Well Darlings,

There has to be a reason for it. It is unnatural. Perhaps it is to do with some of the modern foods people eat these days? Or something in the coffee? I hope it isn't anything to do with all the Chinese ingredients companies now add to so many of our foods today without telling us. If Chinese food has been killing the dogs in America and making people ill, as I read recently, I don't want to be eating it! Whatever it is I'm looking for, it needs to be found quickly for it is responsible for a pronounced lack of common sense in too many people. Some of these people shoulder enormous responsibilities, and we rely on them to use their common sense to keep us from harm. One such person is the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers.

Leyhill Open Prison in Gloucestershire - it has no perimeter security fence whatsoever - has been ordered to house up to 50 very high risk criminals, including a "relatively large group of men" sex offenders. This is the prison where almost 400 inmates simply walked out between 1999 and 2006. During that time the inmates here were disappearing at the rate of more than one a week. Mostly they were those convicted of robbery and burglary offences, but alarmingly they also included 22 murderers and 7 rapists.

Anne has at least had the common sense to question the "appropriateness" of placing such higher-risk inmates in open jails, but still wallows around in a fudge of uncertainty. Like so many today, if it isn't written down somewhere exactly what to do, she appears to be at a loss. She talks of the guidance on whether such offenders should be in open prisons as being "unclear", and complains there are no clear rules on whether high risk prisoners should be put on normal resettlement programmes where they work in local colleges or companies. What? She needs guidance and rules for this? Has she no savvy?

I have to question why any person should need to be guided in order to know whether or not murderers and sexual offenders, some of them rapists, should be kept in open prisons where they can simply walk out. Even just a modicum of common sense will say: no, they must always be kept in secure accommodation - and yet strangely it has been the Prison Service's policy to send these offenders to Leyhill for years.

In my mind, whoever decides prison policy might well benefit from a trip to the convent in Lisieux where St. Thérèse, the Patron Saint of Common Sense, spent some years - and if they don't find any, perhaps they should stay there! Other than that they should be forced to take up residence with their families somewhere close to Leyhill - given time, I'm sure a few of the inmates would love to pop in on them to say thanks!

I hate having to bring it up yet again, it is becoming tedious, but it really does need to be kept in the news. Our appalling NHS has suffered a scathing attack by the Scottish newspaper the Daily Record under the front page headlines: Scotland's Killer Hospitals. The paper revealed that almost 1 in 10 patients pick up an infection in a Scottish hospital, and in one Glasgow hospital the rate is nearly 1 in 5. The hospital acquired infections (HAIs) kill more than 500 patients a year in Scotland alone and cost the NHS a staggering £183million.

In England and Wales, where HAIs are almost as prevalent, to add to this deplorable situation we now learn that more than 24,000 hospital patients were reportedly given the wrong treatment last year. In some cases this has led to serious injury and even death.

Our NHS really cannot be allowed to continue on in this state. It never used to be like this, so why is it now? All the money they are spending - wasting? - on various "health issues" in an attempt to take the focus off their own gross failings must cease immediately, and they must knuckle down and address the real health threat to the nation - themselves! That money needs to be spent in the hospitals cleaning them and teaching the staff and doctors basic hygiene standards. A 1 in 5 chance of catching an infection that might kill you, and if it doesn't it is still most unpleasant, has to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

I have little doubt that someone still with some common sense left needs to be brought in to give those in the NHS the "guidance" and "direction" that so many people cannot seem to function without these days. The worrying factor is: people with common sense are becoming increasingly harder to find.

Britain has 4.2 million CCTV cameras, 1 for every 14 people - that's more than in the rest of Europe all put together! - and yet we still have some of the worst crime rates in Europe. Cameras are an easy "cop out" for politicians - it makes it look like they are addressing the problem - and whilst cameras have been invaluable recently in tracking the movements of terrorists, so we do need them, they are a long way from being the answer to preventing crime on our streets. Proof of this comes from the Holloway Road in London. With more than a hundred cameras along its two-mile length it is the most spied upon road in Britain, and yet last year, over a period of just 6 months, we're told 430 offences were committed there, including 29 serious assaults, 15 robberies and 32 burglaries.

What does common sense suggest to you? A few more police needed on the street? It's something worth a try, isn't it? But I doubt that they will get them - they'll probably install another couple of cameras, so pulling yet another copper off a street somewhere to stare at a screen.

So, where has all our common sense gone? Have we just lost it, or has it been stolen? Only those who have managed to retain at least some of theirs will know the answer to this one. Common sense has been stolen from us by those who forced us into political correctness. Wherever they encountered it, these people took it away from us. No-one is allowed the freedom now to analyse anything for themselves and come to their own sensible conclusions anymore - to use their own common sense - as we are told precisely how we must react to everything and every situation. We have become little more than a nation of zombies, unable to think for ourselves and just going through the motions of life like some bored repertory actors. However, with Gordon Brown's pledge to bring back competitive sport for our children, there is a slight glimmer of hope on the dark horizon. It needs to be grabbed and nurtured.

Common sense has always said to me that the winners are likely to be the best ones to do the job. Political correctness has for decades taken away competitiveness, so we have never really known who was best - we just guessed, or waited for a palm to be greased! School sports were banned in case those not good at them should feel inferior, and so too for a long time, and for the same reason, were many school examinations. Where common sense said everybody should have equal opportunities and achieve what they could from them, political correctness said everybody should be equal. The former is an admirable concept and is easily attainable; the latter is an utter impossibility, unless we are all dumbed down to the lowest possible denominator.

Political correctness is on par with communism: we are all equal, except we find some are far more equal than others - and they will be the ones who make up the rules. If you still have your common sense with you, it will be immediately apparent that, under this system, those least able to do a good job of making the rules are equally likely to be those doing just that job. Is it any wonder we are in such a state today?

Isn't it about time we threw out political correctness, and started using some common sense? Equal rights for everyone under the law - yes! But an equal (downtrodden) people, where one size fits all - no! We are all individuals. Our Creator made us that way, and no man has the right to change that!

"The Bitch!" 13/07/07.

About the Author

"The Bitch!", a weekly UK News Review column, is hosted by the author and columnist Michael Knell. These articles appear on the Blackpool Gay Directory website, but are not specifically gay in content. More information on the author: http://www.michaelknell.com and on the directory: http://www.astabgay.com.