Roisín McAliskey is in a jurisdiction which despises Irish political prisoners. Their conditions of imprisonment are designed to torture them and it is about time there was an almighty outcry.

The most urgent case is that of Roisín McAliskey and the support for the campaign to secure her release is growing all the time. There are those who say that when the Irish Independent calls for her to be given bail, surely the British must realise the weight of opinion behind her.

But hope that they will act in a humane manner has been so often misplaced in the past. The campaign must grow and it must be pushed with energy and imagination. Roisín McAliskey must be freed and only a massive, loud and angry campaign can secure that..

Rotten to its sectarian core

Baroness Denton has called on a tactic beloved of British government politicians in trouble.

When her wrongdoing was exposed - she oversaw the transfer of the victim, rather than the perpetrator of sectarian harassment from her office - and pressure was mounting on her to resign, she ordered an inquiry. It will buy her time - she may even be confident of surviving until the Westminster election.

But it doesn't take an inquiry to find the significance of this incident. Not only was this British government unwilling to confront sectarianism and triumphalism in the Orange Order, the Unionist Party and the RUC but it was unwilling to face down sectarianism in the private office of one of its own ministers. And not any minister. The minister responsible for fair employment.

Who now can say the state isn't rotten to the core?