Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
...
I believe this is very common. I was a witness for an assault case where the defendant plead guilty after being told I'd been patiently waiting for hours at court to testify.
It must cause lots of difficulty in scheduling cases.
It is the principal reason for adjournments. When I was a fiscal I would typically have up to 15 trials set down for a day. Some would go off because pleas would be agreed. Others would go off because important witnesses had failed to attend. But most went off with sheer pressure of business. On a good day, and I think I can claim to have been faster than most, I would get through 4 trials. Sometimes, of course, you could only get through 1 if it was complex or required a lot of evidence.
The defence, of course, knew this as well as me. They also knew, like @BartholomewRoberts, that witnesses would become increasingly reluctant to turn up and this was the best chance to get an acquittal. So the trick, such as it was, was to pick trials where pleas were almost inevitable if you had a full house and turn them into pleas. This is the way that the Criminal Justice system works and, in my experience, has always worked under Tory, Labour and SNP governments alike.
What do you think can or should be done about it?
A guilty plea on the day I'd hope should not be treated the same as a guilty plea in advance when it comes to sentencing? I have no idea how that bit works or not.
I believe is treated the same - at least for magistrates courts.
I actually asked that question in a rather interesting context recently. I am still waiting for a response on that…
If trials are successful, the hand-held test would give doctors the ability to identify patients with a respiratory infection like pneumonia, who need an antibiotic treatment, within the space of a regular 15-minute clinic appointment – or deliver accurate results for emergency patient care, within a few minutes, from a small sample of blood.
A two-year programme will develop a proof-of-concept test, which uses a combination of procalcitonin (PCT) and C-reactive protein (CRP) to determine between bacterial and viral infections.
How the test works PCT is produced in healthy individuals in response to hormones, however, production is increased during a bacterial infection.
PCT does not rise in the presence of a viral infection, as another protein produced by the body during viral infection, called ‘interferon gamma’, blocks the production of PCT. This makes high levels of PCT specific to bacterial infections.
Simultaneously, CRP is produced by the body when it encounters an infection, which then marks bacterial and viral cells as ‘invaders’ for destruction by the body’s immune system.
The amount of CRP the body produces rises with infection, most significantly by bacteria, but also with other viral and fungal infections.
Combining the measurement of PCT and CRP into one test has the potential to improve accuracy and aid in the proper use of antibiotics....
Sounds good, I don't think I've ever asked for antibiotics with a respiratory infection (As they're overwhemingly viral) whereas loads of people knock the GP's doors down for them when they're frankly not needed. A test to determine whether they're actually needed is no bad thing.
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
Depends on the numbers.
If Labour would only have a majority in the UK with SNP support, but would have a majority in England without it, the SNP would say we are off then...
That is impossible because for Labour to have a majority in England it would have to have won most seats in England and thus the UK and could ignore the SNP anyway.
The SNP only become decisive if the Tories have a majority or most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP have a majority across the UK
UDI without Westminster consent is also illegal and has been ruled out by Sturgeon
Don't know that yet do we? There is this thing called the Supreme Court. And if an advistory referendum is good enough for Brexit ...
An advisory referendum without UK government consent has no impact on the Union and even the 2016 EU referendum result was rejected by Westminster for 3 years after 2016 when it consistently rejected the EU withdrawal agreement May proposed
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
...
I believe this is very common. I was a witness for an assault case where the defendant plead guilty after being told I'd been patiently waiting for hours at court to testify.
It must cause lots of difficulty in scheduling cases.
It is the principal reason for adjournments. When I was a fiscal I would typically have up to 15 trials set down for a day. Some would go off because pleas would be agreed. Others would go off because important witnesses had failed to attend. But most went off with sheer pressure of business. On a good day, and I think I can claim to have been faster than most, I would get through 4 trials. Sometimes, of course, you could only get through 1 if it was complex or required a lot of evidence.
The defence, of course, knew this as well as me. They also knew, like @BartholomewRoberts, that witnesses would become increasingly reluctant to turn up and this was the best chance to get an acquittal. So the trick, such as it was, was to pick trials where pleas were almost inevitable if you had a full house and turn them into pleas. This is the way that the Criminal Justice system works and, in my experience, has always worked under Tory, Labour and SNP governments alike.
