According to Greg Hurst in The Times today,

“Sir Menzies Campbell signalled a shift in strategy to target disaffected Labour voters yesterday ….taking votes and seats from Labour will now form the overwhelming thrust of the Lib Dems’ election planning as the party positions itself to gain from bitterness and divisions over Tony Blair’s departure plans.”

It was not so long ago that the Liberal Democrats were seeking to convince us that the Conservative Party was finished and that they were the only viable opposition to New Labour. It was upon this platform that they wrested successfully from Conservative control numerous seats in the south of England and elsewhere.  It is now conceded by the Liberal Democrats that they might lose a handful of seats to the Conservatives led by David Cameron in the next general election.

We can rest assured that the Liberal Democrats will seek to retain as many formerly Conservative seats in the south as possible, but it will not be “a handful” lost if they represent themselves as the alternative to Labour.  A slight of hand will be necessary; otherwise that handful might have to be counted not only upon the fingers of both hands, but the toes of each foot, too.  As has happened so often in the past, the Lib Dems are going to have to present themselves as being “all things to all men”. This is completely unprincipled. Such chicanery must not go unpunished. It is incumbent upon Labour and the Conservatives henceforth to spotlight  Liberal Democrat duplicity and question what the “third party” party really stands for.

Today, in a speech to be given in Edinburgh, the Chancellor Gordon Brown will accuse the Conservatives of wishing to break up the United Kingdom by pressing for a policy of “English votes for English laws”, whereby Scottish MPs would be excluded on voting on certain issues south of the Border.

Nobody mention the Scotland Act 1998.

Chancellor scotches idea he's not British

Two sisters, Joyce Burden 88, and her sister Sybil 81, are liable for a large bill in respect of inheritance tax when the first dies.  They have brought a test case against the Government before the European Court of Human Rights, claiming discrimination against heterosexuals.  The case is the first of its kind since the law was changed to allow gay and lesbian partners the same inheritance rights as married couples.

Property left by one spouse to the other or inherited by a married or civil partner is exempt from the tax. Close relatives, such as siblings and descendants, are not eligible to register as civil partners.  The sisters  claim that the inheritance tax laws breach their right to enjoy their property under the first protocol to the Human Rights Convention and the anti-discrimination provisions of Article 14.

The Government claims that,

“Couples enjoy a relationship of choice.  Siblings however, enjoy a relationship of consanguinity. Further, the relationship between siblings is for ever, whereas couples may part.”

Adding,

 “... a couple made a financial commitment by making a personal commitment to each other.  This was not the case with siblings.”

For political reasons, the European Court will find against the sisters but the Government's arguments are nonsense.  When the inheritance tax “breaks” applied only to the special relationship of marriage, there was a clear and obvious difference between “marrieds” and “the rest”. The only real difference between a married or civil partnership and that of the sisters is that it is presumed that there is or was a sexual element to the former.  Consanguinity is an irrelevance.  Here, the sisters chose to live together (initially to care for their parents) and have made a de facto personal commitment, including a financial commitment, to each other. As with all partners they could, if they wished, separate. Thus, there is no significant, material difference between them and any gay or lesbian couple living together.   In principle, they should win the case.   Once again this Government, in pursuit of its political agenda, has not thought through the blatantly obvious consequences of its legislation and caused considerable injustice.

Sisters go to court over 'gay bias' in tax laws

“When we were all younger, we knew who the pillars of our local community were: professional men and women such as doctors, teachers, bank managers and solicitors. Now, though, the cracks start to appear. A firm of solicitors in Wiltshire has decided to tout for business by asking local traders to recommend them when they hear about marital break-ups that might lead to the parties concerned requiring the services of a lawyer. Happily, one dignified local tradesman — a hairdresser — has pointed out that the integrity of his bond with his customers includes not betraying the confidences relayed in the sanctity of the salon, least of all in return for a commission — or should we say kick-back? — from a firm of ambulance-chasers. What is even more appalling is that the firm protests, and I have no doubt it is correct, that all this is being done in accordance with Law Society rules. Doesn't the Law Society appreciate how a majority of decent solicitors are having their reputations dragged down by such spivvery? And does it care?”

