CHAIN gangs in high-vis jackets certainly appeal to a base desire to publicly humiliate wrongdoers, if nothing else. Boris Johnson made the most of his first post-quarantine foray outdoors to stand shoulder to shoulder with Priti Patel and publicise a vacuous yet headline generating array of tough-on-crime policies. Social media increases the thirst for public shaming, the modern fulfilment of the urge to put criminals in the stocks, and the prime minister perhaps thinks this base desire spills sufficiently over to real life to make eye catching uniforms for community payback sentences a ratings winner. "If you are guilty of antisocial behaviour," Mr Johnson said, "And you are sentenced to unpaid work, as many people are, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be out there in one of those fluorescent-jacketed chain gangs visibly paying your debt to society."