Bel is thinking

So Gordon Brown is now lecturing us to stop wasting food?

This from a man who, as Chancellor, threw away almost £2bn of taxpayer money every year on overpaid tax credits (see here and here). A man whose Government continues every day to create new ways to waste our money. (For a recent example, see the £2.7bn Crewe and Nantwich byelection bribe - a last-minute, unbudgeted expense, done for little more than political expediency.)

After all that he has done to our public finances, I am astounded that this man can stand there, and without shame, presume to lecture the British people about thrift.

This is even more galling in view of last week’s vote by MPs to continue, among other things, having their meals paid for by the taxpayer. We pay for their food and wine, and then they turn around to us, and, in between mouthfuls of the choicest fare, give us tips on how to make our food last longer. “Package it properly, put it in the fridge, plan your meals properly. Do all this and you will save £8 a week.” All this they tell us, while feeding themselves fat on the good of the land.

This is beyond ridiculous. What makes it worse is that these people seem not to realise the level of contempt in which they are held. Or maybe even more worrying, they do realise, but are past caring. They have been afflicted with that condition often seen among people who have held power for too long. They have become blind to all but themselves. Oblivious to every warning, they plough on in the single-minded pursuit of self-interest. In this regard, I am reminded of a verse in the Bible. It was used in a different context, but would be apt here:

“That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand.”

Blindness in part has come upon our “leaders”. How much longer until they fall into their self-appointed ditch?

While going through the UK news from last week, I happened upon an interesting story.

A not-so-merry band of thieving women were up before a judge to be sentenced for their role in a robbery. In handing out his sentence, the judge described them as behaving like “a bunch of over-the-hill slappers”.

Inappropriate, no doubt, given that their “slapperiness” (or otherwise) had nothing to do with the robbery. However, what caught my attention was the response to the judge’s comments. A friend of the women took exception to her buddies being described in such brutal terms. Springing to their defence, she claimed:

“Mel’s still in her 30s and none of them reckon they are over the hill. They might have let themselves go a bit but they still reckon they could pick up a fella given half a chance.”

Pick up a fella given half a chance? Now, if that’s not the definition of a “slapper”, I don’t know what is.

Ex-convict Jonathan Aitken has been asked by the Centre for Social Justice to serve on a policy review commission on prison reform.

Adam Boulton’s blog reports the following reaction from Government Whip, Tom Watson:

This is a return to the disgraced, scandal-ridden Tory past.

What can we expect next from the Tories?

David Cameron should go all the way, bring in Jeffrey Archer to run a truth and reconciliation committee, draft Neil Hamilton in to advise him on parliamentary modernisation and scrutiny, and bring in Shirley Porter to overhaul his housing policy.

Hmm. Interesting. And here I was thinking that the Labour Party was into rehabilitation of wrongdoers and all that.

This is my view: Jonathan Aitken committed a very serious offence. He was duly punished, and he served his sentence. He has also publicly repented of his crime. As such, he should be free to contribute to society in any way that he can. If he has something to contribute to prison reform policy, then by all means, let’s hear it.

This issue reminded me of something that happened on this blog some months ago. I was taken to task by some people for allowing John Hirst, otherwise known as the Jailhouse Lawyer, to comment on my blog. The argument was that he had committed a very serious crime, had shown no public remorse, and so should not be permitted space on any decent weblog. Some people threatened to boycott my blog until I barred him. I refused. Part of my reasoning was that he had been punished for his crime, and that if he had something useful to say, I was interested in hearing it. I must say that almost all the supportive comments and emails I received were from people on the Left of the political divide. Maybe they understand instinctively the whole rehabilitation thing, I don’t know. However, for many reasons, I was very much cheered by their support.

Back to Jonathan Aitken. I wonder if Tom Watson would be making these comments if a non-Tory ex-offender had been appointed instead. Take the the Jailhouse Lawyer: he was in prison for a very long time, challenged the prison system in court, and is very well-versed in many aspects of prisoners’ rights. He has a lot of interesting insights into prison reform, and would no doubt have so much to offer to the debate, if asked. If the Jailhouse Lawyer had been invited, and had accepted, to serve on the panel, I wonder if Tom Watson would have condemned the appointment.