 

Simon Heffer

No, it does not care.  It is all part of The Law Society’s Brave New World.

“Yet public policy in this country likes to treat with Muslim citizens through self-appointed religious leaders, does little to encourage the use of English, stands aside at the oppression of women in many Muslim families, and allows preachers of hate to incite violence. Remarkably little thought is given to what it is like to be a Hindu or a Sikh or a Jew or a Muslim who resents clerical power or, increasingly, a Christian in a heavily Muslim area, in Britain today.”

Charles Moore

“No man but a fool ever wrote, except for money.”

Dr. Johnson

What does that make bloggers, then?

Julia Langdon reports in The Daily Telegraph today of the scandalous waste of public funds on the part of the Labour Government by virtue of there now being 3,259 "experts" employed in the Government's PR business, a figure swollen from the few hundred employed when the Conservatives left power in 1997.  The cost to the public purse of these 3,259 salaries, pensions, benefits and provisions has not been publicly quantified.

Furthermore,

"there is the stunning threefold rise in the cost of the marketing exercise run under the name of the Central Office of Information (COI), which was £322 million last year as opposed to £111 million in the year Tony Blair's Labour broom swept into power."

Then,

"[these] press officers have been raised in a culture that does not seek to enlighten public opinion about the processes of government.

 

On the contrary, their job is to present the Labour Government and all its policies in the most favourable light possible. A press officer is more likely to telephone to dispute a published article — and to do so more quickly (under orders, of course) — than he or she will return an urgent request for information."

Finally,

"They tell you as little as possible and their words are meaningless. They use words with a literal accuracy that obfuscates the truth and does not allow for any suggestion of original thought or imagination."

For his part Graeme Wilson reports that the Labour Government spent £154 million on advertising over the past 12 months, more than Tesco and Sainsbury's combined, and that Government spending on advertising has almost quadrupled since Labour came to power nine years ago when it inherited a budget of only £39.5 million.

The Conservatives say (but wouldn't they just) the huge increase in the advertising budget proved that Labour was more interested in spin than delivering better services for the public.

It does seem a bit like that though, doesn't it?

On 29^th August 2006 The Law Society published a report entitled "Career experiences of gay and lesbian solicitors."

The report explained,

"There is a large body of work, including a growing body of research undertaken by the Law Society, which explores how social divisions of ethnicity, race and gender impact on workplace experiences and career choices. To date there has been a gap in consideration of sexual orientation in this equation — something that this research begins to address with the encouragement and support of the Law Society Equality and Diversity Committee."

Under the heading "Sample" we are informed,

"Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of fifteen gay men and ten lesbians [my emphasis], who were working as solicitors in private practice or the employed sector, through regions of the South-West, London and the North-West."

This report came to be mentioned in the Guardian earlier in the week and had prompted me to post an article about one of its sillier recommendations.  Having now read the report, I am even less impressed.

The common weakness of much "research" these days is that it is just assumed there is a problem that has to be resolved, in this instance sexual orientation discrimination, and the researcher goes looking for it.  If the Law Society is going to undertake this sort of research, it must do it properly, with carefully chosen, representative samples.  It would have been helpful to establish for instance, what heterosexual respondents thought.  If, as was likely, they had thought the atmosphere at work was not particularly accepting and inclusive, that finding would have had considerable weight.  It is very foolish to create policy in reliance upon a survey involving such a small unrepresentative sample.

The Law Society research was interesting in one respect in that when discussing the factors that determined whether a gay would "out" at work, those factors seemed to comprise self-imposed constraints.  These included; the age of the solicitor; self-confidence; and the desire or ability to maintain a double life.

Too often individuals who perceive that they are significantly different to the majority[1] ascribe to that majority a viewpoint which in fact mirrors their own doubts and negative feelings about themselves.  What is not understood by many who consider themselves to be part of a minority group, any minority group, is that the "homogenous, unsympathetic majority" are mostly possessed of a complete indifference to their dissimilarity and accordingly cannot discriminate against them on that basis.

I can say without any fear of contradiction that nothing is more likely to drive a wedge between people of differing preferences than for one group to claim to be discriminated against merely by members of the other group being themselves.  Those who wish to transform and mould Society into their own image should dwell upon that fact long and hard.

