It takes a lot more than two to Quango

Have you noticed that whenever you look in a newspaper these days there is some pronouncement or other from some body you have never heard of.

Today for example we have the Sustainable Development Commission using the usual scientific principle of think of a number and double it to announce average speed cameras to enforce the 70mph speed limit would cut carbon emissions by 1.4 million tons a year.

All cobblers of course but what it would do is increase even more the amount of money squeezed from motorists under the guise of saving the environment.

With the media just starting to wake up to the fact that the global warming industry and associated tax machine might well be the biggest con ever pulled on the world's population look out for a rush of green taxes just in case the bubble bursts.

Then we have the Sentencing Council which will replace the Sentencing Guidelines Council which worked with the Sentencing Advisory Panel - remember we are paying for all this jobs for the boys (of the right political persuasion) stuff.

Their job will be to force judges to follow the formerly advisory sentencing guidelines which will have little to do with justice or punishment but much to do with political expediency.

According to the official figure this wheeze will avoid the need for 1,000 future prison places.

Now whether you agree with prison at all for certain offences or question the effectiveness of jail for some offenders most sensible people - which obviously excludes MPs, Government ministers and civil servants - would not see cutting sentences to save on prison spaces as the most important criteria of sentencing, the cornerstone of justice.

Meanwhile Policy Exchange's Crime and Justice Unit reckon the Government figures are way out and the scheme will save 8,000 prison spaces - which is quite a few prisons that would not have to be built. Policy Exchange is a think tank, by the way, another growing industry which are a sort of collection of privately rather than publicly financed quango.

Now the whole problem with sentencing by committee is that it takes away both a judge's discretion and the principle of justice. A case is no longer sentenced on its merits, the term has been set not by someone who heard all the evidence and my have great sympathy for the accused and wish to extend mercy but by a well paid jobsworth looking to save of prison costs.

Equally the scum of the earth are protected by sentencing designed to protect the prison budget rather than the public.

Judges and justice needs discretion not political interference and expediency.