The answer to the West Lothian Question is, you’ve guessed it, regional assemblies for England.

According to Professor Robert Hazell, Professor of Government and the Constitution at University College, London, “English votes for English laws” at Westminster seemed logical and fair, but there could be "huge technical difficulties in identifying what counted as an English law".  According to the Professor, another solution would involve handing powers to elected regional assemblies, which though overwhelmingly rejected by voters in the North-East, “should not be written-off forever.”

The BBC reports that whilst Professor Hazell agrees that the “closest to a complete answer” would be a separate English Parliament, he notes that there are not any mainstream politicians in favour of such an idea and considers there is no significant public support for it.

I shall leave aside any argument about whether there are any really insurmountable difficulties in practice about the implementation of the Conservatives’ preferred option of “English votes for English laws”¹.  I am able to predict with absolute certainty that if there is any fudge of this issue, for instance by way of a continuance of the denial that there is any real democratic deficit as between England and those parts of the United Kingdom that enjoy devolved government (the view of the Labour Government) or the imposition of regional assemblies (the current preference of the Labour Government) there will arise an irresistible, overwhelming support for an English Parliament.

Scotland 'still has too many MPs'

_______________________________

1 I cannot see any great difficulties and would be pleased to hear of examples as to what they might be.

“[Sir Ian] Blair clings to office because he has the support of both Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, and that walkin’, talkin’ “systemic failure” Ken Livingstone, the London mayor. And this is because he is the most politicised copper this country has ever seen; he owes his survival to his willingness to follow every politically correct obsession dreamt up by the Labour party: show him a “hate crime” and he’ll be there with his truncheon. Show him a burglary, however, and he’ll explain to you why it didn’t happen, or wasn't important, or is a vanishingly rare occurrence. He has also adopted new Labour’s technique of spewing out disinformation to the media.”

Rod Liddle

Sir Ian Blair receives the support of the Prime Minister

Sir Ian Blair is cleared

“We are a talkative and opinionated society and not always good at listening.  The discourse of politics, media and academe is essentially adversarial.  While this is undoubtedly important in a democracy, it can mean that people are not really receptive to an opposing viewpoint.  It is often apparent during a parliamentary debate or a panel discussion on television that while their opponents are speaking, participants are simply thinking up the next clever thing that they are going to say.”

Karen Armstrong, The Bible - The Biography 

“It appears that those who troop through the division lobbies, heaping law upon law or rubber-stamping Brussels initiatives further to control our national life and regulate individual behaviour, have little sense of how those same laws are enforced.”

Iain Martin

“Projecting himself as Father of the Nation, espousing a 'new' style of politics has been central to [Gordon] Brown's plan. He was not content to outpoll the Tories; he wanted to make them obsolete. That was extraordinary hubris.”

Leader, The Observer

Reports Martin Ivens in The Sunday Times,

“Brown’s men know they are on the back foot. “Gordon was always cautious about holding it [an election]. But if we went now we would win on authority,” said a cabinet minister. “But we want a positive, a bigger mandate.” As for Cameron’s triumph, he sneered: “Iain Duncan Smith was seven points ahead after his conference speech in 2003. That was a few weeks before the Tories got rid of him.”

It is always important to put matters into context, so when assessing how good or bad things might be, it is only right to look for recent historical precedents.  Thus the sneering Labour cabinet minister infers that David Cameron’s current popularity will prove as ephemeral as Iain Duncan Smith’s fast evaporating post Conservative Conference “seven-point bounce” in 2003.

You might recall that this was the Conservative Conference when Andrew Rawnsley of The Guardian described Mr Duncan Smith as the “dead man talking” and contemporary opinion polls included such questions as,

 “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote Conservative at the next election if Iain Duncan Smith were to be replaced as leader by...?”

According to the opinion polls of the time, up to 52% of the people questioned were dissatisfied with Mr Duncan Smith's performance as Leader of the Official Opposition.  The ICM opinion poll published in The Guardian pre-conference in September 2003 indicated that Labour led the Conservatives by 35% to 30% and the ICM poll for following month, post conference, showed Labour’s lead to have remained steady - support for the two main parties being 38% to 33% respectively.

Mr Duncan Smith was ousted as the leader of the Conservative party because he did not seem to be making any significant, positive impact upon the electorate.  At no time did he ever enjoy a seven point poll lead over Labour, save perhaps amongst the members of Chingford and Woodford Green Conservative Association.

Big bang – the Tory tax bomb blowing Brown apart

According to The Times today

“…Labour ministers…say that delaying the election would give Mr Brown longer to attack Tory economic plans, which they say have been hugely undermined by the pledge to eliminate inheritance tax for all but millionaires and pay for it with a £25,000 annual charge on “nondomicile” residents.”

However yesterday, reported Gabriel Rozenberg, Economics Reporter for The Times,

“The attempts of Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, to discredit the Conservatives’ tax plans were sharply undermined yesterday by his own top civil servant. Nicholas Macpherson, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, admitted that his department’s costing of the Conservatives’ plans for a levy on nondomiciled taxpayers were based on incomplete data. Mr Darling had cited analysis by the Treasury which allegedly proved that the Conservatives could not raise £3.5 billion with their plans. He said the tax would only raise £650 million. But the detailed analysis, released yesterday by the the Treasury, revealed that this was based purely on a mathematical assumption, as the Government had no information on how much Britain’s nondomiciled taxpayers earn overseas, a figure crucial to the calculations. In a letter to George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, Mr Macpherson said that the assumptions used had been “clearly flagged” to his boss. Mr Osborne has called on Mr Darling to apologise.”

In the meantime, Jeff Randall of The Daily Telegraph explains why Labour’s carping on such points doesn’t add up to a convincing argument in any case.

Labour cannot tell the whoppers of old any more and get away with it.   Any spinful pronouncements and funny figures are likely to rebound with a vengeance, as in justice they should.

George Osborne and a sleight of hand by the BBC

...although The Sun would say that, wouldn't it?  I couldn't possibly say, one way or another.

It is understandable that the metropolitan elite which now dominates the upper echelons of Government and the BBC would see little purpose being served by engaging in any form of real, meaningful dialogue with the likes of us, the hoi polloi, given our well documented aversion to the use of deodorant and limited, Neanderthal grasp of the important issues.

Says The Sun,

“The BBC has virtually ignored the debate raging about the new [European] Treaty — despite uproar in all parties and on both sides of the argument.  The same self-censorship is applied to immigration — another enormous issue not to be discussed in front of the licence-payers. It is not just because many of its editors and producers are lefties — though many are. It is an arrogant, lazy assumption that they know best — and ignorant audiences should not be disturbed by matters beyond their ken.”

Indeed.  It is the sheer condescension, which is so offensive.

George Osborne and a sleight of hand by the BBC

The BBC: Soft Left, anti-American (and very pro-European Union)

The BBC and its “culture of bias”

Nobody mention the "Labour" word

Biased Beeb

In today’s Daily Telegraph Andrew Porter, the newspaper’s Political Editor, commenting upon the Conservative post-conference opinion poll surge and in particular the ICM poll in The Guardian which shows support for Labour and the Conservatives as even, says,

 “In addition, a Guardian poll by ICM - which tends to favour the Tories - is thought to have the Conservatives almost neck and neck with Labour.”

As my post here shows, manifestly this is not the case. Where ICM opinion polls can be compared with election results since 2005, Conservative support is almost always underestimated in by a small amount and Labour overestimated by a larger margin. It might be the case that ICM consistently underestimates Conservative support less than the other opinion polls but this still does not add up to its polls “favouring” the Conservatives, merely that ICM is the most accurate amongst an inaccurate bunch.

Long gone are the days in the 1980’s when Gallup used to favour the Conservatives, in the sense that its opinion polls compared very well with actual election results, time after time.

Tories renew election call after poll

BBC bias is often so subtle (or is that subliminal?) that if you blink, you miss it.