Career experiences of gay and lesbian solicitors

If a deception of  this magnitude can be inflicted so casually upon the electorate by the Liberal Democrats, to what chicanery would they not be prepared to stoop in order to secure votes?

You are an alcoholic, aren't you? Yes, he finally replied

This report could only have been published in The Guardian.[1]

In its first report on the career experiences of gay and lesbian lawyers The Law Society, the professional body for solicitors, accused City law firms of having "undertones of homophobia" because of their emphasis on out-of-hours hard drinking and visits to lap dancing clubs.  It found most gay lawyers surveyed were reluctant to "come out" at work because they feared it would seriously hinder their career.

When I was an enthusiastic young lawyer[2], it seemed to be strip clubs, all-hours hard drinking and compulsory membership of the department football team who were expected to kick the hell out of the opposition early on a Sunday morning. I wasn’t having any of it.  I have little doubt that to a few of my contemporaries I was being a spoilsport. I was obviously a loner, a loser and the kind of person who would find himself alone in the kitchen at parties.  I could not have cared less.

We are told that the Law Society’s report did note that,

“…others[3] accepted this sort of behaviour as part of the “work hard, play hard” ethos.”

How very sensible, reasonable and mature of them. The Law Society sees it slightly differently, according to Law Society president, Fiona Woolf,

“These findings highlight the concerns of gay and lesbian solicitors and should alert firms of the need to review their policies to tackle discrimination based on sexual orientation and ensure a climate of acceptance and inclusiveness.”

The problem with this approach is that (in this instance) heterosexuals are causing social discomfort to a small number of gays simply by being themselves during out of work hours.  There is no evidence that the “straight” majority are being deliberately exclusive. In any event, “out of hours hard drinking and visits to lap dancing clubs” is hardly the leisure policy of any firm of solicitors, let alone a City Firm. The solution can never be that the majority must change its chosen, lawful behaviour to accommodate the oversensitive feelings of (here) a small number of gays, or whoever else might be the minority group.

[1] OK, so the story was probably lifted from The Law Society’s Gazette, but that’s no excuse for its wider dissemination, even by a low circulation national newspaper.  In fact, the Law Society’s report mainly focuses upon avoidance of “concrete” discrimination, for instance employee benefits being equal as between heterosexual married couples and same sex partnerships, and not “hurt feelings” arising from perceived exclusion.

[2] A condition that did not last long.

[3] In other words, a majority of gay lawyers.

This could have come from the mouth of Tony Blair himself or any one of his Home Secretaries.

Draw attention to an “injustice” to a “victim” or against the “law abiding majority" and then drum up ill-informed public support for a change in the Law or procedure – change that never had been necessary until this incompetent, mindlessly tinkering  New Labour Government assumed power.

Before slamming (to use a word much beloved of the Press) judges or the criminal justice system, just bear in mind which Government enacted the “soft” sentencing laws and some of the procedures that  have to be applied.

Everything this New Labour Government touches turns eventually to dust.

Loss of confidence in courts taking legal system into dangerous terrain

Poacher who turned gamekeeper

Just as Charles Kennedy had started to rebuild his political career, apparently his erstwhile friends (“senior party insiders”) have briefed Greg Hurst a reporter from The Times, who has written a book about him.  Not only does the book helpfully flesh out those damaging rumours that leaked and led to Mr Kennedy’s resignation, young Turks such as Heather Teather[1], Edward Davey[2] and Norman Lamb[3] who had been tipped as future leaders and high flyers of the Party, are stitched up to look like Brutus and the Gang.  Implausibly, Sir Menzies Campbell is cleared of any complicity in Charles Kennedy's political assassination.

The Sunday Times reports today that,

“A string of senior Liberal Democrats have provided material for the book, which is expected to reveal embarrassing details of Kennedy’s long battle with alcoholism...”

