I wrote this Scotsman column when the votes for prisoners story first hit the headlines. My view has not changed....

"As is the way these days, John Hirst turned to Youtube to celebrate the success of his campaign to win voting rights for prisoners. An unkempt man in an unkempt room, he addressed the webcam with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a cannabis joint in the other.

He pointed out that one came courtesy of Sainsbury, the other from "the local drug dealer". He tells his audience that he mustn't drink too much, as he's a guest on the Radio Four Today Programme.



They couldn't be more different in appearance and lifestyle, yet Hirst - who killed his landlady with an axe as she watched television - is on the same side as Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. The previous Labour government delayed implementing a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights that the UK's blanket ban on prisoners voting in elections was illegal. The SNP government in Holyrood is totally opposed to extending the vote to prisoners. But the Liberal Democrat Westminster leader made it a personal crusade to put this right.

Tavish has his vote



Clegg has no compunction about endorsing fiscal policies which punish the law-abiding working poor, but supports Hirst, a man whose 15-year sentence for manslaughter stretched to 25 years because of his behaviour inside prison. I guess that's what is meant by moral relativism. The term was surely coined for the Lib Dems with their shifting principles.



Hirst is a frightening fellow. He educated himself in prison, clearly has intellectual ability and also won prisoners the right to make phone calls. Yet he appears unable to put matters of injustice into a context that reasonable people would understand.



On the video he rejoices that all prisoners without exception will get the vote - including "paedophiles and murderers" and there is no point "moralising" by discriminating between them. He says the expenses scandal means politicians no longer have any moral authority to govern us. (is raping children really equivalent to claiming for a widescreen telelvsion?) Yet he believes that taking a human life should not bar him from choosing a government to rule over the law abiding. He argues vociferously for fair play in the democratic process. Yet he subverts that democracy - and the will of the electorate - by appealing to the unelected ECHR to traduce the will of parliament. You can see why he has much in common with Clegg.

Hirst was interviewed by the award-winning Ayrshire novelist Andrew O'Hagan four years ago. In the disturbing piece, O'Hagan described how Hirst became disproportionately enraged at an un-named female who had spilt jam in his kitchen. "You'd think I'd killed the landlady in here," he tells O'Hagan.



Hirst's victim was Bronia Burton, a 66 year old with arthritis who took in lodgers for extra cash. While watching television together she sent him out for coal; he returned with an axe and hit her over the head several times. He told O'Hagan how he put the kettle on, looked down at his feet and: "Thought of that line from Laurel and Hardy: that's another fine mess you've got yourself into. As I'm sat there, I'm thinking, I'll get a life sentence, maybe I can study for a degree or something."



That's exactly what he did do, and boy, has it paid off. At the time of the ECHR judgment, 18 countries in Europe already allowed all prisoners the vote, 12 allowed some to vote and another 13 had a blanket ban like Britain. It's very different in America, where this power is exercised by individual states. Some allow voting. Others do not. Several extend the ban to convicted felons (that's those who have committed serious crimes) long after release.

Scotland, however, is part of the UK and electoral law is reserved to Westminster, even if justice is not. The first prisoners to get a vote are likely to be in Scotland, at next year's Holyrood elections. As of last month, there were 6,407 inmates in Scottish jails who may be affected - unsentenced prisoners and those on remand already have the vote.

Already there is considerable speculation, some of it jocular, as to how political activists might campaign in prisons next Spring. What about telephone canvassing, a method increasingly favoured by political parties? There could be hustings in prison, where candidates could answer questions about the quality of the rations. It would, of course, be a waste of time for the SNP, Labour and the Tories. If they have any sense of gratitude, all convicted criminals will back the Lib Dems."



