Bel is thinking

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.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Gordon Brown has appointed his eighth spin doctor of the year.

I wonder if Gordon Brown remembers the following words; he uttered them during PMQs on 11 July 2007, in reference to David Cameron:

“He can go for his PR—I will go for being PM, and we will get on with the job.”

Just to refresh his his memory, the Hansard transcript is here.

On the news that the Government faces a revolt on the 10p tax issue, a ‘Treasury source’ attempts to explain that compensation for those hardest hit may not be that straightforward.

Saith he:

“The Chancellor hasn’t any money,” … “There is no secret stash up his sleeve.”

Isn’t that part of the problem? The idea that the money belongs to the Chancellor in the first place, and if ‘his’ stash is running out, then ‘he’ can’t help.

Only when they grasp that the money belongs to the taxpayer will we begin to see any real change. For starters, if they recognised that basic fact (i.e that our money is our own), they wouldn’t take so much of it from the poor, and then force them to jump through hoops in order to get it back in the form of ‘credits’.

I’m speechless at this latest episode of incompetence by a Government department.

As others have remarked elsewhere, given what has happened today, is there any reason why we should trust the Government with our data under the proposed ID cards scheme?

I recognise that argument, but I’ve always been rather cautious of it. When arguing against ID cards, I prefer not to base my opposition on Government competence (or otherwise). That, to me, would be a false argument. As if to say that if only the Government could be trusted not to lose our data, then it would be OK to have ID cards. My opposition to ID cards is based on civil liberties grounds, and as such, will not change even if there were a cast-iron guarantee that our details would be secure.

Having said that, today’s news can only make the public more sceptical of the whole ID cards project. If so, that can only be a good thing. If ID cards are scrapped because of public scepticism over Government competence, I for one will not quarrel with that. I suppose, in the end, it matters not how the victory is won.

A muslim woman in a headscarf applies for a job as a hairdresser. She tells the potential employer that she has to wear her headscarf at all times. Predictably, she is turned down for the job. She is now suing the hairdresser for discrimination.

Why do I say ‘predictably’? It’s because no hairdresser with any business sense would employ a stylist whose hair the customer cannot see. If I, as a customer, cannot see what the stylist has done to her own hair, why should I trust her with mine?

The case continues. I only hope common sense prevails. By all means, wear a headscarf if your religion mandates you to do so (doubtful, but let that pass); but don’t expect to work in a field where we need to see your hair.

Just wondering: if her religion really demands that she go everywhere with her hair covered, and given that no-one would trust a stylist with concealed hair, perhaps the logical (even if absurd) conclusion to draw is that perhaps Allah never intended for his women to work as hairdressers in the first place? I wonder if she’ll think on that.

I like the Chicken Yoghurt blog. It is one of my favourite blogs. Its writer, Justin, is what I would call a principled blogger. He identifies his principles, and sticks to them. Some bloggers (naming no names) attack or defend particular acts or policies depending on whether or not the perpetrator of the act or policy is on the same side of the political divide as they are. Not Justin. Reading his blog, you get the impression that these are his views, and no-one else’s. You can’t say that about many blogs these days.

I’ve just been reading an impressive piece on the Chicken Yoghurt blog about Gordon Brown and so-called ‘British liberty’. The post actually went up yesterday, but I’ve been out of town, and am now catching up on all my reading. It’s worth reading in full, but here is an arresting extract:

As he begins this new chapter in ‘British’ liberty (as opposed that filthy foreign liberty) in the broad, non-specific strokes of a truly great leader, let us see what a newly liberated Britain holds in store for us. Fifty-six days detention without trial. ID cards. Four and a half million people on the DNA database. What could be more British than that?

It’s a very good piece, and it raises valid concerns about our hitherto taken-for-granted liberties, and the state of politics today.

I’m a bit late, but would like to register my support for Tim Ireland, the author of Bloggerheads. His blog has been forced offline because he had the temerity to write some things that were displeasing to a certain ex-convict from Uzbekistan.

