So, yet another Conservative constituency will be added the Liberal Democrats' list of "winnable" seats.  At the next General Election the Conservative candidate Bob Neill should expect to be the target of the now standard campaign literature bar chart showing that the Liberal Democrats are on course for winning a victory of historic proportions in his formerly safe, Conservative seat.

Not too much should be read into any by-election result, including this one.  The Liberal Democrats, whose resources are so often stretched when contesting six hundred plus Parliamentary seats, are ruthlessly efficient in garnering their supporters from all over the country when contesting single seats at by-elections.  It would be a fair guess that the number of Liberal Democrat supporters "on the ground" at Bromley and Chislehurst easily outnumbered those of their opponents.  Neither is it an unreasonable presumption that traditional Labour support went obligingly soft and transferred to the Liberal Democrats in a typical protest gesture against their own Government.  A high profile UKIP candidate Nigel Farage again showed how easy it is to drain Eurosceptic protest votes away from the Conservatives in a contest that "does not really matter".

The Conservatives fielded a traditional, white, middle-aged lawyer, Bob Neill.  The Liberal Democrat candidate, Ben Abbotts, was a young, good-looking professional politician.  Mr Neill provided hostages to fortune by contesting the election whilst being a serving member of the London Assembly and holding an office that he would be prescribed from retaining once elected and "sworn in".  This enabled his opponents to claim that he was not the best candidate because he could not concentrate on the job of being a Member of Parliament.  It was spun further by the suggestion that by virtue of holding a prescribed office, any poll victory by Mr Neill could be overturned by the High Court, so a vote for the Conservative candidate would be a wasted vote.

All these factors and more, deflated the Conservative vote. The slump in the Labour vote, the presence of Mr Farage and the Liberal Democrats fielding a very strong, highly professional politician in the person of Ben Abbotts contrived to inflate the Liberal Democrat share of the vote.  The Liberal Democrats will be very happy today and the glow of that euphoria will last for a long time to come but  it is a false dawn. That red glow in the sky more is likely to portend the bonfire of their dreams.

Come the General Election, with diminishing support in terms of manpower and finance, the Liberal Democrats have to defend their seats against a resurgent Conservative Party that has reconnected with the electorate.  They will have to target their seats very carefully or else lose more seats to the Conservatives than they gain.  No doubt Nigel Farage and Ben Abbotts will drift to constituencies identified as more likely to yield success than Bromley and Chislehurst.  Labour support will "firm up" when a "real" election is held.  Conservative Eurosceptic voters who flirted with UKIP yesterday will not likely do so at a General Election, particularly if to do so might ensure an historic forth-term victory for Labour, or hand the seat to the rabidly pro-European Liberal Democrats.

At the next General Election, the Liberal Democrats would be wise to concentrate their efforts upon their own marginals, for example Romsey, Winchester and Eastleigh, leaving alone such phoney marginals of the likes of Bromley and Chislehurst. 

As the Home Office research conducted by the usual suspects has now begun to appear in the liberal legal press with the expected wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, it was fortuitous that this article appeared in the press.  True to my promise, I shall continue to highlight the dangers of weighting the trial process against the presumption of innocence or by well-meaning but misguided procedural devices, rigging the evidence against the defendant.

Elvira Fairhurst, a teacher who was aged forty-nine years, had a four-month affair with a fourteen year old pupil in her charge.  The boy suffered from learning difficulties.  The affair came to light when a crane driver witnessed her having sexual intercourse with the boy in her car, in a car park.  She was jailed for four years after pleading guilty to eleven counts of sexual activity with a child.

By all accounts, until her frolics with the boy, Mrs Fairhurst was a regular churchgoer who had led a constructive and exemplary life.  The point of this article is not to dwell on her criminality.  The poor woman will be punished enough for her four months’ of madness.  It was perhaps a small mercy that she was a woman.  Had a male teacher so ravished a fourteen year old girl, we know that public reaction would have been wholly different; hysterical and disproportionate, in fact.  The point is this: when first interviewed by the Police, Mrs Fairhurst claimed initially that the boy had sexually assaulted or raped her.  On this occasion, the male had an independent witness who could testify to the contrary.

The Law Society has been supportive of the Government’s plans to introduce Home Information Packs into the house selling process and has constructively contributed to the whole process of implementation.  Now it appears that even the Law Society feels constrained to raise doubts concerning the recently published regulations prescribing the contents of these Home Information Packs. These regulations are said to have ‘serious defects’  which could leave consumers at risk.

It might be expected of  Government that these defects would be remedied in the face of such constructive advice, but in fact the criticism is just brushed aside, along with warnings from estate agents, lenders and others who could be expected to provide sound, reliable advice.  All are “vested interests” says the Government, bereft of any principled argument in reply.  It  will reap the whirlwind for its arrogance.

Home Information Packs: More Bad News for the Consumer

The Great Home Information Pack (HIPs) Swindle

This is a complete and absolute disgrace.

Let me state my position very carefully.  I believe that an effective Criminal Justice System should convict and punish[1] the guilty.  It follows that such a system must acquit the innocent. Any system that convicts the innocent cannot be described as a Criminal Justice System at all.

Alan Travis of The Guardian reported today that Home Office sponsored research indicates that barristers and judges are undermining rape reform.  According to Mr Travis,

“The research, published yesterday, says that rules introduced in 2000 to ban defence barristers from depicting rape victims as promiscuous have been “evaded, circumvented and resisted” with the result that the reform has failed to have any impact. The finding will be a further blow to Home Office ministers and the law officers, who have tried for years to find ways of boosting the low 5.6% conviction rate in rape cases (my emphasis.) The study of the case files of more than 400 rape trials says that defence barristers used “devious tactics” to ensure that evidence of the sexual history of the victim was raised in two-thirds of the trials that were observed.”

Also,

“the difficulty is compounded by the fact that almost half the judges interviewed by the researchers were unaware of the crown court rules setting out how the ban should work: "Some judges had only a vague knowledge of section 41 [of the 1999 legislation which contains the ban] and few non-legal practitioners and no complainants understood the new law.”

Worse still,

“Findings from case files, trial observations and interviews raise the possibility that both prosecution and defence share stereotypical assumptions about ‘appropriate’ female behaviour and that these continue to play a part when issues of credibility are addressed in rape cases”

and,

“defence lawyers still used evidence and “rhetorical devices” to impugn the character of rape victims and make their testimony less credible, and were often unchallenged by the prosecution or the judge.”

The authors of this Home Office sponsored report were Liz Kelly, Jennifer Temkin and Sue Griffiths.  Professor Temkin features in one of my posts late last year.  Since 1982 she has spent a considerable amount of time researching and writing about the crime of rape.  I suspect that she has a thing about the subject.  Certainly a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to which she contributed in March 2002 unquestionably made some people angry because of its perceived bias.

As a result of this research the Solicitor General Mike O'Brien has written to the criminal law procedures committee asking it to tighten the rules. Apparently the Bar Council has been put upon also to set up a training course for barristers involved in rape cases to ensure they deal with the issues involved with “greater sensitivity”.

I shall not revisit my thoughts about the issue of he purportedly low 5.6% conviction rate in rape cases.  Neither shall I make great play of the fact that since 1997 and the gradual politicisation of the Civil Service; research sponsored by Government departments seems to have been sought in the main from trusted sources known to be sympathetic to the view of the New Labour Administration.

Professor Temkin might be very learned and well researched in her chosen specialist subject but I detect the myopia of single issue-ism.  The findings of Ms Temkins’ research reported by Mr Travis’ are hard to believe.  We are told that “…almost half the judges interviewed by the researchers were unaware of the crown court rules setting out how the ban should work.”  It took me just seconds to access the relevant sections and narrative on my electronic version of Archbold, the Crown Court bible, the tome that each and every judge who sits in a criminal Court possesses at his fingertips.  If I can check the rules so easily and grasp their import, it is a fair bet that learned counsel and judges do routinely, too. Whilst I accept that applying the rules and ensuring that a defendant had a fair trial might prove a little fraught, particularly as ensuring a fair trial is the judge’s foremost duty, it is utterly implausible to suggest that almost half the judges were unaware of the Crown Court rules.

The weakness of nearly all academic lawyers is that not having had the opportunity to spend years at the “coal face” they never develop any significant insight into the human condition or any deep or meaningful understanding of what a real live trial involves.  It is not sufficient to attend a handful of specially selected trials here or there, making copious notes, poring over the transcripts and exhibits and picking holes in the advocates’ cross examination, submissions, speeches or the judge’s decisions or closing summary. It helps if you were present in the Police Station when the defendant was detained, interviewed and charged.  You might have to attend numerous preliminary Court appearances or make a succession of unsuccessful applications for bail. Proofing witnesses including the defendant, attending identification parades, examining and cross-referencing prosecution witness statements, appointing forensic experts on behalf of the defence, all provide an opportunity to gain that insight that allows you to make sense of the system and why it works the way it does.  It is whilst performing these functions that you might develop a sense of unease about the prosecution case.  On paper the defendant might look as if he is bang to rights but you might have a sense of there being something that isn’t quite right. That sense of unease may arise because having become acquainted with the defendant over a course of months (and probably having met his family, friends and girlfriend) it becomes incongruous that this defendant behaved in the manner alleged by the victim.  To the defence lawyers, the defendant is a human being whose life, career and future become worth defending. Thus whilst it is easy for some academic lawyers to form a view that the low rape conviction rate is irrefutable evidence that heinous monsters responsible for routinely raping thousands of  women each year are “let off” by the Courts, those involved in the process, including jurors, know different.

