I have a new hero to worship. Finally a public servant with the courage of his convictions and the sheer guts to say things how they really are and stand up to the do-gooders who try to criticise his stance. Allow me to introduce you to Joe Arpaio. He is the elected Maricopa County Sheriff, Arizona.

Here are just some of the reasons why he deserves a public service gong:

To save Arizona from spending tens of millions of tax dollars building a new prison complex to overcome the over crowding problems he created a “tent city jail” for the prisoners to sleep under.

When the prisoners were suffering last summer’s heatwave with temperatures around 116degF, they were given permission to strip down to their prison issue pink boxer shorts. When they complained they were told: “It's between 120 to 130 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to walk all day in the sun, wearing full battle gear and get shot at, and they have not committed any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!” Why can’t our politicians, either here or in Brussels, see things as clearly as that?

How about this gem of a quote from the great man: “Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for parole, only to go out and commit more crimes so they can come back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things many taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves”.

When he took away their cable TV it was pointed out to him that a federal law required cable TV to be made available to prisons – so he re-connected the cable but only allows the Disney channel and the Weather channel. When someone asked him “why the weather channel?” he replied: it’s so the prisoners will know how hot it’s going to be when they’re working on the chain gangs!

He started the chain gangs so that prisoners could work on city and county projects rather than the taxpayer forking out. To make sure he didn’t get sued for discrimination, he also started chain gangs for female prisoners. Simple, isn’t it? He learned that coffee has no nutritional value, so he stopped supplying it. When prisoners complained he said: “This isn’t the Ritz. If you don’t like it, don’t come back!”

Most people I know feel this way and yet we don’t ever seem to get the politicians or public servants we want that will take such a firm line. We can only dream for now, I guess.

Incidentally, Sheriff Arpaio has recently been re-elected to serve Maricopa County. Our politicians could all learn a lesson here…