Pull Da Trigga

Judge Ian Trigger (left) must think of himself as something of an orator. Some of his recent 'summing-ups' could have been lifted directly from a Dickens novel, "we are living in a society which is bedevilled by wild, feral youths ...it is time for parents to resume control over their offspring whom they have spawned."

Yesterday at Liverpool Crown Court, he sentenced Lucien McClearly to two years imprisonment for various drug offences and took the opportunity to enlighten the wider world on his views on immigration, benefit payments and economics. His Honour may have had some justification in attacking McClearly's original plea for asylum, as he derives from Jamaica. But Trigger went beyond reasonableness then sanity when he blamed McClearly and his ilk for doubling of the national debt.

"People like you, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people like you, come to these shores to avail themselves of the generous welfare benefits that exist here.
In the past ten years the national debt of this country has risen to extraordinary heights, largely because central Government has wasted billions of pounds. Much of that has been wasted on welfare payments. For every £1 that the decent citizen, who is hard-working, pays in taxes, nearly 10 per cent goes on servicing that national debt. That is twice the amount it was in 1997 when this Government came to power."

From 1997 to 2007 the proportion of welfare payments to national debt roughly halved, mostly because of effective job creation which saw unemployment fall below one million for the first time since Ted Heath was PM. Judge Trigger may be correct in his observations about the rise in national debt but it is more attributable to a deep recession, the nationalisation of Northern Rock, as well the many billions poured into RBS and Lloyds than a few food vouchers for the poor.

It is entirely possible Trigger, by his inflammatory and plainly idiotic remarks, may have drawn enough attention to be considered for promotion to the Law Lords under a Conservative administration. If he's not successful in that venture he could easily be the new pin-up columnist for the right. His comments leave veteran headbangers Simon Heffer, Melanie Philips and Richard Littlejohn trailing in his wake.