Ken Clarke defends rape comments

Ken Clarke was either brave or foolish to go on Question Time tonight. As it is, it was probably a wise move thanks to the shocking introduction of grown up debate from Jack Straw and Shami Chakrabarti amongst others.

Mr Clarke undoubtedly made a mistake but the feeding frenzy was sensationalist and the arguments deserved a better quality of debate. That would have done justice to the millions of victims and their families who deserve not only justice but an intelligent argument about how to improve the law, especially the often horrific trial process which I have read about.

That doesn't mean cutting sentences is right, that's not my point, the fact is that it's a serious issue and the news coverage was sensationalist, personality politics not befitting the severity of the topic.