IT IS sometimes said that the US and Britain are two nations divided by a common language. What also divides us are attitudes to crime and punishment.

While a majority of Britons might still favour the death penalty, it would be a small majority. And public opinion would never approve the electric chair, symbol of the still widespread executions in the US, or the obscenity of Death Row, where prisoners languish for years awaiting their fate.

The harsher US attitude has been thrown into sharp relief by the treatment of the terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Or one should say the alleged terrorist prisoners. For who can be sure, yet, that among them aren't individuals caught in the wrong place at the wrong time? Guilty or not, they are now held in conditions which, to put it no higher, struggle to meet the Geneva Convention.

The US seems unable to recognise that in a war which, on their own definition, pits civilisation against barbarism, the civilised cause is weakened even by any perceived inhumanity. The US should not merely be prepared to accept the standards of the Geneva Convention but be proud to do so. Its treatment of the prisoners should be a statement to the world: this is how a civilised nation behaves.

But in redefining the rules to suit itself, the US is demonstrating again exactly the kind of arrogance that has given anti-US, and by association anti-Western, terrorism such an explosive head of steam. Except to impose its power as hard as it can, the US has learned nothing from September 11. And sadly, their supposed best friend, our Government, is too much in their pocket to tell them.

Hard on the heels of William Hague's midwinter break in the US while Parliament is sitting, comes more evidence that MPs are not fully occupied. Responding to speculation that he is writing a book about the in-fighting behind the selection of an elected mayor for London, Frank Dobson, Alan Milburn's predecessor as Health Secretary, admits: "I've plenty of time on my hands.'' Meanwhile, Tory backbencher Boris Johnson, newly-elected last June and therefore, one supposes, keen to make his Parliamentary mark, doubles as editor of The Spectator. A paycut for our MPs would seem appropriate.

A hark back to Prince Harry. All the coverage of the drugs episode concentrated on the relationship between Harry and his father. But remember this?: "I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men... to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead.'' Earl Spencer will be relieved this commitment at Princess Diana's funeral has slid into oblivion.

Incidentally, worse in my view than Harry's dalliance with mild drugs was his reported remark to a French waiter: "You f***ing Frog.'' Eton or the Palace, such racial bigotry has to come from somewhere.

Published: Wednesday, January 23, 2002