Make the law and stick to it

Make the law and stick to it

By Sam Leith, London Evening Standard, 21 Feb 2011

I'm all in favour of giving prisoners the right to vote. It's not as if enfranchising convicts will result in a landslide election victory for the Give All Prisoners Nice Currant Buns Party, is it? But whatever your view on the matter, it's just dumb to applaud defiance of European law as "a rare victory for common sense".

You either sign up to a treaty or you don't. We signed up to this one: and if we want to withdraw from it that case needs to be made in toto. Regarding a body of law as a tapas menu where you pick and choose what suits you sets a precedent that's the opposite of common sense. It's exactly that way of thinking, in fact, that put all those prisoners in jail in the first place.