What do you think can or should be done about it?
A guilty plea on the day I'd hope should not be treated the same as a guilty plea in advance when it comes to sentencing? I have no idea how that bit works or not.
I believe is treated the same - at least for magistrates courts.
I actually asked that question in a rather interesting context recently. I am still waiting for a response on that…
That's utterly ridiculous if so. It gives no disincentive against pleading not guilty and wasting everyone's time until the witnesses arrive.
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
Depends on the numbers.
If Labour would only have a majority in the UK with SNP support, but would have a majority in England without it, the SNP would say we are off then...
That is impossible because for Labour to have a majority in England it would have to have won most seats in England and thus the UK and could ignore the SNP anyway.
The SNP only become decisive if the Tories have a majority or most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP have a majority across the UK
UDI without Westminster consent is also illegal and has been ruled out by Sturgeon
Don't know that yet do we? There is this thing called the Supreme Court. And if an advistory referendum is good enough for Brexit ...
Both sides in that made clear that the decision was de facto binding even if not de jure.
Sure, the Remain side lied. But so did the Yes side in 2014, who never had any intention of the matter being settled for a generation if they lost.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Ludicrous parallel being drawn between the UK and the EU. Take a trip to Specsavers.
Well clearly the EU is much less of a threat to national sovereignty as it has a clear constitutional route for exit. If the UK doesn't then the sovereign country of Scotland, which acceded to the union in 1707, is, essentially being held captive by a hostile power. Otherwise the parallel seems far from ludicrous. The way some English people conceive of the Union is disturbing. It is voluntary and can be dissolved by any of its constituent parts unilaterally. Why is that so hard to comprehend?
What "sovereign country of Scotland"? "The sovereign country of Scotland" ceased to exist in 1707. That's like referring to the "sovereign country of Texas" and its right to secede into the CSA.
Its not captive, its simply a part of the country called the United Kingdom.
That accession into countries is "irreversible" is not ludicrous, it is accepted around the globe. I think we should respect Scots right to leave if they want to, but there is no legal reason why that must be the case.
That is not how Scots conceive of their nationhood. Whether or not Scotland should be in the union is a question on which opinion is evenly split but very few Scots would deny that the decision is Scotland's to make whenever they choose to. That the English don't understand that speaks to a failure of civic education South of the border. Let me put it in plain English: the people of Scotland are sovereign and whether we remain in the union is our business and ours alone.
What about if the people of Orkney or the Borders want to stay in the Union while the rest of Scotland votes heavily to secede?
The English love a bit of partition don't they. It worked so well in Ireland, after all. Scotland is a country. The Borders and Orkney are not a country. And they are not part of England. If Scotland votes to leave, they leave too. After all, by your logic, London, Scotland and NI should have remained in the EU.
No, the EU doesn't recognise sub-national members. The precedent for too many of its member states is rather too obvious.
Soctland is not a country. Nor is England. They were before 1707, but are no longer. The United Kingdom is a country and Scotland is a province, or state, or whatever. There seems no reason why Orkney should be denied self-determination if mainland Scotland wants it.
Does Orkney have a separate legal system to the rest of Scotland?
Orkney is only "Scottish" because of the failure to pay a dowry..... Whereupon the Earldom of Orkney was "absorbed" into the Kingdom of Scotland.
THAT Scottish legal system?
All national boundaries are the result of historical accidents. If history had played out differently then Berwick would be in Scotland, but I am not suggesting that we redraw the border. If the people of Orkney choose to secede from an independent Scotland at some point then I wouldn't personally stand in their way. But I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like they did with Ireland. FWIW I am not personally 100% sold on Scottish independence, and I wouldn't have a vote anyway as a non resident. The economic case for remaining is strong, but the political case for leaving grows with every interaction on this issue on PB.
It was not "the English" who partitioned Ireland; it was Britain, including Scotland.
That's true, apologies. I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like the British did in Ireland.
Without partition there would have been decades long civil war, given the armed UVF
There was a decades-long civil war. Maybe it would have been worse without partition, but I have my doubts.
