Friday's comment from the papers in...

Today in Times Comment

• Ben Macintyre: From a distance of 70 years the scenes that inspired Picasso's Guernica seem grimly familiar
• Gerard Baker: Mr Thompson, the Imaginary Candidate, is lighting up the presidential contest at the moment
• Mick Hume: Such is the lack of confidence within the Establishment, everybody from politicians to church leaders wants to hug environmentalism
• Mark Henderson: If mum and dad are thick and ugly a designer baby with Stephen Hawking's brains and Kate Moss's looks isn’t going to happen
• Jane Shilling: Drink is a recurrent theme in centenarian discourse. Little tots of gin, sherry, port, whisky and rum abound
• Mary Ann Sieghart: You might expect stonewalling from "media-trained" business people and politicians. But from a representative of the Church of England?
• Peter Riddell: Europe will be the trickiest political test for Tony Blair in his remaining weeks, and for Gordon Brown in his first few months in power
• Ann Treneman: Class warfare broke out during Education Questions yesterday. I blame Boris Johnson
• Dan Sabbagh: The time of day cannot explain why ITV’s breakfast broadcaster seems to have behaved so utterly cluelessly over phone-ins

And from the rest of the papers…

• Terence Blacker: (The Independent) - Why I'm not sold on 'The Apprentice'
• Dominic Lawson: (The Independent) - A simple truth: prison works, and it is neither cruel nor vengeful to say so
• Matthew Norman: (The Independent) - Could you have a gay Prime Minister now?
• Jeff Randall: (The Daily Telegraph) - If, as Thomas Edison said, "Interest is the invention of Satan", then the devil must be mightily pleased - because there's so much of it being paid
• Daniel Hannan: (The Daily Telegraph) - If Labour MPs want to give our freedoms away in perpetuity with a new European treaty, they should have the decency to ask us first
• Con Coughlin: (The Daily Telegraph) - There is nothing the military commanders would like more than to withdraw their forces from Iraq, but it isn't that simple
• Polly Toynbee: (The Guardian) - Blair's ideology of choice has fostered unbridled consumerism. But that, and restoring public trust, is now Brown's problem
• Simon Jenkins: (The Guardian) - London has a lot to learn from Moscow, a city that has not sold out to money and vulgarity and remains recognisably Russian.
• Mark Lawson: (The Guardian) - Harry Wales cannot be treated equally, because soldiers are expendable and princes are not

And from around the world…

• Dave Cullen: (New York Times) - If Columbine has taught us anything, it is that we should avoid a legal stalemate over depositions by the parents of the gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre
• David S. Broder: (Washington Post) - John McCain this week reverted suddenly and dramatically to his 1999-2000 role as the leading Republican critic of politics as usual
• Yosef Tommy Lapid: (Jerusalem Post) - There is a huge gap between the State of Israel as it is reflected in the media, and that of reality
• Editorial: Third World reformers resist a coup by rich Europeans - The Wall Street Journal

Comments

[jailhouselawyer]

"A simple truth: prison works, and it is neither cruel nor vengeful to say so".

There is nothing simple about it at all. Prison does not work, in the majority of cases, although it may not be cruel nor vengeful to argue to the contrary, it would be argued from a position of ignorance.

What Dominic Lawson describes as "a formidable line-up", ie, Juliet Lyon, Rambo and Lord Woolf, I would describe them as being part of the problem rather than the solution. To make matters worse, they were up against Dr David Green from Civitas, who I Fisked in the Telegraph, a former prison doctor (don't get me started on them) and a Yank with an interest in providing more prison places for profit.

I am reminded of the H.M. Prison Gartree Debating Society, and the argument should prisoners have human rights. You would have thought that the audience would have supported the motion. However, the barrister opposing the motion was so fluent that he won the day. It is not always the best argument that wins.

In this case, Charles Murray played on the audience's fears. However, people need to face down these fears if prison is going to work. It is a pity that the event organisers did not get somebody who knows the subject inside out to speak. I was available for a small fee plus expenses...