“£2000 GIFTED TO FAMILY OF POLITICAL PRISONER JORDAN WINYARD” screams the latest Trump-style, all-caps announcement from the, as ever, over-excitable collecting tin rattlers Patriotic Alternative. If only they’d spent just a tiny bit of the tens of thousands that have flowed into their begging bowl this year on a spelling checker, it would have told them that the’ve missed the ’R’ out of ’GRIFTED’.

From there on, it’s the usual ’two-tier smear’ strategy. He’s a good lad really. He didn’t actually do anything. It’s his little kids who are being punished by not having their dad home for Christmas. He’s banged up, they wail: ”for throwing ’missiles’ during a protest. Nobody has ever explained exactly what these missiles were supposed to have been”.

Well, first off, it wasn’t a ’protest’ but a riot. It was the infamous attack on Tamworth’s Holiday Inn, which the mob attempted to burn down using several petrol bombs. They also attacked the police, throwing projectiles including bottles and bricks.

No doubt Winyard disguised himself by wearing a pig mask throughout this frolicking to prevent the police or anyone else identifying him as a man doing… er… absolutely nothing wrong If no one went into the specifics of Winyard’s missiles in court, it was probably because they felt that reciting the details would just be wasting the court’s time. He had, you see, already pleaded guilty to violent disorder. The three-year sentence was really only to be expected.

We do, of course, feel sorry for these kids, but the only reason they will be having a crappy Christmas is because Daddy Pig decided to go out and be a violent thug.

’Political prisoner’ our arse.