There wasn't, the Irish civil war between Collins and De Valera was over by 1924.
Protestant Ulster being forced into Roman Catholic Ireland against its will would have seen UVF forces fighting for decades against Dublin
I was referring to what is otherwise known as "The Troubles".
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
I don't, this isn't 1979.
The notion that Scottish SNP voters think Tories = Bad and Labour = Good and will flock back to Labour if Labour fail is perverse. The SNP have done quite well in convincing their voters that Tories and Labour are two cheeks of the same unionist arse.
If the Scottish voters vote for a plebiscite and Labour stands in the way of it and fail bringing the Tories back into power then a case would be made that Labour is no better than the Tories and the only way for the Scots to get away from the Tories and Labour is to vote for independence.
I'm not so sure the SNP have been that successful in portraying Labour and the Tories are the same. It's currently untested, because we haven't had the SNP-Holyrood v Labour-Westminster match-up yet. I'm sure the SNP would like to do so, and if at the next GE Labour win power in Westminster and SNP win a majority of Scottish seats we will see them deploy the argument. I just don't think it'll run as well as it does with a Tory Government. Speculating a bit further, I think this is because Labour and SNP (save for Independence) are largely fishing in the same pond. With a Labour Government the SNP can say 'Another example of a Government imposed on Scotland against her will,' but the response from a good chunk of central belt voters could be 'Yeah, but we can live with this one.'
Tories=Bad. Labour=Not quite as bad?
To put it simply, yeah, I suppose. More that a 'chunk' (very precise, I know) of SNP voters wouldn't necessarily be as offended by a Labour Government in Westminster as they are by a Tory one. Ideologically the voters I have in mind (broadly speaking, Glaswegian SNP voters and Edinburgh SNP vote-lenders) could vote for Labour but would never dream of voting Conservative. These groups form a large part of the SNP's base and they're less hostile to Labour. The most dangerous thing, in my opinion, to the SNP is a Labour Government.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
...
I believe this is very common. I was a witness for an assault case where the defendant plead guilty after being told I'd been patiently waiting for hours at court to testify.
It must cause lots of difficulty in scheduling cases.
It is the principal reason for adjournments. When I was a fiscal I would typically have up to 15 trials set down for a day. Some would go off because pleas would be agreed. Others would go off because important witnesses had failed to attend. But most went off with sheer pressure of business. On a good day, and I think I can claim to have been faster than most, I would get through 4 trials. Sometimes, of course, you could only get through 1 if it was complex or required a lot of evidence.
The defence, of course, knew this as well as me. They also knew, like @BartholomewRoberts, that witnesses would become increasingly reluctant to turn up and this was the best chance to get an acquittal. So the trick, such as it was, was to pick trials where pleas were almost inevitable if you had a full house and turn them into pleas. This is the way that the Criminal Justice system works and, in my experience, has always worked under Tory, Labour and SNP governments alike.
What do you think can or should be done about it?
A guilty plea on the day I'd hope should not be treated the same as a guilty plea in advance when it comes to sentencing? I have no idea how that bit works or not.
In recent years there has been an increasing tendency, now official policy, to discount sentences for early pleas so no, a person who pleaded guilty on the day having inconvenienced witnesses, would get a heavier sentence. We have also had a massive diversion of trivial stuff and some not so trivial stuff, to fixed penalty notices like Boris got.
But the system is massively underresourced and that is getting worse. In particular defence solicitors and counsel are seriously under paid and cannot do their jobs properly. This means trials are not adequately prepared, clients are not talked into pleading guilty, defence evidence is almost non existent and court delays as a result of the availability of agents are commonplace. The more underresourced it is the harder it is to be efficient.
Another, more recent, problem is that there is an increasing disparity between the staffing of the Crown and the defence. My daughter has just started her traineeship in a criminal legal aid firm. When she qualifies in 2 years time she could expect to be paid about £32k for that work in today's money. Or she can become a fiscal where she will get paid £45K + public sector rights such as more holidays, incredibly generous pensions, sick pay, maternity rights etc.
