Justice for Ian Stafford! (And if not justice then a bit of bloody perspective)

On february 5th, Ian Stafford, the ex-mayor of Preesall in Lancashire, will be sentenced after admitting breaking into a number of women's homes and stealing their underwear. The sort of sexual hysteria that tends to accompany stories like this means that Stafford is now likely to receive a fairly lengthy custodial sentence and one would have to concede that his job as a handyman/gardener is also in some jeapordy.

This unfortunate young man has now been branded as some sort of pathetic heteroclite for indulging in what is, put simply, a bit of harmless foolery. Foolery which in my day would have got him nothing more than a swift clip round the ear, a shoe up the jacksie and a couple of soiled negligees to send him on his way. As I see it, the case against Stafford seems to rely on the assumption that he was getting some sort of sexual gratification from his activities but, having indulged in similar behaviour for many years, I can assure you that any sexual pleasure derived from fingering a spinster's smalls is fleeting, and soon gives way to a kind of empty, shallow compulsion. Like drinking on a weekday or a Paul McCartney tour.

Of course, if these self styled 'modern girls' with all their opinions and their equal rights were a bit more bloody accomodating then this sort of thing would never go on. Stafford was an elected Mayor for christ's sake, it should have been pussy on-tap.

As someone who has been contemplating stepping into the local political arena for some time I can assure you that horror stories such as this do nothing to attract the sensible observer.
I wonder how many other potentially brilliant political strategists have been put off because of this unyielding desire to expose his every casual perversion?

What an absolute disgrace. If I had the money and I knew how to I'd get T-shirts printed with slogans and all sorts.

Ban 'naked body' scanners.

My campaign to ban the introduction of these new airport 'naked body' scanners continues apace. I've sent letters to all the 'top-dogs' in the British aviation industry including Branson, Geoff Hoon and the Scottish chap outlining my objections on the grounds that if these pervert airport security staff want to sit around all day leering at pornographic images of fat holidaymakers then they should do it at home, on their own time, like the rest of us. These scanners are nothing but goverment-sanctioned wank -tanks. I would much rather board a plane with an Islamic extremist who I knew to be carrying a bomb than suffer this gross indignity and there are plenty of people who feel the same.

Since I began this campaign, I have received literally thousands of letters of support from sensible members of the public who quite agree that bouncing electromagnetic waves across their genitalia, and creating bizarre three-dimensional images of themselves squatting like an athritic priest, is something which should be confined to the bedroom or, at the very least, dense roadside shrubbery. Chakrabati has also been on the phone 24-7 (I'm ignoring her calls at the moment until she whips herself into enough of a frenzy to smash her way through the Velux and remove my trousers)

My warning to those who seek to impose these so called 'security measures' is simple. This sort of thing may be all very well on the continent, where exposing yourself in public is as much a way of life as shouting incoherently on buses and overcharging the Welsh, but not here. Not in a civilised country. And not in Britain either.