The Daily Mail | December 19, 2009
By Peter Hitchens

Of course I’d like to think that I would give a terrible thrashing to any burglar who broke in to my home. But I would be crazy to do so. It would be me who ended up in prison. In any case, what makes me think I’d come off best in a fight with some gaunt, rangy dope-smoker?

I long ago decided that the only wise thing to do would be to make the thief a cup of tea and ask him to sign a release form confirming that I had not harmed him in any way. I advise all my readers  to do the same.

The solution to the problem does not  lie in our having the freedom to bash burglars.

Though we ought to have that freedom as a matter of course, it would be more use as a deterrent than in practice.

The solution lies in a political change at the top – the expulsion from government of the socialists and liberals who have taken over all three major parties and 
driven justice from our country.

This liberal elite do not believe that burglary is wrong, so they won’t punish burglars properly. They think burglars steal because they are deprived, or because they were abused as children, or because they cannot get ‘treatment’ for their disgusting criminal drug habits. So many of our leaders now are unrepentant illegal drug-takers themselves that they shouldn’t be trusted near the making of laws.

If you want to know what to be really angry about, listen to ‘Judge’ John Reddihough, the insufferable political commissar who imprisoned Munir Hussain – for doing what we would all like to do to the man who invaded his home and terrorised his family.

Mr Reddihough brayed, as he wielded the sword of injustice: ‘If persons were permitted to take the law into their own hands and inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting justice take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are the hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse.’

Take this garbage slice by slice. Whose law is it, if not ours? Why shouldn’t it be in our hands? It is wrong to steal, to rape, to kill. We all know this.

Must we stand by while these things happen, and wait for the useless police to come, hours later, and for the CPS then to drop the case?

What he means is that Left-wing fake justice fears competition from the real thing, and will do all in its power to keep the monopoly of force in its hands. That is why some of the toughest sentences are reserved for those who defend themselves against crime.

What ‘civilised society’ is he talking about? Does he live in this country? What is this ‘justice’ that he says will take its course? Heaven forbid that Mr Reddihough should ever need to call upon it, but if he does, he will find that he might as well dress up as a pantomime dame as in his wig and robes, for all the good he is doing.

By the time he qualifies for his large pension, the actions of  people like him will have made the country so unsafe that even retired judges may come home to find skunk-crazed robbers waiting for them.

Here’s the point, Mr Injustice Reddihough. People like you have destroyed the rule of law by your weakness and discredited policies. There is no rule of law, just the rule of fear.

Bad people should be afraid of the law. When they are not, we have to be afraid of bad people.

Have a good Christmas, while you still can...

We are told by the Appeal Court that in a ‘modern liberal democracy’ the freedom to express Christian faith must take second place to the rights of homosexuals. So 
the law of England now says Lillian Ladele,  a registrar who politely asked to be excused from conducting civil partnership ceremonies, must stifle her principles or give up her job.

This is the hard face of the same movement which has in recent years been doing its best to take the ‘Christ’ out of Christmas, and has marginalised our national religion in the schools and in broadcasting, often in the name of freedom.

Freedom for whom? Our ‘modern liberal’ society is not liberal at all towards those who continue to believe the message of the angels.

Tories breed a Harman clone

Conservative loyalists who still don’t realise that David Cameron’s Tories are Blairism reborn should pay more attention. Mrs Theresa May, who gained prominence by describing her own party as ‘nasty’ and wearing silly shoes, is a key part of the Cameron project.

And she is visibly turning into Harriet Harman, a person the Tory loyalists claim to loathe. So why do these loyalists plan to vote for a party that promotes Mrs May to a top position?

It’s no good saying you can’t stand another five years of Labour. Because that’s exactly what you’ll get under Mr Cameron. Evidence? Harriet Harman was widely and rightly jeered last year when she introduced more plans for irrational discrimination against men.

Her Tory ‘opponent’, Mrs May, did not attack these plans. Instead, she said: ‘I look forward to working constructively with them on ensuring that we have workable and practical legislation to provide for a fair society.’

Ms Harman thanked her for her ‘broad welcome for the package’.

Now Mrs May has been rewarded with an admiring interview in Labour’s favourite paper, the Guardian, which gushes about her boots and mentions in passing that Mrs May now favours all-women shortlists for the picking of Tory candidates.

This is the same Mrs May who once said: ‘I’m totally opposed to Labour’s idea of all-women shortlists and I think they are an insult to women. I’ve competed equally with men in my career, and I have been happy to do so in politics too.’

This is even more of a U-turn than Mr Cameron’s collapse on an EU referendum. The supposed ‘Conservative Party’ is now entirely in the hands of the politically correct movement.

At long last, some sense on dyslexia

Hurrah for the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. Their verdict that ‘dyslexia’ can’t be distinguished from other reading difficulties gives the game away. It can’t be distinguished because it has no objective, scientific definition. And that is because it doesn’t exist.

What does exist is an awful lot of needlessly incompetent teaching, by teachers who think synthetic phonics (which work) are beneath them. In this argument be warned. Howls of rage are no substitute for hard facts.

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Here are some experiences I have had in the past few days that have kept me firmly pessimistic.

One, about a dozen policemen blocking a gateway into a London park, scanning bemused tourists for knives. Anyone actually carrying a knife would have entered by another nearby gate.

Next, a Transport Police poster at a railway terminus, reassuring us that officers will actually be on duty over Christmas. The slogan is ‘Holiday Presence’. What?

Obviously the original poster was a pun – ‘Christmas Presence’ – but PC authorities decided this would be ‘offensive’, preferring a message that makes no sense.

And last there was the woman who nearly killed  me while simultaneously driving her car and filling in a resident’s parking form. Was she sorry? Not at all.

I hope her Christmas tree keels over.