The problem is that fiscals need defence agents just as I require defence counsel when prosecuting in the HIgh Court. All parts of the system need each other to work efficiently and properly. And right now they are out of synch.
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
I don't, this isn't 1979.
The notion that Scottish SNP voters think Tories = Bad and Labour = Good and will flock back to Labour if Labour fail is perverse. The SNP have done quite well in convincing their voters that Tories and Labour are two cheeks of the same unionist arse.
If the Scottish voters vote for a plebiscite and Labour stands in the way of it and fail bringing the Tories back into power then a case would be made that Labour is no better than the Tories and the only way for the Scots to get away from the Tories and Labour is to vote for independence.
I'm not so sure the SNP have been that successful in portraying Labour and the Tories are the same. It's currently untested, because we haven't had the SNP-Holyrood v Labour-Westminster match-up yet. I'm sure the SNP would like to do so, and if at the next GE Labour win power in Westminster and SNP win a majority of Scottish seats we will see them deploy the argument. I just don't think it'll run as well as it does with a Tory Government. Speculating a bit further, I think this is because Labour and SNP (save for Independence) are largely fishing in the same pond. With a Labour Government the SNP can say 'Another example of a Government imposed on Scotland against her will,' but the response from a good chunk of central belt voters could be 'Yeah, but we can live with this one.'
Tories=Bad. Labour=Not quite as bad?
To put it simply, yeah, I suppose. More that a 'chunk' (very precise, I know) of SNP voters wouldn't necessarily be as offended by a Labour Government in Westminster as they are by a Tory one. Ideologically the voters I have in mind (broadly speaking, Glaswegian SNP voters and Edinburgh SNP vote-lenders) could vote for Labour but would never dream of voting Conservative. These groups form a large part of the SNP's base and they're less hostile to Labour. The most dangerous thing, in my opinion, to the SNP is a Labour Government.
Just to add that, of course, the most dangerous thing to the formation of a Labour Government is the SNP.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
...
I believe this is very common. I was a witness for an assault case where the defendant plead guilty after being told I'd been patiently waiting for hours at court to testify.
It must cause lots of difficulty in scheduling cases.
It is the principal reason for adjournments. When I was a fiscal I would typically have up to 15 trials set down for a day. Some would go off because pleas would be agreed. Others would go off because important witnesses had failed to attend. But most went off with sheer pressure of business. On a good day, and I think I can claim to have been faster than most, I would get through 4 trials. Sometimes, of course, you could only get through 1 if it was complex or required a lot of evidence.
The defence, of course, knew this as well as me. They also knew, like @BartholomewRoberts, that witnesses would become increasingly reluctant to turn up and this was the best chance to get an acquittal. So the trick, such as it was, was to pick trials where pleas were almost inevitable if you had a full house and turn them into pleas. This is the way that the Criminal Justice system works and, in my experience, has always worked under Tory, Labour and SNP governments alike.
What do you think can or should be done about it?
A guilty plea on the day I'd hope should not be treated the same as a guilty plea in advance when it comes to sentencing? I have no idea how that bit works or not.
The simplest and most effective measure to reduce the disruption and annoyance to witnesses of such ploys would be sufficient court capacity to avoid the repeated postponements of trials.
But a differential for the consideration given to early, and court house door guilty pleas is not a bad idea.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Ludicrous parallel being drawn between the UK and the EU. Take a trip to Specsavers.
Well clearly the EU is much less of a threat to national sovereignty as it has a clear constitutional route for exit. If the UK doesn't then the sovereign country of Scotland, which acceded to the union in 1707, is, essentially being held captive by a hostile power. Otherwise the parallel seems far from ludicrous. The way some English people conceive of the Union is disturbing. It is voluntary and can be dissolved by any of its constituent parts unilaterally. Why is that so hard to comprehend?
What "sovereign country of Scotland"? "The sovereign country of Scotland" ceased to exist in 1707. That's like referring to the "sovereign country of Texas" and its right to secede into the CSA.
Its not captive, its simply a part of the country called the United Kingdom.
That accession into countries is "irreversible" is not ludicrous, it is accepted around the globe. I think we should respect Scots right to leave if they want to, but there is no legal reason why that must be the case.
