[and policies are arrived at. Mind you, the…]

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and policies are arrived at.

Mind you, the politics are an added extra to a week of luxurious living. The special train laid on from London for the tour, to Perth and back is First Class throughout: a return ticket was priced at £113.

This price included meals almost up to Roy Jenkins' standards. The menus on the way up consisted of smoked salmon, chicken and ham salad; gateau or cheesecake with cream; mint crisp; cheese and biscuits; and a quater litre of Malmaison house claret, burgundy or Moselle.

The SDP may not know how to fill the gaping hole where a Manifesto should be - but all 66,000 members know how to fill their own, impeccably genteel, gobs.

Shah's friend David Owen Barry Prosser was beaten to death in his cell in Winston Green prison's hospital wing. The three officers who went to his cell sometime between 5 pm and 7.15 pm, when 12 officers were called in to administer a sedative and found him lying, unresisting and groaning - i.e. already dying from the previous beating, will not be sent for trial for murder.

Birmingham magistrates decided there was insufficient evidence for a jury THERE'S no cause for smugness though at the anti-racist credentials of our own government. A Home Office circular on the treatment of Rastafarian prisoners shows that racism is just as rampant as ever where it matters. After comparing Rastafarianism to "Beatlemania" advises that there should be no facilities for vising ministers, holding services or providing religious books from public funds because Rastafarianism 'isn't a proper religion". Prison governors may also insist that Rastas have their hair cut, even if they wear long plaits or dreadlocks. to convict, on the grounds that the only eye witness was a fellow prisoner who had previously denied any knowledge of the event. The prisoner pointed out that he decided to give evidence only after being moved from Winston Green where he felt his life would be in danger from prison officers if he spilt the beans.

The case highlights the impossibility of getting a conviction for murders in prison or in police custody, where the only witnesses are likely to be prisoners - therefore 'unreliable' or fellow policemen prison officers who won't testify against their mates. The magistrate's refusal to commit the officers for trial in the Prosser case is not unusual, according to Tom Sargant, secretary of Justice.

Crime writers often toy with the idea of the "perfect crime" Perhaps they're looking in the wrong direction - the perfect setting would seem to be a prison or police cell and the perfect criminal wears a uniform.