MAIL COMMENT: Film violence and our secretive 'regulators'

Brilliantly acted it may be, but in its relentless violence the latest Batman production, The Dark Knight, goes to the very limit of mainstream movie-making.

At the start of the film, one character is terrorised, when a grenade is put into his mouth.

The Dark Knight: 'In one scene the Joker boasts that he enjoys killing with a knife because it takes his victims longer to die'

Later, a man's eye is viciously jabbed out with a pencil. In another scene, the Joker boasts that he enjoys killing with a knife, because it takes his victims longer to die.

This is dark, dark material indeed. Yet this is the film the British Board of Film Classification has given a 12A rating, which means it is considered quite suitable even for young children, if they are accompanied by an adult. Children over 12, of course, can see it on their own.

And just who are the 'regulators' who came to this outrageously perverse decision?

There's the scandal. The 33 members of the BBFC are anonymous. They wield huge influence, but they are unelected, unaccountable and, this paper suspects, wholly unrepresentative.

They claim to be independent, but whether or not that is true is anybody's guess.

We can be sure only of one thing. This secretive oligarchy is presiding over a relentless decline of standards in the cinema.

Even the liberal Andreas Whittam Smith is reported as saying this week that the Board is taking a more relaxed view of violence since he left six years ago.

Obscenity, brutality, vile language, the trashing of civilised values... all these are becoming normalised, even glamorised.

Truly, the 'independent' BBFC should be very proud of itself!

A shameful record

Filth, filth everywhere. Maggots in slippers, rats in maternity units, mice in store-cupboards, bedbugs on the wards.

Can this be the state of hygiene in NHS hospitals after all Labour's promises and a much-trumpeted deep clean?

Indeed it can. Official figures obtained by the Tories reveal that in the last two years pest controllers had to be called to 20,000 infestations in the health service.

The implications are terrifying. The NHS is already plagued by superbugs such as MRSA and C. diff, which thrive on dirt.

Patients are dying from infections caught in hospital. Yet the campaign for greater cleanliness just isn't working.

And the response from the Government? At the very least, you might expect an apology and a promise to do better.

Doesn't it speak volumes that Health Minister Ivan Lewis instead chooses to attack the Tories for having the temerity to raise the issue at all?

Flawed justice

Time was when thieves and thugs had to face the law in all its majesty, with an appearance in court. No longer

Today the emphasis is on keeping villains out of the dock, to ensure they aren't sent to our appallingly overcrowded jails.

The Home Office is ordering police to give criminals  -  even serial offenders  -  mere cautions, instead of hauling them into court.

Why should we be surprised? As we reported last week, police are already encouraged to hand out on-the-spot fines to ease the prisons crisis.

The order to carry on cautioning is just another example of the Government's desperate attempts to avoid sending offenders to jail... even if it means perverting the course of justice.

So now, for the first time, a majority of offenders  -  53 per cent  -  aren't appearing in court at all. Instead they face bureaucratic, rubber-stamp penalties, behind closed doors. How convenient.

But if justice isn't seen to be done, can it properly be called justice at all?