That is not how Scots conceive of their nationhood. Whether or not Scotland should be in the union is a question on which opinion is evenly split but very few Scots would deny that the decision is Scotland's to make whenever they choose to. That the English don't understand that speaks to a failure of civic education South of the border. Let me put it in plain English: the people of Scotland are sovereign and whether we remain in the union is our business and ours alone.
What about if the people of Orkney or the Borders want to stay in the Union while the rest of Scotland votes heavily to secede?
The English love a bit of partition don't they. It worked so well in Ireland, after all. Scotland is a country. The Borders and Orkney are not a country. And they are not part of England. If Scotland votes to leave, they leave too. After all, by your logic, London, Scotland and NI should have remained in the EU.
No, the EU doesn't recognise sub-national members. The precedent for too many of its member states is rather too obvious.
Soctland is not a country. Nor is England. They were before 1707, but are no longer. The United Kingdom is a country and Scotland is a province, or state, or whatever. There seems no reason why Orkney should be denied self-determination if mainland Scotland wants it.
Does Orkney have a separate legal system to the rest of Scotland?
Orkney is only "Scottish" because of the failure to pay a dowry..... Whereupon the Earldom of Orkney was "absorbed" into the Kingdom of Scotland.
THAT Scottish legal system?
All national boundaries are the result of historical accidents. If history had played out differently then Berwick would be in Scotland, but I am not suggesting that we redraw the border. If the people of Orkney choose to secede from an independent Scotland at some point then I wouldn't personally stand in their way. But I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like they did with Ireland. FWIW I am not personally 100% sold on Scottish independence, and I wouldn't have a vote anyway as a non resident. The economic case for remaining is strong, but the political case for leaving grows with every interaction on this issue on PB.
It was not "the English" who partitioned Ireland; it was Britain, including Scotland.
That's true, apologies. I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like the British did in Ireland.
Without partition there would have been decades long civil war, given the armed UVF
There was a decades-long civil war. Maybe it would have been worse without partition, but I have my doubts.
There wasn't, the Irish civil war between Collins and De Valera was over by 1924.
Protestant Ulster being forced into Roman Catholic Ireland against its will would have seen UVF forces fighting for decades against Dublin
I was referring to what is otherwise known as "The Troubles".
They did not start until the 1960s, almost 50 years after the creation of Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Well he has a winning smile and a winning ticket in the national lottery. Oh that's not what you mean?
Unfortunately there is evidence
Russia’s coffers are groaning with foreign gold. The sanctions are not working. The rouble is at an 8 year high. Putin can turn the winter energy screw on Germany, causing a 10% drop in German GDP
The IMF has just predicted a vastly better outcome for the Russian economy next year than was envisaged
Putin is winning
When the war started Russia not winning was Ukraine winning. Now the burden seems to have gone the other way. Russia is not doing what it set out to do and is taking huge losses in terms of personnel, kit and economics. That is not what winning looks like, is it?
Economically, Russia is probably winning, and in the end that is what counts
Russia also has enormous resilience in turns of taking shocking losses, and it has a history of prevailing after terrible beginnings, in wars. If Russia REALLY wants to win this war, at least in terms that Putin can show to his people, it will win - ie it seizes a chunk of eastern Ukraine, and establishes a permanent land corridor to Crimea. And absorbs a few million Ukrainians as new Russian citizens
What happens THEN is much murkier. I foresee (as do many) a long horrible insurgency, which Russia could easily lose, after a decade or so
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Ludicrous parallel being drawn between the UK and the EU. Take a trip to Specsavers.
Well clearly the EU is much less of a threat to national sovereignty as it has a clear constitutional route for exit. If the UK doesn't then the sovereign country of Scotland, which acceded to the union in 1707, is, essentially being held captive by a hostile power. Otherwise the parallel seems far from ludicrous. The way some English people conceive of the Union is disturbing. It is voluntary and can be dissolved by any of its constituent parts unilaterally. Why is that so hard to comprehend?
What "sovereign country of Scotland"? "The sovereign country of Scotland" ceased to exist in 1707. That's like referring to the "sovereign country of Texas" and its right to secede into the CSA.