In a rape prosecution, it is almost invariably the case that the defendant must claim that the complainant is a liar.  For that reason, the cross examination is very robust and must be robust.  The judge understands this as does counsel for the Crown. The “character assassination” the feminists complain of arises from this process.   The complainant’s credit is being challenged, so when the defence cannot be conducted without being hamstrung by being barred from raising the sexual history of the victim (as will very often be the case) that evidence has to be heard.  It is insulting to the intellect of the jurors to suggest that a defendant can effectively destroy a prosecution case by falsely besmirching a truthful complainant’s character.  If the Crown’s case is strong, any character assassination will rebound upon the defendant.  Suggesting horrible things about the complainant has no effect unless there is something else about the evidence (the Crown’s evidence, not the defendant’s - he would say he didn’t do it, wouldn’t he?) which makes the jury think twice.

This discredited Government will no doubt continue to tinker with the rules in a vain attempt to increase conviction rates for rape and indeed all other offences.  The judges and barristers (both for the defence and Crown) will continue to use or allow evidence and “rhetorical devices” to impugn the character of rape victims and make their testimony less credible in an endeavour to ensure a fair trial.  Harry will become even angrier and just to prove our point people like me will increasingly flag and highlight cases where women are convicted of making false allegations of rape.

I am beginning to feel sorry for Gordon Brown.  In the unlikely event that he is crowned Prime Minister, he is not going continue in that Office for very long.

Not only do one in four Labour voters want the party to lose the next election but Labour’s core support in Scotland seem determined to present themselves as so anti-English that those of us south of the border cannot help but notice.  This can only have the effect of highlighting the West Lothian question, remarked upon in The Sunday Times today by Michael Portillo.  This is particularly irksome for Mr Brown given the Government has been at great pains to fudge the issue.

The risk for Labour is that the English are going to find it increasingly hard to swallow being ruled by a Government in which many of the major players will have been elected by Scottish voters.  Amongst those English supporters of Labour who have little in common with the unreconstructed socialist Scottish Labour Party and little sympathy for their ways, there will be a growing disinclination to turn out to vote. Even worse for Labour, these erstwhile supporters in England might transfer their allegiance to other parties, turning England even bluer.  There is little Mr Brown can do.  The political tide currently favours the Conservatives.  Following the next General Election, Labour is going to have to rely even more heavily upon its Scottish MPs.

Following the repeated failings of its football team, England-hating is becoming the national sport of Scotland.  In The Times yesterday, a writer mused whether the Scots would now cheer on England against Sweden, given that if their adopted team Trinidad and Tobago then defeat Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago would progress through to the next round of the World Cup.  I think not.  The enmity appears to run too deep.

Towards the end of May 2006, animal rights activists discovered the secret location of the accommodation in the Cotswolds village used by builders working on the construction of Oxford University’s new £20 million laboratory in South Parks Road.  Speak, the group responsible for the Oxford University anti-vivisection protests, posted the address on the internet. The group had intended to demonstrate outside the men's quarters today. The demonstrations were already restricted at the building site by an injunction granted to the University. Furthermore, to prevent the activists from harassing the workers at their living quarters, the injunction had forbade anyone from following vehicles ferrying contractors to the site.  Now a High Court Judge has extended the injunction to cover the workers' living quarters. Although Speak says it uses only legal means[1] to protest against vivisection, there are concerns that high profile sympathisers such as Morrissey will encourage hard line activists to go beyond peaceful protest. However, Thames Valley Police seem unimpressed by such an argument.  They are reported to have said that they were not investigating the singer's comments because there was,

 "no reasonable prospect of getting anything out of it in terms of a conviction".

This limp response from the Police is unimpressive, not only because it is of dubious validity and will be seen as carte blanche by the protesters but also because as is so often the case, the Police forget that their brief is to not only to detect crime, but to deter it.  They can make their presence felt and show that they are not putting up with any harassment or intimidation against the workers by these “protesters”.

No one will have been upset by the twenty-eight year minimum sentence imposed upon two ruthless, sadistic killers who beat Jody Dobrowski to death for no better reason than because they disapproved of his lifestyle.

This is the first occasion upon which a judge had weighed the issue of homophobia in determining a minimum term.  As reports Dominic Kennedy of The Times today,

“The sentencing heralds a new era when murderers motivated by their victims’ sexuality will be jailed for twice as long as those convicted of other murders. Similar heavier penalties apply when the ground for murder is race, religion or disability”

It now seems that Stonewall, the gay rights group which campaigned for heavier than usual penalties for crimes involving homophobic hate crime, will now press for incitement to hatred of gays to be outlawed.

Call me self-centred, but I feel distinctly undervalued by virtue of the fact that had the defendants beaten and kicked me to death, the extinction of my life should have resulted in a substantially shorter life sentence being imposed, because I do not fall within one of those self-certified, minority, perceived victim groups.  Murder is murder.  It is discriminatory for a murder to be deemed more serious simply because the victim was singled out due to the fact that he was of a different race or gay.  Though single issue activists will argue that the murder of a victim simply because he was gay or of a different ethnic background is worse than when the killing was just because the victim wore the wrong football supporters’ scarf or was wealthy or whatever, they are utterly wrong.  The killers Thomas Pickford and Scott Walker richly deserve their twenty-eight year prison term, but that sentence should have applied no matter who they had killed in that manner.

The BBC Television News breathlessly extolled the virtues of Home Information Packs  (HIPs) earlier this week, as one should expect from New Labour’s media arm. Nonetheless, as more information gradually comes to light, it is becoming clearer by the day that the whole hare-brained idea  is going to be one huge, costly, failed experiment, the expense  of which will be borne solely by the consumer.  The Government knows that it is right, so it will plough ahead, regardless.  I suppose we shall have to console ourselves with the thought that this disastrous policy will represent one more nail in the coffin for this arrogant, self righteous, incompetent administration.

Such has the stock of the New Labour Government fallen, that it is only a matter of hours before someone has examined its spin and found it wanting.  So it has transpired with John Reid's attack upon Judges concerning their being purportedly "soft" on sentencing criminals.  Instinctively jumping on the "soft judges" bandwagon with a view to earning some undeserved public approval, he promptly rolled back off again when it was pointed out that the judges were applying laws passed and guidelines approved and issued by his Government.  Alice Miles  destroys neatly the whole edifice of (or at the least puts into context) the soft judges argument in her article in The Times, today.

For all lovers of the wider concept of freedom of expression, this should make us warm to Mr Moyles, for a start.  It is not the first time  he has been singled out and criticised for amongst other things, being allegedly homophobic.  In an article in The Guardian on 7^th June 2006 he was roundly condemned by a contemporary, Tim Lusher.  A cause of Mr Lusher’s angst appears to have arisen not so much by virtue Mr Moyles’ perceived homophobia but rather his use of the word gay to mean rubbish.  Apparently, to the under-twenty-eights, this is the current meaning of the word gay.  I can understand Mr Lusher’s irritation in this respect.  I was more than a little miffed when the meaning of gay transmuted from “full of or disposed to joy and mirth; light-hearted, exuberantly cheerful, sportive, merry”.  Mr Lusher’s Guardian article leads me to imagine him to be a rather po-faced, humourless, politically correct  individual.

By all accounts, our Mr Moyles behaves occasionally in a coarse, insulting and rude manner to all and sundry during his radio programme and worst of all, he swears.  This makes me like him even more. His target audience appear to think he is good and worth tuning into, insulted or no.  The ratings certainly prove it.  He is very popular.  Some people have felt constrained to complain about him, but not that many.  Curiously, the BBC has shown remarkably good sense and judgment by avoiding censuring Mr Moyles, but giving a general warning to all of its Radio 1 DJ’s concerning “watching their language”, as reported in The Times today.

There are numerous, vociferous minorities who are all too ready to tell us how to think and how we should behave, so as not to upset their sensitivities.  They should be told to grow up and get a life, whoever they are.

How ironic that whilst our servicemen and women were trying to help create a democratic Iraq, most were denied the chance to vote in our last General Election;

“…a damning indictment of the Government”

says Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary.  Quite.

It is time for the local constabulary to have a word in Morrissey's  shell-like.  Whilst it is true that he is all mouth and trousers and utterly harmless, what he is saying is not unlikely to give succour to or even incite others to undertake criminal acts against individuals who are performing a lawful activity.

Jasper Gerard reports today in The Sunday Times that when attending Oxford in support of animal rights activists last week Morrissey said,

“Make no mistake, for anyone working in the labs, we are going to get you.”