That section of the printed media which is not inherently hostile to the Conservatives was to a man upbeat about Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s policy announcements yesterday.  It is interesting to note however, that in reporting on the BBC’s Politics webpage (the version updated at 08.40 BST on 2^nd October 2007) the links from “Other news sites” referred to less positive, “sub” reports and not the main press articles.  To take one example (and The Daily Telegraph is yet another) today's The Daily Mail contains pages of positive comment, but what did the BBC link to? Yes, you have guessed it, a small article by Benedict Brogan and James Chapman in a corner of page six of the newspaper, that largely regurgitates the hastily and as it will turn out, foolishly released HM Treasury spin  seeking to undermine the Conservative proposals.

The BBC fails to appreciate that there comes a time when listeners and viewers tire of having to constantly rebalance slanted reporting and stop listening or viewing altogether.

Osbourne relights the Tory Flame

Tories unleash attack dogs

From other news sites - The Daily Mail

Do the shadow chancellor's figures add up?

Julie Bindel reports in The Sunday Times today of the disinterest shown by the local Police and political authorities concerning the pimping of underage white girls by black and Asian gangs.  Apparently, cracking down upon such blatant criminality is seen as “contentious”, involving as it does, minority groups.  Says Aravinda Kosaraju, a researcher for the Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (Crop),

“What we are dealing with is gross criminality that should be confronted whatever the race of the perpetrator.”

According to Julie Bindel,

“A number of families affected by Pakistani pimping gangs have said that Police inaction and the refusal of white liberals to acknowledge the problem has resulted in more girls being at risk than ever before” (My emphasis.)

Says Ms Kosaraju,

“We are battling to get recognition that what we are dealing with is organised crime against children.”

There is a word for treating one group (in this instance white girls) differently from another purely on racial grounds.  Racism.

Most seasoned commentators believe that Gordon Brown had intended to review whether to call a General Election no earlier than the spring of 2008.  It is most probable that he had always planned to tease the Conservatives with the faintest hint of an even earlier poll just to wrong foot them and probe their weaknesses.

In recent weeks, the teasing has gone too far with everyone outside the political world anticipating an early, autumn election.  Mr Brown has overplayed his hand.  If he now resorts to his original, carefully considered and planned timetable, he will look indecisive, but if he “goes for it”, he will find that his lead in the opinion polls is soft and he might well receive a bloody nose, securing a small majority vulnerable to a just a handful of by-election losses.

Far too much emphasis and reliance has been placed upon mere opinion polls  and too little upon real election results. Professor Colin Rallings, the Director of Plymouth University’s Elections Centre, has already drawn attention to the fact that in thirty-five council by-elections since Gordon Brown’s succession to the premiership, the Conservatives have recorded a nine percentage point lead over Labour.

One way or another, Gordon Brown is going to rue the day he allowed the “will-he-won’t-he-game” slip out of his control.

Quit stalling and call election, says David Cameron

It suits this Government to boast that our citizenry has easy access to free or low cost legal advice.  Unfortunately, it does not want to pay for it.  However, rather than adopting the honest course of explaining that because of budget constraints it is either legal aid or the NHS (or defence, or education) the Government always seeks to blame greedy lawyers for the expense of the legal aid scheme.  Legal aid practitioners undertaking routine family work are paid a little more than a third of the private, high street rate.  Criminal legal aid lawyers are paid a little over a quarter of the going private rate.  The new costs regime being introduced by the Government’s quango, the Legal Services Commission, will result in legal aid practitioners receiving a pay cut.  The propaganda peddled by the Government, to the effect that legal aid lawyers are well paid and will be even more handsomely remunerated by way of the new costs regime, is worthy of Dr Joseph Goebbels.

The comprehensive legal aid system that we have in this country is the envy of the world, but if the Government doesn’t want to pay for it then it should say so and desist from attacking underpaid legal aid practitioners who have been the backbone of the system these past thirty years or more.

Legal aid bill 'highest in world'

“The polls have been volatile this year. Pollsters and political professionals who swore in the spring that Brown's numbers were so ghastly that the best he could hope for was to cling to office and pray David Cameron was run over by Zac Goldsmith driving an eco-friendly hybrid car, now see no possibility other than a walk-over for Brown.”

 

Iain Martin

A surprisingly large number of political analysts, commentators and pundits appear to have forgotten that “a week is a long time in politics”.  They suffer the affliction of a “group-think” mentality, slavishly following the accepted consensus, until very belatedly something snaps them out of it.  I doubt that they know or understand any more than the electorate they seek to convince.

All the more reason not to pay much attention to anything they might say.

Don't panic! How the Tories can survive

Commenting upon developments in the Madeleine McCann case in Saturday’s edition of The Times, Professor David Cantor opines,

“It appears that the Portuguese police may have fallen into the trap of having first formed a view of who the guilty party is, then seeking out the evidence to support it. It is rare for people untrained in science deliberately to attempt to refute their own hypotheses: instead we tend to reinterpret anything that happens to fit in with the notion to which we have become increasingly committed.”

Lest the Portuguese Police take the rap all on their own, in all fairness it should be pointed out that this is a common failing of many Police investigations the world over, including those conducted by our own law enforcement agencies.

Why patterns of the past point to abduction by a stranger as most likely explanation

"The political atmosphere is that of a gathering storm: the current level of tension cannot be sustained for much longer. The combined weight of opinion polls and public expectation could force Mr Brown to go to the country earlier than he had intended. Like the Kaiser in 1914, he may not find it easy to demobilise a force that has been brought to a peak of readiness."

The Daily Telegraph

And we all know what happened to the Kaiser.

Should a General Election be called now, David Cameron and his Conservatives are destined for another crushing defeat, opine many Media soothsayers.  This prediction relies upon an ICM Poll published in The Guardian on 19^th September 2007, one of a number of polls showing an indifferent Conservative performance in the face of the “Brown Bounce”.  Inter alia, the poll indicates that amongst voters support for the Conservatives has fallen to 32%, whilst support for Labour has risen to 40%.

That such opinion poll results should cause such excitement amongst Labour supporters and fellow travellers in the media, whilst causing those of a Conservative persuasion much angst, is curious.  It is not as if we haven’t been here before.  In fact since 2005, we have been here no less than three times.

In the weekend before the General Election that took place on 5^th May 2005, an ICM poll published in The Sunday Telegraph put support for the Conservatives at 31% and for Labour at 38%.  A few days earlier, another ICM poll commissioned by The Guardian had indicated that support for Labour had reached as high as 40%.  On the day of the real McCoy, whilst the Conservatives achieved a relatively indifferent 32.3% of the national vote, Labour achieved only 35.3%, in other words between 2.7 to 4.7 percentage points less than predicted.  The ICM poll commissioned for and published by The Guardian immediately prior to the local elections in May 2006 showed support for the Conservatives at 34% and Labour at 32%.  Lest we forget, the result of the elections was 39%¹ of the vote for the Conservatives and a paltry 26% for Labour.  Similarly, for May 2007 the ICM poll published in the week immediately preceding the elections predicted support form the Conservatives at 38% and for Labour at 29%.  The actual result was 40% and 26%², respectively.  All of the pollsters have been off the mark, not just ICM.  In recent years, opinion polls have consistently and to a significant degree understated support for the Conservatives whereas Labour’s predicted share of the vote has been overgenerous, sometimes by a wide margin.

Each of the main parties needs to take a reality check.  In all likelihood, as matters stand at this very moment, the Labour Government is nowhere near as popular as it would like to believe and the Conservatives not so far adrift as their detractors would like us to think.

¹ Or 40% depending upon which psephologist’s analysis you prefer.

²  Or 27%, ditto.

"It is one of the wonders of the Brown "bounce" that no one any longer sees fit to point out the infamy of the West Lothian problem. We have a Scottish MP Prime Minister, promulgating measures on health and education and other matters that have no effect on his own constituents, and while Scottish MPs are able to vote on English schools and hospitals, English MPs have no corresponding say in Scotland."

 

Boris Johnson

It is not only the matter of the West Lothian Question.  Since Gordon Brown's accession to the Premiership, a large section of our supine, craven, fawning Media no longer sees fit to point out that he is missing various other pieces of attire or worse still, tries to draw our gaze from the spectacle.  Reality however, like Truth, will always out and this time around the electorate is not going to be so patient or forgiving.

