The two men suffering most in the public eye this weekend are David Cameron and Jimmy Savile. Mr Cameron is a living Prime Minister and Savile is a dead paedophile, but the coverage of each is roughly equal – with Jimmy just shading it at the end.

Tackling either of these men seems odd to me in this, the third week of the British media’s Camerlot-clouting paedo-pantheon. It’s doing what the press does so well these days: reporting stuff without worrying overly much about whether anything is likely to change as a result of it.

The Observer has Fifth Columnist Norman Tebbit telling Dave that he “must impose some discipline”, and adding that “The abiding sin of the government is not that some ministers are rich, but that it seems unable to manage its affairs competently”.

Stormin’ Norman of course has a long-held agenda against Cameron. He is usually right about most things – including his dislike of The Big C – and he’s also right on the money to write Camerlot in general off as sloppy and disorganised.

But he seems to feel that Mitchell losing his job is a sign of weakness. I, on the other hand, see it as a victory for those who dislike arses; and trust me, Mitchell is an arse. Tebbit is also woefully (perhaps wilfully) adrift in suggesting that the Government’s unpopularity has nothing to do with being rich. I think the public’s dislike is for how they got rich in the first place. Either way, what the Observer chooses to call an ‘Opinium’ poll has Labour 9% ahead of the Tories.

I quite like the idea of a new legislative council called the Opinium. In my ideal world, it’s main criterion for success would be nobody taking any notice of it. But that’s just me.

Accused of weakness on all fronts, David Cameron is to come out and tell us all to mug, rather than hug, a hoodie….or so claims the Mail on Sunday. More 1922 appeasement is upon us I fear, this time on the question of prison sentences. The PM will try to please all Conservatives everywhere by calling for tougher sentences and putting private companies onto the task of rehabilitation.

Dave’s entire raison d’etre now is to please people. His Premiership has rarely consisted of much more if we’re honest: pleasing the LibDems, pleasing Newscorp, pleasing the construction sector, pleasing Jeremy Frunt-Bottomley’s backers, and now double-extra pleasing Brady’s Bunch on the 1922 Committee.

But this latest odd hybrid of a policy will never work. Banging someone up for an extra three years and then saying “here’s a firm of private contractors to make you even more grateful” simply isn’t the answer. Prison doesn’t work, period. Most of the rehabilitation schemes piloted so far work very well for younger prisoners, but the skills involved in pulling that off are very specialist indeed. Giving a bunch of private cowboys chosen by civil servants a crack at it is a G4SII waiting to happen. Sadly, the Beeb confirms that ‘The prime minister is expected to announce that a payment by results system for private companies who successfully rehabilitate offenders will be expanded’. Payment, results, corners, cut, profit, skulduggery etc etc.

Had he been alive to witness the complete demolition of his reputation, it’s highly likely that Jimmy Savile would now be staring at the naked form of a 4000 year prison sentence. But here too, my worry is that the real issues aren’t being tackled…and the search for any news which can be tagged ‘sexual abuse’ online is getting out of hand.

For example, the MoS has a piece today recording that popular TV history man Adam Hart-Davis embraced a radio producer more than 30 years his junior. He says his gesture was misinterpreted. However, the woman was upset and mentioned his behaviour to managers.

The 69-year-old Old Etonian said he was horrified when told his motives were misinterpreted. I can imagine he was. But is this anything to do with Jimmy Savile, and is his case in turn anything to do with the real paedophile problem in the UK?

Almost certainly not, but the Sunday Telegraph is finding new red herrings and bad eggs everywhere. The latest is egg-lady sans pareil Edwina Currie who, as Health Minister 300 years ago, had a partial responsibility for Broadmoor. What did she know? asks the Barclaygraph mordantly. Er, nowt, says Currie, “I’m not denying he had access to Broadmoor. Let’s dig out the records and see.”

When a politician says that, you know as a hack there’s nothing there for you. And it doesn’t get any better when they question senior prison staff: “I am absolutely astonished. There was absolutely no indication that he was doing what was alleged.”

But the Mirror is in like Flynn with this belter:

‘Jimmy Savile and the IRA: Predator boasted terrorist friends could have enemies hospitalised’. In other words, if any hacks or managers threatened to expose Jim, he’d fix it for them to wind up in Stoke Mandeville.

The Mirror adds that, ‘Today the Sunday People can reveal how Savile once bragged to our journalist how he could fix anyone with just one phone call – to terrorists.’

Right. But you didn’t print that because…oh right, I see. Sorry. I was a bit slow there. To which my reaction is “Bollocks”.

Just to put all this into perspective, last week the Slog posted a long and detailed piece about endemic Labour Party paedophilia…purely and simply by scanning the media and blogosphere with the use of Google.

But there was nobody famous in it, so it was ignored. Anyway, for the record, I will point out for the nth time that paedophiles thrive in organisations and professions where they find it easy to hide, and can get access to kids. These are teaching, the social care system, the judiciary, and Labour in local government. All four of these overlap much of the time, and together they represent an appalling scandal. Compared to this, what Savile got up to may sell papers, but it won’t address the problem.

Playing the rich toff card may yet, however, get Alex Salmond the independence he craves. The Independent on Sunday has Slippery Salmond tearing into “Lord Snooties”, and assuring his supporters that they will have no place in an Independent Scotland, oooo nonononono. What else could the result be once Toff-hater General Digger Murdoch rides to his Second Coming on the back of an SNP victory in the referendum? Dunno, on the grounds that I don’t care. Sod Salmond and sod Scotland. The collective madness north of Carlisle will end in tears, and Lords snooty or otherwise will have no bearing on the matter.

But as often happens, the IoS has more real stories than most. There’s a good piece suggesting that the 2010 Tory intake were pivotal in de-Mitchelling the Party. There may be mileage in that one. There may even be something for BoJo and Frunt-Bottomley to consider there.

One thing for neocon headcases and Sir Humphreys to think about is the abject failure of forced internal markets in the UK over the years. The Indie on Sunday reports new figures showing that each electricity company controls more than two-thirds of the market in their regions across the UK.