This is wholly unacceptable.  Should any member of Joe Public threaten harm to another person, whether or not it was just hot air or a statement of intent, the Police would investigate.  Morrissey should not be exempt from the discipline of self-restraint merely because he is a has-been celebrity.  It is no excuse that all he intended to do was show solidarity with a handful of similar thinking individuals and in reality he doesn't intend to “get” anyone.  There are members of his wider audience, who do.[1]

In spite of Anatole Kaletsky's cunning plan to extricate Gordon Brown from New Labour’s all too obvious malaise, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a man with substantial, serious, previous form.  It was always going to be a very hard, almost impossible task to put clear, blue water between him and the failed policies of New Labour and his erstwhile co-conspirator, Mr Tony Blair.  A reinvigorated Official Opposition is not about to let him slip off the hook, for a start.  Worse (for Mr Brown, but not for us) like all good, old fashioned villains he managed, to use the vernacular, to “stitch himself up” in an interview, whilst trying to be clever.

Mr Brown was “verballed” during an interview by Lally Weymouth of the Washington Post on 14^th May 2006.  He was trying to convince the Americans that he was a regular sort of guy,  just like Blair, a man they could do business with.

“If you become Prime Minister, what will be the main difference between you and Blair?” 

asked the interviewer.

 “It's not so much that the method will be so different as the challenges…”

replied Mr Brown.

Well that’s fairly clear, then – we shall receive more of the same.  When asked,

“What do you think of the war in Iraq?”

Mr Brown replied,

 “I was a supporter of the war in Iraq.”

And so the interview continues.

It has been a favoured myth of the pro-Brown lobby that their hero really never had anything to do with the worst excesses or mistakes of “Blairism” or its methods and much has been made of the differences of opinion, constant battles of will and “feuding”.  In fact it has been plain all along that Gordon Brown was Blair’s willing accomplice in the New Labour project.  The evidence is overwhelming.  Any defence just won’t wash. The public are no longer blinded because the scales have fallen from their eyes.  We have it from the horse’s mouth.

As cross-party opposition to the imposition of the Home Information Packs (“HIPs”) scheme begins to grow, the press is becoming increasingly aware of its weaknesses and the misinformation upon which the whole HIPs edifice is built.  What appeared to have a hopeless cause when I posted my first article concerning the issue is proving to be anything but.

In her article in The Times entitled “Don't be fooled by a pack of lies” on 27^th May 2006 Alice Miles reports,

 “Estate agents hate the HIP. Chartered surveyors hate it — understandably, as it takes their business away. Building societies, mortgage lenders and lawyers are dubious about it. Various professionals claim that it will slow the market; that those being trained to carry out the tick-box home condition reports are “people like taxi drivers”, as one put it to me this week; that not enough of these inspectors are being trained; and that, although the minister claims that 40 per cent of sales that fall through do so because of problems thrown up by the survey weeks into the process, the figure is in fact 12 per cent: in other words, the HIP wouldn’t make any difference in nine out of ten sale collapses” (my emphasis.)

Ms Miles continues,

 “But the central argument against the HIP is that if mortgage companies and buyers are not able to rely legally upon the home condition report, and have some form of legal redress if it turns out to be inaccurate, then they will still have to pay to have their own surveys carried out. This would mean that the Government had introduced a new layer of complication and expense to the process rather than simplifying it. At the moment, in law, usually only the person who pays for a survey can rely upon it.”

In an earlier report in The Times on 18^th May 2006 entitled “Home Information Packs branded as 'ridiculous'”, Rebecca O' Connor reported the views of  The Building Societies Association (BSA) which is calling for the packs, which will cost home sellers as much as £1,000 each, to be made voluntary when they are introduced in June 2007.

Building Society chief executives say that HIPs will be costly and will not achieve the Government's objectives to reassure buyers or speed up housing transactions. Ms O'Connor reports that Adrian Coles, director general of the BSA, said at the Association's annual conference in Manchester:

“People's homes represent their most important asset. As such it is imperative that they can have confidence that there will not be any unexpected fluctuations in the market”

and

 “It is ridiculous that someone selling their home without a HIP will be punished by a fine. If people feel that HIPS will be of benefit, they will opt to have one without the need for compulsion.”

The Law Society, which is endeavouring to be supportive of the HIPs project[1], is more specific about unsavoury facts involving cost and criminal penalties for non compliance. Anyone marketing their property for sale after 1 June 2007 faces a fine of £200 per day if they do not provide potential buyers with a HIP. The Law Society also estimates that the true cost of producing HIPs, which will be borne by the seller alone, could range from £600-£3,000, depending on the size of the property, far more than the “modest” sum the Government would have had us believe.

New research shows most people are totally ignorant of the biggest ever shake-up of the property market which is only one year away.  Sixty four percent of people questioned by ICM have never heard of the term "home information pack" (HIP). To deal with this lack of awareness, The Law Society has created a question and answer page on its Website, which can be found here .  I have updated my webpage concerning HIPs which can be accessed here.

It is to be hoped that once the general public comes to realise what is being foisted upon them, the howl of righteous indignation will be too loud for this Government to ignore.

My imaginary, regular reader cannot have failed to notice that of late my blog cupboard has been bare.  It is not a matter of "writers' block", because people who write drivel suffer no such condition.  It has been more a case of "War and Peace" syndrome, where what had been intended to be a short, incisive critique of something silly someone had done or said somewhere, turned into a ten thousand word thesis.  Frantic editing is now taking place, so something entirely worthless is bound to emerge sooner or later....very much later if that imaginary reader's luck holds.

The report by Greg Hurst, Dominic Kennedy and Andrew Pierce in The Times this morning that,

“Every member of the Lib Dems will have to pay about £30 to clear its debts if the party is forced to surrender its record gift from Michael Brown. The party’s legal status is that of an unincorporated association, in effect a club of its 73,000 members. No committee or individual is responsible for any financial liabilities. Nor is any insurance policy”

is not all bad news for the members of the Liberal Democrats.  Presumably if the liability to repay Michael Brown’s £2.4 million donation does materialise, only people who are still members at that particular time, will be liable to make their obligatory contribution?[1]  It will be interesting to see how many party members are fair-weather supporters.

[1] Though I am no expert in such matters and I might be entirely wrong.

The theory that the transition to a Gordon Brown led administration will lead to a fresh start for the New Labour Government is palpably false.  Parallels are being drawn with John Major's succession to the premiership in 1990 when the Conservatives, purportedly effecting a "regime change" by disposing of Mrs Thatcher, avoided defeat by Labour at the General Election in 1992.

Gordon Brown entered Parliament in 1983 becoming Labour's Shadow Chancellor in 1992. He was one of Tony Blair's original "conspirators", playing an integral part in the creation of New Labour.  He has been the Chancellor of the Exchequer since 1997 and thus has held one of the two most powerful posts in HM Government for nine long years.  As a senior member of the Cabinet he is jointly responsible for every major policy decision involving every part of Government (after all, he is the paymaster.)  Thus, along with Mr Blair and the other members of the Cabinet, he is implicated in every failing of the Government.  He cannot escape the stench of sleaze or fug of Government incompetence even though he might not be responsible personally. Distancing himself from Mr Blair (and of course the rest of the Cabinet) just does not wash.  The implicit "not me guv" stance is not only deceitful and disloyal; arguably it is cowardly.

By contrast, John Major was a nonentity in Mrs Thatcher's first administration.  He had not played any part in formulating the principles of the Thatcherite Revolution. He entered Parliament in 1979 and did not enter the Cabinet of the Conservative Government until 5^th June 1987[1].    In consequence he was not so sullied by Mrs Thatcher's or her creed’s, perceived failings.  The public were entitled to give Mr Major the benefit of the doubt, but not so Mr Brown.

It is forgotten also that New Labour achieved their electoral success by stealing the Conservatives' clothes (so as not to scare the horses) and presenting themselves as more honest, down-to-earth and united than the "sleazy", “division ridden”[2] Conservative Government.  Gordon Brown is an  unreconstructed socialist.  It is by his deeds, not his words, that we know him.  He craves Big Government.  He is driven to tax hard and spend big.  Middle England will not warm to him - he has hurt them too much, already.

In truth, Mr Brown is an accomplice without whom the Blair Project could never have come to be.  When Mr Blair's collar comes to be felt, whether that be by his erstwhile Parliamentary Labour Party colleagues or the electorate, it is only right and just that Mr Brown stands alongside him, in the dock.  Whilst his “Brownite” colleagues will fall over themselves to provide an alibi for their new leader we, the electorate, will not fall for it.  You will have to pack your toothbrush, Gordon Brown, because when the time comes, you are going down.

Whilst the Government proceeds with its plans to further rig the trial process against (almost exclusively male) defendants in cases involving rape and serious sexual offences, the press continues to report cases where false allegations involving such offences have been made.

The Times reported two cases yesterday (28^th April 2006.) One case involved a male who was framed by his girlfriend  (and her mother) after he had sought to bring their relationship to an end. The mother and daughter received prison sentences of six and three month's, respectively.  The male was likely to have received a prison sentence measured in years, had he been prosecuted and convicted.

