Trial by media ordeal has become our politicians' rite of passage | Simon Jenkins (Guardian)

Forget reasoned debate. Ken Clarke follows Huhne, Laws and Cable as the latest
star of the hot coals roadshow

It is the oldest trick in the book. You snatch a politician's mildly
controversial remark. You eradicate context and qualification and invite
rent-a-quote to be subject of the verb "to slam" or object of the verb "to
infuriate". You then get the leader of the opposition to demand a sacking, and
stake out the victim's house to see how he takes it.

Ken Clarke's spot of bother over rape sentencing this week has been a classic.
His suggestion that not all crimes within a category are necessarily identical
is almost trivially obvious. But who cares when the political heat is on and
the mob is running hotfoot to the guillotine? It does not want obvious, it
wants blood.

Retributive justice went downhill from the moment in 1215 when Pope Innocent
III did away with trial by ordeal and replaced it with torture. Out went the
sophistication of half-drowning, flesh sizzling and trial by choking "on the
blessed morsel". In came hi-tech sadism. As a result, the blood-thirsty
extraction of a confession was substituted for the priestly inspection ...

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