Today's BBC News Have Your Say was all about the comments of Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips, who yesterday said that some murderers are in jail for too long. The comments were roughly divided in half. The first half disagreed: life should mean life, a tautology and redundant expression if ever one existed. I checked in a dictionary, and the definition of life is exactly that.

The second half agreed that some murderers do spend too long in prison. In fact, this group believed that the exact amount of time a convicted murderer should spend it prison was the amount of time necessary for a suitable length of rope to be found, and, if necessary, a small scaffold to be erected.

In short, the Lord Chief Justice does not seem to be summarising the views of the normal people of Britain. Good. Normal people don't get to become judges (most of them, of course, don't have the Latin for the rigorous judging exams). The real complaint Lord Philips has, one shared by many of his colleagues, is over the mandatory sentences that are now imposed on over 100 crimes in the UK. Removing judicial discretion takes away the experience and knowledge of the very individuals who have the most to give. Some murderers are irrepairably damaged people: for the good of society they should be excluded from it. Some murderers made a terrible mistake, one that if appropriately punished would never be repeated. I can't believe that the appropriate punishment for that is to be locked away for ever. How can it be true that a person's entire life is dictated by the worst thing they ever did? If we can properly rehabilitate people, surely no-one is worse off at that point by allowing them to return to society?

In between that, there are people who committed mutliple offences, but could possibly be helped, and people that committed one offence, but if they weren't locked away for life they would certainly do it again. The point is this: they all have different shaped hands. And, when you have people with different shaped hands, you generally need a variety of gloves. (In this metaphor, gloves are prison sentences.)

This is what happens when the top two party's say, "Race you to the right. Last one there's hoody-hugger".