In another case, a fourteen-year-old boy admitted that he had lied when claiming that a church deacon had had sex with him and indecently assaulted him on several occasions. In court the boy confessed to lying to police and jurors, and accepted that he had previously made false allegations of a similar nature.

Only last year a wife admitted making a false claim to cover her infidelity.  These cases are legion and yet the Government still follows the politically correct consensus that it is the trial system that is defective rather than the jury having a healthy regard for the principle that it should be sure beyond doubt of a defendant's guilt.  The Government and women's groups are all of the same mind: "If she said it happened, it did!"  So juries are stupid, defence lawyers insensitive, male chauvinist/gender traitor, apologist, silver-tongued thugs and the defendants all guilty to a man.

The point that the Government just cannot or will not grasp is that a significant number of rape/serious sexual assault complainants tell lies.  The reasons for these lies are varied.  Very often it is a case of a woman scorned.  Sometimes it is a "cover up" for a sexual infidelity or an embarrassing (after the event) sexual liaison.  Occasionally it is for the purpose of being the centre of attention.  In the main, the "victims" are very convincing.  Bending the rules of evidence to make convictions easier to secure is not just dangerous, it is criminal.

I am given to understand that the Liberal Democrats have about 73,000 members.  As it appears likely that Michael Brown's £2.4 million donation might have to be repaid sooner or later, plans should be made to meet this liability, now.  Might I suggest that each and every party member contribute the sum of  £32.88 to party funds without delay?  That is all it takes to preserve a great party.  You know it is worth it.

Analysts seem to agree that the Conservatives face an uphill task in the forthcoming local elections, though “targets” are still being set that might make it difficult for them to avoid what their opponents will describe as an indifferent performance.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph Dr Robert Waller declares, 

“David Cameron's “modern and liberal” leadership will clearly be assessed in the light of the Conservative performance.”

 

“Prospects of [the Conservatives] gaining councils are relatively limited in the areas last contested in 2004, when the [their] showing was equivalent to a national share of around 37 per cent.” 

Dr Waller believes that there are few realistic chances of the Conservatives gaining control in town halls outside London though in London they have better prospects; as in 2002 they won an overall majority in only eight of the thirty-two boroughs.

Dr Waller concludes, 

“Overall, for the Tories, a net gain of 100 council seats across the country would be disappointing, anything over 300 very good progress, and 500-plus would raise hopes of an overall majority in the next general election….” 

whilst, 

“The Lib Dems will perform stronger than in the general election (as usual), and may finish second in national vote share, reinforcing optimism under Sir Menzies Campbell” 

and that, 

“The biggest question is whether the Conservatives can gain enough seats and councils to look as if they are once more credible contenders for national government.” 

In The Sunday Times Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher explained the problems that will be encountered by the Conservatives in that they must “overcome the handicap of the UK electoral system, both nationally and locally”, reminding us that in the May 2005 General Election the Conservatives won 3% less of the vote than Labour, but acquired 150 fewer seats.

In the London borough elections in 2002, when the seats were last contested, the Conservatives secured a similar number of votes to Labour, but won 654 seats to Labour’s 866.  As Messrs Rallings and Thrasher say, 

“It took nearly 900 votes to elect every Tory councillor but only 680 to elect a Labour one. And the boundaries had been reviewed immediately before the elections” 

and,

“Many Tory votes were “wasted” as big majorities were built up in wards where the party was safe. Labour, by contrast, won many of its own safe wards with very low numbers of votes. The average turnout in London in wards won by the Tories (35%) was above that for Labour (28%). The legacy of 2002 is that the Tories will need to be about seven points ahead of Labour in the popular vote to win more seats in the capital. This equates to a swing of 3.5% from Labour to the Tories. Anything less and Labour will be able to disguise the likely slump in its own vote by claiming it is still the leading party in London in terms of seats.”

This analysis puts the Conservatives’ task into perspective and to quote Mr Rallings and Mr Thrasher again, 

“It may therefore be unfair to judge Cameron’s impact as leader by seats alone. But he does need to demonstrate the Tories are attracting new support, rather than simply picking up the crumbs from standing still as former Labour voters desert their party for the Liberal Democrats or other smaller parties.”  

Prior to the revelations of this week, I had thought that Conservative success would be limited to a very modest gain in the share of votes cast (which was unlikely to translate into many, if any, new seats) and Labour support would continue its gradual downward drift with a few more seats lost (mainly to the Liberal Democrats) but not on an embarrassing scale.  As such, the Labour defeat could be spun into an “indifferent result”; the Liberal Democrats would claim victory and the Conservatives would be put to a lot of explaining.  Even a few days can be a long time in politics. There is now good reason to expect that support for Labour will significantly ebb.  As  Peter Riddell  said in The Times today, 

“The Blair Government’s luck may, at last, have run out: not primarily because of policies, but because of the appearance of incompetence…..

What really damages a Government is the appearance of not being in charge of prisoners, asylum-seekers or events.” 

Provided their vote holds firm, it is just possible for the Conservatives to secure sufficient gains in the forthcoming local elections to avoid being cast as the losers by New Labour, its media and the Liberal Democrats.

The last time I read the Daily Mirror, my fish and chips were wrapped in it.  That was a very long time ago.  Since the practise of wrapping chips in newspaper was banned, The Mirror has not had any real, useful purpose.  I was reminded of this this morning when my attention was drawn to the article by Kevin Maguire.

In brief, Mr Maguire was giving his considered, erudite opinion concerning the Conservative leader, David Cameron: - 

"I can think of many words beginning with C that describe David Cameron better than chameleon.  A list in a family newspaper cannot include the short, pithy, abusive word that accurately captures the dislike so many people feel for his type.  After all, we know Cameron is a Conservative so should leave it at that...."

He continues,

"Old Etonian Cameron's a prisoner of his class, the upper class, and condescension comes easily to Tory toffs though plays badly with voters who see straight through synthetic charm..."

and,

"...Cameron's honeymoon is over and he's flailing in the polls around the level he inherited from predecessor Michael "Dracula" Howard. That leaves Cameron resembling yet another Conservative Corpse, a leader destined to join Howard, Iain Duncan Smith, William Hague and John Major in the political graveyard.  The impression yesterday was of a pale, stale version of the young Tony Blair who captured Westminster just over a decade ago. If Cameron's all the Conservatives have to offer, Gordon Brown and Labour have little to worry about."

Finally,

".....I'd put £20 on voters seeing through his Crass strategy before the next general election."

No, Mr Maguire.  If you had the courage of your convictions, you would bet far, far more than that.

The purpose of Bryan Appleyard’s article in The Sunday Times on April 23, 2006 was to argue that British television news is dull and lacks substance, whilst in America, anchors have “authority and zest”.

Interestingly, in passing he had this to say as well: -  

[The BBC’s] primary news shows are now unwatchable. Of course, they have long been unwatchable if you object to political bias. The BBC won’t listen, but I’m afraid that the case is unarguable. The corporation is suffused with soft left and hard anti-American prejudices that seep into almost all the news coverage. By the time one gets to Newsnight and sees Gavin Esler treating any old hoodlum or crook with extravagant respect before turning to sneer at some decent American congressman, one can find oneself indulging in that awful, crazed habit of shouting at the TV.  Looking down at the vast BBC newsroom, I once made this point to an executive, who just looked blankly back as if I had unaccountably lapsed into Hungarian. To get her attention, I asked her to tell me which newspapers she could see on the desks. Amid that sea of reporters, only one title was visible — the eccentrically left-leaning Independent. 

Many of us no longer watch or listen to BBC News because of this bias and those of us who still do take what we are told with a pinch of salt.  For a public broadcasting service this is unacceptable. We demand more balance.  A significant proportion of the Licence Fee paying public (almost certainly the majority) is not Soft Left or anti-American or very pro-European Union.  Perhaps the BBC should, before dismissing criticism out of hand, bear in mind that he who pays the piper, calls the tune.

It is curious how certain hypotheses gain currency and quickly become accepted as an established fact, sometimes against the weight of evidence.

In the mid nineteen eighties I happened upon a BBC television programme examining the matter of heart disease.  The earnest presenter, a doctor, adamantly asserted that the “fatty heart hypothesis” was not a hypothesis, but a proven fact.  If you eat a fatty diet and don’t do any exercise, your arteries clog up and you die of a heart attack - plain and simple. It seemed a fairly sound argument to me. On the other hand I found his stridency jarring.  Other experts thought they were possessed of evidence undermining the fatty heart “fact” and this irritated the presenter, who saw them as heretics.

A few years later, I happened upon another programme about a body that had been discovered in a glacier in the Alps.  The body had been frozen intact, with the remains of clothes and some belongings. After examination by an assortment of experts, it was established that the individual had died about four thousand years ago.  He had been almost certainly a nomadic shepherd.  Forensic examination showed that he had not died of any illness nor had he been killed.  It was believed that he had been caught in a sudden blizzard and died of exposure. Examination of his bones suggested that he was aged about forty years or so old. 

