2011 - A review

Let's be brutally honest here. 2011 has been a shit year.

Well it needed saying, after all the joyous and upbeat "what a year that was" reviews which have been guffed out by the various news channels since Tuesday (when Winterval...sorry, "Christmas" 2011 officially ended) with many images of celebrating Libyans and people waving placards of Osama Bin Laden with awful puns about him being dead and tax-payer dependant toffs kissing on a balcony. But look a bit closer at what has happened in 2011 and you'll actually realise just how depressing a year it has been.

Let's start with the Arab Spring, an event much utilised by the media as a symbol of the "topsy-turvy" world in 2011. Yes, the people involved were very brave to stand up to tyrannical dictators and seeing the likes of Gaddafi sent to meet their maker is something which can cheer the heart of any normal person. But already it's starting to unravel. In Syria there have already been nearly (if not over, depending on estimates) a million people killed by the Assad Regime and the likelihood is that this will continue well into next year with little sign that the regime will fall. In Egypt, the biggest name early entrant to the Arab Spring, the tensions between the population and military are rising, and this cannot be a good thing. And indeed in Libya itself there already appears to be a growing divide along tribal lines.

And on the international front, it's not just the Middle East were the events can be seen as being not only anti-climactic but thoroughly depressing. In North Korea, the worlds most unpredictable nuclear power, a new leader came to power in a country which has been largely held together by the personality cult of the previous leader Kim Jong-Il, with the inevitable power struggles to come in the coming months. In the USA the Tea Party continued growing, a movement whereby a small group of high-earners use the general malaise of a larger group to force through their own desires, desires which ironically would hurt the very people who support them. In Russia Vladimir Putin openly rigged an election and yet has been able to get away with it. And then, of course, comes the Eurozone. An economic group which seems to have made a New Years Resolution in 2011 to tear itself apart from the inside out, a resolution which is has kept to religiously all year. Germany and France have been getting increasingly chilly feet from the breeze coming from Dublin, Athens, Lisbon and Rome. All of which hurts this country through instability in the bond markets, jittery stock markets and the increasingly vocal minority of Eurosceptics who genuinely seem to think that we'd somehow be a land of milk and honey if we lost our biggest trading partner.

But Westminster saw many other battles over the course of the year. George Osborne continued to battle with economic sense and logic in his determination to create an economy which entirely benefits his friends. The Liberal Democrats continued to do battle with their own, inevitable doom at the next election. The Labour Party continued to do battle with their legacy (some parts justified, some not) and the fall-out of the previous years General Election. And in June came the biggest battle of all so far, as Nick Clegg (and Ed Miliband) went head-to-head over the AV referendum. Liars versus Tossers (as Hollywood will no doubt call it). Or, more specifically, a battle to find out who could patronise the British public more, David "You can't be expected to understand these things" Cameron or Nick "This will make everything better" Clegg. In the end, of course, the result was a foregone conclusion, and Nick went grovelling to Dave long before the result was announced asking for his forgiveness.

London was also home to two other major stories which shaped the years news, the Royal Wedding and the August Riots. One involving some young people who felt they should have everything and took it illegally and the other involving some young people who felt they should have everything and were handed it on a platter by the Archbishop of Canterbury. While it's very easy for me to sit here and be snide about the Royal Wedding at least it provided a day which was largely positive and was an event which, no matter how much he tried with his pathetic street party in Downing Street, David Cameron couldn't claim for himself in some way, which is a good thing. However, the riots were a different thing entirely, allowing him to grandstand like the pompous toff he is, with his "Broken Britain" rhetoric (all while spending billions bailing out his reckless banker mates ironically).

But what irked me most about the riots in August wasn't, horrendous though they were, the images of burning furniture stores in Croydon and Tottenham, or of people running amok in Clapham or of people setting fire to bins in Manchester. No. What really stood out for me to reveal the true horror was the reactions it sparked in people. 2011 officially became the year when you could go onto the Internet and announce that you'd be quite happy to see the police shoot an unarmed 12 year old girl dead on the streets of London and be cheered from the rooftops by similarly-minded cretins who wanted a bit of "law and order", which mostly involved medieval weaponry and the inflicting of pain on people who weren't them.

Of course this wasn't the only element of the British psyche which was displayed to a chilling extent this year. The fact a petition demanding a return of capital punishment, that most barbaric of things any state can do to its own citizens, received several thousand signatures was also  depressing. As was the continued existence and marching of odious race-hate groups such as the English Defence League. Not to mention the continuation of the new British obsession of soldier-rimming, which came to a head with both the England "poppy shirts" nonsense in November and the hijacking of a traditionally cheesy and light-hearted event with the Christmas #1 being some saccharine crap from the wives of some soldiers.

"But," people say, "there were two big positive things this year away from all that, the Occupy movement and the Leveson Inquiry. Surely you should be pleased with them?"

Well no, not really. The Occupy movement is very laudable and watching the right-wing press doing its crunch about them being in St Pauls churchyard has been most entertaining, but what's changed? How much are things likely to change? The 1% have a virtual monopoly on power in this country, so how is anyone going to change anything short of an Arab Spring style uprising (which in itself is about as likely as President Assad announcing he's going to go and set up a new colony on the moon). And the Leveson Inquiry will change nothing. Yes it's been very good to hear from the likes of Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan and Sienna Miller about how badly they've been treated and breaking the culture of silence, but they're gone now. We're now going to get the actual journalists themselves stepping forward, and doubtless explaining how they all do a wonderful job and have managed to out paedophiles and fiddling MPs and benefit cheats and how much they love family values and Our Boys and all that and the British public will think "yeah, they're alright" (especially now it seems Milly Dowlers phone wasn't even hacked by the News of the World, thanks for nothing on that one The Guardian). So slapped wrists all round, maybe making it compulsory for news organisations to sign up to the PCC and the appointment of a non-press person to it, who'll be almost immediately shuffled away into a job looking at garden shed advertising or something once the spotlight shifts.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe 2011 was the year when it all changed. I just can't escape this nagging feeling though that its the year the status quo rode out and survived enough to carry on as though nothing had changed. A theory which, if true, means 2012 will be pretty much as depressing as 2011, albeit without a Royal Wedding or the brutal death of a dictator appearing on Youtube to look forward to.

Happy New Year.

Things Eurosceptics believe are true

A little list I compiled earlier on the Guardian website which I thought I would share. All these are genuine comments or attitudes displayed on various media forms over the last couple of months.

