Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on the early release of fanatics, a bill query and how to get even with the Kremlin

Laughing at Putin.

Published
LGBT pioneers?

BRITAIN'S prison system is founded on the Christian principles of penitence and rehabilitation. It is best suited to dealing with old-fashioned burglars and robbers who, if all else fails, will eventually grow out of their criminality. But a regime of rewards and early release is hopeless when it comes to dedicated jihadists who leave prison just as deranged and homicidal as they went in. Some of these religious extremists are jihadists for life. Dozens of them are coming to the end of their jail terms this year, to be released into the community they despise and have sworn to destroy.

SO here's a prediction. Before long, a jihadist freed from a British prison - and probably released early - will commit murder or mass murder. It is not a question of if, but when.

WE may have missed a trick in the Two Dodgy Russians saga. The only time Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov looked uneasy during the Russian TV interview was when they were accused of carrying a bottle of ladies' perfume on their trip to Salisbury. And no wonder. Perfume is hardly butch, and Russia under Putin is a deeply macho, bigoted and homophobic country. Gays are denounced by the Church, betrayed by the law and casually beaten up in the streets by far-right thugs. It is widely believed in Russia that no true, patriotic Russian can be gay.

THE veteran commentator Dominic Lawson observed a couple of days ago: "If there's one thing Putin can't abide, it's being laughed at." See the scope for mischief? Instead of denouncing Petrov and Boshirov as Russian agents, the British Government should start calling them "the LGBT Russian agents." We should refer constantly to the LGBT-KGB . We should praise President Putin for being an equal-opportunities employer of spies. We should applaud him for posing for all those brave homoerotic photographs, showing him shirtless or in judo kit.

IN short, we should create the impression that the Kremlin, from the president down to the humblest agent, is not a bunch of bigoted bullies but an enlightened and progressive rainbow bastion of LGBT rights. It may not bring Petrov and Boshirov to justice, but it might just spoil their whole day.

LITTLE mysteries of our time. Why does your electricity bill, which has "ELECTRICITY BILL" in large type, also carry the words (in small type) "This is not a tax invoice." Of course it isn't a tax invoice. Nor is it the Magna Carta, an invitation to a royal wedding or St Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians. It is an electricity bill. I definitely should get out more.

BUT then we have to spend so much time indoors, waiting for things to be delivered. According to the online tracking update at 9.45am on Tuesday, a parcel for me had been loaded on to the delivery van nearly five hours later, at 2.39pm on Tuesday. The parcel was delivered at 1.05pm. By time machine, presumably.