It was possible to make a number of assumptions about his life style.  The glacier in which his body was frozen and transported down to the lowlands over the course of four thousand years, started life high in the Alps, where until the last century there had still been a tradition of shepherds moving livestock up and down the mountains through the passing of the seasons.  Thus he had not enjoyed a sedentary life style – it was not possible for him to have done so.  He had never eaten processed or fatty foods.  He had not been afflicted by any of the vices of soft, lazy, easy late-twentieth century living.  Yet examination showed that his arteries had fatty deposits just like your average, overweight, unfit company executive.  Oh well, it's back to the drawing board.

I was reminded of this when a number of scientists[1], who had been routinely ignored for years, published an open letter challenging the orthodoxy of “global warming”.  It was then disclosed elsewhere that the purportedly inevitable, inexorable increase in global temperature had fizzled out in 1998.[2]  The global warming theorists may yet be proved to be right. Then again, they might be shown to be as misguided as flat earthers. 
 

[1]   Sixty-one experts, as it happens.  The letter was dated 6^th April 2006.

[2] Professor Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University, Queensland.  For a full report see The Daily Telegraph 9^th April 2006.

I have a shocking admission to make.  I have always had a soft spot for Cherie Blair.  My prejudices in that respect were reinforced when a very good friend of mine, who had met Mrs Blair in a professional capacity, confided that she was a very pleasant, likeable individual.  It should not surprise anyone therefore when I declare that charging the Labour Party for her hairdressing was reasonable.  In these “presidential” times, the First Lady has to look the part and I have little doubt that the effort she applied to Labour’s election campaign was worth thousands of votes.

The disparity in cost between Sandra Howard’s hairdressing expenses (£65) and those of Mrs Blair (£7,700) however, is symptomatic of the difference between Labour and the Conservatives in matters concerning money. A high proportion of Conservative MPs and Councillors, by virtue of having been or being engaged in business, know the value of money. They have learned to watch the bottom line.  They have learned to be prudent.  They know what they can and cannot afford. They hate waste.  They want their money’s worth.

This fiscal responsibility on the part of the Conservatives has always been portrayed by its political opponents as a vice, whereas it is a virtue.  It is so readily forgotten that the sound economy about which we hear so much by way of Gordon Brown’s boasts, was created by the Conservatives, not Labour. 

The extent of the Labour Government’s wastefulness is truly shocking.  Recent examples include the more than £2 billion in overpaid benefits received by the unemployed and people on low incomes, since Labour came to power.  Ministers limply claim that there was nothing they could do to recoup the cash other than ask people to repay it voluntarily.  As much as £500 million [1] may have been wasted by the NHS overpaying for just three prescription drugs over the last three years.  What an extraordinary state of affairs. In spite of the many extra billions spent on the NHS by Labour, staff are being sacked and numerous hospitals threatened with closure, something that never happened under the Conservatives.

Labour was able to evict the Conservatives from power in 1997 because the electorate believed that the old spend, spend, spend Labour Party was a thing of the past.  Tony Blair admitted openly that a problem cannot be solved by simply throwing money at it. Since 1997, Labour has done nothing but.

Following Iain Dale’s scoop yesterday about Michael Brown, the Liberal Democrats' benefactor to the tune of £2.4 million[1], today it is reported by Rajeev Syal, Dominic Kennedy and James Doran of  The Times that: - 

 “The Lib Dems, already risking bankruptcy if the donation is ruled ineligible by the Electoral Commission[2], sought to distance themselves yesterday from the latest events. The Lib Dems issued a statement yesterday saying:

 

 “We are not aware that this has any connection with the Liberal Democrats. Any further action is a matter for the police and for the relevant authorities.” ”

“Distance themselves from their biggest donor”?  They are not going to manage that until they have distanced themselves from the £2.4 million he donated - by giving it back.

It is perhaps surprising that no one saw Employment Minister Margaret Hodge confiding her “fears” about the BNP to The Sunday Telegraph for what it really was - a clever but cynical ploy to bolster the ethnic Labour vote in wards assessed as liable to fall to the main opposition parties.  At the same time it is calculated that now, the protest vote will drift away from mainstream opposition parties in the best position to challenge Labour, diverting to the BNP candidate who in spite of the hype, is not likely to win.  The anti-Labour vote is further divided and potential advances by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives,  stymied. 

The ploy is well worth the risk because though it might hand no more a dozen or so seats to the BNP, it will deny scores to the mainstream opposition. This masterly tactic on the part of New Labour has ensured also that the BNP has now enjoyed its fifteen minutes of fame and peaked too early.  The message by Labour candidates to the traditional (but disgruntled) Labour voter is clear.  “We hear you! We feel for you!  We are really on your side!”

Since I posted an article challenging the emerging orthodoxy that Labour were going to lose “big” and the Conservatives should win “hundreds of seats”, wiser heads, armed with more detailed analysis and the latest opinion polls, are now creating a consensus that the election results are most likely to be capable of being spun by each major party as a success of sorts. The Liberal Democrats are still going to have the most to cheer about, at the expense of Labour and the Conservatives.  The sheer determination of Liberal Democrat activists can never be underestimated. It is going to be the Conservatives who suffer what will appear to be an indifferent result.  The rise in popularity of the Conservative party appears to have stalled again according to the latest YouGov poll, though nevertheless positive trends are emerging.  The poll sample seemed to believe that in some respects the Conservatives were thinking along the right lines and that “the Tories under their new leader deserve another year or two to work out their policies”.  For these reasons alone, purportedly indifferent results for the Conservatives will not represent a setback.

One of the many reasons the results of these forthcoming local elections are too close to call is that it is not clear that the electorate is ready to use them as a referendum against the Government. If local issues remain largely to the fore, Labour cannot be punished much more than it has been already.  It follows that those calling for a tactical vote against Labour for the purpose of causing Tony Blair to be deposed in a night of the long knives, are going to be sorely disappointed.  By there not being a landslide against Mr Blair, ironically he can claim victory, come 5^th May 2006. 

For Mr Blair, it might not be that he remains Premier “to infinity and beyond” but at the very least until 2008.

President John Prescott.

“Tony Blair has revealed the huge funding pressures on Labour in private remarks to party workers, saying that they need to find four or five times more cash to fight the next election.  Mr Blair told senior party figures that the extra cash was desperately needed to match expected Conservative spending in target seats from now until the next election”

reported David Charter of The Times on 17^th April 2006.  Mr Charter continued,

 “His verdict came after an analysis of Tory spending in the two years before last year’s election, which showed that Labour was outspent by a factor of 2.4 to 1 in 93 target seats. In three seats that Labour lost, the Tories spent more than ten times as much in the months before the election was called.

 

Labour insiders believe that extra Tory spending power cost the party at least a dozen seats in the general election last year and they will push for annual constituency spending limits. Spending is now strictly capped only from when the election is called. Senior Labour figures are alarmed at the pace of the “arms race” in party funding, which some fear is driving the dash for cash behind the “cash for honours” scandal.

 

Peter Bradley, who lost his seat of The Wrekin after the Tories spent 10.9 times as much as Labour, has compiled an analysis of targeted funding from Electoral Commission figures. Mr Bradley said: “My research identifies a strong correlation between a party’s capacity to outspend its rivals and the swing in its favour in key marginal seats.”

It might be recalled that I have a fondness for Mr Bradley and have posted about him before.  To recap, I consider that Mr Bradley is a sore loser.  The Tories weren't playing fair by spending more during their campaign to “take” his marginal[1], he bleats.  It has escaped his consciousness entirely, that his arguably odious comment made during the passage of the Hunting Bill through Parliament galvanised against him specifically, political opposition of all hues (including the associated funding.)  He made the Hunting Bill personal and he paid the price.  In any event, I digress.  My argument is that it is perfectly acceptable for political parties to target the seats they have assessed to be “for the taking” (or for that matter, defending.)  The Liberal Democrats would suffer in particular, if they were prevented from targetting, after all, it is what they are so good at.

Notwithstanding New Labour’s attempt to spin the Conservatives’ targeted spending as being “underhand”, of course, our Mr Blair’s New Labour does  the same thing.  Fast forward one day, and we are embroiled in the BNP story reported by David Aaronovitch of The Times.  As everyone will recall,  allegedly Minister Margaret Hodge had told The Sunday Telegraph that her white, working-class constituents in Barking are contemplating a serious electoral flirtation with Nick Griffin’s British National Party.  Mrs Hodge’ parliamentary neighbour Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham, let the cat out of the bag when giving his opinion concerning the rise in popularity of the BNP. Mr Aaronovitch reports (though the emphasis is mine),

 “[Mr Cruddas’] assertion is that the BNP phenomenon is caused by a failure of mainstream, especially Labour, politicians to appeal to “traditional” voters. Instead, the parties try to maximise their appeal to middle-class swing voters in marginal constituencies. Labour’s project has ceased to be the “emancipation” of the still large working class.”

Well there you have it.  Labour targets marginals too.  This leaves me with one last thing to say.  Shut it, Bradley.

