𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

A couple of numbers for you to stroke your chin over. Six thousand, six hundred and fifty six: total number of murders in El Salvador 10 years ago. And… one hundred and fourteen: total number of murders in El Salvador last year. That’s a fall of 98 per cent in less than a decade. Lesser crimes –shoplifting, drunk-driving, muggings (especially phone theft) have plummeted too, with a breathtaking speed that Nigel Farage could only dream of here.

Not just Farage, either. Quite a lot of UK citizens, sick to the back teeth of the collapse in law and order, might welcome a dose of El Salvador crime control. The little Central American country has somersaulted from being one of the most dangerous countries on the planet to one of the most secure in which to live. Last month, the US State Department formally rated it as safer than France or the UK to visit.

Now. You don’t make a smoking-hot, screeching U-turn like that without taking not one bull by the horns but a whole herd of them.

And that’s exactly what President Nayib Bukele has done, mostly since 2022 when, aged just 41 and in power for less than three years, he imposed a nationwide state of emergency.

It was no token gesture. Bukele handed more or less unfettered powers to his country’s police. Almost at once, around 1,000 men A DAY were arrested and thrown in the slammer, often without trial or due process.

The two arch-rival gangs who had been running El Salvador for years – Mara 18 and MS 13 – were carved up with the same utter ruthlessness they had shown in controlling the country’s benighted populace.

Within months, both sets of mobsters were toast. So many were in jail that a giant new prison was swiftly built to accommodate them. I have written about it here before.

The so-called “Terrorist Confinement Centre” treats inmates with unyielding harshness. No prison visits. No workshops or libraries. Lights are left on 24/7. All food is consumed in cells, never in communal dining areas.

El Salvador’s law-abiding majority love it. All of it. “It’s justice,” one man told The Times newspaper this week. “They did indescribably bad things. They don’t deserve to eat or sleep well.”

Last year, Bukele was re-elected with 85% of the vote. Currently he is manoeuvring to stay in power indefinitely. How might someone with his policies fare at the polls here though?

That’s a question that I’m sure Farage ponders much of the time these days, in broken Britain.

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I had the most illogical and infuriating exchange I can remember this week (and I’ve interviewed Jeremy Corbyn). I was in my favourite coffee shop.

They have a unisex loo at the back, and I needed a pee. The door was locked, so I waited, trying not to hop too obviously from one foot to the other.

After a few minutes, there were signs relief was at hand. Sounds of flushing, banging toilet lid, hand-dryer blowing. Courage! Nearly there!

But no. A 50-ish woman suddenly materialised next to me, actually pushing me to one side, while saying, with horrible upper-middle class entitlement: “I think you’ll find I was next.”

“Uhh?” I stared at her. “What do you mean? I’m the only one queuing.” She gave me a patronising smile.

“Well, you’re standing here, yes. But I decided I needed to go before you. I decided back there,” – she pointed to a table on the far side of the room – “at least two minutes before you came and stood here. So that means I’m next.”

The door opened, the previous occupant exited, and before I could say a word, Madame Entitlement had sailed inside without a backward glance.

Life’s too short to get into a vulgar quarrel with a self-serving, queuejumping egocentric like that. All the same… what would you have done?