End of Belgium should be a warning to Gordon

So, the Home Information Pack regime is now to be introduced for all homes and much earlier than had been expected.  As far as can be discerned all of the current, main players in the industry including Estate Agents, Surveyors and even Solicitors (whose governing body, The Law Society, has done so much to make the Government's HIPs scheme work) continue to have grave reservations as to the efficacy of the scheme.

According to The Times this morning,

"Earlier this week Ruth Kelly met representatives of the Home Information Pack industry, which warned the Communities Secretary that she faces a multi-billion claim if she scraps the scheme."

Doesn't that say it all.

Home pack extension sparks fears of slump

Let me be the first to admit that I was wrong.  After the Law Society won the greater part of the legal argument last week in its judicial review case against the Government's quango, the Legal Services Commission (LSC), I had expected there to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of the media against the "reactionary, anti-progressive and over-paid" legal profession. But no, this has not happened. It seems the Legal Services Commission claims it won the case.  Says Carolyn Regan, Chief Executive of the Commission:

"I am obviously pleased that the Court has confirmed that it is lawful for the Legal Services Commission to amend the unified contract to introduce the new civil legal aid fee schemes from October 2007."

In fact the matter of fee schemes was an inconsequential legal side issue in the case.  As I understood matters, having been obliged to waste a part of my life reading legal aid materials, including the old legal aid contract and new Unified Contract, the Legal Services Commission (and its previous incarnation, the Legal Aid Board) had always possessed the means, one way or another, to introduce fee schemes, including fixed fees.  It had done so before - firstly by way of fixed fees for criminal work in the Magistrates' Court and later in 2001 for Counsel instructed in family cases, the so-called graduated fees scheme.  The main thrust of the Law Society's case, which was accepted by the Judge, was that some of the powers claimed by the Legal Services Commission to unilaterally amend the new Unified Contract were incompatible with current Law.

And yet Government seeks to convince us that the Age of Spin is over.  Perhaps it should tell its agencies.

The Law Society successfully challenges the Legal Services Commission

“Rather like that harbinger cat recently discovered in an American nursing home for the elderly (the creature’s habit being to curl up on the beds of those residents who are not far from their final hour) a group of right-wingers, reactionaries and xenophobes styling themselves as Tory columnists has been acting as a false friend to the party, drawn towards everything that is morbid within its body politic, sucking it towards its grave. Who knows (and I doubt) whether the voters take much notice, but the parliamentary Conservative Party does.”

Matthew Parris - The Times

Once again, Mr Parris tells it as it is.

So, today in the High Court Mr Justice Beatson has upheld The Law Society's challenge against the Legal Services Commission (LSC) for having imposed unilaterally upon legal aid practitioners the new (and grossly one-sided) "Unified Contract".  Says the Law Society,

"The judge said that the LSC has breached Public Contracts Regulations 2006 and European Law in its reform of legal aid. Most significantly, the judge said that changes to the contract should not be made if they would, 'alter the economic balance of the contract to the disadvantage of those who have entered into the Unified Contract or to the disadvantage of some of them.'  The judge also noted that any proposed changes should be restricted to those envisaged by the initial White Paper. It is not clear at this stage how this will affect the LSC's proposals on fees and the Judge has granted the Law Society permission to appeal on the basis of public interest on this point…"

Well, this is what happens when you try to introduce ill conceived, half-baked reforms at breakneck speed.  It will be interesting to see the Government and the majority of the mainstream media spin this into a victory by lawyers (including the Judge) against the common interest.

A Home Information Pack, anyone?

"If services are cut as a result of the legal aid reforms I don't think I'm being unduly cynical in expecting the vast majority of media comment to accuse overpaid lawyers of letting down the public because the Government has stopped the gravy train."

Kit O' Brien

It is worth fighting to save the least loved branch of the welfare state - Jonathan Freedland

“People throw the charge of “racist” around far too freely today and fail to separate inconsequential prejudice from all-consuming intolerance,”

writes Nick Cohen in his book, What’s Left? How Liberals lost their way.

Likewise for instance, charges such as “sexist” and “homophobe” are too freely made, most usually as a first resort by the feeble-minded in support of a lame argument.

"A paedophile who raped a ten-year-old girl will be free in just four months after a judge said his young victim had dressed provocatively. Window cleaner Keith Fenn, 24, could have been jailed for life after twice attacking the girl in a riverside park,"

screams The Daily Mail this morning.  Mr Fenn it transpires, had pleaded guilty to two counts of rape involving a ten year old girl.   His co defendant Darren Wright, who had encouraged the commission of the offences, received a prison sentence of nine months after pleaded guilty to inciting the girl to engage in sex acts.  Paedophile, rape and attack are very emotive words.  One can imagine that even at this moment some dark shadow in government will be moved to draw plans to impose obligatory life-sentences for anyone convicted of rape involving a child under the age of sixteen years.  No doubt a stiffening of the law in such a manner would please Dr Michele Elliott of Kidscape who is reported by The Daily Mail as saying,

 "This sentencing is beyond pathetic, it is utterly derisory. For the judge to say that the way she was dressed in any way excuses a 24-year-old man having sex with her is disgraceful and ridiculous."

The NSPCC is reported to have added its two-pennies' worth,

"There's no excuse for having sex with a ten-year-old, no matter how she dresses."

Even the most cursory examination of the facts related by The Daily Mail  (and better still the original Oxford Mail report) show why the Judge was entitled, indeed obliged by justice to impose a short, rather than long, term of imprisonment. The defendants thought that the girl was sixteen years old.  It appears that the Crown accepted that presumption as being not unreasonable.  Mr Fenn was guilty of rape because as a ten year old, the Law deems the young girl involved as not being able to consent to sexual activity, thus notwithstanding that her involvement was consensual and not forced (in the true sense of the word) upon her, it was illegal.  The defendants did not realise that they were committing criminal offences. Nevertheless, that illegality has resulted in the defendants being sentenced to terms of imprisonment.  Harsher sentences would have been unfair.  His Honour Judge Julian Hall did justice to the case.

Oxford Mail - Judge claims paedophile victim 'dressed provocatively' - George Gaynor

Judge's mercy for the man who raped 'provocatively dressed' girl of ten

It is self evident that in matters appertaining to law and order, the Government has tended to dance (or rather, knee jerk) to the tune of the media.  It is frequently overlooked however, that a more insidious influence upon Government has been exerted by favoured focus and pressure groups.  Using their privileged access to Government, these groups have been able to set agendas and outmanoeuvre opponents. Presented with cogent argument and evidence refuting the efficacy of following a particular course of action, the Government chooses its moment and then ploughs on regardless. The Government’s desire to amend the law so as to ensure rape convictions are more easily secured is a classic example. Today, Clare Dyer, legal editor of The Guardian reports,

“The government is to press ahead with plans to reform the rape laws in an attempt to increase the low conviction rate, despite strong opposition from the judges who will have to put them into effect.”

The new devices that are thought will be effective include,

“a power for expert witnesses to give general evidence, not about the specific case, but about how rape victims generally behave, to dispel “myths” that might affect the jury's reactions and an automatic right to use the alleged victim's videotaped interview with the police in place of her main evidence at the trial.”

It is all going to end in tears.  Judges and advocates will all be painfully aware of their duty to ensure that the defendant has a fair trial.  Accordingly the worst excesses of the reforms will be mitigated.  Juries will suspect (rightly) that the legal system is bending over backwards to ensure a conviction and will react accordingly.  Thus the conviction rate will continue to hover at the current rate (between 5% and 6%) and the whipping boys, the judges and barristers, will again be described as “ignorant” and “devious”, respectively.

What the “reformers” fail to understand, is that action and reaction are equal and opposite.  The more they weight the system against the defendant, the more likely it is that the jury will smell a fit up and throw the case out.  Pressure groups have a skewed view of the world and can be forgiven their myopia, but Government must be more rational and must legislate on principle and compelling evidence alone.

Ministers defy judges on rape law reforms

Lovesick lesbian cried rape to frame an innocent

She cried rape, he must be guilty, right?

