Self-defence is no defence

Rousseau defined The Social Contract as a situation where the people of a nation give up some rights to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order through the rule of law. In other words, we all agree not to beat the crap out of wrongdoers so long as the police enforce the law and keep us safe from the criminal classes.

It’s a fine idea in principle as long as the police actually enforce the law. Unfortunately, the law has become increasingly one-sided these days. An excellent example of this is the story reported in many of this morning’s newspapers, involving one Myleene Klass, a well-known ‘model’ and former girl band member.

Last Friday, Ms Klass was at home doing the washing up when she spied two teenage toerags in her garden attempting to break into her garden shed. She screamed with fright and then had the presence of mind to wave a knife at the miscreants who then promptly ran off, no doubt worried at their posthumous reputation should they find themselves unfortunate enough to be filleted by such a slip of a young woman.

Ms Klass immediate summoned the local police who, no doubt spurred on by the thought of an encounter with the fragrant Ms Klass, managed to prise themselves away from their warm canteen to attend the scene of the incident.

Alas, rather than trying to track down the wrongdoers, the police became exercised when Ms Klass told them that she had managed to frighten off the intruders by waving her kitchen knife at them. This, she was told, was inadvisable as she could be charged with carrying an offensive weapon. Apparently it is illegal to brandish any kind of weapon in self-defence, even within the confines of one’s own home. No doubt Ms Klass escaped being ‘banged up’ by the rozzers on account of her being pretty and famous; had she been an ugly middle-aged male, like myself, she probably would have found herself down ‘the nick’ being fingerprinted, DNA swabbed followed by a cooling-off session in the cells.

For those unlucky enough not to live in the upside down and topsy-turvy society we’ve created in the UK, such a scenario must sound totally alien and a little bit bonkers. However, it’s not so difficult to understand when you realise that the UK is not governed ‘by the people and for the people’ but is in fact ruled by a tiny clique of Oxbridge educated lawyers and other assorted layabouts who have absolutely no interest in doing anything that the public wants. They’re far too busy fiddling their expenses and pushing their own weird agendas to take any notice of what we might want or to ensure that The Social Contract is properly enforced.

Perhaps it’s time we took a leaf out of France’s book and got ourselves some guillotines. There’s nothing like the threat of cold sharp steel to concentrate the mind of a politician.