"…it is sad that at the very moment free will is becoming a reality for many of us, or at least for those of us living in Western democracies, the prevailing left-wing orthodoxy has become to condemn those who accept the consequences of that freedom."

Robert Crampton[1]

The Liberal Democrats cannot continue to suffer a drain of support such as that disclosed today in an ICM poll conducted for The Guardian. The poll shows Conservative support reaching 39% and Labour support recovering to 35%.  The Liberal Democrats have slumped to 17%.  In the past, ICM polls have tended to underestimate support for the Conservatives but have been kinder to both Labour and the Liberal Democrats.  There is not any reason to believe that this latest poll is any different, such that the haemorrhaging of support for the Liberal Democrats might be even worse.

Good results in individual contests have always been the method by which the Liberal Democrats have declared to the World that they are alive and kicking and “Winning Here!” Those results have provided a fillip to activist morale and convinced the voting public that they can really challenge the major parties and are a force to be reckoned with.  It is why they take by-elections so very seriously, calling in manpower nationwide and ensuring that every single ward in a constituency is fully leafleted, canvassed and on Election Day, every promised vote, delivered.[1] However, the ICM poll shows that the result of the recent Bromley and Chislehurst by-election, into which the Liberal Democrats invested such a considerable effort, has not brought an end to the party’s declining support amongst the electorate.

The Liberal Democrats are drifting in a way that would not have happened under Charles Kennedy.  Following Mr Kennedy’s expulsion from the leadership following a cabal by some of his “colleagues”, it seemed that Sir Menzies Campbell was the “safe pair of hands” that the Party needed and that he would “steady the ship.”  Notwithstanding the Liberal Democrats’ confident boasts and swagger, they knew that a resurgent Conservative Party under the leadership of Mr David Cameron would robustly challenge their tenure of Parliamentary seats in South East England.  So long as Mr Cameron’s star ascended, wiser heads amongst the Liberal Democrats knew that the time for advance was over and consolidation was the order of the day.  By that means and with the current electoral system loaded against an outright Conservative General Election victory, they would seek to force either of the major parties into a coalition Government.

Sir Menzies Campbell was the man for the job, or so it seemed.  In truth he has turned out to be a grave disappointment. His performances in the House of Commons have been average at the best,[2] and in the political world at large he is almost invisible.  His policy announcements have been incoherent and reactive to events. He has let it be known that he is “a man of the left” leaving the inevitable inference that he would seek a pact to form a Government with his Labour friend Gordon Brown in the event of there being no outright winner in the next General Election.  Thus we shall have the prospect of two Scottish MPs, each representing Scottish constituencies agreeing how an increasingly Conservative England is to be governed.  This is not something that England is likely to forgive the Liberal Democrats for doing.

The longer that Sir Menzies Campbell is allowed to ramble and meander along, the more damage will be done to the party, but Young Guns in the party cannot depose him.  The Liberal Democrats have already had one recent “night of the long knives”.  The public would never understand them having two such coups in one Parliament. However, they have a chance of salvation that would never be available to either Labour or the Conservatives.  If Sir Menzies Campbell can be induced to stand down, they can re-elect their old leader, Charles Kennedy.  He has already indicated that he is “not finished yet”. He is lucky, plucky, the public like him and in consequence he is a winner, but the Liberal Democrats must act quickly. Time is not on their side.  Sooner rather than later, Labour and the Conservatives will wake up as to how they must adequately resource their efforts in terms of manpower in order to stymie Liberal Democrat successes at both local and by-election level.  If not riding high in the opinion polls with a popular leader, deprived of their local authority and by election victory life blood, the Liberal Democrats will gradually fade away. 

[1] Forget the ridiculously misleading bar charts, disingenuous Focus leaflets and negative style of campaigning.  The Liberal Democrats win or are a close second in by-elections because they work harder and are better organised.  For Labour or the Conservatives, there is no such thing as a safe seat at a by-election. 

[2] The explanations that he does not look impressive in Parliament because for instance at Prime Minister’s Questions he can ask only two questions and cannot stand at the despatch box does not hold water.  The simple fact is that he does not hold the attention of The House and his authority is draining away as a consequence.  Some great Parliamentarians have made their presence felt whilst standing a very long way away from the despatch box and the front benches.