Things Eurosceptics think are true


1. Pyrric victories are great victories.
2. Major European war is a price worth paying for not letting the Germans get what they want.
3. Cod stocks are inexhaustible.
4. All Europeans think the same and are an entirely different set of people to the British, and all of them want to come here, milk our benefits and dethrone the Queen.
5. The EU is the most anti-democratic thing in history, despite all those elections we keep having, but the coalition is democracy in action.
6. The City of London is the best thing ever and not at all responsible for the economic mess we're in.
7. The EU is like the Soviet Union because it's foreign and...er...it just is, yeah?
8. You can always find unbiased reporting on the EU in the Daily Express.
9. Everyone thinks we should leave the EU. Because they asked a few chaps up the golf club and they said "like, totally, yah?" This is therefore the concensus.
10. Anyone who doesn't believe the EU is a bad thing is an anti-British traitor.
11. UKIP hasn't got any seats in Parliament not because they're a single issue party who most people don't care about but because of conspiracies involving lefties, Europhiles, communists, Muslims, blacks, people who want women to be allowed to join golf clubs and Jews. Wait, not Jews, they might make us look bad...
12. Other countries will be beating a path to Britains door to trade with us once we're out of the EU. Because we're Britain and therefore brilliant.
13. The people who fought in the war would hate to see Britain having good, close relationships with the likes of Germany, France and Italy and would instead wish we could pick some petty fights with them.
14. The Treaty of Rome made no provision for political union.
15. The term "EUSSR" is not childish but is, in fact, biting satire which makes Europhiles stop in their tracks because they have no comeback rather than because they're trying hard not to laugh*.
16. The EU needs Britain more than Britain needs the EU.
17. 75% of our laws come from the EU.
18. The EU was never meant to be a political union but purely a trading one.
19. Margaret Thatcher knew what she was doing.
20. New Labour sold out all our sovereignty to Brussels in exchange for a Charizard Pokémon card and two packets of sherbet lemons.
21. Having the French telling us what to do is disgusting but having a German Queen is perfectly acceptable.
22. There’s nothing wrong with becoming a sweat-shop economy if you can tell the people you have managed to rid them of the loathed CAP.
23. It’s still 1957.
24. It's still 1945.
25. It's still 1939.
26. Workers rights and human rights are evil things which only Communists would contemplate bringing in.
27. All Europhiles love foreigners and all foreigners want to come to the UK.
28. All Europhiles are communists.
29. No-one in the Eurozone plays cricket, and therefore they can’t be trusted.
30. Anyone who holds their own failings up to them is a child and worthy only of being patronised. Because their views aren't worth anything because they're WRONG!
31. People in Ireland and France being forced to have second referendums on important policy matters because they didn’t get the result they wanted is shameful and undemocratic, but starting up a second petition on the Government e-petition website to try and force another vote on a referendum because you didn’t get the result you wanted is entirely fair and legitimate.

*P.S. Not childish

Better off in

During this weeks Conservative Party conference in Manchester there were two issues in social policy which kept rearing their head again and again. Obviously the main talking point was the economy (and specifically how George Osborne is slowly but successfully ensuring that there is less of it), but in terms of social policy (and foreign policy) the main talking points concerned the Human Rights Act and the European Union, and specifically (cheer-led by the right wing press) how much better we’d all be without it.

The justification for these feelings is that “the majority of people want to leave them”, with that bastion of neo-liberal thinking the BBC telling everyone watching Question Time that a recent survey had show 51% against being in the EU and 49% being in favour. This is, technically, a majority. However, by the same token this makes women (52% of the population) an overwhelming majority, and white people (a stonking 91% of the population) an enormous majority (which is amusing given that many of those who think the majority want out of the EU also believe that white people are a minority in this country, but there you go, perhaps expecting logic is a step too far). But as with most things, I believe the driving force behind the knee-jerk hatred of two generally well-meaning institutions such as the EU and the Human Rights Act is the culture of mistrust, ignorance and hatred spread by that self-same right-wing press.

A manifestation of this came only this week when the Home Secretary, Theresa May, referenced one of these scare stories from the Daily Mail on the supposed case of the Asylum Seeker who couldn’t be deported after making some faux pas or another because he owned a cat. This was said with a straight face and with an air of authority, as she was absolutely convinced in her facts. As it turned out, of course, these facts were at best spurious and at worst downright lies manufactured in a quiet week at a reactionary tabloid and now parroted as gospel truth. To make matters worse, when Justice Secretary Ken Clarke had the brass neck to point out that May was wrong and provided facts, he was immediately slapped down by No.10 and a resignation was demanded by the papers.

This recent case has confirmed to many what those of us who analyse the press could have told you for a long time, that the lies and drip-feeding of distortions (usually accompanied by a sadface picture and lurid headline) poisons public debate and makes it impossible to get across the facts of something like the cat story without being branded as one of the various default names which only signify something bad in the eyes of the press (such as “liberal”). In a truly civilised society where people are treated like grown-ups (another tabloid reader favourite phrase when a health and safety story crops up) this wouldn’t be allowed to happen, that it is is as sad an indictment on Britain today as anything the Daily Mail will tell you is. 

But I digress. Doubtless by saying I support the Human Rights Act and the EU I’ll have annoyed some of the more right-wing readers. “But how can you say that, all it does is prove you’re un-British.” This is a typical riposte as though supporting the idea of a more united Europe with its free trade and supporting the ability of British people to have their rights protected is to somehow be opposed to the things the British truly need. What this stems from, in my opinion, is a general pining for a time when Britain was a major world power in her own right and was doing the bossing of other countries rather than being bossed by other countries in Europe to sign up to things like the Common Agricultural Policy or the Eurozone bailout. Such a world disappeared for good in the 1950s, ironically thanks to the efforts of a Tory Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, in Suez. Nowadays Britain is in no position to compete with the major players in virtually any capacity you can think of globally. China, the USA, Russia, the European Union and increasingly India and Brazil are the dominant players in the world these days, and to withdraw from being part of the EU is the final chance we have of being able to somehow influence the way the world works (despite what many think the UK still holds considerable sway in Europe) and become a mere passenger being battered by any storm conjured up with no means to help prevent it.

Furthermore, in a time when the king of all issues is the economy, why exactly are we thinking it would be a great idea to leave a free trading bloc and set up on our own when everyone we try and sell stuff to (what’s left that we produce, of course) will put up barriers and tariffs and buying in things from other countries will become ever more expensive?

