Even my mimsy leftist friends don’t care that prisoners can’t vote

I mean, honestly. What kind of mimsy, soggy-spined, weak-kneed, faffing, lentil-eating, self-loathing, lefty north London ninny gives a damn that prisoners don’t have the vote? Pretty much my entire social circle could be described in such terms (as mimsy ninnies and suchlike, not as prisoners) and nobody gives a flying monkey’s. I had a conversation about it with Jeremy Hardy on the News Quiz, for God’s sake, and even he was a bit ‘meh’. So how has this become an issue? What madness has taken root?

Of all the things you can do when you aren’t in prison that you can’t do when you are, you’d think voting would come pretty low down. Freedom to change the TV channel, walks in the sunshine, the laughter of a child, the feel of the wind on your face, a pint in a pub, the chance of a sexual experience that isn’t with a 19-stone armed robber who wants to put you in a wig; all of these things I would miss. But the vote? Come off it. For most of my life, I’ve lived in safe Labour seats. I basically don’t have a vote anyway.

If prisoners could vote, an early problem is that of where they’d vote. Physically, obviously, they’d do it from their prisons. But for which constituencies? If it was for their home constituency, then they’d be electing a representative for a place in which they no longer lived, which is odd. Plus, you’d expect that high proportions of crime come from the same constituencies, so theirs could be a deciding vote. Would prospective MPs have to tour prisons seeking constituents? Lunacy. But, then again, if prisoners voted in the constituencies their prisons were in, then those constituencies would be prison-dominated. Which might be a bit annoying for all the people who actually, you know, use the buses and stuff.