Barristers oppose 'dangerous' plans to reform rape law

Professor Jennifer Temkin rides again: devious barristers and ignorant judges

Government to load dice even further against fair trial

More nonsense from this partial New Labour Government

Richard Brooks and Dipesh Gadher report today in The Sunday Times that an official report commissioned by the BBC will confirm that amongst other things the Corporation is partial in its treatment of single-issue politics such as climate change, poverty, race and religion.  The bias has extended across drama, comedy and entertainment, with the corporation pandering to politically motivated celebrities and trendy causes.

We have been here before, of course.  In January 2005 another report commissioned by the BBC came to the conclusion that the Corporation was unintentionally, but nevertheless too well disposed towards the European Union.  Another report commissioned for internal consumption alone (the “Balen Report”) is widely thought to have been critical of the BBC’s Middle East reporting, which is perceived in most quarters to be pro-Arab and unsympathetic towards Israel.

In the latest report it is acknowledged that,

“[there is] the danger of BBC programmes being undermined by the liberal culture of its staff, who need to challenge their own assumptions more,”

and,

“there is a tendency to ‘group think’ with too many staff inhabiting a shared space and comfort zone.”

So far, so good.  The real issue is that the BBC will not address the problem because it cannot.  Those people within the Corporation who should challenge the current “liberal” mindset do not have the critical mass to ensure that there is any real, significant change.  There are too few of them.  Their minority view is considered quaint, wrongheaded, dangerous or just downright bad and in consequence is ignored. The Sunday Times leader identifies the only course open to the BBC if it truly wishes to avoid being unnecessarily partial in its outlook.

“That the BBC should investigate itself is perhaps admirable, but only if it acts on the conclusions. The likelihood is that it will lament its shortcomings, pledge to do something and carry on much as before. Changing its cosy culture will take more than a report; some who have worked there say it would require a small neutron bomb. The BBC is a self-perpetuating liberal arts club. Recruitment is the key. It needs to employ more nonconformist journalists whose paper of choice is not The Guardian.”

So will the BBC now seek to spread its net wider when recruiting staff?  Don’t hold your breath.

BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’

Bias at the Beeb - official

The BBC: Soft Left, anti-American (and very pro-European Union)

Nobody mention the "Labour" word

How many Divisions has the BBC?

BBC wins Balen report battle

The Editors – Both Sides

BBC news coverage of the European Union - Independent Panel Report

Whilst only serious conspiracy theorists would allege something sinister about the building housing Hazel Blears' campaign offices mysteriously collapsing a day or so ago, The Guardian helpfully putting another spanner in the works of her deputy leader campaign, is something else.

You might have heard that Ms Blears had accepted recently a £10,000 campaign donation from a company specialising in employment law and related services, namely Peninsula Business Services Ltd.  This company “helps companies fight employment tribunal claims” splutters The Guardian with barely concealed rage. This donation has infuriated Labour MPs, we are told.  Kevan Jones, Labour MP for Durham North is reported as saying,

“It is absolutely disgraceful that Hazel Blears has taken money from a firm that boasts it can cut compensation claims from workers. She should give the money back and not use it as part of her campaign”

and for good measure Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, took the view that,

“It is up to trade unionists voting in the election to make their own judgment on Hazel Blears' lack of judgment.”

Just for the record, let us remind ourselves that neither Kevan Jones nor Tom Watson can be considered supporters of Hazel Blears, so their righteous indignation is a little hollow.  It is also right to point out that Peninsula Business Services Ltd is not the heinous monster that its detractors make out.  One would assume that believing in fair play and justice, Labour supporters would see it as only reasonable that when faced with a claimant employee backed by a Trade Union with all its resources and ready access to legal advice, the employer should also be similarly represented.  It is a matter of equality of arms.

Ms Blears’ own riposte to the criticism says all that need to be said,

“Peninsula is a reputable company, providing advice on health & safety and good employment systems to small organisations, helping them stay on the right side of the law. They are a Salford-based firm, employing over 400 people in Salford, and 700 in total. Their donation to the Hazel Blears for Deputy campaign has been declared to the Electoral Commission in an open and transparent way, alongside other donations, including £12,000 from the shopworkers' union Usdaw.”

So why all the stirring, who is behind it and why?

Blears criticised over campaign backers

Is someone trying to de-rail Hazel Blears’ deputy leadership campaign?

Hazel Blears' campaign to be Deputy Leader gains momentum

Our senior politicians might reflect how their headline catching pronouncements are interpreted abroad, as today’s article in Pravda about paedophiles and chemical castration shows.  One cannot help but suspect that something has been lost in translation.

Having discussed the purported success of chemical castration in Europe and some states in the USA, the Pravda article then continues incongruously about male pattern baldness:

“[Physical] castration prevents male pattern baldness if it is done before hair is lost, however, castration will not restore hair growth after hair has already been lost due to male pattern baldness...[and it] eliminates the risk of testicular cancer, and it may even reduce prostate cancer”

…nevertheless I’m minded to persevere with scalp massage and drinking cranberry juice, thank you very much.

Paedophiles will be castrated for their crimes in Britain

Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor of The Daily Telegraph, reports today of the response to the comments of Miss Barbara Hewson, a barrister, in the Bar Council's magazine Counsel regarding guidance issued to judges earlier this year by the Judicial Studies Board, which accepted the possibility that female judges, magistrates or tribunal members might wear the niqab, or veil, in Court.  Miss Hewson professed concern that the guidelines contemplated veiled judges and were “astonishing and subversive”, adding “the United Kingdom is not a sharia state.”

Responding, Fatim Kurji argued that,

“As for veiled judges and the suggestion that the “United Kingdom is not a sharia state”, this is what I call “the BNP argument”. It implies a woman who wears a niqab comes at the erosion of British values. Such an astonishingly offensive remark undermines the long-enduring libertarian values.”

I have always considered the question of female advocates or judges wearing a veil in Court as a non-issue, largely because so few would avail themselves of the opportunity.  From a practical point of view, the wearing of a veil by one party potentially limits the degree of interaction that would otherwise take place between judge and advocate.  Being able to see someone’s face greatly assists communication.  In Court, the quality of communication is frequently decisive. The wearing of a veil in Court would certainly be a significant departure from previously accepted practise.

Where I take issue with Miss Kurji is that Miss Hewson is perfectly entitled to make the points she has and by doing so has not presented “the BNP argument.”  It is not acceptable that anyone who challenges the orthodoxy of a minority group is accused routinely of prejudice or worse, branded as a bigot.

BNP jibe at lawyer who opposed veiled judges

So, the BBC reports today that David Phythian, a Councillor of the West Lancashire District Council, has been prohibited from attending football matches for three years and fined £250 by the Wigan and Leigh Magistrates' Court after pleaded guilty to using racially aggravated threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards Tottenham Hotspurs' Pascal Chimbonda, a black footballer, during the Wigan v. Spurs match that took place in April 2007.  The local Labour group at the Council has now suspended Mr Phythian.

The BBC report contained most of the salient facts, but I could not help but notice that one additional fact, which I should have expected from a BBC report, had not been included in the title emblazoned, "Racist abuse councillor suspended".  Of course, the word Tory was missing.  Wigan Today, the newspaper that broke the story on 1st June 2007, was not so timid.  However, it transpires that the problem faced by the BBC was that Mr Phythian was a Labour, not Conservative politician. Only by reading the BBC's full report could we deduce that he was not a Conservative.  Most people would have gleaned all they wanted to know from the first few lines of the report and assumed the rest.

The BBC is often coy concerning the political affiliation of an individual involved in "minor, local difficulties", save when it is a Conservative.  In the matter of local issues, political affiliation is almost invariably irrelevant to the misdeed committed. As such it is not necessary to highlight or headline such a fact.  The BBC should exercise such restraint even-handedly when reporting "small town" misdeeds.

