To most people who pride themselves on taking a considered view, and to all who subscribe to the view that human rights - any human's rights - are sacrosanct, that's just a wild vengeful remark that should be instantly dismissed.

The West's view on human rights is hopelessly skewed anyway when it is deemed heinous for a convicted prisoner to empty a potty but perfectly acceptable to tear small children out of their beds and away from their friends and to send them to prison-like circumstances in the country from which their parents fled in fear.

It seems entirely appropriate that the likes of Saddam, Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe and co, along with the worst psychopathic serial killers from around the world . . Ted Bundy, Peter Sutcliffe . . should be treated quite differently from the average criminal or one-off murderer.

What better idea than one, global "zoo", run by international co-operation, where those deemed unworthy of a quick death or a pampered if excluded existence at vast expense to the rest of us, can be caged, fed, watered and observed as the awful specimens they are?

No television, no reading material, a bucket in the corner to relieve themselves . . . the only real expense is infallible security and the keepers' wages.

Better still, entry fees to the zoo would mean they were actually paying for it themselves, as well as earning some compensation payments to the countries, communities or families who suffered at their hands.

PERVERSELY, it would probably have to be sited in a country where human rights legislation is lax to say the least, yet one which could still rise to the occasion with decent hotels and facilities for tourists who wanted to come and gawp.

The problem with the zoo's stock of course, is that it would eventually die off, albeit leaving room for new inmates which, regrettably, there would always be.

However, the zoo could always be augmented with a museum featuring the amazing art of taxidermy so that the world would always remember what these exhibits looked like when they were sad, locked up and shuffling round a small cage.

By now I'm sure some readers are outraged. What deranged mind could think up such punishment? No matter what crimes they've committed they deserve dignity, etc etc . . .

Really? Pause for just a moment to consider how we treat innocent, majestic, beautiful and endangered animals who don't even know the meaning of evil.

YOU may hang on to your hats but there is no chance of hanging on to your money now that the Government is trialling bonuses to civil servants who turn up for work instead of going sick.

Bear in mind that public sector workers take 10.3 sick days a year in comparison with private sector workers who take 6.8 days sick. Bear in mind also that we are already paying through income and council tax, to guarantee the earlier and handsome pensions of these people while our own pensions are not so much flat as "flatulent" - dispersing into thin air leaving nothing but a bad smell.

A DWP spokesperson said it was something they were looking at because it had "worked well in the private sector". That's the private sector that spends its own money and profits rather than the Government which has no money at all - except ours.

I MAY be a Glaswegian by birth but even I cannot accept that Edinburgh is the rudest place in Scotland and the second rudest in the UK outside Birmingham.

No, Edinburgh is misunderstood. When Londoners are strolling round in shirt sleeves, the biting wind and lashing rain is beating the smiles out of Edinburgh.

It's a city that's often rather shy; definitely reserved; hyper-cautious about appearing nosy and terrified of appearing needy or asking for help.

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