Guido was watching the Parliament channel yesterday and saw Howard at a Tory organised Forum on Crime. The set was like a studio audience discussion programme, the form being that Howard answers easy questions from what appear to be Tory sympathisers (although the Rastafarian from the Haile Selassie Community thingy, possibly was not). During the discussion Howard advocated the possible imprisonment of the parents of badly behaved kids, but only on weekends, and only if they repeatedly failed to control their offspring. Even the tame Tory chatshow host was a bit taken aback by this – “isn’t that collective punishment?”
The papers don’t seem to have covered this new policy position at all this morning. I see a few practical problems with this policy, such as, who will control the kids on the weekends the parents are locked up for not controlling their kids? The Tories seem to be making policy on the fly…
