All Compass No Compassion

Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary who doesn't lay awake at night worrying about population growth, has proved, yet again, in his assertion that he will not obstruct hacker Gary McKinnon's extradition to the US, how morally invertebrate the Labour government is.

If Gary McKinnon were to be tried at home then he could be hopeful of a fairer sentence. It is plainly obvious that Gary McKinnon is not a terrorist, is not a threat to national or international security and is a little too enthusiastic about computer techonology for his own good. These factors, I am sure, are more likely to count as mitigators on home soil.

That is, Gary McKinnon's case is a rare instance where you would prefer one of our liberal judges to preside.

However, Gary McKinnon is the latest in a catalogue of examples of this government's failure to understand the public's sanity and sentiment on popular issues - Recall, for instance, Labour's heavy-handed, objectionable treatment of the Gurkhas which was, perversely, the government's miscued attempt at demagoguery.

Clearly this government is insentient to the injustice and unfair treatment of one of its own citizens and unprepared - as it is in most things - to take action.

I wonder when Gordon Brown will realise that he should be eligible for a refund for that fabled moral compass.