Just when it seems that outrages in Tony Blair's Britain cannot possibly get any worse, another hits the headlines to raise the temperature of public anger a few degrees higher.

Last month it was announced that Norfolk farmer Tony Martin, jailed for manslaughter for shooting a burglar at his home, had had his application for early parole rejected on the recommendation of a probation officer. The probation officer's report accused Martin of being "defiantly out of touch" with modern thinking. Among the reasons for this assessment was that he (Martin) believed that law and order in Britain were more effective in the 1950s. According to the officer, Martin "has views about society which are out of kilter with the majority of 21st century thinking"(sic).

As reasons for denying a man his freedom, these observations sound more in place in Stalin's Soviet Union than in this country, past or present. This report suggests that Martin is guilty of ‘thought crimes’ according to the communist textbook - a sinister sign of ‘Tony's Soviet Republic’ that was the subject of an article in these pages last month.

Traditionally, when a prisoner makes an application for parole, the following considerations should apply:-

• The gravity of the offence.
• The degree of contrition shown for the offence.
• The conduct record of the prisoner when in jail.
• The question of whether the prisoner is likely to re-offend if released.

Where gravity is concerned, the full circumstances in which the offence was committed should obviously be taken into account. It is clear from the fact that Martin was given a mere five years for manslaughter that the court took very much into account that in shooting the burglar he did not intend to kill him and acted under great provocation and duress.

As for Martin's conduct when in prison, there are no arguments over the fact that this has been impeccable.

And the likelihood of his offending if released are virtually zero. He is a 58-year-old man of upright character who has never before been in trouble with the law.

The entire case against early release seems to rest on the question of ‘contrition’, of whether Martin regrets what he did and, if so, how much.

Apparently he does regret shooting the burglar, but not sufficiently to satisfy a probation officer in the Britain of 2003.

Of course, ‘contrition’ and ‘regret’ can easily be feigned by a prisoner who just wants to get out as quickly as possible and will say anything for that purpose. Martin's problem clearly is that he is an honest man who speaks his mind and refuses to grovel. That is not the kind of citizen that is wanted or appreciated in today's ‘Cool Britannia’ Such people are seen as ‘dangerous’ - in fact better kept in captivity for as long as possible!

And this is clearly the criterion governing the question of whether Martin should be given early parole.

According to the probation officer's report, Martin is guilty of another unacceptable heresy. It went on: "He has strong opinions about how England should be and makes frequent references to how wonderful society was in the 1950s."

Well, to those of us old enough to remember, society in the 1950s, if not exactly wonderful, was a virtual paradise compared to the way things are in the first decade of the 21st century!

But apparently, to believe this is completely out of order. It seems on a parallel with a dissident in Soviet Russia saying that life there was better before the Revolution!

And that simply cannot be allowed!