Kenneth Clarke's prison menu is less porridge and more hospital TLC

Kenneth Clarke, the justice secretary, has proposed a bold new initiative to cut the number of inmates in Britain's scandalously overcrowded prisons . Instead of locking up thousands of drug addicts and mentally ill offenders, he wants to offer them hospital treatment. "Serious criminals who pose a threat to the public will always be kept locked up, but in every prison there are also people who ought to be receiving treatment for mental illness rather than housed with other criminals. The public would be better protected if they could receive that treatment in a more suitable setting," he said. The idea will outrage the hanging-and-flogging wing of Clarke's own Conservative party, who are content to live with a prison population approaching 85,000, each costing around £45,000 ($73,000) a year. But not even the most ardent bang-em-up enthusiast could argue that the present system is working. New figures from Clarke's ministry show that 61% of prisoners are reconvicted within a year of being released. Fourteen jails in England and Wales, mostly holding short-term inmates, have reconviction rates of more than 70%. A survey revealed that more than two-thirds of prisoners used drugs in the 12 months before they were convicted, while 7% said they started taking heroin while in prison. Speedy Canadians The latest bargain in the great international fire sale of British infrastructure has been snapped up by a couple of Canadian pension funds . For £2.1bn, they have acquired the right to operate the UK's only high-speed rail line, connecting London with the Channel tunnel, for the next 30 years. Transport secretary Philip Hammond defended the sale. "It is a big vote of confidence in UK plc and a big vote of market confidence in the future of high-speed rail," he said. Canadian pension funds already own several chunks of UK plc, including both property and utility companies. The Channel tunnel rail link is likely to prove a lucrative investment, with the German state operator Deutsche Bahn planning to challenge the current Eurostar monopoly by running trains to London from Cologne, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Brussels. Costlier campuses Some bits of our national infrastructure can still turn a pretty buck. Universities, for example, will soon be able to charge students tuition fees of up to £9,000 a year , almost three times the current level, although they must increase the number of scholarships and bursaries they offer to the poorest. The prospect of students graduating with debts of £30,000 or more has been marginally softened by new arrangements for paying back loans. Graduates will be obliged to repay 9% of their incomes over £21,000. Curiously, there will be penalties for the most successful graduates with high salaries who want to pay off their loans earlier. The new regime poses a dilemma for the Liberal Democrats, junior partners in the governing coalition. All the party's MPs signed a pre-election pledge to oppose any rise in fees, and some insist they will vote against the proposals. King David's courtiers David Cameron has taken on a number of new staff at 10 Downing Street. One is a personal photographer, Andrew Parsons, who will record key events in the life of the prime minister and other senior government members. One of his first snaps shows Cameron feeding his new daughter, Florence. Also on the Downing Street payroll is Nicky Woodhouse, who ran the WebCameron webcasts during the election campaign, and Anna-Maren Ashford, the Tory party's brand manager (whatever that means). She will now be working on strategy, rather than image-promotion. Yet another new recruit is Isabel Spearman, former PR adviser to a handbag designer. She is working four days a week in No 10, helping the prime minister's wife, Samantha, run her life. She will also help choose outfits for SamCam, as she is widely known, to wear at functions at home and abroad. At least the prime minister and his wife don't have to worry about the cost of the new hirelings. The bill is being picked up by us, the taxpayers. Game on, but not here The burgeoning video games industry has cut its workforce by 9% in the past two years. It's not because the games are no good, but rather that developers are seeking more lucrative returns abroad . Industry leaders blame the government for failing to implement tax breaks planned by the last Labour administration. They claim that skilled developers are being lured to countries like Canada and France, which both offer some generous tax packages. Still the British games industry is rubbing along fairly well, generating world sales worth more than £2bn a year for such classic games as the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider series and the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Morning-after mobile Talking of new technology, British boffins have come up with an ingenious new use for mobile phones: the diagnosis of sexually transmitted diseases . People who think they are infected will be able to put a tiny sample of saliva or urine on to a small chip, which they can then plug into their phone or computer, go online, and receive a diagnosis within minutes. The system will be able to detect common conditions including herpes, chlamydia and gonorrhoea. The Medical Research Council has given a £4m grant towards developing the technology. Health experts home it will stem the growing spread of sexually transmitted infections, which reached a record 482,696 cases last year. Her Facebook majesty One already has One's presence on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. Now One has completed One's set with a presence on Facebook . Launched this week, facebook.com/The British Monarchy features video clips, photographs and the terrifically informative Court Circular. There is, alas, no personal profile, so users cannot ask the royals to be their Facebook friends. But they can click to say they like the page, and no doubt they will. Not a word to anyone Countdown is a popular afternoon television game show in which contestants are given nine letters at random and invited to use them to make a word. An unnamed Cambridge student recently took part and was dealt the magical sequence DTCEIASHF, which he used to come up with the word Shitface. If he had been really clever, he would have clapped the D on the end to put it into the past tense. But it still wouldn't have counted, because the straight-faced folk at Channel 4 decided that the word was unbroadcastable . Hmase.