Must. Write. Faster.

The real dystopia is catching up fast on the fiction version.

The Cameroid intends, as expected, to use the rioting to his advantage. No face coverings in future. Oh sure, he says police will have the power to order rioters to remove their masks, but can anyone see that happening? How about police demanding Old Holborn remove his mask during one of his November visits to Westminster? Can anyone see this power being used then?

It's also a backdoor burqua ban. With more CCTV rather than less, they'll need to see all our faces or all the cameras become even more useless than they already are.

He also wants the power to shut down internet sites such as Twitter during periods of civil unrest. Twitter was the main driver behind many of the Arab countries' insurgencies, which were of course not at all related to the British riots. Those British rioters were not all poor, unemployed, downtrodden serfs. They were not stealing food, they were stealing shoes, booze, baccy, hoodies and bling. There was no political motivation - heck, the last thing those rioters want is for the current situation to change at all.

Define civil unrest. Then put yourself in a politician's shoes and define it again. Did 'civil unrest' just become a BNP rally? An EDL march? People campaigning for an EU referendum? Popular support for less restrictive lawmaking? What Cameron is talking about is the ability to disconnect the internet whenever it's used to talk about something the political class don't want talked about. He cannot stop Twitter or Facebook because they are not based in the UK. The only way he can implement this idea is to force ISPs to pull the plug.

These laws won't start out that way. They never do. Who imagined that RIPA was in any way connected with the amount of rubbish in your bin or which school your child went to? Who thought for a moment that anti-terror laws meant you could be harassed or even detained for taking a photo in the street?

The Cameroid also wants to evict those convicted of looting from their council homes. Okay, I can see the sense in this. They've had cheap housing, free money, and they've abused it. On the other hand, what about those who aren't in council housing? What about those who had jobs and weren't on benefits? I doubt whether that primary school worker will still have his job - a quick CRB check should see to that - but what about the rest?

What about those schoolkids? They have nothing he can take from them. If you're going to apply a punishment for a crime, you must apply that same punishment to all who have committed the same crime. You can't evict someone and leave them destitute while the next person, who did the same thing, just goes back to their home and job. One punishment for all.

You know, I'm thinking we could keep a few joiners in work building pillories...

...and think of all the wasted fruit and veg that could be recycled. If everyone threw five a day, it would meet the health targets too.

I know, there are those thinking 'The man's mad. He's spent far too much time reading history books' but just consider for a moment - if it came to a choice between the return of the pillory and the return of the death sentence, which would you prefer?

The pillory has one massive advantage over the death sentence where 'yoof kultur' is concerned. While being sentenced to death could be viewed as the last act of a hard man, standing in the pillory while people hurl rotting vegetables at you is absolutely humiliating.

In that world where 'respect' is so important, they don't fear the ASBO or a couple of weeks in prison. Those are badges of honour. Even the death sentence won't put them off. But public humiliation - that will terrify them. You cannot demand respect when the entire community has seen you covered with mouldy tomatoes and horse shit and you've been in that pillory so long you've wet yourself. It's the end of the hard man's career. Especially if they are dressed in their best white hoodie and saggy trousers for the occasion.

And nobody has to get killed. Which, to me, is always a good outcome. We'll need two pillories at each site. One for the convicted and one for the human rights lawyer who complained that this was cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel, yes, but unusual? Unusual would be forty slaps with an angry otter, or being coated with cow dung, then placed in a room full of bluebottles and starving toads. Those things are unusual but, I think, worthy of consideration by the judiciary. I wonder if we can get 100,000 signatures on a petition?

The pillory cannot be considered unusual. It's in our history. It's our culture, innit?

Anyway, best get back to writing. I have to stay ahead of reality or I'll end up with a documentary. I've been thinking about flying drone cameras, small ones that are not much bigger than a dragonfly. Small enough not to be noticed and cheap enough to deploy in a swarm.

Oh. Bugger.