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

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

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

“The loss of liberty is one of the big legacies of an appalling, shallow, dishonest and vindictive government, which has failed the hopes and trust of so many. None of the brilliant lawyers and academics who leap to the defence of the Human Rights Act can deny that the Government's and Home Office's contempt for rights are habitual, and appear to be an ineradicable part of their nature that the HRA cannot restrain.”

Henry Porter  “The Human Rights Act can't restrain the Government”

“Enough. There's something wrong in our politics, something big and bang-in-the-middle: a howling question that is not about the global economy at all. It's about domestic leadership. It's about Mr Brown.  He isn't any good.  He's failing. He's embarrassing. He's dreadful. His colleagues know this. Yet they are gripped with a terrible fatalism, sliding towards election defeat as though catastrophe were unavoidable.”

Matthew Parris  “Do the honourable thing, Mr Brown. Run away”

“Those who have to work with him say that [Gordon Brown] really seems to think that announcing such initiatives is the same as achieving them. Is he, they sometimes wonder, quite right in the head?”

Charles Moore  “Mervyn King's timely lesson in economics for Gordon Brown”

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

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

The report continues,

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

Out of the mouth of babes…

_________________________

1   My emphasis.

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

Robin Murray

Speaking of the phenomenal response on the internet to his speech at the European Parliament on the 24^th March 2009, says Daniel Hannan MEP in The Daily Telegraph today,

“The episode serves to show how utterly and irretrievably the internet has changed politics. In 24 hours, 380,000 people had watched a video before a word appeared on the BBC or in any newspaper.  The Daily Telegraph was the first. The days when political journalists got to decide what was news are over. Ten or even five years ago, a dozen lobby correspondents would dictate the next day's headlines. Now, millions of bloggers and commentators come to an aggregate view.”

Quite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whilst we are all engaged in the debate as to whether Sir Fred Goodwin should be entitled to retain his pension and his knighthood, it is worth bearing in mind that when Gordon Brown is finally prised from power and the dust has settled, the former Prime Minister will in all likelihood drift into a knighthood (if not ennobled as Lord Brown of Kirkcaldy and/or Cowdenbeath) to enjoy his very ample gold plated pension.  Given the severe damage that Gordon Brown has inflicted upon the economy, should this be any less worthy of censure than the case of his former best mate, Sir Fred?

Said Huw Edwards in an article promoting the BBC programme “Gladstone and Disraeli: Clash of the Titans”,

“I have more than a few reasons to name William Gladstone as a hero of mine. He was an even greater hero to some of my ancestors. In the mid-19th Century, most of the Edwards family were tenant farmers in Cardiganshire. Refusing to vote for the local (Tory) landowner at election time was a very dangerous thing to do. In those days, voting was not a secret process. Employers or landowners could check up on how workers or tenants had voted. The “rebels” were promptly punished. One of my ancestors was thrown off his farm near Tregaron for daring to vote Liberal…….It was William Gladstone who put a stop to this obnoxious system by introducing the secret ballot in 1872.”

The subliminal message is that the Conservative Party of the past was not above underhand tactics to achieve electoral success.  However, the myths do not accord with the facts.  The Whigs and Tories of the nineteenth century were of the same social class and neither party nor their supporters, were wholly immune from the vice of seeking electoral advantage by less than fair means.  Thus, a tenant farmer who supported a Conservative candidate was just as likely to suffer the wrath of his Liberal supporting landlord. 

It is also important to look at the issue in context of the age. Whilst the Reform Act of 1832 extended the franchise to a limited degree, the Act that really began the process of “the working man” being enfranchised was the Reform Act of 1867. Thus, the opportunity for the great landowners to purportedly bully the “little people” into voting their way had only just arisen.  It is important to bear in mind also that the Reform Act 1867 was passed by a Conservative administration.  That administration lost power in 1868, only for the Conservatives to be returned to power in 1874 (after a secret ballot) with a large majority over Gladstone’s Liberals.

The secret ballot was a roaring success......but not for the Liberals.

Let me say from the outset, that I have never considered as racist, the comments concerning Shilpa Shetty made by Jade Goody during her second stint as a Big Brother housemate.  Though I had not watched a single episode of Big Brother, when the furore broke I did take the time to view the offending scenes.  It was patently clear to me that the cause of Jade Goody’s antagonism was nothing to do with race, but everything to do with Shilpa Shetty’s natural grace and intelligence.  It was entirely a class issue, with the ill educated Miss Goody responding to the cultured, educated and so obviously top drawer Miss Shetty in the only way she knew – with disparaging comments (the worst of which, I seem to recall, was referring to her as “Shilpa Poppadom”).  The politically correct mainstream media did not see it that way of course, with the result that Miss Goody was pilloried and relentlessly bullied for being racist.