Its not captive, its simply a part of the country called the United Kingdom.
That accession into countries is "irreversible" is not ludicrous, it is accepted around the globe. I think we should respect Scots right to leave if they want to, but there is no legal reason why that must be the case.
That is not how Scots conceive of their nationhood. Whether or not Scotland should be in the union is a question on which opinion is evenly split but very few Scots would deny that the decision is Scotland's to make whenever they choose to. That the English don't understand that speaks to a failure of civic education South of the border. Let me put it in plain English: the people of Scotland are sovereign and whether we remain in the union is our business and ours alone.
What about if the people of Orkney or the Borders want to stay in the Union while the rest of Scotland votes heavily to secede?
The English love a bit of partition don't they. It worked so well in Ireland, after all. Scotland is a country. The Borders and Orkney are not a country. And they are not part of England. If Scotland votes to leave, they leave too. After all, by your logic, London, Scotland and NI should have remained in the EU.
No, the EU doesn't recognise sub-national members. The precedent for too many of its member states is rather too obvious.
Soctland is not a country. Nor is England. They were before 1707, but are no longer. The United Kingdom is a country and Scotland is a province, or state, or whatever. There seems no reason why Orkney should be denied self-determination if mainland Scotland wants it.
Does Orkney have a separate legal system to the rest of Scotland?
Orkney is only "Scottish" because of the failure to pay a dowry..... Whereupon the Earldom of Orkney was "absorbed" into the Kingdom of Scotland.
THAT Scottish legal system?
All national boundaries are the result of historical accidents. If history had played out differently then Berwick would be in Scotland, but I am not suggesting that we redraw the border. If the people of Orkney choose to secede from an independent Scotland at some point then I wouldn't personally stand in their way. But I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like they did with Ireland. FWIW I am not personally 100% sold on Scottish independence, and I wouldn't have a vote anyway as a non resident. The economic case for remaining is strong, but the political case for leaving grows with every interaction on this issue on PB.
It was not "the English" who partitioned Ireland; it was Britain, including Scotland.
That's true, apologies. I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like the British did in Ireland.
Without partition there would have been decades long civil war, given the armed UVF
Encouraged, don't forget, by a significant section of the Conservative party.
Given we are going back that far, can we mention Kier Hardie was a raging Brexity type who raged against :Lithuanian immigrants or that George Lansbury wanted us to disarm in the face of HItler?
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
Depends on the numbers.
If Labour would only have a majority in the UK with SNP support, but would have a majority in England without it, the SNP would say we are off then...
That is impossible because for Labour to have a majority in England it would have to have won most seats in England and thus the UK and could ignore the SNP anyway.
The SNP only become decisive if the Tories have a majority or most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP have a majority across the UK
UDI without Westminster consent is also illegal and has been ruled out by Sturgeon
Don't know that yet do we? There is this thing called the Supreme Court. And if an advistory referendum is good enough for Brexit ...
The idea of holding an advisory referendum is opening the door to the room of pain. Lets play the scenario: Sturgeon continues to be rebuffed by the Tory government. Is told she will be rebuffed by Labour as well. And is put back in her wee box by the Supreme Court.
At that point, permission to hold a meaningful referendum is not coming. So she holds an "advisory" referendum knowing that the people who would need to enact it will not do so. Why would unionists participate? I have better things to do with my time than engage in what will be a bitter and nasty campaign when the result will be ignored anyway.
It reminds me of when the ruling Independents on Thornaby Town Council held a local referendum on rejoining Yorkshire instead of being part of Stockton-on-Tees. 80% of the votes cast were for Yorkshire. But on a pitiful turnout. The town council then demanded that SBC respect the people's wishes and do so.
At which point SBC said: 1. We have no power to make any boundary or structural changes. That sits with the Boundary Commission for England 2. Which you already know 3. The BCE have already written to you saying they will not support such a proposal 4. Which you already know 5. So please go forth and multiply*
Why would a boycotted advisory referendum landslide win for Independence be any different?
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Ludicrous parallel being drawn between the UK and the EU. Take a trip to Specsavers.