Racist abuse councillor suspended

Councillor gets football ban

Race-jibe councillor banned by Labour

Recently The Times reported that the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) had created a team called Road Safety Support, to help the Police deal with the increasing number of drivers seeking to contest speeding tickets by citing “legal technicalities”. The legal technicalities included challenging whether a speed camera was properly calibrated, that speed signs were obscured or cameras had given false readings.  In many cases the Police have failed to secure convictions because they failed to comply with certain aspects of the law when enforcing speed limits.

It is curious that the Police find it exceptional that they must comply with the law when seeking to secure a conviction.  In this country, for centuries it has been incumbent upon prosecuting authorities to prove their case by presenting to the Court sufficient evidence of a defendant’s guilt.  Should radar equipment not be calibrated properly so that it records a speed of 33 mph for a vehicle travelling at 29 mph in a 30 mph limit, the driver is clearly not guilty of speeding.  Where a speed sign is obscured, natural justice requires that a driver unfamiliar with the area should not be prosecuted.

The setting up of this new unit is tantamount to the Police admitting that they were not exercising due diligence when presenting some of these cases to the Court and were failing to ensure that they possessed solid, reliable evidence.  It is nothing to do with “loopholes” and everything to do with competent evidence gathering and prosecution.

The Times - Speeding drivers with loophole lawyers

Tough on Liberty, tough on the causes of Liberty

According to Andrew Keen in his book The Cult of the Amateur, Web 2.0 is “killing our culture, assaulting our economy and destroying time-honoured codes of conduct” with amateurs creating an “endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home videos, embarrassingly amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels.”  It is, “undermining truth, souring civic discourse, and belittling expertise, experience and talent.”  Wikipedia is identified as a particular villain, being riddled with “mistakes, half truths and misunderstandings” but yet being more popular than Britannica.com, thereby threatening the latter’s financial viability. What Wikipedia has done to reference books, bloggers will do to traditional news media, believes Mr Keen.

I believe Mr Keen is being alarmist, because ultimately, quality matters.  The laws of natural selection apply in the virtual, as well as the real world.  The very best survives and the rest fade away.  Britannica.com will live on because it is acknowledged as being authoritative whilst Wikipedia is not. The mainstream media cannot be seriously challenged by citizen bloggery and will remain ascendant because of its inherent professionalism and quality in depth.  Web logs are a passing fad and the current intense activity will pass leaving only a small number of the most committed.

Part of Mr Keen’s hypothesis relies also upon a premise that the average punter cannot differentiate between different sources of information with the result that the good will fall and the bad will prevail.  Yet we know that anything free is unlikely to be as good as something paid for.  Free, net-based sources of information are just a convenient, useful point of first reference before turning to, for example, the trusted newspaper, news magazine, or reference book.

Much on the net is trashy and ephemeral but the important point is that we all know it and when we don’t want monkeys, we avoid paying peanuts.

John-Paul Flintoff - The Sunday Times

David Smith - The Observer

Malaysia is a forward-looking, democratic country that abides by the rule of law.  It happens also to be a Muslim country.

According to the New Straits Times, at the High Court Registry in Shah Alam, the state capital of Selangor, on 14^th May 2007 a Hindu man, Mr V. Suresh, applied for a writ of habeas corpus seeking the release of his wife Siti Fatimah Abdul Karim (who I shall refer to, wrongly, as Mrs Suresh) from detention at the Baitul Aman Faith Rehabilitation Centre, where she had been sent by the Malacca Syariah High Court on 8^th January 2007.

Mr Suresh had married his wife according to Hindu rites on 10^th March 2004 at a Hindu temple in Malacca.  They lived together in Malacca and together had a daughter Diviya Dharshini, born on 19^th December 2005. The daughter was raised according to the Hindu religion.  By all accounts (and unsurprisingly) Mrs Suresh had professed the Hindu faith and had changed her name.  Following the marriage, she had attempted to formally change her name and religious status from Islam to Hindu and was advised by the Melaka Islamic Religious Department to make a formal application in this respect to the Malacca Syariah High Court.  The application was filed in late 2006 and the first hearing took place on 8^th January 2007.  Upon attending the hearing, Syariah Court officials detained Mrs Suresh and placed her in the Baitul Aman Faith Rehabilitation Centre.

You might think that my righteous indignation arises from the knowledge that this poor woman could be incarcerated simply for choosing to convert and practise the "wrong" religion. Whilst it is another example of how religious courts established to protect and advance the interests of their own faith cannot be trusted to apply justice without fear or favour, affection or ill will, in fact my ire is raised because in Malaysia, unlike the United Kingdom, its citizens still have an unrestricted right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus.

No one expects Hazel Blears to win the race to be deputy leader of the Labour Party, or even come second.  She is confidently expected to be an also-ran, merely unnecessarily making up the numbers.  It is a shame that the cards are stacked against her, because unlike some of her rivals, she is not “establishment” and inspite of her abilities and obvious success in her political career, she is still refreshingly “ordinary”, remaining indistinguishable in many respects from those constituents who elected her, an authentic representative of the people.

Why then, has her campaign become so accident prone?  First we had the “T-shirt” spanner and now her special adviser Paul Richards, who has been assisting with her campaign, is alleged to have breached rules by, in effect, working on her campaign using “day job” tools and time.

These “minor distractions” did not fall into the public domain by themselves.  Someone pushed them there, deliberately.  One ponders why, if Hazel Blears’ campaign is so doomed to failure, someone believes that it needs a helping hand down the pan?  Perhaps Miss Blears has more support in the Labour Party than is generally supposed.  I hope so.

The Daily Mirror

Hazel Blears' campaign to be Deputy Leader gains momentum

So, the Conservatives did not achieve any increase in their share of the vote in the 3^rd May 2007 elections as compared to the local elections in May 2006, according to most commentators.

As a matter of fact, they have.  Following last year’s local election results,  when the Conservatives appeared to have garnered the all important 40% of the vote, Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher showed that in fact the share was 39%.  This was seized upon by the media, immediately. I can still recall clearly a Conservative MP appearing on a television programme where he expressed pleasure that the Conservatives had attained the all important 40% share of the vote, only to be slapped down by the BBC interviewer who pointed out that the share was only 39%.  How quickly the 39% has been forgotten.  Now, the uncorrected 40% figure has been resurrected to prove that the Conservatives have not made any progress since this time last year.  Unfortunately for the mainstream media, some of us have long memories.

It is interesting to note that in The Times of 5^th May 2007, Professors Rallings and Thrasher are reported to have confirmed that the Conservatives did achieve an increase in share of the vote as against last year, but more importantly that Labour did not increase their share by the full percentage point claimed and still languish at 26%.  Is it not strange that a large section of the media has not adjusted down Labour’s share of the vote as they did with the Conservatives last year?  On reflection, not really, I suppose.

Cameron ‘on course’ for No 10

Focus: A real pummelling for bruiser Brown

On 2^nd May 2007 a twenty-nine-year-old married female teacher, Jenine Saville-King, was found not guilty of eight charges involving alleged sex offences against one of her fifteen-year-old male pupils, at the conclusion of her trial at the St Albans Crown Court. Seven of the charges related to alleged sexual activity with a child and one, abuse of trust.

The Crown’s evidence involved not only the “victim’s” evidence, usually the only evidence available in a large number of cases involving sexual offences, but also Mrs Saville-King’s admissions of “having strong feelings for the boy” and of having sent six thousand text messages to him over a six-month period, including one hundred and thirty-one messages in a single day.  The Crown was able to produce records of these text messages as well hundreds of pages of MSN messages between the two.  Mrs Saville-King denied there had been any sexual relationship between her and the boy and claimed there had been only an emotional bond.  In effect, the defence attacked the boy’s character and called him a liar.  The jury duly deliberated upon the evidence and dismissed the charges.  I have no doubt that their decision was right.  Twelve of Mrs Saville-King’s peers weighed the evidence and found it wanting.  Anyone who read the lurid details of the trial published in the national press might raise an eyebrow, but bear in mind that press reports are supposed to entertain and juicy summaries never do justice to what is actually said in the court room. Every day the jury quietly made their notes, digested and balanced the evidence, gave all due consideration to what had been said, used their judgment and did their duty in reaching a just and fair verdict based upon all of the facts. At the end of the day, they preferred the account of Mrs Saville-King over the boy’s.