Very worrying. Tim hadn’t written anything libellous, but Alisher Usmanov (the aforementioned Uzbek) is a really touchy fellow with a lot of money. Following dark threats from his lawyers, Tim’s webhosts panicked and pulled the plug on his blog, and for good measure, also took down a few other blogs that were being managed by Tim.

This is truly disconcerting. As Mr Eugenides very splendidly put it:

If you can be silenced for calling a businessman a crook, then you can be silenced for calling a politician a crook, too. Then it’s everyone’s problem.

Tim should be back online soon, no doubt with a hosting company with proper backbone. Looking forward to the return of Bloggerheads.

For more details on this story, check out Chicken Yoghurt.

Many years ago, when I studied Administrative Law at university, our lecturer would preface every single discussion of any court case involving Mr Justice Sedley (as he then was) with the words that the learned judge was a ’staunch defender of human rights’. It was therefore with mild alarm that I read this morning that the selfsame judge has suggested we should all be put on a DNA database.

His reasoning? That the database is unfair in the way it currently operates. Guilty folk are registered on it, as are innocent people who have come into some contact with the police, perhaps due to having been arrested but released without charge.

The problem, as the Lord Justice Sedley sees it, is that these innocent folk are being tarred with the same brush as the guilty folk. So in order to redress this, every other innocent soul in the land should be added to the database to dilute the stigma of the database.

(As a cheeky aside, this reminds me of a passage in the Bible, broadly stating that: ‘God has concluded the whole world to be sinners, so that he can have mercy on everyone’. When it comes to such wide-sweeping action, I suppose we can trust only God to act in this way, as His ultimate aim, according to that Bible passage, is to show us all mercy. But can we trust the Government?)

By suggesting such an expansion of the database, Lord Justice Sedley has started from the premise that the database is unavoidable: it cannot be done away with, so let’s make the best of a bad situation. But what about arguing the case that, if there is to be a database at all, only the guilty should remain on it? Leaving aside human rights considerations, is it not easier to strike a few innocent names off a database, than to expand the database by adding millions more names to it?

At the lowest level, my interpretation of what Lord Justice Sedley seems to be saying is this: if some innocent people are going to suffer, then let us all suffer along with them. This strikes me as defeatist. Would it not be easier to come up with ways to fix the database?

But we cannot really leave aside the human rights implications of this, and I think the good old judge knows that. So why did he make the suggestion in the first place? Was it to highlight the absurdity of the database? If so, he reckoned without the deviousness of our politicians, who will no doubt seize upon his comments as justification for any further expansion of the database. Already, we have Tony McNulty, the Minister of State for Security, Counter-terrorism, Crime and Policing, saying that he is ‘broadly sympathetic’ to Sedley’s idea. You can just imagine the scene in a few years’ time when this matter is being debated in Parliament. Some Labour minister will justify extending the database on the basis that it was suggested by a ‘leading judge with an excellent track record as a staunch defender of human rights’. Thanks a lot, Lord Justice Sedley. We are dealing with a Government hellbent on extracting from us our civil liberties, and you turn up to make the job easier for them.

I couldn’t help noticing the irony of Tony McNulty saying of Sedley’s suggestion: ‘I think he does underestimate the practicalities, logistics and civil liberties and ethics issues surrounding it.’ Things have come to a pretty pass when a member of this illiberal Government would presume, albeit disingenuously, to speak on civil liberties to a ’staunch defender of human rights’.

He was instrumental in the smoking ban, he would love to take the organs of deceased folk without permission, and he thinks he has the right to tell you how to live your life.

Yes, I am talking about Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer.

I would love to see a copy of his job description. Perhaps there is something in there that gives this man the confidence to make statements like this:

The first thing you see when you walk into a supermarket is a wall of cigarette packets, we need to do something about that, and let’s get the cigarette out of Kate Moss’s mouth.

Sorry Sir, but are you proposing to tell shops how and where they may display their cigarettes? Are there not laws already that inform shopkeepers of the sort of people to whom they may not sell cigarettes? Is that not enough? So long as the shopkeepers are selling to people who may legally buy, of what concern is it to you that the goods are displayed in a prominent place?

Or do you believe that the mere sight of cigarette packets lining a wall is enough to tempt us all into a lifetime of nicotine dependency? Would you rather the cigarettes were hidden under the counter and passed over to the customer in a brown bag?

