"Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less there is within, the more there must be without." - Edmund Burke

So, Britain 1910. About 10,000 people in prison within a country of 42 million.

Do you honestly think this is because of a liberal attitude to crime that favours community punishments, fines, ASBOs over incarceration? In Edwardian Britain? Where criminals are still be hanged for murder and beaten by coppers and prisons are so strict that convicts are not even allowed to speak? Come off it. As a historical theory this is on a par with David Irving.

But you're otherwise right. The sensible approach is to emulate the "something else". Unfortunately, if you don't approve of prison, you're really not going to like the "something else".

That's the wrong conclusion. There's something else about those places that causes low crime and consequently low incarceration. It might well be a more robust approach to law enforcement, or something different about the culture which discourages crime.

For instance, the UK prison population was pretty low until the latter half of the 20th century. This is because there wasn't much crime. That was because the culture was very different and the approach to policing was also very different.

Is that really what you meant? Cultural background? We already have a parliament, indeed a Cabinet, like that. I wonder how much more diverse, and in what way, it would need to be in order to meet with your approval. Are we talking quotas here?

But of course, no matter how culturally diverse the MPs may be, there still has to be a single culture of government and establishment. Otherwise power could not be exercised, and a government that cannot use power is no government at all.

What government would not involve the power dominance of a single culture?

There's a correlation between high crime rates and high incarceration rates? Well, in that case, it's obvious that prison causes crime. There is no other possible explanation.

I don't think I'd hold up any modern Western nation as an example of how to achieve a low-crime society, since they all have the same laissez-faire approach.

Are you really telling us that a rioter, smashing up a shop, is completely indistinguishable from the shop's owner?

Or, worse, are you telling us that such a distinction can be made, but should not be, lest someone be discriminated against?

The fact is that you can make a distinction between deserving and undeserving, it isn't even difficult, and doing so is absolutely necessary for law enforcement. By refusing to admit that such a distinction may be worthwhile, you betray your responsibility to side with the civilised working class against the yobbos and the scum. It is our duty to discriminate in favour of the civilised. And if you don't want that duty, maybe you don't deserve civilisation. Somalia's just over there.

It cannot have escaped the attention of Britain's criminal underclass that our government has a policy of trying to avoid sending anyone to prison if at all possible. Those who do go to prison serve pathetically small sentences. And our "conservative" Justice Minister is intent on further cuts to sentences and greater use of "community punishments", known amongst criminals as "a joke" or a "walkout".

"we have not moved on from the power dominance of a single culture in Britain."

Well, obviously. It's called government. Now, just what would you suggest we replace it with?