Well, I suppose that whilst you are ensuring that Charlie Boy’s comeback stalls, you might as well stymie some of your future leadership-challenge opponents as well. This is not going to be taken well by those who are “done down”.  In a parliamentary party as small as that of the Liberal Democrats, by a process of elimination it will not be difficult to deduce the members of the cabal who have been plotting since before the fall of Charles Kennedy. When Sir Menzies is unceremoniously ditched as party leader in a year or two’s time, the next Liberal Democrat leadership contest is not going to be a teddy bears’ picnic.

Twenty years ago, Mr Ray Honeyford now 72, played the part of the little boy who pointed out that the Emperor was not wearing any clothes.  For his trouble, he was "retired" from his position as the headmaster of Drummond Middle School in Bradford. He was vilified by politically correct "race experts", sent death threats, and condemned as a racist. He was never allowed to teach again.  Mr Honeyford's crime was that he suggested that children of immigrants should be integrated into British Society.  He had challenged the accepted orthodoxy of the Left and had to punished, severely.

Times change, of course. Now the chickens have come home to roost and multiculturism has been exposed as being the dangerous, socially divisive mumbo-jumbo that many of us suspected but were too timid to say publicly.   Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary has now publicly questioned the multiculturalist orthodoxies. Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, had already challenged whether the nostrums of multiculturalism had done more harm than good.  Just as there was not a single Nazi to be found  in Germany after 9th May 1945, soon no one will admit to ever having been a multiculturalist.
 
Mr Honeyford is not triumphant however. Asked whether he was impressed by Miss Kelly's recent speech, he said that,

"[Ruth Kelly] was only a politician, a bird of passage, minister of education one day and minister of communities the next, and like all politicians liable to say whatever was fashionable or useful to her career at the moment. "

Ouch! That was on par with Sir Robin Day's "mere, transient politician" jibe  addressed to (then just plain) John Nott, the UK Secretary of State for Defence during the Falklands War in 1982.

Rod Liddle delivers his denunciation of the multiculturalists with all the delicacy of a punch in the teeth, but given the manner in which the multiculturalists conducted their campaign against perceived opponents during the course of the past thirty years, this is nothing less than they deserve.

See the detailed article of Karyn Miller, Melissa Kite, James Orr, Nina Goswami and Roya Nikkhah in the The Sunday Telegraph.

So, Celtic goalkeeper Artur Boruc has been cautioned because he made a religious gesture, crossing himself, in front of Ranger's fans at Ibrox Park on 12^th February 2006. According to the Police (a view supported by the Procurator Fiscal):

"On this occasion, the actions included a combination of behaviour before a crowd in the charged atmosphere of an "Old Firm" match which provoked alarm and crowd trouble and as such constituted a breach of the peace."

My word, those Rangers fans must be extraordinarily over-sensitive fellows.

In response, a spokesman for the Catholic Church, Peter Kearney, is reported to have said that the Procurator Fiscal's [decision that a caution was warranted] was "alarming" and that, 

"It is extremely regrettable that Scotland seems to have made itself one of the few countries in the world where this simply religious gesture is considered an offence."

Of course, we have been here before.   In January 1998 Paul Gascoigne, then a Rangers player, was given a warning by the Scottish FA after miming playing the flute during a game against Celtic.  One might deduce that Celtic supporters, like their Rangers brethren, are also exceptionally sensitive.

A thin skin is not just the preserve of the clearly very over-sensitive Scots, however.  People south of the border have become upset over the smallest thing too.  The sight of a "Bollocks to Blair" T-shirt has been known to make some tearful, so much so that they have felt constrained to report the matter to the local constabulary, who true to their oath, have felt the offender's collar.  Signs suggesting that the dog of the household might consume calling Jehovah's Witnesses has turned the stomach of others.

Unlike Artur Boruc, previous offenders have not had Scottish Nationalist leader Alex Salmond or the Roman Catholic Church on their side.  Perhaps this particular piece of nonsense can be nipped in the bud, but I suspect not. 

Over the course of the past twenty years or more, the ever-widening concept of "causing offence" has become too ingrained. Those legislators who were so anxious to prescribe for instance racial abuse, never foresaw the unintended consequences of their actions, that is to say, that all people come to believe that they have a right not to be insulted.  Legislation in favour of one group raises a legitimate expectation in another that they are entitled to protection as well.  Our political leaders and judiciary readily accept that calling a person of Asian extraction a "Paki" is unacceptable, reprehensible, wrong and worthy of prescription by the Law.  On the other hand for example, an insult delivered against someone who is not a member of an acknowledged minority group, is considered unacceptable, reprehensible, wrong, but otherwise just one of those things.  It is not "just one of those things".  An insult, is an insult, is an insult.

