If this heralds a lurch to the populist right for one of the few sane voices New Labour has left, it would be a great shame. Lost amongst the clamour of Alan Johnson whirling on a sixpence over faith schools we have…

Convicted offenders who are unemployed should be given longer community sentences, according to the chairman of the influential home affairs committee.

John Denham claimed offenders who had a job or cared for family members should receive shorter sentences.

Maybe he’s planning a (deputy) leadership bid. Such ambitions are often presaged by some outburst of ill-thought reactionary bigotry. You know, to demonstrate to the Murdoch press and the Daily Heil that there’s no principle you won’t jettison to curry favour.

The trick here, clearly, is to get yourself a job and some kids. Such attainments make you less of a prick according to Denham and worthy of leniency from the courts. Let us not forget that unemployment does not happen by accident and that if you find yourself in that position you brought it on yourself and deserve what’s coming to you. Or something.

As if being unemployed isn’t punishment enough without supposedly intelligent and compassionate men buying into the misanthropic tabloid shibboleth that such unfortunates are an underclass worthy of harsher treatment than the rest. There’s something really rather grotesque about a politician marking out the jobless, particular while unemployment is climbing under his party’s stewardship of the economy. Manufacturing industry, anybody? It’s akin to the emerging verdict on Iraq that it’s the Iraqi’s fault that stable democracy is refusing to take root there and they’re dying in herds.

I don’t want romanticise and get into a ‘boo hoo, the poor unemployed - let ‘em do a bit of shopliftin’, t’ain’t doin’ no bleedin’ ‘arm‘ apologia but Denham seems to have forgotten that societal factors influence who commits crimes. And as a spokesman for Liberty says, more time spent sweeping the streets is less time spent looking for the job which will admit you to Denham’s definition of high society. Punishing the unemployed harder than the rest doesn’t make them any less jobless.

(He also called for those serving community sentences to be made to wear uniforms - an idea last expressed by the sinister Hazel Blears if you needed any further indication of how debased it is. Misery loves company - Blears and Denham are probably just trying to spread the degradation around a bit. Not only that, if this idea does see the light of day, it’d be a fine idea to invest in a company reducing replica uniforms. Those babies will sell to ‘the kids’ like crack-flavoured Vauxhall Novas.)

No doubt, on the basis of his logic, that the length of community sentences should be based on the ability of the offender to turn up and sweep the streets, Mr Denham will be calling for on the spot fines to be weighted according to the offenders ability to pay. For example, those guilty of glassing someone with a champagne bottle should pay a bigger fine than someone using a lager bottle. Surely it should be incumbent on the police officer issuing summary justice to ascertain the offender’s level of income? Maybe our ID cards should detail our tipple of choice to make it easier.

Why not go the whole hog and do the same with custodial sentences? I have two young daughters who rely on my care. If I go berserk the next time I see yet another dog crapping in my street and I kill its couldn’t-give-a-shit-about-where-my-dog-gives-a-shit arsehole of an owner in a frenzied attack of rage, shouldn’t my sentence be shorter than someone without kids?