A bit of a skoosh
Kenneth Clarke is justice secretary in the Westminster coalition government - a staunch Tory and former minister in Margaret Thatcher's government.
But that doesn't make him a bad person or a bad politician - not in my book anyway.
Not least because he appears to be drawing on his life experience and a degree of common sense - in dealing with the prisons service in the rest of the UK.
Clarke is planning to publish a bill next month aimed at reducing the number of criminals being sent to prison - and curbing re-offending.
Clarke says it is pointless to continue with a policy that simply warehouses thousands of offenders - without tyring to turn them away from a life of crime.
Prison - says Clarke - should be reserved for serious offences and crimes of violence, but it's not the place to be dealing with people who have drug and alcohol problems.
Sounds to me like Clarke is a supporter of one of New Labour's better slogans - 'Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' - which helped propel Tony Blair to power in 1997.
If you ask me the three Labour MPs - Eric Illsley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine - who were sent to jail for fiddling their expenses - have all got off rather lightly.
Six months or whatever they serve in jail time is not much of a deal for the public - especially when they are not dangerous villains.
Stupid and greedy maybe - but not a danger to the public.
So while I agree with the decision to deny these MPs their liberty - a better result would have been a tough community sentence - where they would have been forced to repay their debt to society in the public eye.
Instead the taxpayer is paying the cost putting a roof over their heads and feeding them three square meals a day - for which they have to do precisely nothing in return - except watch TV and play snooker.
To my mind Kenneth Clarke is on the right track - and so is the outgoing Scottish justice secretary - Kenny McAskill - who hit the nail on the head when he said that short-term prison sentences are - 'a bit of a skoosh'.
He's right you know - though up until then I hadn't heard the 'skoosh' word for ages.
But that doesn't make him a bad person or a bad politician - not in my book anyway.
Not least because he appears to be drawing on his life experience and a degree of common sense - in dealing with the prisons service in the rest of the UK.
Clarke is planning to publish a bill next month aimed at reducing the number of criminals being sent to prison - and curbing re-offending.
Clarke says it is pointless to continue with a policy that simply warehouses thousands of offenders - without tyring to turn them away from a life of crime.
Prison - says Clarke - should be reserved for serious offences and crimes of violence, but it's not the place to be dealing with people who have drug and alcohol problems.
Sounds to me like Clarke is a supporter of one of New Labour's better slogans - 'Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' - which helped propel Tony Blair to power in 1997.
If you ask me the three Labour MPs - Eric Illsley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine - who were sent to jail for fiddling their expenses - have all got off rather lightly.
Six months or whatever they serve in jail time is not much of a deal for the public - especially when they are not dangerous villains.
Stupid and greedy maybe - but not a danger to the public.
So while I agree with the decision to deny these MPs their liberty - a better result would have been a tough community sentence - where they would have been forced to repay their debt to society in the public eye.
Instead the taxpayer is paying the cost putting a roof over their heads and feeding them three square meals a day - for which they have to do precisely nothing in return - except watch TV and play snooker.
To my mind Kenneth Clarke is on the right track - and so is the outgoing Scottish justice secretary - Kenny McAskill - who hit the nail on the head when he said that short-term prison sentences are - 'a bit of a skoosh'.
He's right you know - though up until then I hadn't heard the 'skoosh' word for ages.