If the Law protects one group against insult, then arguably it must protect us all.  A mindset has developed that those who feel offended can and should have those who insult them at the very least "spoken to" by the Police and with luck, prosecuted.  It is all very immature. Insulting behaviour has always said more about the person delivering it than the person receiving it.  Only a few years ago a black male was convicted of threatening and abusive behaviour by virtue of having called a conductress a "black bitch".  On the Law as it stands, the case was correctly decided, but the whole situation has become absurd.  We have lost a sense of proportion.

"DNA test can detect Picts' descendants"  reports The Daily Telegraph, today.  So far, so good.

 “A geneticist has created a DNA test for “Scottishness” that will tell people whether they are direct descendants of the Picts.”

Uh-oh.  I think the journalist added that middle bit about “Scottishness” himself.  It is not wrong in the widest sense, but it is not accurate either.  You see, the Picti were the real McCoy, a real native tribe like the Iceni and not the Johnny-come-lately, immigrant, warrior Scots and English who were Irish and German, respectively.[1]  The Scots were in fact invaders from Ireland and were distinct from the Picts and Gaels much as the Anglo-Saxons were distinct from the Celtic, British  tribes they displaced.  You will note that Dr Jim Wilson, of Edinburgh University, does not actually say that his DNA tests can determine “Scottishness”. The test is for “Pictishness” not “Scottishness”.

By the 11^th Century AD “Scot” appears to have become a description for everyone living in that area now known as Scotland, in the same way that "English" came to mean more than just Angle and/or Saxon. However, a descendant of the Picts can claim to have lived in these islands since time immemorial, whilst true Scots, like the English, a mere fifteen centuries.[2]

[1] Wikipedia reckons that the Picti and Gaels became the Scots, which is correct, but the Scots were a distinct tribe who hailed from Ireland and who colonised a significant part of what became Scotland.  Strictly speaking, therefore “Scots” are Scots, Gaels and Picts but the Scots were the politically dominant ethnic group who forged a nation in their image, in much the same way as did the English, south of the border.

[2] Examples of other jarring historical inexactitudes guaranteed to cause a fistfight if blurted in the presence of any descendant of  Hengest and Horsa during the course of an otherwise civilised conversation:

“When the English painted themselves from head to toe in woad, lived in mud huts and rode around in chariots, the civilised Romans lived in centrally heated villas.”

“Hadrian's Wall was built by the Romans to protect the English from the Scots.”

“The Legions of Emperor Claudius conquered England in 43 AD.”

Earlier this week Alice Miles took David Cameron to task for being a little less than firm with local Conservative Associations that do not modernise.  In once sense, her criticism is unfair in that it expected too much of David Cameron's candidate selection process reform too early.  Much of the impetus for change will come from the “new blood” that has joined the Party and is joining the Party as a consequence of Mr Cameron’s leadership.  She fails also to understand one very important characteristic of Conservative Associations – no one can order them about, not by reason of there being any rule that says so, but because it would be un-Conservative to do so. They have to be changed from within and there lies the real problem.  New members will take time to “bed down” and are not likely to rock the boat too soon by pointing out some home truths to the established hierarchy.  As yet, there might not even be enough of them.  However, much of what Ms Miles said was justified.

Whilst rigging a selection process to positively discriminate in favour of say, women or ethnic minorities is not the way forward, for reasons rehearsed elsewhere upon numerous occasions in the past, the current “system” positively discriminates in favour of right-leaning, white, middle-class, middle-aged men.

The solution is very simple.  Mr Cameron must encourage persons of centre-leaning proclivities to join or rejoin the party, take a positive role in the local association and provide support when friction or obstruction arises from the old guard.  In brief, he has to actively court the “wets” who were so effectively marginalised during the Margaret Thatcher years.

