Trial by media ordeal has become our politicians' rite of passage | Simon Jenkins (Guardian)

Forget reasoned debate. Ken Clarke follows Huhne, Laws and Cable as the latest star of the hot coals roadshow It is the oldest trick in the book. You snatch a politician's mildly controversial remark. You eradicate context and qualification and invite rent-a-quote to be subject of the verb "to slam" or object of the verb "to infuriate". You then get the leader of the opposition to demand a sacking, and stake out the victim's house to see how he takes it. Ken Clarke's spot of bother over rape sentencing this week has been a classic. His suggestion that not all crimes within a category are necessarily identical is almost trivially obvious. But who cares when the political heat is on and the mob is running hotfoot to the guillotine? It does not want obvious, it wants blood. Retributive justice went downhill from the moment in 1215 when Pope Innocent III did away with trial by ordeal and replaced it with torture. Out went the sophistication of half-drowning, flesh sizzling and trial by choking "on the blessed morsel". In came hi-tech sadism. As a result, the blood-thirsty extraction of a confession was substituted for the priestly inspection ...
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