A final point over the EU, and one which is often ignored or forgotten about and I think deserves a more prominent placement. Consider this, if you will. When was the last major European war (scuffles in the Balkans aside)? By my reckoning, excluding the antics in Cyprus, not one major war since 1945. Nearly 70 years with no major war in Europe. This may explain why many middle aged and younger people aren’t as keen on the EU, they don’t realise quite how volatile Europe was in the years up to 1945. Just between the two World wars, there was the Spanish civil war, the Nazi annexations of various countries, the Abyssinian crisis, the Corfu Incident, the French incursion of the Ruhr and the Soviet incursion into Finland. On average between 1500 and 1945 there was a war between two of the nations which are or became one of the major countries in Eastern Europe every 15 years or so (mostly between us and the French or us and Spanish). When looked at in those terms, 70 years of peace is a major, major achievement which the EU deserves great credit for.

No-one I have ever spoken to believes the EU to be a perfect organisation, in as much as no organisation in politics is ever perfect, and there are major issues with transparency and openness. But these are, for me, relatively minor concerns to be had in exchange for continued membership of an organisation which benefits the country in so many tangible, and intangible, ways.

And of course with the EU comes the Human Rights Act. Never before has an act been subject to so much misinformation, distortion and hatred when it is designed to help people so fundamentally live their lives (and, quietly in the background, does so). Yes, so there might be the odd prisoner who wins the right to an Xbox in his cell under it, but that’s a fault of the judges and the slick lawyers hired by the prisoner in question, not the act. But it’s a lot easier to attack a faceless thing like the Human Rights Act. Doesn’t require thinking. Which is just as well, after all, say to yourself “I object to human rights”. Sounds daft doesn’t it?

Again, not perfect. But since when has perfection been a minimum requirement rather than an aspiration? We don’t have it in other walks of life. Oh look, the England football team has been knocked out of the world cup. Clearly they’re not fit for purpose, and as such football has to be abolished. But no, apparently these days perfection has to be achieved immediately, any work needed makes it untenable, and as such to be hated, despised and abolished. Because the tabloids never, ever lie about things like this, right?

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Pushing the boundaries

Today the Independent Boundary Commission produced its report as to how England’s constituencies would be redrawn with the House of Commons being reduced to 600 MPs from the next Parliament. Several high-profile MPs, including Chancellor “Boy” George Osborne, Business Secretary Vince Cable, personal friend of David Cameron…sorry, got safe seat entirely on his own merit MP Zac Goldsmith, shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan, the Lib Dems own Chris Huhne (and they’re welcome to him) and everyones favourite mad woman Nadine Dorries, will be affected by the changes, most interestingly of which is the prospect of Goldsmith and Cable going head to head in the same seat in the new Twickenham and Richmond seat. These changes are all part of the grand vision of Dave to reduce the size of the Commons come the next election. However, I have a possible controversial question for you.

Why do we need fewer MPs?

This might seem an odd question for some people, especially given the fact MPs are (unjustifiably in my opinion) still treated like dirt by many because a tiny minority of them fiddled some money on expenses (which itself was because those same people were too damn tight to pay them enough, but there you go, hypocrites are rarely happy) and as such for many fewer MPs is a Good Thing. However, I have two main reasons to ask the question.

Firstly, accountability. The simple maths here shows this as a major problem. One person per 100,000 people is more representative of the people than one person per 125,000 people. It also means that, in terms of representative democracy, those 100,000 people have more of a say than any of the 125,000 as one vote has more power. Not much, but some. Obviously these numbers aren’t scientific in any way, I’m merely using them to make a point. You cannot argue that having one representative for a greater number of people makes them more accountable or representative, it simply does not work. It doesn’t need fancy analysis, it’s simple, cold, hard logic.

The second point covers cost. This is one of the reasons Cameron has cited as one of the reasons why he is so keen on the move, but this simply does not stack up. For a start the cost of elections will be higher as candidates will have to cover a wider area to canvas, costs which can currently be claimed back from the electoral commission as election expenses. Furthermore, it makes the likelihood of bitter fights more likely, which will also cost a lot more in advertising and so on. Yes, you will save on the wages of 50 or so MPs. But then I don’t know about you but I’d rather keep the 50p tax rate to pay for it.

If Cameron was serious about costs and accountability, there is one very obvious place to look. It’s about 150 metres away from the dispatch box in the Commons, has nice red seats and is usually populated by sleeping old men. I refer, of course, to the “other place”, the second chamber if you will, or (if you insist on being resilient) the House of Lords. Here we have not far short of 800 peers doing…what, exactly? MPs spend their time not sitting in the chamber answering correspondence from constituents, sitting on select committees, running surgeries and so on. Peers spend their spare time off doing things entirely unrelated to their job in the Lords.

Here’s something really radical, but why not replace all 800 of the unelected Lords with 200 nationally elected individuals (forming, if you like, a UK Senate). Yes the constituencies would be massive, but then I’d rather cast a vote then not. To this end I would also repeal the Parliament Act and replace it legislation that and policy which cannot be passed in five attempts by the Commons to this Senate would be put to a referendum. If the politicians want to obsess about the cost of things, use it to focus their minds to getting things done. Also, in contrast to Daves big idea, I’d up the number of MPs to 701 (guarantees a majority without abstentions) and remove the conflict of interest and damage to the separation of powers posed by the sitting of bishops in the Lords entirely. If you want to be a bishop, don’t try and make law as well.

None of this will ever be done. Firstly, because I’m never going to be in a position to do it. But mostly because this system would take too much power away from Dave and from the Tories in general. This would never pass as even if the Tories weren’t in Government the right wing press would hound it out of town. Those, not the number of MPs, are what really hold our parliamentary democracy back.

Considering we’re the supposed homeland of democracy, we don’t half make a pigs ear of it when compared to everyone else.

The "Angel of Death", but only for tabloid bullsh*t?

The news which broke this afternoon that the nurse accused of poisoning five pensioners in July using a saline / insulin solution in Stockport hospital will come as a great relief to herself, her friends and her family. She has been shown to be innocent of all charges. However, the same joy will almost certainly not be being felt by those running the countries various tabloids. Much as with Chris Jeffries earlier this year in the Jo Yeates case, they went to town on Rebecca Leighton.