Even Paul Routledge, a hammer of anything even vaguely suspected of being middle class or Conservative supporting, felt constrained to annunciate,

“Shilpa Shetty was slagged off by slatternly morons who are unfit to kiss the hem of her sari. Their illiterate grunting had no place on prime-time TV. By contrast, the Bollywood star bears herself with remarkable dignity. She showed a calm alien to the other “housemates”, especially Jane Baddy. I think that's her name.”

How times and tunes change.  Now in the eyes of Mr Routledge Mrs Jack Tweed is a heroine.

“Jade Goody, 27, has probably filmed her last TV appearance. The shades of eternity are gathering round her….Jade sought stardom as an escape from the hell of a broken home and dead-end jobs.  She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, becoming rich, a household name and controversial.  She has loved living in the limelight… But poor Jade never had the start in life that Gail [Trimble]’s parents gave her. She had to do it all herself, so I think her achievement is the greater. To break out of that deprived background and do what she did - including her indiscretions - took courage. I respect her for that”

avers Mr Routledge, continuing elsewhere,

“Meanwhile gorgeous, pouting Gail Trimble, Corpus Christi's famous know-all team captain, is inconsolable at losing the [University Challenge] trophy. “Too upset to comment,” say friends. There, there, luv. It's only a game.  Try imagining you're Jade Goody, still talking to the media on the brink of death.  That’ll restore your sense of reality.”

Inconsistency, incoherence and large servings of hypocrisy are to be expected of a newspaper suffering a significant fall in circulation, and as such perhaps it is not surprising that a gifted young lady who had not sought publicity other than by being a member of a successful team appearing on University Challenge, is now so meanly used to venerate an individual who herself was so cruelly abused by the tabloid press.

Asks Iain Martin,

 “I have been waiting, in vain, for this scandal [the debacle of LloydsTSB acquiring “toxic” HBOS]  to catch fire. But instead the story is fizzling out.

Why? Well, Britons are punch drunk after the past six months. And perhaps the numbers involved are so large that they are difficult to visualise. Fred the Shred's pension, involving sums more easily grasped, was handily leaked by the Government as a distraction.

Yet the chain of responsibility is straightforward. Both Sir Victor and Brown made catastrophic errors of judgment, thinking a great deal of their own interests. The cost to the rest of us will be higher national debt and higher taxes.”

The actual answer is that there were so many depositors and investors who would have lost money by a catastrophic collapse of HBOS, they were happy to see their investments and savings protected even though that might beggar LloydsTSB.  It hardly lies in their mouths to then join vocally in the condemnation of Sir Victor Blank and Gordon Brown’s extraordinary agreement which led to the wreck of a sound bank.  This is not to say however, that Gordon Brown's involvement in this monumental blunder has passed unnoticed.  The electorate's anger will simmer until the General Election, when retribution will be delivered.

Discussing our ruling classes’ recently acquired addiction to twittering Rachel Sylvester quotes psychologist Oliver James who says,

 “Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It's a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are.  Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.”

Being someone of little consequence, this is deeply satisfying to know.  I do not twitter ergo I have a strong sense of identity. 

Or is it simply that I still haven’t mastered using this new fangled quill writing implement?

“Lloyds TSB was a cautious bank, mocked for its conservatism by the banking buccaneers whose testosterone-charged aggression precipitated the downfall of the British financial sector. It was precisely the kind of healthy institution that, left alone, could have led the national recovery. But Gordon Brown, with the anti-Midas touch that characterises him, pushed it into a doomed union with HBOS, thus destroying a bank that gave capitalism credibility.”

Gerald Warner

Has there ever been a Government more “economic with the truth”?  Not only has this Labour administration now descended into the realms of pure deceit, but it seeks to browbeat those armed with the real facts who dare to publish them.

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

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

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

According to Vernon Bogdanor, Fellow of Brasenose College and Professor of Politics and Government at Oxford University,

“Why should Gordon Brown not seek a coalition government, a government of national recovery, to bring all social democrats under one roof? That would revive the new Labour project of realignment that collapsed only because it won by a landslide in 1997; and it would transform the economic psychology of an electorate coming to believe that Britain's economic problems are too serious to be resolved by any one party alone…

 

...There are, of course, deep differences between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Yet a government of national recovery would not be a mere coalition of convenience. The two parties have been able to work together perfectly well in the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales, to the benefit of progressive government. They could surely agree measures to stimulate the economy, combat the collapse of the housing market, achieve greater control over the banks and reform the regulatory system.”

and finally,

“It was because the forces of progress were so often divided that the 20th century was a Conservative century. If the Left can unite on an agreed programme of economic reform and electoral reform, the Conservative century could be succeeded by the progressive century.”

I cannot imagine anything that would be guaranteed to enrage the electorate more, than a centre-left coalition maintaining in power the most inept, unprincipled and ability challenged British administration of modern history. A political misjudgement of this magnitude on the part of the Liberal Democrats must surely ensure Conservative hegemony for many years to come.