Gipsies and travellers are over-represented in prison by a factor of 50 – left-wingers are no doubt very surprised

I have an image of left-wingers waking up every day, eagerly grabbing their iPads (paid for by whatever public sector enterprise they work for) and scanning the latest news headlines for proof that their beliefs are justified – perhaps “Socialist economy doing well”, “Obamacare a triumph”, “Exam results: state schools outperform private sector”, “Massively expensive government youth job creation scheme exceeds targets”, “Pope announces he is not a Catholic”, “Study proves water runs uphill”, etc.

The problem, of course, is that stories like this simply never appear because things like that never happen. So they have to fall back on standard left-wing opinion pieces assuring them that the problems of Third World countries are all down to Jewish-inspired American imperialism; that state schools would do brilliantly if only they had more of our money lavished on them or if the pupils weren’t allowed to eat pizza; or that the British economy would implode irrecoverably if we gave the EU the traditional archer’s salute. In other words, there can be no succour for lefties in actual hard news items – they must seek consolation in prejudiced opinion pieces based on a mixture of unscrupulous optimism, hatred of anyone who doesn’t accept a socialist world-view, and a willingness to ignore the bleeding obvious – e.g. “Yes, but the real reason Obamacare is failing is that Fox News is racist”, “Venezuela’s disastrous economy is George Bush’s fault” or “The reason there hasn’t been a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is that the Israelis refuse to make concessions” etc, etc.

We right-wingers wake up knowing that the news will be stuffed with factual stories of the ”told you so” variety. We are occasionally surprised by just how spectacularly useless left-wing governments and socialist “solutions” have proved to be, but we’re never surprised that they are useless. I was reminded of this when I came across the following item in this morning’s Telegraph (here):

Research by Nick Hardwick, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, found gipsies and travellers were “significantly over represented” in adult prisons in England and Wales, making up 5 per cent of the total. 

The figure would equate to more than 4,200 people at current jail population rates. 

According to the 2011 Census just 0.1 per cent of the general population - or 58,000 people - describe themselves as a gipsy or Irish traveller, meaning the group is over represented by 50 times among prisoners. 

Among offenders in secure training centres, which hold young people aged between 12 and 18, there was an even higher proportion of people from travelling backgrounds, the report said. 

There, nearly one in eight, or 12 per cent, described themselves as being of gipsy, traveller or Romany backgrounds while one secure training centre in Kent reported 22 per cent of offenders were travellers. 

Well, blow me down, strike a light, would you Adam and Eve it, you could have knocked me down with a feather, etc. ad infinitum.

For some odd reason, the Telegraph chose the headline, “One in 20 prisoners are gipsies, says official report” rather than “Gipsies 50 times more criminal than rest of population, official report reveals”. I suppose that would have been considered racist or unhelpful or judgmental or… something.

The Telegraph piece continued:

The report did not explore why so many prisoners came from travelling groups, saying “more needs to be done to understand and address this”.

No exploration needed, actually. Unless you’re left-wing, of course, in which case you'll be busy blaming anyone but the travelling "community" for this truly shameful state of affairs.