Take, for example, the trashiest tabloid of them all, Richard Desmonds illegitimate bastard child the Daily Star. As might be expected of such a low-brow newspaper, they were quick to try and gain their own nickname for the person perceived as being guilty, in this case Leighton quickly becoming an interchangeable name with “Angel of Death”. Indeed in an article on the 22nd July she had a photograph taken from Facebook while in a state of inebriation and was termed as being a “party animal”. And following a further rummage in her Facebook photo album, the Star unearthed the ground-breaking news that

Yesterday new photos emerged of fun-loving Rebecca at a party for fellow nurses. At a separate cowboys and Indians-themed New Year bash she posed with a toy gun in her mouth.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/posts/view/202288/Hospital-s-killer-drip-toll-hits-5/

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/posts/view/202114/Nurse-in-angel-of-death-quiz/

The harridan! A young woman goes to a party, gets pissed and has fun! She’s obviously the killer. But apart from a few unnecessary extra details from her Facebook page (which ironically included disliking “bullshitters”, so she must hate the Star), the Star was actually remarkably measured in its coverage (possibly with half an eye on the likely fall-out if she was acquitted).  However, interestingly, the Star felt fit to publish a picture of the shop above which Leighton and her fiancée live, despite what sister paper the Daily Express said with regards to her first court appearance, namely

Rebecca Leighton’s fiance Tim Papworth and family and friends watched from the public gallery as she was remanded in custody for her ownsafety amid fears that she could become the target of vigilante attacks.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/260733

So those vigilante attacks would have been made easier by the fact the same group had shown any potential vigilantes exactly where to go. One thing both papers do, interestingly, is focus on what she was wearing at that same court appearance. Specifically

Looking drained in crumpled grey tracksuit bottoms, a white hooded jumper and pink trainers

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/202601/Cops-hunting-two-more-in-saline-probe/Cops-hunting-two-more-in-saline-probeCops-hunting-two-more-in-saline-probeCops-hunting-two-more-in-saline-probeCops-hunting-two-more-in-saline-probe

Unusual, I’d have said, to focus so much on her attire. Maybe trying to make her sound altogether less classy? But surely nothing to far especially ground-breaking? Well no, Desmonds organs (fnarr fnarr) were rather circumspect, although they did come dangerously close to alleging proven guilt with the headline

HERO NURSE NABS 'ANGEL OF DEATH'

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/posts/view/202459/Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-Hero-nurse-nabs-Angel-of-death-

And so onto the Mirror. You can usually rely on the Mirror to be a bit more “edgy” when it comes to these things, and true to form we’re not to be disappointed here. Apparently, you see, it was all because she’d been demoted.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/07/21/saline-serial-killer-nurse-rebecca-leighton-quizzed-over-stepping-hill-hospital-deaths-115875-23285253/

A source at Stepping Hill said: “The whole hospital is shocked. Becki had been demoted from charge nurse to a nurse in the past few weeks. I don’t think it was a disciplinary issue. It was because the charge nurse position was a permanent one. Becki had been working on ward A3 and was moved to the position of nurse on ward A1. She has been at the hospital for at least a year. She has dark red hair and is quite normal.”
Which in the world of the tabloids basically is as much proof as they need to run another trawl through Facebook for photos of her having fun and some choice quotes from her profile.

A recent post on her page said: “What an exciting life I lead!”. She also wrote: “F*** it, life is too short”.
And in February she said: “I may be bad but im perfectly gud at it”.

So there you go. Just better hope she’s not acquitted eh, Mirror? That story, incidentally, was tagged with the tag “Angel of Death”. Fellow red-top, the Sun, was, at the time, shielding itself from the heat from the fall-out of the News of the World hacking scandal, which was at its height next door. However, they too were more than happy to join the Facebook trawl to try and find mud to sling at their target, such as
Popular party girl Rebecca, who works on one of the wards at the centre of the probe, often moans about having to work nights.

She tells pals on her Facebook page how her work frequently gets in the way of a fun time out.

In addition to this, we’re treated to the really quite unnecessary details about all her family and what they do, including that her father might (but probably hasn’t) driven a bus full of Manchester City footballers and her brother was sacked last year from an entirely unrelated job (he was a mechanic). Quite what journalistic purpose this serves isn’t clear, but it’s really only one of two things. Filler, or an attempt at guilt by association.

However, all this is frankly nothing compared to the tabloid which really went mad on the story. The Daily Mail. Couple of reasons why I suspect his might be unsurprising, (1) the victims were largely in the Mail demographic (retired people and grandparents who spend time in hospital) and (2) the woman suspected was a fun-loving young person who might conceivably be called a “chav” if you were so inclined.  The Mail sees fit to give us a comprehensive run-down of her actions for few weeks before her arrest on social networking sites, including her “lament” that work isn’t fun as well as the other unhappy posts she made. These are accompanied by plentiful pictures of “hard partying” Rebecca in various poses, such as supposedly necking a bottle of wine. And this is just from one story.

http://m.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016742/Rebecca-Leighton-quizzed-police-5th-patient-dies-saline-poisoning.html

But with those smears clearly not enough, they dig out the pointed remark

On May 30, she wrote: ‘Becki Leighton… is wondering what’s round the corner  :)’

Lets make her sound sinister then, shall we? This is the sort of thing they were digging up over Raoul Moat a year earlier, albeit they already knew he was guilty by his own admission (or at least not in any position to sue).

(Incidentally, the Mail would also like to point out her parents house is worth £150,000 right at the bottom of that article.)

But perhaps the most serious moment came when the Mail alleged that the man who was the boyfriend of the “Angle of Death” was, himself, up to no good, and in the way the tabloids hate more than anything else.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023239/Stepping-Hill-nurse-Rebecca-Leightons-boyfriend-Tim-Papworth-quizzed-child-porn.html

Only right at the very bottom is there any attempt made by the paper to disassociate Leighton from the allegations, and indeed it seems the Mail has no concrete proof of any of the allegations, only going by “allegedly” and not naming so much as an unnamed source. It sees computers being confiscated and assumed the worst. Indeed a quick google search of the story could find no further mention of the story in other media or other than those which cited the Mail. A very dangerous game for the Mail to play if true, but then stranger things have been known.

So in conclusion, where are we now? Well the GMB has refused to review its decision into striking off Ms. Leighton (bizarrely) and we’re going to see a fair few grovelling apologies soon. I for one hope Rebecca Leighton takes the newspapers to the cleaners. But in the longer term, this raises a bigger question. When the press are so free to destroy someones life and reputation (as well as that of their friends and family), is it right that they should be allowed to do so? Is it time for press regulation? And should we be looking into whether it will be better all round for there to be anonymity for suspects in matters such as these before conviction, especially if the trial hasn’t even begun?

To my mind, the answer is yes. But I doubt we’ll see the press being curbed anytime soon. After all, they have Dave and his mates in their back pocket. What a mess.

EDIT - It has been bought to my attention following writing this post that the Facebook profile in question was actually a locked account, and therefore inaccessible by anyone who wasn't a direct friend, which raises two potential issues. Either (a) one of the friends of Rebecca Leighton was trying to "get rich quick" flogging them, or (b) they were using some of their fabled "dark arts". In the midst of the phone hacking scandal, surely they wouldn't have tried hacking into her Facebook account. Would they?