Of course he wouldn’t have condemned the appointment. The only reason he has criticised Aitken’s appointment is because Aitken is a Tory. That is the simple truth. I wrote a few days ago about principled bloggers, those who praise or criticize policy based on principle, regardless of whether or not the policy in question was advocated by their political allies or opponents. I know that Tom Watson is a party political man who owes much of his career achievement to the Labour Party, but that is no reason to eschew principle. If you believe in the rehabilitation of ex-offenders, particularly those that have shown remorse, and indicated a desire to serve, why should that principle change just because the ex-offender in question is from a different political party to yourself? Or maybe Tom Watson does not believe in rehabilitation at all, in which case, his comments are completely consistent. Somehow I doubt that.

A worrying story in the Telegraph today.

A suspected rapist is out on the run. Police are trying to track him down. They decide that a televised appeal would most likely yield useful results.

However, before they can go ahead with the appeal, the local Racial Equality Council (REC) advise them that because the suspect is Afghan, the appeal could lead to a racist backlash.

So in the world of the REC, the whole of the UK will take to the streets with machetes and hack down every foreign-looking man, if this appeal is shown?

So the police reluctantly back down, the suspect is still on the run, and the Racial Equality Council are satisfied with themselves for a job well done.

What strange times we live in. Never mind the risk to public safety. That obviously is as nothing, when compared to the danger of perceived racism.

The two British girls arrested in Ghana on suspicion of drug smuggling insist that they were set up. Says one of them:

There were basically two boys over here who gave us two bags, and told us to bring it (that) it was an empty bag.

We never thought anything bad was inside … and they told us to go to the UK and drop it off to some boy … at the airport.

The two boys gave us bags in Ghana to bring to London, to give to the boy in London.

It was basically like a set up. They didn’t tell us nothing, we didn’t think nothing, cos basically we are innocent.

We don’t know nothing about this drugs and stuff, we don’t know nothing.

I am trying not to be cynical. Are they really that naive? I know that they are both only 16 years of age, but I find it surprising that these young girls could be duped so easily.

Boris Johnson has described Portsmouth as “too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs.’’

There is anger in the town.

But why? He is right, after all. The only thing Portsmouth has to complain about is that this description applies to many towns in the UK anyway, so why single them out?

I am reading through the crime review proposals launched by Tony Blair today. They are contained in a large pdf here.

In particular, I am interested in the proposals for ’summary’ action against criminals. One of the proposed measures is the introduction of new forfeiture powers:

[to] allow the police to seize and forfeit movable non-cash assets that are suspected of being both the proceeds and instrumentalities of crime up to a certain value threshold (for example £100,000). This would mainly affect vehicles; …

Leave to one side any human rights or constitutionality issues. I am interested in the word ‘instrumentalities’. I take this to mean that if a movable non-cash asset, rather than having been bought with the proceeds of crime, is being itself used as an instrument to commit a crime, then that asset may be seized by police under the new rules. Applying nothing but a formalist approach to this measure, I would say that it makes sense. The police may be able to seize a suspected getaway car, or a car suspected to have been used in a kidnapping, even if the car was bought with legitimate money. This would satisfy the ‘instrumentalities’ condition of the measure, even if not the ‘proceeds’ condition.

But consider the next paragraph, in which it is proposed that the measure may not just be restricted to vehicles, but:

possibly extend to all non-cash assets (lifestyle assets like jewellery, plasma TVs and laptops) up to £100,000. This would be a highly powerful tool against bad criminal role models, … [emphasis mine]

While I can understand how a a gold necklace could be seized on suspicion of being part of the proceeds of crime, I am a bit baffled as to how it could qualify as an ‘instrumentality’ of crime. It is not a weapon, and unlike a getaway car in my example above, it is hard to see how jewellery could be used to commit a crime. Same goes for a plasma TV, except maybe if it is used to smash someone over the head. I suppose you could always strangle someone with a thick gold necklace; that would meet the ‘instrumentality’ definition, but somehow I don’t think that that is what the Government is getting at.

