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       Keir Starmer's Government is considering mandatory castration (Image: Getty)

       My God, this government is desperate. So alarmed by votes leaking away to the Left, it signs away large chunks of Brexit, despite explicitly promising not to. And to stop votes haemorrhaging to the Right, it moans, with shameless implausibility and opportunism, about a “nation of strangers” and the dangers of mass immigration – despite being overtly in favour of that very thing till about five minutes ago. But today really takes the biscuit.

       We now hear that to relieve pressure on our prisons the government is seriously considering mandatory castration of prisoners guilty of sex offences. Where do we start with this Orwellian concept? For a start, the principle of consent, long part of medical practice in the UK, would be fatally undermined. Which doctor wants to perform a medical procedure against a patient’s wishes? Not any doctor I want to visit.

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       Secondly, the evidence that this procedure actually works is horribly limited. The jury is out, and in any case, it does nothing to tackle the underlying cause of sexual violence. Thirdly, what about the principle of rehabilitation? Isn’t that what justice is all about? Finally, and most importantly, bodily autonomy.

       How dare the Big State take it upon itself to force someone, however disgusting their crime, to take a drug that may or may not have the desired effect but certainly risks possibly irreversible major side effects.

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       Yes, they do it in America. But that’s no great recommendation. In many states in that country, they also gas murderers to death, give lethal injections or place them in an electric chair.

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       That’s despite the complete absence of evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent, and despite the grave risk of executing somebody innocent.

       I want no part of it. If this is the way our government seeks to reduce the prison population, then I say think again.

       And for those who might support this vile notion, on the understandable grounds that sex offenders are the lowest of the low, I ask whether they’d also support the medieval punishment of chopping off the hands of burglars? This castration idea is the thin edge of a dangerous wedge.

       If sex offenders voluntarily put themselves forward, in return for earlier release from prison, then that is acceptable – in fact that’s already happening.

       And if they are so out of control that they are an irredeemable danger to our communities (and I know that some sex offenders are incapable of stopping themselves) then just keep them in prison, whatever the cost. Throw away the key.

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       Decent-minded people will surely far prefer that solution that castrating them against their will, with reluctant medics performing the operation, then shoving them back into the community in the vague hope that they’ll stop getting so sexually aroused and committing horrible crimes.

       Finally, why is this a men-only proposal? Given our obsession with gender equality, why isn’t the government considering chemical castration for female offenders? I’ll tell you why. Because there would be uproar. So, the government, typically, is taking the coward’s way out. Let’s do it to men, but not women. How slithery. How pathetic. How contemptible.

       Our flip-flopping government – hard left one day, hard right the next – is behaving more and more like a battery-powered shopping trolley with schizophrenic front wheels. My contempt for them grows with each day.

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       Forty years ago, Mel Smith, Pamela Stevenson and Griff Rhys Jones performed a Not the Nine O’ Clock News sketch in which learned experts discussed ways of dealing with football hooligans.

       “Cut off their goolies”, proclaimed Smith in his guise as a Doctor of Psychology. Yes, “Cut off their goolies”, agreed Anderson, playing the part of a sensitive community worker from Lambeth.

       How we laughed. Because it was so absurd. So unthinkable. Yet here we are, four decades later, discussing in all seriousness something all too similar and mad. Actually, it’s beyond mad. It's a big-state obscenity. Revolting. And typical.