Tax for the memory...

It’s often said tax is one of the two things in life which is certain to befall you (the other, ironically, being death). However, unlike death, it seems tax is something which, if you’re rich enough, can be avoided. There seems to be an attitude among many of the more wealthy members of society that “tax” is something you pay out of the goodness of your heart, something which can be seen as a generous donation to the running of the state (although it helps if you have a supine chancellor loitering in No.11m squatting there until the economic whirl-wind rips him free of the moorings and carries him off to his safe seat on the back benches while he waits for his wallpaper inheritance to come rolling in.

However, what needs drilling into the heads of the rich and their supporters (many of whom are nowhere near as rich as they are but are blinded by jealousy, envy or ideology) is that tax is not something which is an optional part of living in a society, you have to pay a certain amount and if you don’t you deserve to be punished. But yet going on under our very noses at the top we have tax avoidance on an almost industrial scale, not least amongst whom doing it is the chancellor himself! If the man in charge of the national finances can’t even be trusted to pay the tax he should be paying then what chance have any of us got?

(BTW, if you try and not pay taxes and provide the excuse that Osborne doesn’t either, it strangely doesn’t seem to hold much sway. I can’t think why.)

So why is tax an issue now? Well there’s still the ongoing issue of large scale tax avoidance by the likes of Vodafone and M&S going on, with their funds being channelled away into areas beyond the reach of the UK taxman. Which makes it even less easy to swallow when their counterparts in big business come out whinging about how thick UK youngsters are and how they haven’t all got 3 A levels when they’re stacking shelves. I mean it’s not like the tax paid in goes to fund education, teaching and the like, is it? And on top of that, at a time when the Government needs all the money it can get its greasy mitts on, they then use taxpayers money to employ Stephen Green, chairman of M&S, to be a Government advisor! So a man who runs a company which does not pay the correct amount of tax is being asked to make sure companies pay the right amount of tax. It’d be comical if it wasn’t actually happening as we speak, most film-producers would see it as unrealistic.

But there is a bigger issue than even that at the moment, the Governments almost indecent speed to try and abolish the 50% tax level for those earning large amounts of money. Why? Well for one very simple reason. The Conservative party is bank-rolled by what used to be called “captains of industry”, i.e. entrepreneurs and the like who have made obscene amounts of money off the hard work of others. These are the people who are most affected by the 50p tax rate, and as such they want it scrapped. Now with most Government policies over the last year, the Government has been able to frame the argument in a “this will deal with the deficit” way. Even the thorny issue of student loans last year were mixed up in the cuts to higher education. But this policy flies totally in the face of that, and as such is struggling even to get the lapdog Liberals on board much to the annoyance of the right-wing press, owned as it is by more of those who wish to pay less tax. As such, the supporters of the rich have had to come up with ever more ingenious ways of justifying this, a few of these myths I’ve tried to dispel below.

Reason #1 – Lowering the tax level increases tax revenues
OK, very common this one, and one not entirely thought through for one simple reason. The tax revenue should increase because the amount of money being raised is higher. This therefore assumes that people are, in fact, breaking the law and not paying the tax. But rather than put the blame on those who break the law and don’t pay the tax, this is somehow the fault of the amount of tax itself. Thus the argument is diverted off into an alternative reality whereby crime is suddenly something seemingly to be expected. There is an easier way of increasing tax revenues, it’s called “the police”. Indeed it’s made null and void by the simply fact that the treasury want to take poorer people out of tax at the same time, which would then lower the tax revenues further and you effectively end up back where you started in a best-case scenario.

Reason #2 – If you impose a higher rate of tax, people will leave
Another common one. And again riddled with inconsistency and not thinking things through. Mostly this ignores the biggest single aspect of the recent economic crisis, namely that it is a global recession. I’ll just reemphasise that for the slower amongst you, a GLOBAL recession. The dollar is under enormous pressure following the US credit downgrade two weeks ago, the Euro is in virtual freefall with crises brewing in Greece, Spain, Ireland and Italy and an increasingly twitchy Germany at the heart of it all. China continues to deliberately undervalue its currency to maintain exports. So the traditional way of switching assets won’t work as it makes financial sense to keep your money in sterling, even if you do decide to up sticks to the Bahamas or Switzerland. And even once there, who are you going to trade with? After all all the other rich people will have left the UK and the other world markets will be in turmoil as well. Better start brushing up on your Australian culture, my friend.

Reason #3 – I makes people more reluctant to better themselves
OK, another failure of logic on this one. Say you have someone who is earning (after tax and so on) a net £25,000. Roughly average sort of a salary, nothing that flashy but enough to get by on quite comfortably. Who wouldn’t want to earn £30,000? Or £50,000? Yes they’re paying more tax, but at the end of it they’ll still have more money. So it’s illogical to say that people won’t try and earn more because they’d have to pay more tax. Only those who have the ideological hatred of taxation would object, which is ironic as it’s usually those people who make the allegations to start with. It’s a pretty sad existence when you’re determined not to better yourself because you might have to give over a little bit more money to the Government, despite earning more for yourself as well.

If the Government is serious about wanting to lower the amount of money it has, what is wrong with maintaining the excellent public services we have (don’t believe the tabloid poison, use them for yourself and you’ll find they’re, for the most part, blooming marvellous) and also maintaining the tax rate? There’s only one reason, ladies and Gentlemen, ideological blindness. A blindness to the fact the public sector can be a good thing and higher taxation can be a leveller in an already heavily divided society between the “haves” and the “have nots”. That’s giving people credit to call them blind, as the alternative is that they just become spiteful and vindictive that “others” are benefitting from what other people do, even if they have no ability to benefit themselves. 

And that really does make them a bunch of bastards.

Riots, lessons and all that jazz

Let me start this blog post with a little cut and paste job if I may (ha, imagine me being lazy…). Specifically in this case from dictionary.com regarding two words which it seems from the last few days need explanation.

Apologist – A person who offers defence by argument
Understand – To perceive the meaning of, to grasp or comprehend something

I just thought I ought to point out the difference between those two words, and the fact that they are not mutually inclusive. Because anyone following the internet debate about the riots this past week in London and other major cities around the country will recognise that the two seem to have morphed into some sort of hideous love-child which many think means the two cannot be separated.

