I’ve long been a fan of the urbane Ken Clarke. Doubts arrived today. His answer to my half-mocking half-supportive question this afternoon was good natured.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): Does the Government’s U-turn on shorter sentences, which could have led to a reduction in the prison population, mean that in future under the coalition, any Minister caught in possession of an intelligent idea is likely to be doomed to a brief unhappy ministerial career?
Mr Kenneth Clarke: I made a few slightly light-hearted remarks about U-turns last time—but the Government has a process of consultation, and this is another Catch-22 situation. If we modify our proposals we are accused of making a U-turn, and if we proceed with our proposals we are accused of being deaf.
We explored every possibility of encouraging more early guilty pleas. We still intend to make such proposals, and some of the legal aid reforms are designed to encourage early guilty pleas. Anything that can be done to get early guilty pleas saves a lot of people distress, and also saves a lot of wasted time and cost for the police, the CPS, the courts and the prisons.
Later I heard his hour long talk to the Penal Affairs All Party Group. It was a letdown. He was asked, (not by me), if decriminalisation of drugs would help his policy. He said that he thought that decriminalisation would encourage greater use. Try Portugal for a recess trip, Ken. You will discover that criminalising drugs give them an aura of forbidden fruit, decriminalising reduces drugs deaths.
He said he was ‘shocked’ to discover that there are only ‘drugs-free’ wings in prison. I told him that I have been asking questions every year since Ann Widdicombe vowed to clear prisons of drugs, seeking a list of drug-free prisons. No Home Secretary has been able to name one for the past 15 years. At Questions Time today there were vacuous answers and no practical solution to reducing drug use.
I suggested to Ken that until we confess that most drugs enter prisons not over the wall or via visitors but through corrupted prison staff, we have no chance of reducing drug use in prison. His answer was, 'Judge us in three years time'.
I will Ken. I hope you last that long.
I did several interviews today following my criticism of a new Commons Group to encourage children to take up boxing.
Early senility
A Bristol Tory MP told me on Bristol radio this morning that my belief on boxing brain damage was not based on science. Try this:
A new report from Boston USA gives new evidence of the awful results of the so-called sport of boxing.
Researchers report that even the relatively mild blows to the head incurred by amateur boxers appear to cause brain damage.
The researchers analyzed the cerebrospinal fluid of 14 amateur boxers for protein markers of brain injury. Levels of one particular marker for brain damage, known as neurofilament light (NFL) protein, were four times higher in boxers within 10 days of the fight than in healthy nonboxers.
In the study, the boxers were tested both after a fight and then again three months after their last match. NFL levels were still elevated three months later.
Researcher Max Hietala, MD, PhD, of Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Goteborg , Sweden , tells WebMD that the Swedish boxers studied were wearing helmets that were much better padded than those generally used in U.S. amateur fights.
“Regardless of the gear, if they got hit more than 15 times, it was like having a mini-stroke,” he says.
NFL levels were up to eight times higher in amateur boxers who received more than 15 high-impact hits to the head after a match than after the three-month rest.
“Given that amateur fights are much shorter and generally involve milder head blows than pro fights, you can just imagine what's happening to professional boxers,” James Kelly, MD, visiting professor of neurosurgery at the University of Colorado in Denver , tells WebMD. Kelly was not involved with the work.
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