So, Brian Galvin, the new president of the National Union of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) would have us believe that Baroness Thatcher is to blame for our current social ills.  Unfortunately, he did not prepare his homework; I mean speech, quite as well as he should.  In addressing his union’s annual conference in Birmingham last week he confided that “over liberalised attitudes in the 1960s and 1970s had also contributed to social ills.”

Now, bearing in mind that the Milk Snatcher did not have “over liberalised” tendencies and that those over liberal attitudes complained of pre-dated her Government by up to twenty years, doesn’t Mr Galvin’s argument contain the seeds of its own destruction?

Oh, and by the way, which profession was at the vanguard of introducing “liberalised” ideas into our schools during the 1960’s and 1970’s and making them orthodoxy during the 1980’s and 1990’s?

Three out of ten, Mr Galvin.

In the great scheme of things, on the Bad Legislation Richter Scale, the Housing Act 2004 does not approach the severity of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.  However, whilst the weighty issues involving the abolition of Parliament and identity cards have largely by-passed the consciousness of the general public, ironically it is this seemingly innocuous Act that is likely to hurt the public in a way that the public comprehends, that is to say, through the pocket.  It is likely therefore to inflict more damage upon the popularity of this Government than either the imposition of identity cards or an Act granting unnaturally wide and extensive powers to the Executive.  So far the Government has been able to plough ahead with its plans to introduce the so-called Home Information Packs (HIPs) by virtue of the said Act.

HIPs will do nothing for improving or smoothing the sale and purchase of residential property.  It will assist the Government (at the public's sole cost) in creating a data base regarding the state of its housing stock (as required by EU law.)  It will add unnecessary and substantial cost to the transaction of buying and selling a home and cause delay.

Many firms involved in the residential property market are so concerned at the effect of the HIPs that an action group SPLINTA (Sellers Pack Law Is Not The Answer) has been formed for the purpose of seeking to convince the Government of the error of its ways. It is not only "vested interests" (that is to say, the professionals who know what they are talking about) who are concerned.  For more details concerning HIPs, view this page comprising a Fact Sheet prepared by SPLINTA and a message from Kirstie Allsopp & Phil Spencer, presenters of the Channel 4 programme Location, Location, Location.

I have touched upon this issue before.  I find it curious that Labour thinks it can fool us into believing that there will be a substantial change for the better when Gordon Brown takes over the premiership.  Mr Brown has been one half of the terrible twins these past nine years and has been involved in every decision made by the Labour Government.  Mr Brown is a very big player in Labour’s team and is tainted with every mistake and wrongdoing.  Peas in pod, says Martin Samuel.

It is only right that a person who incurs an expense in performing a duty, contractual or otherwise on behalf of another, is reimbursed for that expense; not a penny less, not a penny more.  Parliamentary rules might not have been breached by various Ministers or ordinary MPs in claiming such allowances, but nevertheless it is very clear that the “reimbursement” is extremely generous. These gravy trains are not appreciated by the General Public.   We are being ripped off.   It has to stop, now.[1]

Much has been made of Francis Maude’s comment that the Conservatives might not win the next General Election. Why? Commentators have been saying as much since before David Cameron was elected as leader.  We are informed repeatedly that the Conservatives require a percentage “swing” in their favour well beyond anything they have ever achieved against Labour in any General Election since 1945.  Commentators have been talking down the Conservative Party’s prospects of winning an election ever since doubts began to surface about Tony Blair’s Government.  That the Conservatives cannot achieve such a swing is not an immutable law. It is the result of a number of factors, not least of which is that the psephologists seem to miss the point that until 1997, all Labour administrations since 1945 seemed to expire after about six years, whilst save for that of Edward Heath, Conservative ones lasted thirteen and eighteen years, respectively.  By the next General Election the New Labour administration will have reached that longevity where if it has not turned substantially from its current course, it will be punished at the polls in a fashion that had been reserved previously for Conservative Governments that had overstayed their welcome.

David Cameron has been in charge of the Conservative party for just four months.  He has a lot of work still to do.  For the Labour Government, everything is just hunky-dory.  No matter what it does wrong, it does not appear to be prejudiced unduly in the opinion polls, at least not for long.  For the Liberal Democrats, though in truth their tide is ebbing, they shall shortly enjoy the euphoria of success against both Labour and the Conservatives in the forthcoming local elections.[1]

The Conservatives should not look to achieve short-term success or popularity.  They are working for sustainable success in the long-term.  The Conservatives’ policy review must be given time to correctly identify the electorate’s real concerns and effectively address them.  It matters not that David Cameron’s project to reform his party appears to stall, because in truth, it has not.  Indifferent opinion poll results mean nothing.  To a great extent they are a collective, self-fulfilling prophecy.  The largely pro Labour media must be expected to focus relentlessly upon the Conservatives’ “failure” to effect a break through in popular support, whilst correspondingly ignoring or playing down Government waste, incompetence, venality and/or sheer deceit.  With the dice so heavily loaded against the Conservatives, it is hardly surprising that the going is tough.

The electorate is not going to be convinced overnight.  The Labour Party’s success in rebuilding itself after spending years in the political wilderness was not achieved during Mr Blair’s brief few years as Leader of the Opposition; the process had started years earlier under Neil Kinnock.  It cannot be any different for the Conservatives, no matter what the legion of pro Labour political commentators and journalists say or infer to the contrary.

The results of the local elections on 4^th  May 2006 will be used as much as the electorate’s purported verdict on David Cameron’s leadership as a referendum on Mr Blair’s continued premiership.  Already the “hurdles” that the Conservatives are being required to clear before being able to claim success have been raised ominously.

“Overall, election analysts believe the Tories should be looking for an extra 300 councillors in England to be able to claim victory,”

we are told and,

“In London, the Tories did relatively well in last year's general election and so Mr Cameron cannot have any excuses if he fails to make real progress.”

However, for the Liberal Democrats,

 “According to the analysts, 100 overall gains would make it a good night for Sir Menzies while net losses would be seen as a bad performance.”

The problem for the Conservatives is that at a local election level, Labour has been unpopular for a few years now. Conservative seats that fell to other parties during the last years of  John Major's Conservative Government have been recovered, more or less. Furthermore, the most vulnerable Labour seats have already fallen to the opposition parties.  A protest vote against Labour councillors is more likely to benefit the Liberal Democrats than the Conservatives.  Thus, though the Conservatives will make steady progress, it will be the Liberal Democrats who will appear to be the winners of the forthcoming local elections.  Even “election experts”,

 “admit it will not be easy for [David Cameron] to make sweeping gains because the Tories are already the largest party in local government,”

and,

 “Far from shooting at an open goal, David Cameron's first nationwide electoral test in May [2006] sees him having to defend something of a Conservative high water mark,”

according to Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, directors of the Local Government Chronicle Elections Centre at Plymouth University.

The Conservatives will not achieve 300 gains.  It is nonsense to suggest they should, while holding the Liberal Democrats to a mere 100.[1]  At this point, is important to bear in mind that as far as local politics are concerned, this is a three horse race.  After all, the Liberal Democrats have 4,300 councillors and control 34 authorities.

For the opposition parties to achieve their gains, Labour will have to suffer 400 net losses.[2]  Unless the Labour vote collapses, this is a tall order.  Whilst the English blogosphere has taken largely against Labour, opinion polls indicate that the general public has not.  Labour has already lost most of its vulnerable seats.  Votes for the opposition might pile up in seats already lost, but Labour is not going to lose many hundreds more seats.

 The Conservatives must be careful not to accept or have foisted upon them a “consensus” as to how many gains they must achieve before they are considered successful, particularly when the Liberal Democrats are being allowed such a modest target by “the experts”. Unless the Conservatives  inject some realism into the projections currently being broached, they will hand a “victory” to the Liberal Democrats, let Labour off the hook and provoke unending speculation about David Cameron's leadership and the Party’s future prospects.[3]

The answer is nothing, save that it does not allow Mr Blair to get on with the important job he has in hand.  In The Daily Telegraph today, Simon Heffer addresses some questions to the Labour MPs who will grant Mr Blair the new powers he desires.  I should like to hear the answers.

An elected House of Lords might prove to be an unmitigated disaster.  In the unlikely event that its political composition was significantly different from the Commons, it should claim to have a mandate to balk any legislation with which it disagreed.  This could result in either deadlock or an unseemly, prolonged scrabble for a compromise that satisfies no one and accords with neither party’s manifesto commitments.  More likely, is that the upper house would more often than not reflect the political composition of its sister house, thereby ensuring that any Government of the day could simply ramrod through its entire legislative programme with little resistance.