Take, for example, the Comment is Free section of the Guardian website this week, usually a debating area which is less heavily moderated than many other newspaper message boards (especially the tabloid ones) and as such a generally more robust area which is enlivened by both sides of the debate being put (as opposed to the line which goes against the newspaper being censored on website such as MailOnline). However, in the various comment sections since Monday morning, after the second night of violence where it became clear this was more than just an angry reaction to the shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham last week, there has been an enormous number of people who have been accusing people they don’t like (usually the left and liberals, which as in the US seem to be slowly merging into one another) of being “apologists” for the rioters and “justifying” their actions whenever they post things which are anything less than 100% based on shooting people dead (in many cases not even caring if they were innocent).

Now, I will at this point make it clear I in no way condone the actions of the rioters and I hope anyone who is found to have been involved is bought to justice in the usual manner. However, note I said “in the usual manner” at that point, this means the police using intelligence to identify them, arresting them in the usual manner and going through the court process to lead to a criminal conviction. This does NOT include vigilante groups on the streets looking for people to string up (as those wonderful human beings in the English Defence League were doing just last night in Eltham) nor does it involve the police, the army or anyone else resorting to shooting dead unarmed British citizens on the streets of Britain. This, to my mind, is just as wrong as the looting and rioting in the first place, and about as moral. If your answer to the question “Would you be happy to see the police shoot dead an unarmed nine year old girl on the streets of London?” is “Yes” then I’m afraid you are as much the problem as anyone. Why? Because the more you stigmatise and push people like this out of mainstream society, the more they kick back.

For years the groups taking part in this event (young, unemployed, poorly educated people from deprived inner city areas) have been the ones who have been blamed for many of the ills of society by the press, the most likely to be singled out by the police and now the biggest victims of the cuts (which, despite what the tabloid press will have you believe, have indeed started with the local government budgets, which was used to fund many of the things these people used in their community). And yet all the time those who follow the news will see hideous abuses of the system going on often without redress. The expenses scandal in Parliament, the use of taxpayers money to pay enormous bonuses to bankers in the City, the high level corruption in the Metropolitan police force and the ongoing accusations of utter lawlessness in many newspaper offices have all been taking place largely without obvious redress. Oh sure, there’s been a few Peers sent to prison, a few journalists have lost their jobs and a couple of senior Met officers have resigned, but very little overtly has been done to tackle these issues. Indeed, especially in the cases of the banks, these practices have been largely encouraged (or at least written off) by many in the press who have so promptly turned around to condemn the rioters. Given the lack of action against those at the top when they act in an immoral way, is it any wonder the young people affected by their actions are losing respect for the law and the establishment?

Perhaps the most troubling thing about this, however, is the fact so many seemed to immediately jump to the primitive rhetoric of the far-right at the first available opportunity. Naturally people will have felt vulnerable and afraid, but there seems to have been a few days when the country collectively lost its mind and favoured reactionary, knee-jerk measures which would only have made the situation worse in the name of petty revenge over a more reasoned approach. After all, not everyone was in the firing line of the riots nor indeed were they likely to be. The streets of Henley aren’t a likely place for scenes of mob rule (barring particularly drunken evenings at the regatta, obviously). Many major towns and cities had no reported instances of trouble (Newcastle, York, Durham, Carlisle, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Swindon, Brighton, Ipswich, Southampton, Colchester, Peterborough, Coventry, Glasgow, Cardiff, Bradford, Belfast and Worcester to name but a few) so the people there cannot be excused on the fear factor. A poll for YouGov and the Sun (unsurprisingly) showed a third of people across the country favoured the use of live ammunition. 90% favoured some measure of police brutality in some way. These figures are doubtless exaggerated for the benefit of the agenda of the right wing press and can’t be said to be entirely representative, but even so the fact that so many were in favour of this is worrying. The desire for revenge trumped the need for rational thought and dealing with the issue in a way which wouldn’t cause an upturn in violence. Fortunately, as I speak after two relatively quiet nights it seems the riots have run out of steam of their own volition before anything like this can be done, although even the police to their credit ruled out the use of these measures early on.

There is, of course, another reason why those on the right are so desperate to avoid people analysing the riots and instead pin it on random criminality. Because it will soon become blindingly obvious that the core issues which either directly or indirectly triggered the riots are going to be laid squarely at their door. Much talk has been made of the impact of the spending cuts on local services, but while this is a short-term issue it can’t really be said to be solely to blame for the actions of the people who burnt down CarpetRight in Tottenham. The underlying causes have been festering away for years (indeed since the reign of the darling of the right St. Margaret of Grantham) with lack of opportunities while being ignored by the political class and victims of racism by the police (the Stephen Lawrence case still hasn’t been fully dealt with, remember).

Yes, people on the right, it is possible for both sides to be victims. No, that does not mean they should have done what they did. Get that into your simplistic skulls, the world isn’t black and white.

But any attempts to try and make this point are shouted down by the more extreme members of the right with their gun fetishism and desire for vigilante justice and ignored by the more moderate right with their desire for law and order to take precedence. Which brings us onto David Cameron. Much like the crisis itself, he’s turned up rather late to this particular party. Maybe he’d gone back to give someone a tip. But in all seriousness the taking of moral lessons from a man who spent much of his youth smashing up restaurants is a bit rich (rather like him fnarr fnarr).

It’s high time for the people of this country to stop randomly pointing fingers and saying “SHOOT HIM, NO SHOOT HIM” and try to actually get to the bottom of this without the right crying foul with their ridiculous claims that to do so is justifying the action. Because as even David Cameron himself said of his disgraced former Press Officer Andy Coulson, “everyone deserves a second chance”.

Hacked off (really? How original...)

Well, what a lot can happen in a week. Last Thursday, the wonderful bastion of humanity and all things just lovely in the world (none other than Kelvin McKenzie, former editor of the Sun and sometime soon Mail columnist) wrote an opinion piece in the Guardian. Comment is Free, the Guardians section dealing with blogs and comments and stuff like that, is used to hosting controversial articles and this was no different. McKenzie announced to the world, brazenly and without so much as a hint of irony, that the world would be a better place “if we had more people like (Rupert) Murdoch”. A bold claim, especially in the Guardian, but dismissed as being an attempt at establishing his ability to write for high-brow publications before jumping in the den of pig shit under Paul Dacre.

The comment section, most of which disagreed with McKenzie funnily enough, was closed on the Friday evening, which is unfortunate given that we’ll never know what would have happened next. For on Sunday night the news broke, courtesy of the very same paper McKenzie had written for not much more than 72 hours beforehand, that one of the members of the Murdoch stable had been being rather naughty.