And as for Kate Moss, please leave the girl alone. She can smoke wherever she pleases, within the limits of the (recently changed) law. So long as she is not smoking in a prohibited place, her cigarette may dangle from her lips with impunity.

And why pick on her at all? Surely you don’t buy into all that ‘role model’ nonsense as well? Do you think that she is a ‘role model’ and must therefore behave in a manner approved by yourself and other such well-meaning figures in authority? Do you not think that there is a problem with society if our children forsake all the worthy examples before them, and choose instead to look up to an inarticulate, scandal-ridden girl as deserving of their adulation? Rather than chasing such a girl down the street and ‘getting the cigarette out of her mouth’, would it not be better to educate people about the health benefits of not smoking, and then leave it to them to make up their minds?

Personal responsibility is one of the most empowering drugs out there. Why do you not advocate it more? Is it because a society of free and responsible adults is one in which there would be precious little for you to do, fewer opportunities to meddle in our lives, and no audience to whom you can preach?

The Conservative Party has been thinking about marriages involving non-EU spouses. According to the Telegraph, here are some of their proposals, in respect of entry into the UK:  

• increase in qualifying age of entry from 18 to 21;
• English tests; and
• citizenship tests.

In making these proposals, the Tories are thinking about immigration, sham marriages, and integration, but they need to tread very carefully.

Damien Green, the party’s immigration spokesman, is quoted as saying:

“Too many young women are brought to England to marry when they cannot possibly integrate with our society. They need better protection.”

If so, why increase the age from 18 to 21? Is it not better for the spouses to come in when they are younger, and have more chance of getting an education, perhaps going to a college, joining an apprenticeship, or learning a trade? Many employers looking for trainees will happily take on an 18 year old, perhaps more so than they would a 21 year old; so if it really is integration that the Tories are concerned about, they should not be raising the age of eligibility. The younger one is, the greater the chances of integrating, I would have thought.

I also suspect the Tories are on dodgy human rights grounds with these proposals. So if a bride fails the English test, she is to be sent back whence she came until such time as she can pass? Also consider these two scenarios: an English man who marries a Canadian woman who speaks only French, and an English man (from say, Bradford) who marries a non English-speaking girl from Islamabad? Both are non-EU foreign brides, but somehow I think that only one couple is the target of these proposals. What then happens? Will the immigration officers apply the law literally, and turn away the Canadian, in the name of ‘consistency’? Or will they disingenuously find some narrow grounds for admitting her, while turning away her Pakistani sister?

As for citizenship tests, I have no problem with them. Everybody applying for citizenship should sit a test, regardless of whether or not the applicant is a ‘non-EU spouse’. Perhaps a foreign spouse could be granted indefinite leave to remain, and then upgraded to citizenship on taking, and passing, the test.

These proposals come very close to interfering with the right to marry. Earlier this week, the Court of Appeal ruled that regulations requiring non-European citizens to obtain a certificate of approval before marriage were illegal, and breached the right to marry. Of course, the Tories would argue that they are not restricting the right to marry. Their argument would probably be that one may marry as one wishes, as the restriction is not on marriage per se, but on the right of entry to the United Kingdom. Maybe so, but these proposals, at the very least, interfere with family life.

Take another example: an English man marries an 18 year old girl from Islamabad, who speaks perfect English, and is in every respect ‘fit for UK society’. However, because she is only 18, they are told that she can’t come in until she’s 21. There is nothing he can do to fix that. All he can do is wait three years. Interference with family life? Most certainly, especially given the fact that in the United Kingdom, one may legally marry at 18. At least in the case of a 21 year old, non-English speaking Pakistani bride, a few months in a language school should ensure she passes the English test, and can therefore enter the country. In the case of her 18 year old sister, no such advantage. She stays out of the country until she ‘comes of age’.

My message to the Tories: it is good that you are thinking, although quite why one should credit you for doing that most basic of functions, I don’t know. Still, thinking is good, and there has not been much evidence of that in recent days. However, these ideas are still half-baked, and need a lot more work. Please think about them a bit more before putting them out for consultation.