The idea that members of the new upper house should be appointed also raises fears, particularly if any political organisation is able to influence the making of any appointment even to the slightest degree. However, if that risk can be eliminated, an appointed House of Lords comprising of the great and the good would be viable, though it would suffer two fatal weaknesses.  Without being elected, it could never possess the authority to stop dead bad or deeply unpopular legislation.  Should it seriously offend the Commons, it could find itself reformed into oblivion. An unelected upper house must be possessed of a weapon by which the Commons can be made to listen, even against its will.  Perhaps that power could be the right to call for a referendum upon the contentious issue at hand.[1]

What we must not forget is that Mr Blair is a man with a mission; a mission to get his way and ensure that his New Labour “legacy” lasts.  What better method than by creating an upper chamber that not only assists him to ramrod through his pet legislation but can balk any attempt to repeal the same by an incoming Government of differing political persuasion?  The current House of Lords and opposition parties must deal with Mr Blair and his plans to re-reform the upper chamber, robustly.

In his article in The Sunday Times today, Rod Liddle rightly rails against The Labour Government’s new proposals concerning rape law.  I have already made my views know regarding this matter in a recent post and previously.  The article deserves to be read in its entirety but Mr Liddle concludes: -

"Now the government wants to have it both ways: it wishes the legal system to assume that actions undertaken by a person who is drunk are in one case the responsibility of the individual who is drunk and in another case — the extremely serious charge of rape — they are not. This makes no sense, either moral, logical or legal.

 

Further, O’Brien’s [Mike O’Brien, the Solicitor General - the Government's second most senior Law Officer] proposed change to the law ignores the probability that people drink alcohol precisely in order to loosen their inhibitions and to enjoy the consequences that come from being in such a state. In other words, the state of dereliction or abandon in which they later find themselves was planned at the beginning of the evening. If this were not the case, why would people drink alcohol? Are we to assume that they drink not realising what is to become of them?

 

Not so long ago Amnesty International carried out a survey which revealed that a substantial minority of the British people thought that in some rape cases women were partially “responsible” for the crime. Again, this strikes me as not entirely stupid — and yet the poll results were greeted with unmitigated horror by Amnesty and indeed the media. The British public needs educating about rape, they all howled. But it does not. People live in the real world, rather than the political world: they know what rape is and the actions which might be taken by women to avoid it.

 

My guess is that they also know that when a woman drunkenly consents to sex it is not the same as rape, and that any later sense of culpability or shame rests in equal proportions upon the shoulders of the man and the woman, however “immoral” either party might consider the act to have been."

These new rape proposals are just the latest evidence of a wider malaise,[1]  but my real concern is how these imbalanced and so often clearly flawed ideas and opinions are fed to us by our “free” pro-Labour media.  We are softened up routinely by a creeping barrage of sympathetic, uncritical media reporting in support of the “new establishment” view.  Opponents of the new “consensus” are given short shrift or disparaged.[2]

A confederacy of disparate single issue pressure groups, united by their belief in the absolute righteousness of their cause, now have the ear of like minded individuals in the Government, the media and beyond.  Unable to forge a society in their image through the ballot box,  they use the media to manipulate the public by misinformation.  Their views are right and ours are wrong: so we need re-education.

The public perceives that it is not being told the truth and distrusts both journalists and politicians alike.  So long as this manipulation continues, politics will continue to be an irrelevance to the majority of people, television viewing figures will continue to fragment in favour of the entertainment channels and newspaper circulations will continue to fall.

There is an opportunity for the Conservatives here.  Over the course of the past ten years or more they have struggled to speak the same language as the electorate.  That language is very simple.  It is based upon common sense and the truth.  It is a language no longer spoken by either the Labour Government or the pro Labour media.  No amount of spin can hide that.

"New blood ends decades of Tory power!" declares the Surrey Guardian (aka Surrey Advertiser) this week as it reports the victory of an Independent candidate Diane James in a by election for the vacant Waverley Borough Council seat for Ewhurst.

The former incumbent of the seat, the Conservative Richard Warby had resigned and the Conservative candidate Richard Cleaves failed to retain it. The result was close, with Mr Cleaves losing by just twelve votes.  The election result was curious for a number of reasons. The Labour vote did not just collapse - it almost ceased to exist.  Labour's Richard Chaundy received just six votes.  The Liberal Democrats, who had almost snatched the seat from the Conservatives at the previous election, saw their vote fall by nearly a hundred votes, even though there was an increased (and rather impressive) turnout of 58.6% of the electorate.[1]

The point that puzzles me is this.  Prior to the election, the Liberal Democrats held 29 seats, the Conservatives 28 and the Independents 2.  Now the ratio is 29:27:3.  I recollect that Waverley Borough Council had "gone" Lib Dem quite a few local elections ago anyway, in which case "decades of Tory power" ended then, not now.  Quite obviously I am not possessed of all the facts and no doubt someone will enlighten me.[2]

This is one of those factual reports that are likely to prove very useful to refer to from time to time when listening to Labour's NewSpeak and particularly when Gordon Brown starts spitting "facts" in all directions.

Nevertheless, everything he writes is well worth reading, particularly this.

This is old news, but I missed it.  Laurie Pycroft of Pro-Test fame, did not.

Geoff Hoon is very cross with the media, it appears.  He believes it is partly to blame for the political disengagement of the electorate.  The BBC reports him as saying, 

"There is not a media in the developed Western world that is as dismissive or as aggressive or as intrusive as ours." 

He added:

"Increasingly politicians don't trust the media to provide a fair account of what we do."

and,

"The biggest spinners in our society are journalists. You only have to look at any day's newspapers to see that.... From the experience of dealing with a lot of specialists, the specialists are by far the worst."

Oh dear, he is not serious is he?  I think a reality check is well overdue.

I am going to enjoy reading the blogger and press responses to this latest piece of complete nonsense from Mr Hoon.

We have known that it was coming for some time.  Pronouncements about "having to do something about the problem" have been given prominence by both press and television in recent months.  Now it is confirmed that,

"Ministers [are] today publishing proposals to boost the number of people convicted of rape."

Legislation will no doubt quickly follow, after a brief period of "consultation". The statistics quoted by the Government "proving" the need for new measures, mislead more than inform.[1]  The whole edifice constructed by the Government is built upon sand.  Sooner or later, it must surely fall.

The problem with proposals of this nature is that any opposition or criticism is always presented as being "pro-criminal" or "soft on crime" even though the issue is really one of ensuring that whilst presenting all available, probative evidence before the jury, a defendant still has a fair trial.

At one moment we are being told to be more careful when weighing expert evidence. Indeed, a recent, disturbing piece of research somewhere suggested that experts tended to try to support the case of the party on behalf of whom they were instructed. The next we hear, psychologists are going to called routinely to help us (the jury) understand the "irrational reasons" why we have taken to not believing a complainant and why we should give his or her inconsistent evidence "the benefit of the doubt".  One presumes that the Defence will be allowed to vigorously cross-examine these experts, or even call their own to refute the generalised, inappropriate or even silly opinions professed.

We are told,

" The proportion of rape allegations which lead to someone being punished has sunk to an all-time low, despite long-running Government efforts to boost results."

Juries are not so stupid as the Government wants to believe.  It is a myth that juries are institutionally biased against rape victims. Juries will continue to acquit defendants so long as there is any doubt in their minds as to the strength of the Crown's case.  If they perceive the law is being twisted to secure a conviction for instance, by way of psychologists seeking to persuade them that if they are minded not to believe the complainant, that judgment on their part is perverse, they will not be cowed.  Juries will continue to do the right thing, no matter how hard the Government tries to load the trial system against the defendant.[2]

Mark Stephen’s article in The Times last week that was commented upon by me here, has provoked responses from the claimant in the libel proceedings, Mike Keith-Smith and a Times reader Kristen Roy, which were published in The Times today.

I republish their correspondence here: -

"Sir,

 

As the successful claimant in Keith-Smith v Williams, I strongly object to Mark Stephens’s assertion that the decision by Judge Alistair MacDuff, QC, marks “a dark day for freedom of speech” (news comment, Mar 22).

 

Since when did the right to free speech imply the right of an anonymous malefactor to engage in a long-term campaign of vile and obscene abuse against an innocent individual? This disgusting conduct is not “the democratisation of knowledge”. A far better analogy would lie with the facility, common in Nazi Germany and other totalitarian dictatorships, for malicious individuals to bear false witness against their neighbours from behind a cloak of secrecy.

 

If I have made a stand that in any way assists in the plight of other victims of internet abuse – and I know that they are legion – then I am very proud to have done so."

 

Mark Keith-Smith

and,

"Sir,

 

The High Court ruling in the case of Keith-Smith v Williams demonstrates the application of common sense to legal treatment of speech over the internet.

 

The internet is a technologically unprecedented medium and certainly presents conceptual difficulties for the law where jurisdictional questions arise. However, there is little justification for creating a new set of libel laws for the World Wide Web or, rather, taking them away altogether. A libellous allegation remains exactly that, whether read from a paper in hand or on a screen before the eyes.

 

Are people really so adept at distinguishing “ranters” on the internet from those making viable claims? Should we be? And, if we are, then why are we deemed unable to make these distinctions when the claim appears in hard copy?

 

The characteristic of the internet which sets it apart from others is quite simply its potential for dissemination at mind-boggling speeds, in mind-boggling volumes. The internet is a legitimate mode of communication and to place it in a legal vacuum undermines the very real place it now occupies in today’s society."