An article today by Sam Lister of The Times is enlightening in more ways than one.  Highlighted is an official report by The Healthcare Commission, the health inspectorate, which disclosed the serious failings by senior managers at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire that had allowed the hospital to become the site of one of the worst episodes of "super bug" infection Clostridium difficile, resulting in the deaths of sixty-five patients.  It was found that an unacceptable disregard for basic hygiene and inexcusable inaction by the managers was behind two major outbreaks.

Most telling is that,

 "…the Commission was particularly critical of Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust, saying that senior managers mistakenly prioritised Government targets (my emphasis) such as a maximum waiting time of four hours in Accident and Emergency and did not listen to staff.  They also failed to listen to serious concerns raised by hospital infection experts, who asked for isolation facilities."

The Government should take note.  The managers knew that they would be in big, big trouble if they did not meet the targets imposed upon them.  Thus they took their eyes "off the ball" and failed to perform their fundamental task of ensuring the provision of quality health care.  This is what happens when Big Government interferes where it does not belong.

So, the Government has finally announced what it had already decided as long ago as 2004.  The Child Support Agency (CSA) is to be axed.

The original scheme was the brainchild of the Conservative Government of Mrs Thatcher.  It was designed to bring some semblance of consistency to the making of child maintenance assessments, get lawyers out of the process and thereby reduce the cost to the Legal Aid Fund and generally.  It was also to ensure prompt and complete recovery of maintenance assessments made, something that the Court system (usually the Magistrates’ Court) was criticised for not having done effectively. A new concept was introduced too, that any child maintenance assessment made should reflect the actual financial cost of raising a child.

Extraordinarily, the coming of the Child Support Agency glided beneath the radar of most of those professionals who could have pointed out that the idea had some very basic but fatal, flaws.  The very factor that made the wheel fall off in so many Court enforcement proceedings was rearing to cause similar mayhem within the child support system.  The only difference was that the Court had considerable experience in dealing with recalcitrant payers.

It was so obvious that the Child Support Agency should prove so ineffective in recovering maintenance from “absent parents”.  It was even plainer that the Agency’s staff would become demoralised by their inability to make the system work and the criticism to which they became subjected from all quarters by reason of that failure.  What was not so clear at first was that the Agency should prove to be such a monumental waste of money.   Nevertheless, even before John Major’s Administration had quietly slipped beneath the waves it had become patently clear that the concept of a Child Support Agency was “broke” and yet Mr Blair’s Government persevered with it for nine more long years.

Today we were informed by  Work and Pensions Secretary, John Hutton that the Agency will be replaced by a new “smaller, more focused” body as part of a radical reform of the maintenance system, but not yet.  We shall have to await the publication of a new White Paper later this year “setting out in greater detail the Government's plans.” 

The Child Support Agency saga is an all too conspicuous example of how incompetent this Government has become. 

I have always felt that there was something of the wailing siren about Richard Brunstrom. Not the police variety of siren you understand; rather that of Broadmoor when someone has gone AWOL.

Perhaps he is just the victim of a bad press.  If so, no doubt he will set the record straight in his new blog.

Brunstrom's Blog

Michael Horsnell's article in The Times

Association of British Drivers

BBC News - Brunstrom: Road to controversy

Jasper Gerrard meets Richard Brunstrom

In any liberal democracy, an independent, strong legal profession is allowed to defend fearlessly and robustly those who the State charges with criminal offences.  No matter how heinous the offence or how unpopular with public opinion the defendants’ cause, as a matter of course their legal representatives are expected to vigorously test  the prosecution case and unflinchingly put their clients’ case.

Arani & Co is a firm of solicitors that represents very unpopular clients.  By all accounts, they represent them very well, or at least well enough to make the Police and other elements comprising the State to take umbrage.  Now we are told that some of our representatives in the House of Commons have demanded that the Law Society investigate this firm, to establish whether they have acted throughout with the necessary degree of compliance with amongst other things, professional ethics.  Of course, it is very important that any profession is policed to ensure that it maintains the very highest standards, but my concern is this. Government, particularly this Labour Government, does not like lawyers (save those who represent its interests, almost invariably against Joe Public.)

It would be a simple matter to make an example of one firm which is unpopular with the public, a signal of intent that the HM Government is not going to have any truck with any other law firm that defends causes that it considers unpopular.  Defend who we consider to be indefensible and you will be investigated.  The message is all too clear.

This article in The Times today by Nigel Hawkes says all that need be said.

