Daily Mail-type paranoia seems to be something of a theme this week, with David Cameron's ill-judged assaults on the Human Rights Act and on British youth in general featuring prominently.  The Conservative leader tried to use the deportation of Learco Chindamo to make a case for scrapping the Human Rights Act - but as the Economist pointed out ('A flawed fight-back'), his reasoning was pretty dubious:

The right to a family life guaranteed by Article 8 of the act was indeed interpreted in Mr Chindamo's favour (his mother and siblings are in Britain, where he has lived since he was six). Yet the act was a secondary factor in the tribunal's decision. More important was a directive in 2004 from the European Union (EU) on free movement, which prevents the deportation of EU citizens except on “imperative grounds of public security”.

Given that Chindamo himself only lived in Italy for three or four years and speaks no Italian, the logic which considers him purely 'foreign' and thus capable of being deported as a matter of course is indeed questionable.

Cameron's wider 'zero-tolerance' assault on youth crime was given a frosty reception by the Independent ('Moral panic and a return to gesture politics'):

David Cameron, in new zero-tolerance mode, proposed harsher minimum sentences for juvenile offenders and a ban – or delay – on driving. Given that the lack of a licence deters few teenagers from driving and that custody often provides a crime school for young offenders, both solutions look sadly like our old friend, gesture politics.

Giving more juvenile offenders criminal records and thus making it harder for them to find work is also a less than obvious way of encouraging their integration into society.  But Cameron wasn't finished:

His actual words were still less convincing. "With young people," he said, "you need to hit them where it hurts, in their lifestyle and their aspirations." If there is one point of agreement, it is that poverty of lifestyle and aspiration underlies much offending.

His comments certainly don't say much for Cameron's claim to be a 'liberal Conservative' on law and order, and they wouldn't do much for Britain's overcrowded jails either.