison blues

Our week at Bonkers Hall continues.

Friday

Having complimented we Rutlanders on our low crime rate yesterday, I learn this morning that there is a prison riot going on in the county. Let me add at once that few if any of the felons involved will prove to have come from hereabouts when the inquiry is held. It has always seemed to me a mistake to accept prisoners from other counties when, because of the policing strategy mentioned above (together with judicious use of the Jack Straw Memorial Reform School, Dungeness, and the success of the Reverend Hughes Church Lads’ Ping Pong Club), we live in such a crime-free paradise.

I fear that if there is one thing in which there should not be free trade, it is the human criminal. For what would happen if people stopped breaking the law? The answer is clear: the companies running the bridewells would agitate for innocent people to be gaoled to keep them in business. Indeed, I wonder if this is not the reason why this government has passed so many new laws. If you look into it, I expect you will find that the prison operators are generous funders of the Labour Party.

Be that as it may, I post pickets of gamekeepers on every approach to the Hall, and ensure that they are armed with the stoutest orchard doughties, in case someone escapes.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

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