With good reason, there will not be any cry that justice has not been done, that young boys are being abused by teachers who are getting away with it.  Nor will there be any demand for a change in the law making it easier to convict defendants in cases of this nature.  How very different when the offence is one of rape by a male against a female.

After the trial, Mrs Saville-King described the allegations against her as “boastful fantasies and dishonest, spiteful untruths.”  Judges and juries sitting in Criminal Courts regularly face witnesses who give dishonest and untruthful testimony.  That these witnesses are found out depends upon allowing advocates to vigorously challenge their version of events, including putting to them matters appertaining to their character.  Humans tell lies, sometimes.

A seventeen-year-old teenager who made false allegations of rape against an Asian taxi driver, Aftab Ahmed, told her lies not “out of malice, but naivety and immaturity.”  Mr Ahmed did not suffer the ignominy of charge, remand in custody and the stress of standing trial, but he did lose his home, livelihood, reputation and found his family relationships and marriage under strain in the fourteen months it took for the lies of his accuser to be exposed in Court. The young lady in question received a four-month detention and training order from the Bradford Youth Court after admitting (very belatedly) a charge of perverting the course of justice.

Teacher cleared of having sex with pupil

Girl’s rape lie destroyed taxi driver’s life

The pundits' attempt to put a noose around the neck of the Conservative Party in the months immediately preceding the local elections in May 2006, by "talking up" council seat gains which, according to their analysis, would have to be achieved, were confounded by the Party's success in those elections.  Undeterred, the Media is now having a second bite at the cherry even though on this occasion the cards are even more heavily stacked against the Conservatives, for various reasons.

In the north, particularly in the conurbations, any Conservative advance has to contend with a Liberal Democrat challenge.  An unpopular Labour administration no longer leads to marginal council seats "going" Conservative because of floating voters changing allegiance and/or Labour core support remaining at home.  The Liberal Democrats are ever present to accept votes against which ever of the main parties is the most unpopular. For many years it has been a three horse race in local elections. The Liberal Democrats are going to win sack loads of seats in the north generally and in northern conurbations in particular.  The Conservatives on the other hand, will increase their vote but win few seats. At local level at the very least, the political landscape has changed and the lack of an obvious Conservative advance must be seen in that light.

In the south, the Conservatives already control a majority of the councils and have either reached or nearly reached their high-tide mark. The electorate often votes against incumbent councils.  Since the Conservatives suffered a local election meltdown in 1995, in successive local elections they have been recovering gradually their natural strongholds such that in many areas they are the incumbents. In this way Conservative seats are vulnerable.  The Liberal Democrats' ability to target seats in which they concentrate upon a very "localised" local issue, must not be lost sight of. An example is Woking Borough Council, where the Conservatives polled a significantly higher percentage of the overall vote in May 2006, but lost councillors in certain, targeted wards. The remaining Labour-held wards are now being targeted by the Liberal Democrats, so they will consolidate their control of Woking Borough Council on 3^rd May, with the Conservatives being mere onlookers, unable to affect the outcome.

UKIP's impact on the Conservative vote must not be overlooked either. In numerous councils where the Conservatives are defending against the Liberal Democrats, just a few score votes transferring from the Conservative to UKIP candidate in marginal wards would hand seats to the Liberal Democrats.

Polls indicate that support for the Conservatives nationwide stands at about 38%, the same as the best poll result published immediately before the local elections in May 2006. The actual poll result in 2006 was just short of 40%, underlining the fact that polls tend to underestimate actual support for the Conservatives by between 1% and 2%. On a 38% vote, Rallings and Thrasher calculate that the Conservatives would achieve 300-400 seat gains. I would venture that support for the Conservatives has reached 40% though certainly not the 42% required for a clear election victory.  I would suggest also that factoring in for instance, the manner in which the Liberal Democrat challenge functions "on the ground", the UKIP diversion and the aversion of disaffected, northern Labour voters to switch direct from Labour to Conservative, even with 40% of the vote, the Conservatives will still secure about 400 extra councillors only.  It is reported that privately the aim of the Conservatives is to gain at least 800 seats. One can conjecture the source of this private briefing, which appears mischievous. Whilst nationwide the Conservatives are challenging for more seats than both Labour and the Liberal Democrats and might be hotly contesting thousands of marginal seats, this is not the same as expecting to win all of them.  Even Labour strategists, who are expecting a hiding, calculate that they will lose between 400 to 500 seats. An ineffective showing by UKIP (possible) or the Liberal Democrats (highly implausible) and the Labour core vote remaining at home would hand eight hundred seats to the Conservatives, but the prerequisites for such a result are just not present.

That attempts will be made to extrapolate the results of the May 2007 local elections to show that the Conservative advance has stalled and that David Cameron will not win the 2009/10 election, should not trouble the Conseravtives.  Following the defeat at the General election of 1997, most commentators agreed that the Conservatives would not be able to overturn the Labour majority in just one election. The Party could not even start to do so whilst its deep unpopularity remained, as evidenced by the result of the 2001 General Election.  Whilst being still unpopular in some quarters, the 2005 election result was further distorted by the Liberal Democrats still being on a roll (largely achieved by the injection of funds from the now disgraced Michael Brown) which meant the Conservatives were often watching their backs whilst at the same time trying to attack Labour.  The General Election in 2009/10 will be the first when Conservative fortunes are in the ascendency but yet commentators now seek to convince us that only spectacular success in the forecoming local elections and outright success at the next general Election will do, otherwise (it will be argued) the Conservatives are in a desperate position where, goes the inference, recovery becomes less and less likely.  It is not so.  It took four consecutive election defeats before the Labour Party rejuvenated. During that rejuvenation it did not have to contend with the Liberal Democrats bleeding a part of its core vote.  Whilst it is correct that for a brief period the Social Democratic Party purported to be an alternative to Labour, the SDP realised quickly that there were more votes to be had from instinctively Conservative electors, hence the merger with the Liberal Party and the splitting of the non-Labour vote in every General Election since.

The Conservatives will not achieve any breakthrough until the Liberal Democrats are seen to be patently receding as a political force.  The Conservatives, through eighteen years of Government and eight years of drift in opposition, enabled the Liberal Democrats to thrive and entrench themselves.  In consequence the Liberal Democrats will not be dislodged in just one or two local elections. That the Liberal Democrats failed to make any impact during the local elections in 2006 was significant, but that lack of success could be (and was) brushed under the carpet before the Public absorbed what had happened.  On 4^th May 2007, after taking many Labour councillors' scalps (and a few from the Conservatives too) the Liberal Democrats will be crowing from the roof tops.  The Media will echo the Liberal Democrat triumph.  Commentators will burble and chatter about the Conservatives' lack of serious progress in "the north", the cities and elsewhere.  Whatever is said, the Conservatives will possess a significant number of new councillors following the May 2007 local elections. Their advance will not have stalled.  For their part, the Liberal Democrats still have to reap the whirlwind that they sowed by accepting the donation from Michael Brown, the donation that enabled them to so inflate their prospects in the 2005 General Election.  The future is bright - and still blue.

New Labour’s local election plans are going pear shaped

Labour strolling to "victory" in the local elections in May 2006

The Sunday Times

Seen by Labour's "intellectual" and "old" left as a joke candidate and provoking disdain amongst those on the Conservative right, Hazel Blears' mildly self-depreciating campaign for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party is gradually gaining support, nevertheless.

Miss Blears understands the vital importance of continuing to be relevant and attractive to so-called "middle class" voters and holding the political centre-ground.  This insight appears to be rapidly vanishing amongst a large section of the ascendant Labour hierarchy who do no more than pay it lip service.

If elected, Hazel Blears promises to ensure that the voice of the Labour Party membership is heard in cabinet.  She will do as she says. She is not a politician who deigns to acquaint herself with her constituents only once every four or five years. She listens to what people have to say and is described by supporters as "both considerate and tough" and as having an "ability to connect with voters like few other politicians." She has been politically astute by highlighting that it does not follow that the Prime Minister should automatically appoint the deputy leader as the deputy prime minister.

