So our wonderful government wants to teach our school kids social skills and get them to become au fait (that’ll stump most of them!) with our history - as the government sees it.
However if the figures just released are anything to go by, it’s a bit late for that



Britain is now the most burgled country in Europe. We also have the highest levels of assault and car theft, with robbery and sex offences being well above the average.

In the new crime league figures the UK comes second overall only to Ireland with more than one fifth of the population of either nation having experienced some crime in the last year.

Apparently 5% of the population had suffered assault or threat of violent assault. This is the highest rate in Europe, and I was one of those threatened as it happens!

It seems (oh what a surprise!) that there’s a clear link between violent crime and alcohol consumption. Although of course our namby-pamby government still refute the increase in drink hours has anything to do with it.

On average 15% of Europeans had been the victims of a crime over the last year. However in the UK it was 21% and in Ireland 22%.

There are now 80,000 in prison as opposed to 60,000 just ten years ago. But due to the whinging minnies, less and less people are receiving custodial sentences for serious crimes - by that I mean crimes that the general public regard as serious, not those the do-gooders regard as serious.

All this talk of rehabilitation seems, to my mind to miss the point. I always assumed that criminals went to prison for punishment. Where’s the punishment in having their own Tvs, dvd players, mp3 players and recreation facilities that many of us non-criminals don’t have?

The public facilities like roads and pavements in this country are a bloody mess. Dare I suggest that these criminals actually put something back into society by doing some real graft for a change? I seem to remember that the non-custodial sentencing schemes were supposed to have addressed this - did I blink and miss it?