The blades are out for hesitant Howard

These are lawless times. Morality is crumbling, communities are fracturing and rustlers are rustling from Hartlepool to the Rio Grande. So, increasingly the British general election is beginning to resemble a three-way contest between Wyatt Earp, Judge Roy Bean and Annie Oakley for Sheriff of Dodge City. Jaws ajut, eyes narrowed, the various home affairs spokesmen appeal to the frightened townsfolk with ever more bloodcurdling threats to criminals, ne'er-do-wells and snake-oil salesmen.

Strangely, for all this emphasis on crime and punishment, yesterday's debate on the law and order aspects of the Queen's Speech was very badly attended. There cannot have been more than 10 Tories in the Chamber during Jack Straw's reply to the Home Secretary's speech. This seeming apathy towards the key political objective of this session (to suggest that only the Tories are genuinely tough on crime) may have contributed to an unusual sense that grit had somehow got into Mr Howard's well-lubricated moving parts.

From the moment he stood up he was strangely ill-at-ease. Even his Parliamentary Private Secretary, the long-limbed young David Lidington - who bounced around behind Mr Howard like an etiolated frog on amphetamines, passing notes and whispering - could not come up with convincing bits of evidence to cheer the Tory side. "We have registered the greatest fall in crime of any OECD country for which figures are available," declared the Home Secretary.

And you could tell that even his own backbenchers suspected that the other countries for which figures had "been available" were probably Zaire, Belarus and Colombia.

The problem was, of course, combat knives. For Labour has finally (and remarkably) found something that it and the public wishes to ban, but that the Home Secretary is actually nervous about; and this makes him very unhappy. So Mr Howard started to play "Copper's Nark", a game in which whoever manages to produce the greatest number of endorsements from the myriad police organisations, wins. First out was Acpo (chief police officers) who believed a ban was unworkable. Ah, countered Mr Straw, what about the Police Superintendents' Association? They're for a ban. Are not, replied Mr Howard, citing a press release. Are too, said Mr Straw, quoting from an hour-old ITN interview.

But you cannot define a combat knife, wailed Michael Howard (sounding just like the weedy, wet liberal we have all long suspected lurks within), many innocent kitchen knives and harmless cleavers would get banned too. Try to imagine those words emerging from the rugged lips of Clint Eastwood.

Succour came from a dubious source on the bench behind him. Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster) revealed that she was a keen cook. And she could assure everybody that "the knives in my kitchen would be very difficult to describe" (earlier, for good measure she had shown one she just happened to have in her handbag to the alarmed political editor of this newspaper). The thought of the volatile and excitable Dame being in possession of many long, sharp blades was not calculated to dampen down demands for tough action - quite the reverse. Several male Tories winced and crossed their legs; others, contemplating Dame Elaine at her cuisine, wondered about the exact provisions of the Poisons Act.

Meanwhile, however, Mr Howard was ploughing on. "Old Labour, New Labour; if you're a serious life criminal you can rely upon them to protect you. And now Madam Speaker, I turn to drugs", he said. Me too. So make mine four Nurofen and a large Scotch - if it's still legal, that is.