Back Page: Hound - Between the lines in the past week's media

Assuming, that is, that their cunning plan is to alienate everybody and get themselves kicked out of arenas of influence.

A couple of weeks ago, campaigner Jolly Stanesby handcuffed himself to children's minister Margaret Hodge. You can picture the lads punching the air and shouting "yesss" and "result!"

The chief result was that an invitation to give oral evidence to the constitutional affairs committee was withdrawn. Alan Beith, chair of the Commons committee looking at the effectiveness of the family court system, said the incident disrupted other people's freedom of speech.

Commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown agreed. Under a headline in The Independent, "Misogynistic bullies don't deserve justice", she railed at the tactics of the "self-made martyrs". By comparison, she drew attention to the women bringing up children in poverty and misery while fathers avoided payments and the Child Support Agency lurched from one crisis to another.