The Evening Standard reports today that Linda Bowman, the mother of murdered model Sally Anne Bowman, has called for a DNA database of everyone in Britain to help police catch serious criminals.

Mrs Bowman believes that her daughter’s case highlights the value of a universal database.  It does no such thing. Mark Dixie, the man convicted of Sally Anne’s murder was detected because like most criminals he committed more than one offence.  It is what nearly all criminals do. In a later incident, he provided a DNA sample to the Police.  It was by this means that his involvement in Sally Anne’s murder was detected.  His detection plainly took place without the need for there being a national database.

Whilst it is obvious that a national DNA database should have enabled Mark Dixie’s earlier detection (bearing in mind the fiasco that occurred in the case of serial rapist Kirk Reid) this is not a compelling reason for the DNA of tens of millions of innocent people being stored on a national database.  It is not only a question of everyone being considered by the State as a potential suspect, which is repugnant enough in itself.  I simply object to my DNA (or fingerprint records, or any other information for that matter) being maintained on any database just because an arm of the State thinks that it might prove useful.

All is not well down at the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).  Reports The Guardian,

“Part of the concern stems from a shift in the tone and style of the new body, which emphasises the concept of “fairness” more than the notions of “equality” and “discrimination”, and is less focused on campaigning. A spokesman for the EHRC said it saw itself as “a regulator and not simply a campaigning organisation.  He said, ‘Fairness is a great British value. I think fairness is a concept that a wider population understands.’ ”

The report continues,

 “An equality lawyer, who also asked not be named, said: ‘The problem is that ‘fairness’, unlike equality, has no basis in law. It’s a much more nebulous concept. Fairness is not about protecting the rights of those who have experienced discrimination, it’s about being fair to everyone, including businesses and white men.’¹ ”

Out of the mouth of babes…

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1   My emphasis.

“It would appear that the government has an agenda which is driven by the Association of Chief Police Officers. That involves neutralising an independent legal profession whose future role will be to stand by ticking boxes while people are rushed to conviction, whether innocent or not.”

Robin Murray

There is a lesson to be learned from the case of Erica Connor which might not be immediately obvious.  Mrs Connor was the former headmistress of New Monument School, a primary school in Woking, Surrey.  She was a victim of a campaign by two Muslim governors to give Islam a greater presence in her school. New Monument School is situated in the Maybury district of Woking and its local education authority is Surrey County Council.

Surrey County Council is controlled by the Conservatives.  Save for a period between 1993 and 1997, it always has been. Its employees hail largely from Conservative supporting Surrey and surrounding areas.  In spite of that fact, a significant proportion of its management level bureaucracy seems to be of a distinctly guardianista mentality.

Mrs Connor was forced to leave her school because of stress after she was unjustly accused of “Islamophobia” and racism by Islamic elements on the school’s board of governors. Surrey County Council failed in its duty to protect her and intervene.  The Council’s excuse for that failure was “fear of a complaint to the Commission for Racial Equality.” In the High Court, the judge, Mr John Leighton-Williams, QC found that council officers had shown “excessive tolerance” towards the two governors [who had caused the school’s governing body to become dysfunctional] and displayed “misplaced sympathy for [one of the governors]”.  In consequence, the Council was ordered to pay Mrs Connor £407,781 in compensation for psychiatric injury, loss of income and pension, medical expenses and the premature end of her career.

After twelve years of Labour misrule, at senior management level most of our institutions are now riddled with individuals of a guardianista persuasion. The Conservatives must adopt a strategy to deal with this. Otherwise, upon returning to the helm of national Government, though perhaps not being baulked outright at every turn by a reluctant bureaucracy, they might find themselves undermined continually or at the very least severely embarrassed.

Asks Matthew Parris, whilst pondering the advantages of judgment-based regulation as against rule-based regulation,

 “...And the question arises: wouldn't it be cheaper, wouldn't it be faster and simpler, and would it really add much to the sum total of general injustice, if we moved in the direction of appointing more commissar-like adjudicators: men and women empowered to consider the spirit and purposes of regulation and then to pronounce definitively, to deem - their judgments final, with no rights of appeal or judicial review?”

To a significant degree, too many decision makers rely upon an unnecessarily restrictive, literal interpretation of rules to enable themselves to avoid making robust decisions. Their fear of being “taken to law” by someone adversely affected is in most cases irrational.  Worse, it is feeble.  Ultimately, it is a question of mindset. Thus, if Mr Parris’ “commissar-like adjudicators” are possessed of the same trepidity the vice he desires expunged will endure.

There is also the issue that in recent years, rules have been amended and clarified in ever greater detail to achieve a political purpose. In such instances, where decision makers have contrived to do the right thing, the rules have been changed again to tighten the straitjacket.  A prime example is the constant amendment of the criminal law where legislators have sought to enable the securing of convictions where evidence is weak or uncorroborated.  Here, more often than not the Courts have still been able to dispense justice against all the odds.

In essence, in so many spheres of life we appear to have appointed the wrong sort of decision maker.

No matter how you look at it, Gail Trimble and her Corpus Christi College, Oxford team won the 2009 University Challenge competition.  That the BBC stripped the champions of the official title and physical trophy is neither here nor there.  It is not surprising that the Manchester University team was reluctant to accept the champion's mantle, because its members knew that they had not earned that accolade.

The rules contrived an unfair outcome, the disqualification of the winning team, as a direct result of the competition now being run across two academic years, in effect barring final year students and one year course postgraduates from taking part.  Everyone save the BBC and its acolytes saw the strict application of the rules as being grossly unfair and wrong.  In the light of the latest revelations that earlier winning teams also comprised disqualified members, the BBC’s decision to disqualify Corpus Christi appears increasingly perverse as well as ridiculous.

As with another great champion who was stripped of his title on trumped up and dubious grounds, Gail Trimble and her Corpus Christi team remain the people’s champions.