Rosie Murray-West, the Business Correspondent of The Daily Telegraph reports today concerning the risk that Home Information packs will  'destabilise the housing market' and prevent first-time buyers from getting onto the property ladder.  Kirstie Allsopp, the presenter of Channel 4's Location Location Location, is reported as saying that,

"[Home Information Packs (HIPs) would not] do any of the things the Government promised it would such as getting rid of gazumping and speeding up transactions.  What is happening here is that a £600 million industry is springing up overnight and it is going to cost both buyers and sellers".

Charles Smailes, the President of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) urged,

"…[the] Government to start paying attention to the concerns of its Opposition, the entire property industry and the public who, according to NAEA research, will not welcome the introduction of HIPs."

According to Mr Smailes, a recent survey by the NAEA suggested that 73 per cent of sellers would think twice about putting their property on the market if it required a pack, which would result in fewer properties on the market and a rise in already inflated prices.

A recent survey undertaken by the anti-HIPs campaign group SPLINTA was more telling.  SPLINTA members analysed 1,870 property transactions negotiated in February 2006. By the middle of May 2006, 1,272 (68%) had successfully proceeded to exchange of contracts. 352 (18.8%) sales had fallen through, leaving 266 (14.2%) properties withdrawn or still on the market. 137 (7.3%) of transactions were the subject of a renegotiation of the agreed price between acceptance of the original offer and exchange of contracts.

An examination of the figures disclosed that transactions had broken down for the following reasons:

(a)       the seller received a higher offer from another buyer - 16 (0.8%);

(b)       an adverse survey report - 41 (2.2%) ;

(c)       a lender’s adverse valuation inspection - 15 (0.8%);

(d)       the buyer could not secure a mortgage - 31 (1.7%);

(e)       a related sale or purchase did not proceed (a "broken chain") - 76 (4.1%);

(f)         a change in the circumstances of the seller - 65 (3.5%);

(g)       a change in the circumstances of the buyer - 108 (5.8%).

These figures established that a Home Information Pack might have helped to save only 25 (1.4%) transactions.

The Government continues to spin the line that HIPs will improve the buying and selling of property but it is manifest that these packs will do no such thing.  It compounds the offence by dismissing out of hand constructive criticism and repeatedly besmirching expert opponents as having a "vested interest". The Government is in a headlong rush to implement the scheme notwithstanding the very clear dangers. Nick Salmon of SPLINTA has urged the Housing Minister Yvette Cooper to "exercise good judgement and call the [HIPs] scheme in for review."  Some hope.

The Great Home Information Pack (HIPs) Swindle

Fran Yeoman reports in The Times today about a trial involving an alleged stalker namely a Maria Marchese, who is said to have terrorised a leading psychologist, Jan Falkowski, by bombarding him with threats and forcing him to cancel his wedding.  The Court was told that Ms Marchese ran a “prolonged and malicious campaign” against Mr Falkowski and threatened to kill the woman who was his fiancée, a Miss Deborah Pemberton.

I do not know anything about the case other than that which I have read in The Times report and for all I know, at the conclusion of the trial the jury might throw out the whole case against Ms Marchese. If the allegations are proven, the case is an example of how dangerously irrational a tiny minority of people can become when antagonised in some way.

We are told that part of Ms Marchese's campaign of harassment involved her making an accusation in January 2004 that Dr Falkowski had raped her at St Clement’s Hospital, East London, where he worked.  The prosecution discontinued the case against Dr Falkowski in August 2005.

I should like to know how and where Dr Falkowski's case appears in Home Office statistics.  I can make an educated guess.  It will be one of those cases recorded in that large catchall category "unsuccessful rape prosecutions"; a set of figures that are oft misunderstood by those of a lazy mind, myopic single-issue tendency or challenged critical faculty, as representing the mythical 94.4% of prosecuted rapists who escaped justice.

Frances Gibb reports today in The Times that,

 “Ken Macdonald, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), wants a comprehensive review of prosecution policy because of public concern that killer drivers often escape with a fine.”

We are informed that,

“A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said that the review, including wide public consultation, was being undertaken because of continuing concern about the prosecution of road traffic deaths.”

The consultation is in conjunction with the passage through Parliament of the Road Safety Bill, which creates a new offence of causing death by careless driving, with a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.