 

Kristen Roy

Let me start by saying that I do not think the opinions they profess are either misguided or wrong.  I just do not agree.  I have a different perspective.

Mr Keith-Smith has a political persona to protect.  The palpably false insults made by his nemesis, an obviously malicious woman, could have been used by unscrupulous opponents who were willing to smear his good name behind the scenes, though I am unconvinced of the likely success of this tactic on the part of such miscreants.

As I have already said in my earlier post on the subject, the danger of litigating against small time "slanderers" is that the legal action publishes the libel to a larger audience that will contain even more people who will believe, irrationally, that the falsehoods are true, because for one reason or another they need to believe they are true.

In some cases (though clearly not in the instant case) a libel action is used as a gagging device to suppress a truth (Liberace, Jeffrey Archer.) This is not lost on the public. Thus very often, only the most popular litigants of uncontroversial occupations or pursuits truly escape unscathed.  So often, even successful libel actions do not have the desired result.

I fear this victory is likely to give succour to those who wish to silence critics on the net.  Bloggers have a limited audience and their shelf life is relatively short.  A blogger or owner of a website who is clearly bitter and twisted about something will lose an audience fast and nothing they say will carry any weight, anyway. We are not discussing mass audience newspapers or television media whose utterances have far more weight (and thereby cause more damage) because they try to verify their facts and have lawyers to ensure that so far as is possible, there is not any overstepping of the mark. Only a handful of blogs have a very large audience and the reason for their popularity is that they are amongst other things, interesting, authoritative in their chosen subject and in the main avoid gratuitous offence.

It is the possibility of gagging actions that most bloggers could not hope to afford to defend, which bothers me.  Pitfalls for the claimants, do not.  If they wish to risk doing a Gillian Taylforth, then so be it.

It had to happen of course, as night follows day.  Terrorist elements amongst the Animal Rights fraternity have shown already that harassing and threatening opponents is an effective means of controlling and forcing them to submit to its will.  The tactic is catching on amongst other single issue groups, the most recent example being  anti abortionists, as is reported today by Sandra Laville.  As yet, our home grown hard-line anti abortionists have yet to blow up an abortion clinic as happened in the United States but, no doubt, from now on we can expect little acts of harassment and intimidation here and there against anyone who is seen or suspected to support, legal abortion.

In the case reported today in The Guardian, the miscreant anti abortion group is UK Life League which is run by a James Dowson.  Like Animal Rights groups, it also appears to rely upon doctored photographic evidence as part of its case in drumming up support and finance.

"Life League, which is a registered company, raises money through donations, and stalls on streets across England and Scotland, a tactic successfully employed by animal rights groups."

Remember that name and next time you pass a Life League stall in the high street, please give it a wide berth.

“Labour isn’t wicked…” says Danny Kruger.  However, it is seeking to pass legislation similar to that passed by the National Socialists in Germany following Adolf Hitler’s electoral success in 1933.[1]

The problem is that just like the Nazis, Labour too has a vision.  It believes fervently in the justice of what it does and will not be diverted from its chosen course.  It does not believe that its opponents act in good faith when criticising the measures it proposes.  It is not open to reasonable compromise.  It neither listens nor wants to listen.  It has a mission that will be fulfilled.

Unlike the Nazis, Labour does not want to intimidate, terrorise, imprison or murder a significant part of the population or wage war against its European neighbours, though it does seem to need to micro-manage the activities of the citizenry.  This Labour Government’s crime is that it cannot conceive that any British Government should ever wish to abuse the powers it is currently seeking to create.  Its arrogance is breathtaking.

So muses Jackie Ashley, and I tend to agree.

I have always seen Gordon Brown as a faithful, reliable sidekick to the “dashing” Tony Blair, a kind of Tonto character.  I have never believed that he could cut the mustard as either as leader of the Labour Party or as Prime Minister.  Should he show that he has not the mettle to claim his inheritance now and require Mr Blair to stand aside sooner rather than later, he does not deserve the highest office.

I do not read either the Guardian or Observer to be informed, but rather to be amused.  In the aftermath of New Labour being exposed as not so frank, transparent and whiter than white in relation to the awarding of honours, these Labour-sympathetic titles are desperate to make a story about sleaze that sticks to the Conservatives.  I should not suggest that you need to read this report in the Observer today by Antony Barnett, Gaby Hinsliff and Ned Temko. Having whispered in dark conspiratorial tones about the manner in which the Conservatives have raised funds (whilst being strangely silent about new revelations involving Labour reported elsewhere) their report concludes,

“There is no evidence to suggest either the loans or donations to the Tories broke the law.”

Well then, that’s a damp squib of a story.

This part of the report did make an impression, however:

“…Downing Street has been closely studying the Bradley report which shows how Labour was financially outgunned in the marginal seats.

 

Of the Tories' 36 gains at the last election, 24 were funded by donations from at least one of the trio of Lord Ashcroft, Lord Steinberg and Bob Edmiston in a separate initiative from the party's official campaign: in 20 of them, they got bigger swings than the national average. Blair will now push for a cap on spending in each constituency, to stop money being poured into a handful of critical seats which could skew the next election.”

It should not surprise anyone that political parties target those seats of their opponents that they believe are vulnerable. Leaving aside the issue as to whether it is right that a party should not be allowed to target marginal seats, “skewing the next election” is an interesting concept. This is the Government, let us remember, that delayed implementing constituency boundary changes before the last General Election, changes which would have, surprise surprise, handed the Conservatives up to a dozen extra seats in the Commons; the same Government that allows Scotland and Wales to be over represented in the Commons by, you’ve guessed it, predominantly Labour MPs.

Oh, and finally a word about the author of the “Bradley Report”, namely the former MP for The Wrekin, Peter Bradley.  As you might expect, he has had rather a lot of time on his hands since the General Election last year. I perceive that Mr Bradley feels himself wronged by being one of those Labour MPs on the receiving end of these naughty Conservative tactics.

It was Mr Bradley, the private secretary to Alun Michael, the Rural Affairs Minister, who admitted that the hunting ban was part of the class struggle thereby ensuring that the anti-ban Conservatives would have scores of extra voluntary helpers to canvass and deliver their leaflets.

Mr Bradley, the Conservatives did not have to out-spend you in your election campaign, through your sheer, unabashed arrogance, you made yourself vulnerable.

It was in Scotland that opposition to the Community Charge first exploded.  I should not suggest for one moment that the anti-smoking ban in Scotland will lead to so much violent protest, but quiet, large scale disobedience is assured.  No matter how softly softly the authorities seek to enforce the ban, it will just cause more hard feeling and generate the political opposition to the measure that was so singularly missing when it was first proposed.

As someone who does not smoke, it suits me not to inhale others’ cigarette smoke or have the dubious honour of my clothes smelling as if I had polished off a pack of twenty, personally.  Nevertheless, I feel that smokers are being victimised.  Many non-smokers I have spoken to feel the same way.  Beyond our politicians and persons involved in the provision of medical or health care, amongst non-smokers the support for a ban is soft  or non-existent.  Smokers are currently resentful but compliant.  This resignation to their fate will not last long once the inconvenience of their being unable to smoke in their favoured pub or club has sunk it.  The sheer unfairness of it all will rankle.

Many hundreds of thousands of Labour supporters will be directly touched by this ban in a way that Iraq and Sleaze did not.  Iraq did no more than reduce Labour’s Commons majority  from epic landslide proportions to a “pathetic” thumping one of sixty plus. Sleaze, taken on its own, is not likely to lose many seats for Labour, particularly if Honest Gordon takes over at No.10. The smoking ban will irritate many natural supporters and the Government should bear in mind that it is not only bad weather on Polling Day that can keep away Labour supporters.[1]

Andrew Sullivan reports today in The Sunday Times concerning the row that has erupted in relation to an episode of the cartoon series South Park being “pulled” from a television schedule because it appears to have offended Scientologists.  Now others seem to be jumping on the “cartoons” bandwagon, the willingness to kow-tow to the complainers is unsettling.  There may be solid commercial reasons for this particular example of self censorship, but nevertheless more people with super sensitivities about their beliefs might to be encouraged to chance their arm.  Should this trend continue, a line will have to drawn. 

Mr Sullivan argues,

“…it’s this artful ability to say in cartoon form what you cannot say in any other without a libel writ that makes cartoons irreplaceable…

 

Cartoons and puppetry, as the classic series Spitting Image proved, can convey truths and explore fantasies no other form can.

 

We need those truths and benefit from those fantasies. A free society survives partly because the powerful are mocked, and their pretensions undermined. Religions, which guard their own illusions carefully, are particularly ripe for satire.  And they should be.

 

Whenever one human being is claiming to tell the truth about the meaning of life he is making a very powerful claim — and in a free society he also runs the risk of getting a raspberry. Laughter matters because piety begets power.

 

Orwell once remarked that one reason fascism never took off in Britain was because the sight of a goose-stepping soldier would prompt your average Englishman to giggle. Someone is now silencing the giggles.  And our world is a lot creepier because of it.”

Yes, quite.