Now, of course, phone-hacking had been in or about the news for some time, having peaked at around the time Cameron parted company with Andy Coulson in January and with the odd bubbling up moment as one star or another (such as Sienna Miller or Andy Gray) were paid off by the News of the World to avoid going to court. It was pretty bad all round, but the public mood was largely one of ambivalence. Mostly because the victims were largely celebrities or public figures such as John Prescott, Hugh Grant or various lawyers, and it was felt by some (rightly or wrongly, personally I’m in the latter category) that is wasn’t that big a deal and just based around idle speculation and tittle-tattle. It was only a big story for those with a genuine interest in media affairs and the like. But on Sunday night, this all changed. Big time.

It emerged late on Sunday evening that a private investigator hired by the News of the World had hacked into the phone of murdered teenager Millie Dowler. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had deleted messages from worried friends and relatives to make room for more, and the NotW had then pounced on the misguided hope of her parents to produce an exclusive interview with them. Not only had they hacked a poor girls phone, they’d ruthlessly exploited both her and her family for monetary gain. Even in an industry renowned for going very low at times, this was shocking. And thus opened the can of worms…

In the four days or so since the Dowler revelations we’ve seen further stories relating to the families of victims of the 7th July terrorist attacks in London, the mother of murdered girl Sarah Payne, the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the McCanns (obviously) and, only this morning, the relatives of recently deceased British soldiers. This last one in particular is likely to prove to be a real issue, given the cosy relationship the NotW and the sister publication The Sun have with the forces and a number of charities (not least the British Legion, who pulled out of a deal with NotW today, and Help for Heroes, who’ve not).

However, amazingly, the editor of the NotW for most of this period and current News International Executive Rebekah “Mcavity” Brooks has remained in her job. The reason, say NI, is that she was on holiday for two weeks after both the Soham and Dowler murders. And, of course, in this day and age more than ever once you are out of sight of your desk there is no possible way you can be contacted. So when the Met reached the scene of this crime, Rebekah wasn’t there.

There is, for me, only one reason why Brooks has stayed in her job (for now). She’s being saved for something. NI and Murdoch knows something bigger is lurking beneath the surface. There’s a massive revelation which is still to emerge. What that might be is anyones guess (but at the current rate nothing would seem implausible), but I have a suspicion which I shan’t be airing here. So why are they saving Brooks, surely they’d make a lot of goodwill return by pinning it on here and getting rid? Well, the answer comes with who is next in line. First came Coulson, and he’s gone. Next is Brooks. If she goes, the next in the chain of command is a certain James Murdoch, who has recently been shunted off to a digital TV backwater to avoid the flak and prepare to take over from daddy when he decides to call it a day. Obviously I can’t say for certain James Murdoch knew anything about it, but the risk of contamination for the future head of News Corp is too much of a gamble for Murdoch senior and his inner circle to take.

After all, as the NotW knows only too well from their various shag and tell stories over the years, mud doesn’t half stick when the public have a mind for it to. At the moment you could mention anyone being even remotely connected to it and they’ll suffer as a result in the public opinion stakes. Which leads me on to Cameron.

Dave not only appointed Coulson and bought him into the heart of Government, but also had a long-standing relationship with Brooks and Murdoch, and needs to be seen to act decisively, or else risks this whole ticking time bomb blowing up in his face. After all, a Prime Minister associating himself with people who hack into the phones of dead children is about as it could get for squeaky clean Teflon Cameron. Good luck getting out of this, Dave. You’ll need it…


UPDATE - since penning this blog post NI have announced this Sunday will be the last ever edition of the News of the World. While not many will mourn its passing it cannot be allowed to take the anger and outrage with it to the grave. The people who did this are still out there and they must be held accountable. Incidentally, the sunonsunday.co.uk and sunonsunday.com domains were registered on Tuesday. Nowt as queer as folk.

Muted reaction from the left

Today, in case you hadn’t noticed, thousands of public sector workers went on strike over their pensions being changed. Their problem is that they will pay in more and work longer for less money at the end of it, seemingly a valid concern. Of course this was never going to be enough to placate the more rabid elements of the media and the coalition. The Sun, Telegraph, Mail and Express all lined up to condemn the action, at least one of which blaming it on militant lefties who are always to blame for the proles not knowing their place, especially when said proles are in the evil public sector (which is just one level above the benefit scrounger in the eyes of many, leeching off their taxes).

But perhaps what has surprised me most is the lack of a voice from the left to counteract this. Of the two predominantly left-leaning news sources left in this country (the Mirror and the Guardian) only one (this mornings Mirror) dared to blame the Government while the Guardian came to the very diplomatic “both sides need to find a resolution” angle. Fine, but lets just get something straight here. The workers are not the ones who are to blame for this episode. Yes, they have gone out on strike, but they wouldn’t have had to if the Government hadn’t decided to so royally screw them.

This brings me onto my wider point, namely that it seems “the left” are increasingly embarrassed to describe themselves as such and that they don’t stand up for what they believe in. With Ed Miliband coming out on the side of the Government over the trade unions (which is a staggering development that a leader of the Labour party would support a Conservative Government over the people they purportedly represent) in a move which can be described as nothing other than an attempt by the Labour party to worm its way back into the hearts of the mythical “Middle England” (codeword for rabid right Mail, Express and Telegraph readers). This leaves us with the staggering situation in a country where more people voted for centre-left parties only a year or so ago at a General election (of either the yellow or red persuasion) of having no left-wing major political party and very little left-leaning comment or analysis in the media.

The vocal right have come to dominate the agenda. Mostly through the financial clout afforded by Murdochs News International (and compounded by Jeremy Hunts decision today to allow him to take over BSkyB, a decision in no way influenced by Murdoch basically getting the Tories into No.10 (just) last year) as well as the preponderance of the internet as a way for the sundry elements of the loony right to organise (as any trawl of a Mail comment page on immigrants will show). But this is seemingly coupled with an inherent reluctance by those on the left to stand up for what they believe in. There are no major left-wing political parties in the top three anymore, and beyond the Greens the left is entirely represented by George Galloway. Yep, scary times. And yet despite this even many on the right agree that the left-wing view of humanity and how to do things is an inherently fairer method of running a country, hence why many on the right describe themselves as “realists”. Which is, of course, crap, there’s no more realism in expecting companies to slash employee rights than there is in arguing employees should be better treated.

