You just can’t please some people! You give them free accommodation. You feed them three square meals a day. These people don’t have to work their brains to figure out anything, because they have someone telling them what to do, what time to get up, what time to go to bed and they even get free clothing. And still, they complain. They complain about the food, which they get for free, I might add. Unlike the rest of us who must toil by the sweat of our brows to be able to put food on our table.
So, what’s the latest complaint? Chips. What’s wrong with chips? That British staple? I hear you ask. Well, these freeloaders (residing at His Majesty’s pleasure) are complaining that the cost-of-living crisis is affecting their chips and more particularly, how their chips are cooked. Well, I never! They like their chips fried in olive oil. Fried in olive oil!? Are you joking me? Do you know how expensive olive oil is? I wouldn’t dream of frying chips in olive oil. In our house, we eat oven chips. And like it. But when the inmates’ olive oil-fried chips were changed to the oven variety, they kicked up a fuss. Some prisoners even complained the meals on offer, in prison, were dreadful and bland. If I am not careful, I’ll die laughing.
Except, it’s not funny. People up and down the country are having to tighten their belts or choose cheaper alternatives when grocery shopping and would not be too sympathetic to criminals’ convicted of some serious crimes chips dilemma.
And it doesn’t end there. Now we get to the names. Criminals get offended by being called…criminals. Or convicts. Peeps, they don’t like it. It’s offensive, they wail. So, prison warders have been instructed to call them ‘prisoner’ or ‘offender’ and when they are released from jail they should not be referred to as ‘ex-cons’ but rather as ‘persons with lived experience’. Well, that could be anybody who has lived. Which is all of us. Stuff and nonsense!
And there’s more. Teenage killer Lukas Makula, who was released in 2018 after serving five years for killing somebody, is suing the Home Office for spoiling his social life by making him wear an electronic tag, part of the condition for his early release. He, Lukas Makula, who spent long periods in a young offenders’ institution for violent behaviour and for breaching his bail conditions and is now at a high risk of causing harm, claims being tagged is false imprisonment. I think I need a lie-down!