Bearing in mind the sentence I highlighted in the above quotation, I submit that what the Government is trying to say is this: ‘even if we cannot prove that the jewellery you have around your neck is from the proceeds of crime, we can still seize it if you are a criminal, because by displaying such flash ‘lifestyle’ goods, you are encouraging young people to follow you in a life of crime.’

This is wrong. The Government would be breaking its own rules if it implemented this measure. If the rule is that goods are to be seized because they are either ’proceeds’, or ‘instruments’, then that is what the rule is. A gold necklace or a plasma TV bought by a gangster out of legitimate money is neither proceeds nor instrument. It may well serve as an incentive to impressionable children to emulate the gangster’s behaviour, but on the strict reading of the Government’s measures, I do not see why that should lead to seizure of the offending items. The best that can be said for it is that it is a generous extension of the definition of ‘instrumentality’.

The ‘bling seizure’ proposal may never see the light of day, though. The document itself admits that including these measures ‘could increase the risk of human rights challenge’. No kidding.

In writing this post, I have deliberately refrained from discussing whether it is even right for the police to be given these powers at all. This should not be taken to mean I endorse wide-ranging powers for the police to usurp the role of the judiciary. I do not. I spend a lot of time on this blog writing about what the law ought to be, rather than what it is. That in itself is an exercise in futility, especially given the political circumstances of our time. The law is what it is, not least because our lily-livered Parliamentarians are prepared to sit back and let this Government ride roughshod over every constitutional right and principle. The point of my post is that, even on a positivist reading of these proposals, without considering their intrinsic merits and demerits, the Government would still be wrong to attempt to seize ‘lifestyle property’ bought with legitimate money. 

Another day, another ‘wide-ranging review’ by Blair. This time, it’s on crime.

Tell me, what has he been doing for the past ten years, then?

Over at Ellee’s place, a moving letter to Sally Clark who died today. It says everything I would have wanted to say.

A self-styled former liberal writes an article in the Daily Mail. It is entitled ‘The night my daughter was stabbed - and my liberal instincts died’.

In summary, his daughter had gone out one night to the shops in their affluent North-West London neighbourhood. On her way back, she was stabbed in the ribs by a hoodie who grabbed her bag and ran away. Mercifully, she survived, but her father has swiftly recanted his liberal ways. Hear him:

Nothing shatters one’s dearly-held liberal beliefs quite like a brutal clash with the reality of crime.

On our streets today it is the middle-class young people - the products of our liberal homes - who are being targeted.

That’s right, sir. Welcome to the real world.

Faced with what happened to his daughter, he states further:

So is there anybody out there who is accountable? The terrible fact is that, in these well-tended million-pound-plus houses with their state-of-the art security systems, people have long known what’s going on in the street outside.

But they have closed the blinds and simply turned away. And so have I.

…

We have put our heads in the sand for too long about this problem and have done nothing about the indifference of the authorities to much that is wrong in our society. We certainly backed the wrong policies on education - no one who could possibly avoid it would send a child to a comprehensive school around here.

Worse, we have done this at the expense of our own children, who now have to forge their lives in the bleak urban environment we have allowed to develop.

Well said, sir.

As you can imagine, the readers’ comments to this article in the Daily Mail, while sympathetic, have chided him for his past folly. Many have made the sound observation that it is liberals like him who have denounced ordinary citizens and even politicians for daring to speak out against the prevailing tolerant attitudes to crime and criminals.

I am glad he has acknowledged the damage done to society by the ideology he previously espoused. His redemption is (almost) complete. All he needs to do now is share the news of his conversion with his fellow liberals. I fail to see the point of him writing this article in the Daily Mail. Preaching to the converted, as it were. Better that he takes his message to the Guardian, and let us hope it falls there on good ground and yields lasting fruit.