YOU may remember David Cameron's "hug a hoodie" initiative. That novel approach to juvenile law and disorder was abandoned when the Conservative constituency made it clear they would rather flog a hoodie. The Tories are back on the block, crime and punishment-wise. This time it's no more Mr Nice Guy. This time they are being jolly strict.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, wants to confiscate the mobile phones of errant youths. The Serious Sim Card Squad will swoop to knock the Nokia and iMpound the iPhone. These new police powers will be a "21st century clip around the ear".

What has inspired the new Tory policy? I suspect Mr Grayling has been reading Oor Wullie. He has discovered PC Murdoch. Or non-PC Murdoch as the Tories might prefer to call him. The Murdoch motif is evident. In the Sunday Post cartoon strip the kindly if slow-witted bobby routinely confiscated Wullie's catty. The catty, or catapult, was Wullie's weapon of choice. The ultimate polis sanction was to get Wullie over the knee and give him a good skelp. I imagine PC Murdoch is still going strong. Possibly clamping Wullie's cairtie to prevent him burning rubber on the Stoorie Brae.

PC Murdoch had to deal with japes, mischief and minor misdemeanours. There was no gang warfare involving Wullie or Fat Boab, Soapy Soutar, and Wee Eck, the other boys in the hood. No turf war with the Broons Twins and that well-known moll the Bairn. The Glebe Street gang stuck to its own strip. No cairtie-by catty slaying of Horace who, everyone knows, is the brains behind The Broons.

In the real world, PC Murdoch has to confiscate Wullie's chib. The Broons Twins are dealing drugs. Hen Broon is running a dodgy taxi company. Joe has the protection business, or the security firm as it's known. Maggie's a crack whore.

Maw Broon is forever being interviewed on the steps of the sheriff court claiming there is not a bad bone in the body of the latest member of her clan to get sent down. Paw is the licensee. Granpaw is in retirement near Marbella. Daphne, always the odd one out, is a social worker.

In the real world, young villains are not firing peashooters. They use guns and make their getaway on mountain bikes. I forgot to mention that Grayling's crackdown will also include seizing bicycles.

This forfeiture of phones and bikes is part of a broader criminal justice strategy which the Conservatives will unveil in the autumn. The Tories might have told us their new ideas last week. But no urgency; parliament is off on an 82-day summer holiday.

Grayling says Labour's Asbos are not working. He will introduce other "informal community punishments" to deal with antisocial behaviour.

I imagine the naughty step will be central to the new regime. Miscreants will phone (if they still have a phone) to tell chums that plans for a spot of joyriding or looting the corner shop have to be abandoned because they have been confined by mater and pater to the bottom tread of the staircase. Angry mums will yell at their offspring: "You are so grounded. No White Lightning or Buckfast for a week. As for getting any of your dad's stash of skunk and Es, forget it."

The young may not take kindly to being deprived of technology. Like the case of the parents who took away their daughter's mobile after she stole money to buy extra minutes. Police found them cowering in a locked room as the girl, armed with two kitchen knives, tried to get at them, in scenes reminiscent of The Shining.

A 17-year-old whose parents banned him from playing Halo 3, a first-person shooter video game, got hold of Dad's 9mm handgun and shot mom dead. He only managed to wing dad. The last words mom heard were: "Would you guys close your eyes? I have a surprise for you."

These cases occurred in the USA. It could never happen here. Our resourceful youth, deprived of phone or bike, would go out and steal another. Grayling's light touch will not work.

So what is the answer? Capital punishment? I am not personally in favour. I'm just thinking out of the box here; running the idea up the flagpole. Texan politician Jim Pitts tried to bring in the death penalty for 11-year-olds. Being a kindly man, he was going to keep them safely in custody until they were 17 and then execute them. Pitts didn't get his way but he is still a well-respected member of the state legislature.

We can rule out an electric version of the naughty step. Society could take a libertarian attitude. Let the violent young get on with the knife fights, glassings, and kickings. Capture the action on CCTV. The rest of us can stay at home and watch police reality TV shows with real gladiatorial action instead of boring car chases and drunks getting lifted.

In a vigilante extension of the clip on the ear, citizens who dare to venture on to the mean streets should have the right to bear arms. Wielding a taser gun, you might ask the punk on the 42 bus in Maryhill if he's feeling lucky. A cattle prod would suffice for junior litter louts.

But let's try non-violent chastisement first. Make young offenders suffer with stuff they really hate. A version of Orwell's Room 101 where they are made to listen to Radio 3 or watch BBC Four. In the next room, a teenage wrongdoer is being lectured at length by an intense heidie. The boy has let himself down, let his parents down, let the entire school down, and worst of all let the headmaster down.

Retired teachers, fuelled with a career-load of hatred and contempt for the young, may be employed to inflict long and sarcastic diatribes in lieu of an Asbo. Tell the kids their trainers are crap but their plooks are flourishing. That kind of thing. Useful learning could go on in Room 101. Like trigonometry. Or calculus, if the wean has been really bad.

I would let the junior felons keep their mobile phones but as punishment insist they do a txt vrsn of Caesar's Gallic Wars: "Gal e omn div n prts 3 ..."

There's another solution. Tories go on about how it costs £40,000 a year to keep adolescent hoodlums locked up. It would be cheaper to bung the little beggars off to Eton. The shadow cabinet will tell you it did them no harm.