I had long ceased to be a member of the Guildford Conservative Association when David Howell MP, now Lord Howell of Guildford, retired but I am well aware of the manner in which the next Conservative parliamentary candidate for Guildford came to be chosen. It is enough to say that the local association was fixated upon choosing another white middle-class male as their candidate. “We’ll have a woman MP over my dead body!” one of the members present at the selection process was overheard to say.  The local association duly ignored two female applicants of high quality and chose the middle class white male, the eminently invisible Nick St Aubyn who promptly lost the seat to the Liberal Democrats’ (female) candidate in the General Election of 2001 after serving just one term as Guildford’s MP.

It was not just a matter of the Association’s pinko-lefties such as myself having been “boiled away” after years of Thatcher worship by the Party generally, it was the fact that the right-winger/fogy alliance had a means of self-propagation ensuring that “their kind” always managed to run the show.

That is the challenge for Mr Cameron, to continue actively enticing Conservatives of a broader political spectrum than currently exists back into the party in such numbers that our opinions can no longer be ignored by the fogies.  We might not be able to increase significantly the number of female or ethnic minority Conservative MPs, but he can rest assured that no candidate will be rejected simply because they are gay or black or Muslim or female.[1]

Notwithstanding my protestations to the contrary, I do read The Guardian and The Observer newspapers, though I should qualify that admission by making it clear that they are not my favourites.  Often infuriating, sometimes plainly wrong-headed they provide an alternative point of view that enables me to redefine or adjust my own.

What has become evident to me over the years, however, is that these titles are the moderate voice of some fairly strange-minded people who hold fairly extreme views, which are not reliant upon evidence, reason or truth.

Today in The Observer, a Leader presents an argument that must have provoked a large part of its readership to foam at the mouth.  In essence, the article seeks to point out that the West has not in the past and does not even now "have it in" for Islam and that "we" should not fall for the lies that suggest that it has or that we are the authors of our own misfortune as regards being the target of disaffected "Muslims" who wish to kill us for our sins.

The Leader pulls no punches:

"It is also a logical and moral absurdity to imply, as some critics of British policy have done, that mass murder is somehow less atrocious when it is motivated by an elaborate narrative of political grievance."

Furthermore,

"But anyone whose alienation leads them to want to kill indiscriminately has crossed a line into psychopathic criminality. Policy cannot be dictated by the need to placate such people."

And,

"But [British Muslim leaders] have a more immediate responsibility to promote the truth: that Britain is not the aggressor in a war against Islam; that no such war exists; that there is no glory in murder dressed as martyrdom and that terrorism is never excused by bogus accounts of historical victimisation."

Reading some of the critical comments recorded upon the Observer's website in response to this Leader, most of which are not made by "disaffected young Muslims", is quite an education.  It is also very depressing.

These ludicrous lies about the West and Islam

According to the BBC News website this morning,  one part of the heightened security arrangements for flights require that,

“Any liquids discovered must be removed from the passenger” 

Does this mean that airport security is going to take the piss?

The Department for Transport’s new advice to air passengers

"And all across the Muslim world, "we" - the West, America, Israel - are fighting not nationalists but Islamists. And watching the martyrdom of Lebanon this week - its slaughtered children in Qana packed into plastic bags until the bags ran out and their corpses had to be wrapped in carpets - a terrible and daunting thought occurs to me, day by day. That there will be another 9/11."

Robert Fisk

Yes Mr Fisk, there will be. It is inevitable, but note this.  The atrocity that was 9/11 occurred before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.  It had been planned when the comparatively peace-loving Democrat Administration of Bill Clinton was in charge of the United States.  Al-Qaeda had already attacked the World Trade Centre on a previous occasion as well as other American targets abroad.  The Israelis had been the victims of numerous rocket attacks, suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks notwithstanding having evacuated southern Lebanon in 2000 (which they had occupied in the first place because terrorists where using the country to launch attacks against them.)

