Older readers with a taste for biting satire will recognise the title of this piece as coming from one of the great comedy sketches of all time, Not The Nine O’Clock News’ ‘Constable Savage‘ sketch.

In case anyone wants to finish reading what I have to say before skipping off to read the sketch in full, the set-up was quite simple - a racist police officer being, apparently, hauled over the coals by a superior for persistantly arresting the same (black) person on trumped up charges including:

loitering with intent to use a pedestrian crossing
smelling of foreign food
urinating in a public convenience
coughing without due care and attention
looking at me in a funny way
walking on the cracks in the pavement
walking in a loud shirt in a built-up area during the hours of darkness
walking around with an offensive wife

… and, of course, the aforementioned possession of curly black hair and thick lips.

One of the joys of the Constable Savage sketch was that it made mention of the fact that the unseen protagonist, Mr Winston Kadogo, had been arrested on no less than 117 occasions leaving well over a hundred ‘charges’ on which you could speculate in conversation with your friends.

What about, for example, arresting someone for entering a youth club? Or, maybe, carrying condoms? And what about giving soup to the homeless, or visiting you grandmother or…

using the word ‘grass’
showing your tattoos
wearing a balaclava or hooded top
entering a car park
being sarcastic to your neighbours
not preventing your pigs from escaping
travelling on th top deck of buses
owning a stereo, radio or television
being seen at a window in you home wearing only your underwear

Funny? Ridiculous?

Unfortunately not as everything in the list above has been included, at one point or another, as a condition in an ASBO.

I’ll have more to say on the subject of ASBO’s in due course, including a comment or two on the Lyneham situation but in the meantime can I heartily recommend you visit the website of ASBO Concern and in particular read the report, produced by the National Assocation of Probation Officers - it’s in the ‘latest’ section of the site - from which the list of conditions given above was extracted.

The Tories have now moved on a little from the pure handwritten-style posters to ones which incorporate newspaper headlines.

The one I saw this morning on the way into work, the exact wording of which escapes me, is pushing their line on MRSA and hospital cleanliness using a headline from that most authoritative of sources…

… The People.

It comes to something when the Tories are now relying on headlines from the sleeze and celebs obsessed Sunday tabloids to try and score a political point or two but as they’re going down that road I see nothing untoward in giving them a helping hand…

Still on the subject of the Times’ favourite comedy fascist, Rodney Hylton-Potts, whose election expenses are being met by ITV as the winner of ‘Vote For Me’ you have to wonder how much more embarrassing ITV’s foray into Pop Idol-style politics can get now the the neanderthals at the BNP have announced that they’ve entered into an election pact with Rodders under which they’ll step aside in Folkstone in return for his public support for their candidates everywhere else.

Jonathan Maitland, the presenter of ‘Vote For Me’ described Rodders as “… a comedy fascist nutter and a cross between Lord Brocket and Mussolini.” - a description which immediately suggests the need for adding a lot more chlorine to that end of the gene pool’.

Rodney Hylton-Potts, the winner of ITV’s ‘Vote For Me’ who is standing against Tory Leader, Michael Howard, in Folkstone, was once sentenced to five years in prison for mortgage fraud.

He would not be disqualified from taking office in the unlikely event that he managed to unseat Howard as such disqualification would apply only to serving prisoners.

Muhammed Hussain, a former Blackburn Councillor, was convicted to election fraud and on 8 April this year was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

He can, and almost certainly will be, disqualified from seeking public office as a Councillor for a maximum of five years.

However…

As both have been convicted to criminal offences involving dishonest and have received sentences of more than two years and which, therefore, will never by ’spent’ under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, both are now permanantly disbarred from acting as a trustee of the registered charity under the provisions of section 72 to the Charities Act.

Isn’t it odd that the law places more store on questions of honesty and fitness for office when it comes to charities, the vast majority of whom deal with very small amounts of money each year, than it does when it comes to political office and the control of millions or even billions of pounds of public money?

I may be wrong but, at this election, something unprecedented is taking place in British Politics - for the first time we go into election where each of the leaders of the three main political parties belongs to a different faith - Blair is a High Anglican, Howard is Jewish and Kennedy is a Roman Catholic.

Even as someone who believes firmly in the separation of church and state I consider this to be a good thing, a small but positive reflection of the diversity of modern British society. Today we have an Anglican, a Catholic and a Jew leading our three main political parties and in the future, who knows? A Muslim leading the Labour Party? A Sikh, perhaps or maybe even a Buddhist. Anything is possible given time and tolerance and that’s something that reflects well on 21st Century Britain…

…except that were the Lib Dems to somehow win this upcoming election it could, and is some quarters would, provoke a constutitional crisis.

There’s nothing explicit in law which expressly forbids a Catholic from becoming PM - interpreted strictly the 1701 Act of Settlement applies such a prohibition only on the Monarch as head of the church - nevertheless there is what amounts to a constitutional bar on a Catholic, and therefore Charles Kennedy, becoming PM.

The problem resides in this passage of the 1701 Act:

“And it was thereby further enacted, that all and every person and persons that then were, or afterwards should be reconciled to, or shall hold communion with the see or Church of Rome, or should profess the popish religion, or marry a papist, should be excluded, and are by that Act made for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Crown and government of this realm, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, or any part of the same, or to have, use, or exercise any regal power, authority, or jurisdiction within the same”

In simple terms, the Act of Settlement prohibits a Roamn Catholic from exercising any powers which fall within the Royal Prerogative which includes:

* The appointment and dismissal of ministers;
* The dissolution of parliament and the calling of elections;
* Clemency and pardon;
* The awarding of dignities and honours;
* The declaration of war;
* The declaration of an emergency;
* The granting of Charters of Incorporation;
* The collection of tolls;
* The minting of coinage;
* The issuance and revocation of passports;
* The expulsion of a foreign national from the United Kingdom;
* The creation of new common law courts;
* The creation of new universities;
* The appointment of bishops and archbishops in the Church of England;
* The printing of the authorised Church of England version of The Bible;
* The publication of all statutes, legislative instruments and Orders-in-Council.

Ironically, this same problem does not affect Michael Howard; his Jewish origins are of no consequence to the 1701 Act and Britain has already had a Jewish Prime Minister and one of its most famous ones at that, Benjamin Disraeli.

This is situation in which something will eventually have to give, where if we are to have a fair and equitable in which anyone, of any faith or of no faith at all, can aspire to the highest political office in the land, then we cannot allow the constitutional position of the Crown and of the Church of England to exclude Catholics from realising suhc aspirations.

As Geoffrey of Occam observed, the simple solution is invariably the best - separate church and state and disestablish the Church of England - you know it makes sense.