It is overlooked that Tony Blair's ability to appeal to a wide swathe of voters leading to the 1997 General Election and beyond was not the only reason for his historic election victories. A tired Government that after eighteen years had overstayed its welcome was always going to lose badly an election against an invigorated Official Opposition Party led by a popular new leader. More importantly, by 1997 and until 2005 the prospect of a Labour Government had ceased to frighten core supporters comprising the liberal, progressive wing of the Conservative Party. A significant minority of these supporters ceased their political activitism, thereby contributing to the loss of marginal constituencies.

Hazel Blears is popular with ordinary people.  She does not frighten the horses.  She is liked even though she is a Labour politician and a ready apologist for the nightmare that this Labour Government has become.  Whilst support from certain quarters of the centre-right might be tongue in cheek, the affection and respect for Miss Blears generally is genuine.  Labour activists ignore that at their peril.  Election of the current favourites for the leadership and deputy leadership can only assist the Labour Party's opponents' cause.

Hazel Blears for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party

The Chief Constable of North Wales, Richard Brunstrom's most irritating fault is that he almost always overstates his case, thereby undermining it.  Excessive speed is a killer, but there is inadvertent speeding and there is deliberate (often reckless) speeding. In failing to differentiate between the two he alienates those very citizens whose support he needs, just as with his beloved speed cameras.

It was unacceptable that he had not sought the permission of the families whose sons had been killed before showing photographs of their mutilated bodies to journalists and local authority representatives at a meeting to promote his Force's road safety work. Nevertheless, it is right that we be reminded of the consequences of irresponsible speeding and substandard driving, combined.  It is so easy to forget that in a collision, even when protected by seatbelts, airbags, collapsing bonnets and safety bars, the human body can suffer serious injury.  At high speeds it can simply disintegrate.

Shock tactics such as these should not be used too often lest their impact be weakened and relatives' permission for publication should be sought, always.  Had Mr Brunstrom not had the reputation of being the  "Mad Mullah of the Traffic Taliban" and with the permission of the relatives, perhaps he would not have caused such a furore.

Richard Brunstrom: Chief Constable and now humble Blogger

It should not be necessary for me to point out that the former Roxy Music star and singer Brian Ferry is not and never has been, a Nazi sympathiser.  It was with some bemusement on my part therefore when I read that he had apologised yesterday for saying Nazi imagery was “amazing”.

It seems that Mr Ferry had said in an interview with a German newspaper that the Nazis “knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves” and that Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl’s movies, Albert Speer's buildings, the mass parades and the flags were “just amazing. Really beautiful.”

Mr Ferry explained that he was “deeply upset” by the negative publicity his remarks had caused and added,

“I apologise unreservedly for any offence caused by my comments on Nazi iconography, which were solely made from an art history perspective. I, like every right-minded individual, find the Nazi regime, and all it stood for, evil and abhorrent.”

Given the death and destruction caused by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945 it is difficult to credit Germany with creating anything worthwhile during that period. The despatch of eight and a half million people in murder camps (everyone forgets about the two and a half million gypsies, two hundred and fifty thousands communists/trade unionists and two hundred thousand homosexuals) gives rise to an instinctive, overwhelming revulsion to the whole concept of Nazism and everything and everyone associated with it. Helene Riefenstahl is intimately and forever associated with the Nazis having directed Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith) about the Nuremberg rally in 1933 and Triumph of the Will, the notorious documentary glorifying Adolf Hitler. As Riefenstahl was steadfastly unapologetic about her close collaboration with the Nazis, praise for her was always going to raise eyebrows.  Nevertheless, though critics have agreed that it is difficult to "separate the subject from the artist behind it", Riefenstahl’s work during that period is generally regarded as masterful, epic, and innovative. She is renowned for developing new aesthetics in film, especially in relation to nude bodies.  Anyone who has seen those Nazi propaganda documentaries, though repelled in significant measure, cannot deny that they are impressive.  Similarly some of Albert Speer’s architecture and designs were little short of magnificent.

No one can suggest reasonably that Brian Ferry did not make his comments in good faith from an “art history perspective”.  It is highly questionable whether he had anything for which to apologise.  That there was a suggestion that Marks & Spencer, for whom Mr Ferry models, should “reconsider [his] contract”, is wholly unacceptable. 

Mr Ferry’s opinions were unremarkable and did not merit censure.

Martin Beckford

Karen McVeigh

Much has been made of Gordon Brown’s incredible decision to sell a substantial part of the United Kingdom’s gold reserves at a time when the value of gold had fallen to rock bottom.  This has been brought to our attention again in an article by Holly Watt and Robert Winnett in The Sunday Times.

More importantly, this episode has gone to show how corrupt Government has become under the New Labour regime and how the Labour spin machine involves the use not only of its own apparatchiks but also supposedly impartial arms of government (in this case HM Treasury) and the misuse of laws and rules that should be applied even-handedly and without favour.

Watt reports,

“The Sunday Times has been battling the Treasury for 18 months to obtain documents revealing the advice it received on the sale of gold.  Under freedom of information laws, the paper has asked for statistical information relating to the decision to sell gold; minutes of ministerial meetings; official correspondence and studies into the aftermath of the decision.

 

Before the 2005 election the Treasury rushed out comparable information about the Conservatives’ darkest economic hour, Black Wednesday, but it took it five months to turn down this request, although it is required by law to respond within 20 working days [my italics and emphasis.]

 

Among five exemptions it has claimed to block publication is that “such information relates to the location (past or present) of the UK’s gold holdings, which, if made known, could increase risks to security”. This information is on the Bank’s official website.”

The conclusion that must be drawn is that this Government will readily accede to a Freedom of Information request that damages its opponents but obfuscates and seeks to bury anything that shows its own bad faith, venality or incompetence.

There has been considerable exaggeration concerning our so called “humiliation” at the hands of the Iranians by way of their seizure of fifteen Royal Navy personnel on 23^rd March 2007 and the alleged consequential loss of our military prestige.  That the abduction was allowed to occur reeks of incompetence on somebody’s part, but once it had taken place, we were left twisting in the wind until events took their course.

During the course of the past one thousand years the English, and latterly the British, have suffered numerous such “humiliations”.  There have always been steady supplies of tin-pot rulers and sometimes extremely powerful enemies who have seized our citizens or military personnel and subjected them to ritual, personal humiliation and sometimes even death.  It is the furore in the aftermath of such incidents that reveals our true mettle. These enemies always assumed the ease in which they inflicted the humiliation, was a sign of our weakness.  It was never so.  Retribution always followed by one means or another, even though the score being settled might be years in the coming.  These little embarrassments do no more than to strengthen our resolve to ensure that they do not happen again, so easily.

The seized personnel were pilloried for allowing themselves to be used for propaganda purposes by the Iranian Regime.  Regimes that pay no attention to the conventions of war have oft used captured soldiers for propaganda purposes.  The Chinese and North Koreans did so in the Korean War and likewise the North Vietnamese almost two decades later.  As we are not at war with Iran, it is not clear what proportionate response could have been made to ensure the earlier release of the hostages.  Besides, our military personnel cannot be expected to behave in a heroic situation on each and every occasion demanded of them, particularly when they are not at war with those who ambush them.  Not every imprisoned serviceman will behave like the prisoners of Colditz.  Even in Wellington’s Peninsula Army, arguably one of the best ever fielded by this country, seasoned soldiers ran away from time to time.  The Duke knew that most of them would return and fight another day.  Sometimes it is just not a good day to die.

Any argument that the abduction occurred because of our military weakness or lack of moral fibre is fatuous.  In many situations it is not militarily possible to rescue hostages, unless you are willing to spark the Third World War.  The mighty United States was forced to negotiate the return of their embassy staff seized by the Iranians on 4^th November 1979 and held for a little over fourteen months. Negotiation was the means of release for the crew of USS Pueblo, held for eleven months after being attacked and seized in international waters by the North Koreans on 23^rd January 1968. North Korea has never paid the price for that act of piracy.