The West might well have handled the "war against terrorism" in an inappropriate, even disastrous manner such that the conflict has now broadened and new recruits attracted to "the cause", but our enemies were always out to kill us anyway.  All we have done is to exacerbate the conflict by seeking to eliminate them, directly or by proxy, before they strike us. There are any number of reasons why it can be argued that the West did "this" or "that" wrong, but the argument that we have brought it upon ourselves does not wash.  Terrorists started the shooting war. Images of Hezbollah's human shield casualties can mask, but not change that.  That we might become civilian casualties ourselves is something that we must bear, otherwise we are not worthy of the servicemen who are prepared to fight and risk their lives on our behalf.

I understand that one of the consequences of Mel Gibson’s outburst against the Jewish Police Officer who arrested him in Malibu for an offence of drink-driving last week was that one of his new projects, a mini series which was to have been entitled “Holocaust”, has now been shelved.[1]  This might prove to be good news.  Given his predilection for starring in epics whose historical accuracy was severely challenged in a very particular respect as evidenced in “Braveheart” and “The Patriot”, there was always the suspicion on this side of the Pond that Mr Gibson’s series might have sought to cast the English as the villains of the piece and the Nazis as poor schmucks who took the rap. Perhaps we should be thankful for small mercies.  In all other respects I wish Mr Gibson a successful and speedy rehabilitation.[2]

The Tết offensive launched by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army against US led forces in South Vietnam between 30^th January 1968 and early 1969 was a military failure, with the communist forces failing to achieve any of their military objections, suffering staggering losses in the process and inflicting upon themselves a defeat of a magnitude the US had failed to achieve during the previous three years of “winning the war”.  Nevertheless, the journalists “on the ground” at the time saw things very differently, such that by February 1968 Walter Cronkite, the CBS Evening News anchorman, was able to pronounce that “the Vietnam War was unwinnable” and from that moment, the US had lost the War.

Almost to a man, modern "war correspondents" prefer to focus on the human story, of civilians caught up in a conflict not of their making.  So the lasting image of war becomes one of a naked Vietnamese child, burnt skin peeling from her body, running away from her napalmed village.  The true story of war, that of one sovereign regime resisting another seeking to impose its will through the use of armed might, is lost in emotive scenes of the suffering of non-combatants.  Even when journalists find themselves with nothing else to report but fighting between opposing forces, they misinterpret what they see.  A recent case to point occurred early in the Iraq War in 2003, when journalists were eager to suggest that the US thrust into Iraq had “run out of steam” short of Bagdad and that the war was not “going to plan”.  In fact, having applied successfully classic blitzkrieg tactics, US armour was merely awaiting its planned re-supply and for other ground forces to catch up with the advance.[1]

There is a depressing feeling of déjà vu when watching the television coverage of the latest crisis in the Middle East.  Once again the media concentrates on the human stories,[2]  but constant reports of the latest civilian casualties do not help us to understand or to focus upon what is actually going on.  This manner of reporting does us a disservice; it is manipulative, deliberately playing on our emotions, rather than seeking to inform or providing dispassionate, impartial analysis.  Whilst the media does remind us from time to time, almost as an afterthought, that Hezbollah and its supporters seek nothing less than the total annihilation of the state of Israel, its pictures tell an entirely different story: one of innocents made to suffer by Israeli military action and so called disproportionate retaliation.

I have a simple-minded understanding of the conflict.  This latest crisis in the Middle East has everything to do with Iran's desire for hegemony in the region.  Iran is waging war against Israel through its proxy, Hezbollah. Israel, a sovereign state, fights by internationally accepted rules of war, whilst Hezbollah does not.[3] If Israel, a democracy, does not fight, it will cease to exist. In the fug of the television media's constant broadcasting of the "human story" with its inherent anti-war message, this truth is being lost.

So, how many Divisions has the BBC?  Like the Pope and Walter Cronkite's CBS it does not have any, but nonetheless more than enough to overcome the Israelis in Lebanon.

Save when our national security is at grave and immediate risk (for example, by invasion) the Government should never commit our armed forces to war without providing them with all the tools required for the job.  This New Labour Government, which has such a flair for involving us in military adventures abroad, pays insufficient attention to the finer details of waging war such as providing adequate equipment; routine provision of body armour and armoured personnel carriers being but the most recent examples.  It is abhorrent that "mere, transient politicians" waste our servicemen's lives with so little thought or good purpose.

"…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.