The right have also gained the ability, through their higher levels of vocal support, to define what it is “the left” believe and then denounce them for it. Take the entirely fictional “PC brigade”. At its most basic level this is a straw man used to attack the prevailing public attitude that its wrong to refer to people in racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise derogatory terms by those on the right who would dearly love to do so. As someone on the excellent Mailwatch forum said a while ago, “Mail readers don’t want to call a spade a spade, they want to call a black man a spade”. The right have, with some degree of success, managed to pigeon hole the left as being terrorist sympathising, pro-crime, Christianophobic, child-hating, eco-warrior, yoghurt-knitting Guardianistas who are intent on destroying “British values” (which strangely never seem to include tolerance and fair play).

Why has the left allowed the right to get away with this, with only passing comment on a few political blogs, the odd internet forum and in the red-arrowed sections of Mail Online? I’ll tell you why, because they can’t bring themselves to describe themselves as being of the left. There almost seems to be a stigma attached to it, and this is just wrong. Partly this is because the left has no prominent idea or ideology or issue which they can claim as being theirs (in the way the right have claimed the topics of immigration, tax and now seemingly public sector pay and pensions as their own). But here is a golden opportunity to do just that, but strangely there appears to be very little dissent, and the bizarre decision by Miliband is just a part of that.

It’s time the left stood up for themselves, found a voice and said “no, we’re not going to let you get away with this”. After all, it would appear from the 2010 election that the “silent majority” (something used frequently by the right to drum up some kind of support for batshit insane theories) are of the liberal-left. So where’s our representation? When are we going to be listened to? Or is it just easier for the likes of the Labour leadership to pander to the prejudices of Mail readers and their ilk? Because if nothing changes, the voice of the left will get weaker and weaker until the political system becomes, much as it is in the USA, purely about shades of right-wing rhetoric. And that can only be described as a bad thing.

Under lock and key

Prison policy is always a tough issue, and I for one certainly don’t envy any Government tackling. As with most large issues such as this there are always going to be the self-interested groups and those with their own agenda to forward, but with prisons, by their very nature, these arguments are increasingly driven by emotion. Victims of crime (be it the actual victim or those around them) are the obvious example here, but of course there is also the accused perpetrator, their family and, of course, the media. The presence of that last one makes it into an unfair tussle. Think for example of a tug of war, where the rights of the victim and the rights of the perpetrator (who, despite what some on the right think, still has and deserves rights) as being equally balanced, and then along comes a tabloid newspaper with a bulldozer to help pull it toward the victim and you’ll get the picture.

So the coalition plans for reducing prison terms for those who plead guilty, which in itself is not a bad idea, was always going to end up failing given that the emotionalism of the tabloids would end up forcing them into a climb down. Of course these same people are usually the first to whinge about taxes but presumably this should be denied to starving children rather than forego locking up other members of the human race. But this is a problem all Governments dealing with this area have and I don’t feel much beyond sympathy for a Government trying to deal with it.

One thing I do have a problem with, however, is the populist nature of bringing in self-styled “justice campaigners” (people who have been the victims of high profile crimes) to “advise” them on their plans. Don’t get me wrong, I have absolute sympathy for these people and I do believe they should be afforded whatever help is necessary. However, the justice system has been perfectly fine for hundreds of years with the balance whereby the sentencing, and the decision on what sentencing should be available, is decided impartially by people who are not themselves direct victims of crime. The principle of trial by jury, trial by 12 of your peers who do not necessarily have a reason for vengeance against the perpetrators in the way the victims would. After all, if someone steals your mobile phone you might well want them banged up for a long time, but is that always in the best interests of society?

A classic example of this occurred on BBC Breakfast news this morning when one of these justice campaigners (who, I should stress again, I do feel sympathy for, but on this was horribly, horribly wrong) said, quite brazenly, “I believe when given life they should only be let out in a wooden box, these people will be out in 16 years”. This is yet another missing-the-point interpretation (on her part, it’s almost certainly not wilful, but in the media I suspect it might be) of prison sentencing. The “16 year” bit is in relation to being eligible for parole, i.e. if they’ve behaved well and aren’t deemed as being a danger to society they might be let out. It’s not guarantee of immediate release with full pardon, as some seem to think it is. Furthermore, the idea that “life should mean until they die” is also blissfully naïve as to be almost comical. Picture the scene, you have a criminal who has done something and knows they will never be allowed out of those four walls again. Someone who is 25 might well face 50 to 60 years in one room, allowed out for an hour a day, for the rest of his natural life. What incentive is there for this individual to behave and not randomly stab a fellow inmate or a guard? And even if they don’t, the likelihood is they will almost certainly drive themselves made, and thus incurring the additional effort by the state to move them to a mental institution such as Broadmoor.

Ah, cry the forces of the right, but this isn’t going to happen because prison is like a holiday camp. A phrase which is almost becoming clichéd in its dotage. After all, say the tabloids, prisoners these days are provided with X Boxes, plasma TVs and what not. Well yes, things like that do exist in prisons. But surely it’s better to provide some form of supervised entertainment such as this than by forcing them to think up their own entertainment of setting fire to E Wing and climbing on the prison roof? People regularly cite as evidence of this the way in which victims of crime are treated, and on this I agree, there needs to be more done in terms of counselling and provision for victims of crime. However, this does not mean that prisoners should be lowered to below that, what’s wrong with raising that and keeping the prisoners in something resembling humane conditions. Cost? GTFO.

You might have noticed a lot of rhetorical (and indeed not so rhetorical) questions in this particular post, as it is very much akin to treading on egg shells. The mentality of the victims to want revenge for acts carried out against them and those they care about is only a natural, human reaction to anything like this. But, that does not mean that they should have carte blanche, as the Government seem to think, to dictate prison policy. Having someone you love murdered may make you a lot of things, but it does not make you an expert on crime, criminology and sentencing policy. So with the greatest of respect, and as sympathetically as I can say this, it shouldn’t be your job to decide what should and shouldn’t be allowed. I don’t blame you, I blame the Government which is trying to exploit you to gain credence with the tabloids. Who, as per usual, dictate the agenda. After all, can you imagine how long The Sun would allow an organisation set up to promote the rights of prisoners to exist before going on an all-out attack?

One final thing before I go, not related to the other arguments put forward in this blog but something which needs pointing out, emphasising and dispelling. There is an increasing perception that prisoners should forego all rights when convicted of crime, which usually rears its head when someone like John Venebles or Ian Huntley are in the news for something or the votes for prisoners thing (which I support for low-leve criminals) is dragged backward through the press again. Let me just highlight what that means, it means that anyone would immediately lose a right to life, a right to not be brutalised, a right to food and water, a right to not be tortured and a right to property like a photo of a loved one. But a lot of sentiment is expressed that these are “too much”. Sometimes I genuinely despise the people of this country.

And I even managed to go through a whole post on this subject without laughing at people who support the death penalty. Oh damn…