Now it is only our pride that is hurt.  Only three centuries ago Arab slave traders regularly raided villages on the southwest coast of England, snatching thousands of free born Englishmen and women into slavery.  In July 1625, when as now, England possessed one of the most formidable navies in the World; these Islamic corsairs of Barbary sailed up the Bristol Channel, captured Lundy Island and raised the standard of Islam.  Now that was really embarrassing.

You can forget Alan Johnson the Education Secretary and Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary. Hilary Benn might be considered as “leading the race” for deputy by a wide margin and  Harriet Harman,  the Constitutional Affairs Minister described as “Gordon Brown's feminine conscience, on a crusade for women” because when it comes to overall suitability for the position of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Hazel Blears walks it by a mile.

Miss Blears is a feisty woman who has never lost touch with her roots, “traditional working class” as she would describe them.  She had achieved the lofty position of Minister of the Crown (and now Labour Party Chairman) through her own efforts alone without benefit of privilege or favour.  What you see is what you get, a plain speaking Mancunian.  She is popular with the grass roots membership of her party and rightly so – she is one of the people.  Her effervescent optimism, ability to defend with full conviction an impossible position and infectious enthusiasm prove her to be a very capable individual as well as an endearing personality.

In the difficult times ahead for the Labour Party, Hazel Blear’s presence near the helm is in prudence, something it cannot forego.

Hazel for Deputy

I have never felt challenged by anyone possessed of opinions differing or even diametrical to my own, though upon occasion, the manner in which those opinions might be held or expressed, concomitant as they so often are with a presumption of intellectual and moral inferiority on my part, is more than a little wearisome.  Such conceit is a common vice (though not the exclusive domain) of the so-called “liberal left”, those self-appointed guardians of the moral high ground.  In the circumstances I should be forgiven a wry smile when reading recently an article by AA Gill in The Sunday Times where he wrote briefly about the sanctimonious George Monbiot and the insufferable Peter Hitchens,

“But don’t for a moment imagine that the bicycle-riding, organic-hedgerow-grazing, self-denying, 40-watt miserablists are in fact selfless crusaders for the common good. Never underestimate the sustaining pleasure in a hair shirt. Just look at George Monbiot, and witness a man who couldn’t be happier about the imminent demise of life as we know it. It’s given him purpose, prestige and celebrity: without global warming he’d be a geography teacher.”

For Peter Hitchens, no punches were pulled,

“Among journalists, Hitchens is fondly known by the nickname Bonkers. He’s called Bonkers Hitchens because he is raving bonkers, in a way that sells papers but makes him very annoying to sit next to on long flights. I’ve covered elections with him and seen him chase cars like an incensed border collie….[T]he great thing about Hitchens is that he never disappoints. Blissfully, he is utterly bereft of self-irony. For Bonkers there was nothing remotely odd or absurdly hilarious about hating the Conservative party for having Eton-educated, upper-class boys in it. Hitchens should be encouraged to do more. He’s like a lost biblical character from The Life of Brian.”

With Gordon Brown’s popularity declining by the day, seemingly ever quicker since the Budget debacle and now the revelation that he was fully aware of the damage that would be caused by his raid on pension funds, Conservative supporters can be forgiven for beginning to take for granted the prospect of a clear election victory within the course of the next two years.  The Government's flagship policies have failed and it is bereft of new ideas.  It is seen as (and is) incompetent and venal.  It has lost the trust of large swathes of the electorate.  It is inconceivable that, barring some serious political misfortune befalling David Cameron, the Conservatives will not win a majority at the next General Election.  Commentators such as Michael Portillo and Charles Moore are right to warn against over optimism on the part of the Conservatives, given that we are as much as two years away from the next General Election. Nevertheless it is unlikely that a Gordon Brown administration can pull anything out of the hat.  The smell of decay and sense of decline is too strong.

There is a danger that many Conservatives overlook at their peril.  Matthew Parris has alluded to it in his column in The Times.  Gordon Brown will lose the next General Election, but the Conservatives will secure but a tiny majority – a majority that evaporates after only a handful of by-election defeats.  It will be a weak Conservative administration that is at the mercy of the elements and will fall at the very next General Election.

In 2009/2010 there will be too many factors that militate against a handsome majority for the Conservatives - a majority that is so important for strong leadership and Government and the essential foundation of a second consecutive Conservative term.  Labour might well be embarrassed in the elections that are to take place in May 2007 but do not expect those deserting Labour supporters to do the same in a General Election.  Disappointed with their Government they might be, but desirous of a Conservative administration they are not.  Neither should it be forgotten that many electors employed in the public sector depend upon Gordon Brown’s largesse.  They are hardly likely to vote for an administration that is never going to be so generous.   Then there is the current bias in the electoral system which might hand at least a dozen seats to Labour which strictly speaking on a vote for vote basis should belong to the Conservatives.  Neither should the Liberal Democrats be underestimated.  Whilst they will not enjoy a fillip such as that generated by Michael Brown’s considerable donation immediately prior to the General Election in 2005 the membership will be fighting hard to return their sitting MPs.  Many of their seats might only have majorities of a few hundred but few will fall.  Sandra Gidley (Romsey) and Chris Huhne (Eastleigh) will still be there after the next General Election.  It is still not fully appreciated that the “anyone but a Tory” tactical voting campaign that developed following Labour’s 1992 election defeat is still practised amongst many voters opposed to the Conservatives.  Then there is UKIP which so many Europhobic Conservatives are promising to support rather than the Cameron led Conservatives.  Commentators are agreed that these Conservatives could not bear to contribute to an historic fourth consecutive Labour election victory, but yes they could and yes they will.  The inability to make any great inroads in Scotland and Wales, or significant gains in Labour heartlands and recovery of seats lost to the Liberal Democrats in the south will deny the Conservatives a landslide.  Labour has to be well and truly broken for that.  It isn’t, yet.

This is where David Miliband could prove to be the Conservatives' saviour.  Should he become the next Prime Minister rather than Gordon Brown he would achieve what John Major managed in 1992.  The Conservative lead in the opinion polls would evaporate temporarily and in the hastily called General Election in late 2008/early 2009 Labour would be returned for its fourth consecutive term but with a small, even tiny majority.  It is at this point that Labour’s wheel will truly fall off and the Party will be broken.  Miliband cannot create a Cabinet full of fresh new faces.  It would have to include some of the old timers with form.  There will be those in the Party whose political ambitions are thwarted by the young upstart, including Gordon Brown.  The fault lines in this new Labour administration will be present from day one.  The administration will be racked by internal feuding.  The “Old Labour” MPs will seethe that a Blairite has stolen the Crown.  It will not be a strong, united administration.  For the first time in over twelve years the Government will be opposed by an invigorated opposition, led by David Cameron, an opposition only a handful of by-election victories away from bringing it down.  The Country will expect.  The Government will fail to deliver.  The Conservatives will romp to decisive victory.

Of course, the Conservative high command has worked out all of this by itself, hence the misinformation being leaked to the press concerning their fearing a Miliband Premiership and the setting up of an anti-Miliband unit.

Then again, and this is the beauty of politics, it could all be bluff and double bluff.

A Government with a small majority is vulnerable only if the opposition is strong.  The Labour Party consigned to opposition in 2009/2010 will not be strong.  It will be demoralised and disunited just as it was following its election defeat in 1979.  It will bear little resemblance to the Labour Party that unexpectedly lost the 1970 General Election but which reversed that result only three and a half years later in 1974.  There will be recriminations and disunity.  The Labour opposition will not look like a Government in waiting.  Mr Cameron could still win his second term. 

Clunking Fist he might be, but being able to land a heavy blow is no good if your opponent can hit you much harder, twice, first.

It has been commented upon on countless occasions that Gordon Brown is nowhere to be seen when the Government has been embroiled in a spot of bother. Whilst just about every other Minister of the Crown had taken a count or even kissed the canvass upon at least one occasion, Mr Brown did not have a mark on him. This was not as a result of any skill on his part, rather the ability not to be in the ring when the fists were flying. When Premier, this ring dodging will have to stop. Those of us who have always suspected Gordon Brown of having a clay jaw eagerly anticipate his exchanges as Prime Minister, with the Witneyville Lip.