It is important to consider what is meant by “public concern” and “wide public consultation”.  In the main, if not exclusively, “public concern” is that unrepresentative but vociferous cacophony that is passed off as principled argument by our tabloid press, single issue, largely anti motorist organisations and a Big on Talk, Small on Delivery Government that has lost control of its own political agenda.  The Labour Government’s understanding of “consultation” is the process by which persons of a like mind meet to agree that something has to be done and discuss what is to be done and how.  It is in short, the usual partial consultation stating the “vice” to be corrected and inviting “friendly” responses as to how to deal with “the problem” and not to discuss whether there is any real issue to address at all.  One of the organisations likely to make representations is the charity  RoadPeace. As an organisation supporting families bereaved by road accidents and ostensibly promoting “road safety” it suffers from the flaws of a single issue group.  Concentrating on a small number of cases involving horrific circumstances, its prime raison d’être is to argue that motorists who kill and maim should be punished with long terms of imprisonment.  Such consultations patently do not admit of any balance.

In its pursuit of what it perceives to be popular opinion, the Government has identified two “problems”.  As it is too difficult to prove the charge of dangerous driving, we are told that too often the prosecution prefers the lesser charge of careless driving, which results in the defendant motorist being fined instead of imprisoned.  The second problem is that even when a serious driving offence is proven the prison sentence, if imposed at all, is short.  We return here to that old chestnut low conviction rates.  In essence we are being asked to believe that soppy juries will not convict drivers of dangerous driving (on the “there but for the grace of God go I” principle.)  This is nonsense.  Juries will convict if the evidence is strong enough. The obvious fact is that in the majority of cases though the carelessness is manifest, dangerous driving is not.  Besides, what makes the Government think that whilst a jury would not convict a defendant for dangerous driving because the sentence would be one of imprisonment, it would convict in a case involving the new careless driving offence where the sentence is still going to be one of imprisonment?  It seems to me that if the soppy jury argument is correct, the jury will be reluctant to convict for the same reason when dealing with careless driving cases.

In truth, a defendant walking free is considered by Government to be a failure of the criminal justice system rather than a success; an innocent man tried by his peers and the prosecution case found wanting.  It is manifest that the real problem is the Government, as part of the machinery of the State acting in its role as the investigating authority (in the guise of the Police) and prosecutor (the “Crown”) does not like to lose or be seen to lose.   When the result does not please the Government, it is because the judge/jury/law/rules of evidence are wrong.

In plain English, in the main the Crown cannot secure a conviction on the serious charge of dangerous driving (which is imprisonable) because that charge is not clearly made out on the facts.  However, a small number of unrepresentative pressure groups aided and abetted by self-appointed “populist” commentators who shout the loudest, take the view that because someone has died as a result of a motorist’s manner of driving, that motorist has to pay with the loss of his liberty.  This is nothing to do with Justice but everything to do with revenge.

At this point, perhaps we should remind ourselves of what careless driving entails.  According to s.3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a person is guilty of an offence if he drives [a vehicle] on [a road] without due care and attention or without due consideration for other persons using [the road]. The standard of driving is widely accepted as being that of a reasonable, prudent and competent driver in all of the circumstances of the case.  The standard has an element that is to be judged objectively (the reasonable, prudent and competent driver) and one that is subjective (the circumstances of the case.)  In the case of R v. Krawec (1984)[1] Lord Lane C.J. stated that:

 “The unforeseen and unexpected results of the carelessness are not in themselves relevant to penalty.  The primary considerations are the quality of the driving, the extent to which the appellant on the particular occasion fell below the standard of the reasonably competent driver; in other words, the degree of carelessness and culpability.  The unforeseen consequences may sometimes be relevant to those considerations.  In the present case the fact that the appellant failed to see the pedestrian until it was too late and therefore collided with him was plainly a relevant factor.  We do not think that the fact that the unfortunate man died was relevant to the charge.”

This is the whole crux of the matter.  A tiny error of judgment or lapse of concentration can lead to a person’s injury or even death.  The consequence of that minor error can be all out of proportion to the carnage caused.  It is unjust to render a motorist liable to imprisonment simply because his momentarily sub-standard driving causes death, but this is precisely the effect that the Labour Government’s new Road Safety Bill will have.  We all make errors of judgment when driving but most of us are lucky enough not to be involved in an accident. Only a few motorists are involved in an accident where someone is injured or even killed, but that motorist could be any one of us.

Prison should be the sentence of last resort when a driver has been convicted of a grave, inexcusable instance of dangerous driving.    It is completely unacceptable to attach the punitive penalty of loss of liberty for careless driving.  There was a day when only serious, hardened criminals faced the prospect of lengthy prison sentences for their wrongdoings.  Now it is proposed that we all should.

We are not convicting enough criminals! (So now, anyone will do!)

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.