Well clearly the EU is much less of a threat to national sovereignty as it has a clear constitutional route for exit. If the UK doesn't then the sovereign country of Scotland, which acceded to the union in 1707, is, essentially being held captive by a hostile power. Otherwise the parallel seems far from ludicrous. The way some English people conceive of the Union is disturbing. It is voluntary and can be dissolved by any of its constituent parts unilaterally. Why is that so hard to comprehend?
What "sovereign country of Scotland"? "The sovereign country of Scotland" ceased to exist in 1707. That's like referring to the "sovereign country of Texas" and its right to secede into the CSA.
Its not captive, its simply a part of the country called the United Kingdom.
That accession into countries is "irreversible" is not ludicrous, it is accepted around the globe. I think we should respect Scots right to leave if they want to, but there is no legal reason why that must be the case.
That is not how Scots conceive of their nationhood. Whether or not Scotland should be in the union is a question on which opinion is evenly split but very few Scots would deny that the decision is Scotland's to make whenever they choose to. That the English don't understand that speaks to a failure of civic education South of the border. Let me put it in plain English: the people of Scotland are sovereign and whether we remain in the union is our business and ours alone.
What about if the people of Orkney or the Borders want to stay in the Union while the rest of Scotland votes heavily to secede?
The English love a bit of partition don't they. It worked so well in Ireland, after all. Scotland is a country. The Borders and Orkney are not a country. And they are not part of England. If Scotland votes to leave, they leave too. After all, by your logic, London, Scotland and NI should have remained in the EU.
No, the EU doesn't recognise sub-national members. The precedent for too many of its member states is rather too obvious.
Soctland is not a country. Nor is England. They were before 1707, but are no longer. The United Kingdom is a country and Scotland is a province, or state, or whatever. There seems no reason why Orkney should be denied self-determination if mainland Scotland wants it.
Does Orkney have a separate legal system to the rest of Scotland?
Orkney is only "Scottish" because of the failure to pay a dowry..... Whereupon the Earldom of Orkney was "absorbed" into the Kingdom of Scotland.
THAT Scottish legal system?
All national boundaries are the result of historical accidents. If history had played out differently then Berwick would be in Scotland, but I am not suggesting that we redraw the border. If the people of Orkney choose to secede from an independent Scotland at some point then I wouldn't personally stand in their way. But I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like they did with Ireland. FWIW I am not personally 100% sold on Scottish independence, and I wouldn't have a vote anyway as a non resident. The economic case for remaining is strong, but the political case for leaving grows with every interaction on this issue on PB.
It was not "the English" who partitioned Ireland; it was Britain, including Scotland.
That's true, apologies. I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like the British did in Ireland.
Without partition there would have been decades long civil war, given the armed UVF
There was a decades-long civil war. Maybe it would have been worse without partition, but I have my doubts.
There wasn't, the Irish civil war between Collins and De Valera was over by 1924.
Protestant Ulster being forced into Roman Catholic Ireland against its will would have seen UVF forces fighting for decades against Dublin
I was referring to what is otherwise known as "The Troubles".
They did not start until the 1960s, almost 50 years after the creation of Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State
And they started, don't forget, as a result of almost 50 years of repression and misgovernment. You only have to look at the electoral situation.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Someone made a point about morality the other day and I think it applies here. Tories see criminals as morally deficient individuals and they don't believe that the moral failing can be fixed. So rehabilitation is futile.
Given that view, the only thing that can work is imprisonment and the fear of imprisonment.
I might disagree with this view, but it seems pretty easy to understand.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Prisons don't only work with rehabilitation of the offender. Some offenders aren't capable of being rehabilitated and any time they're off the streets they're not offending so prison works just by virtue of keeping them off the streets.
If you're only looking at recidivism after release, rather than recidivism including while in jail, then it is showing release isn't working rather than that incarceration isn't working.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
I don't, this isn't 1979.
The notion that Scottish SNP voters think Tories = Bad and Labour = Good and will flock back to Labour if Labour fail is perverse. The SNP have done quite well in convincing their voters that Tories and Labour are two cheeks of the same unionist arse.
If the Scottish voters vote for a plebiscite and Labour stands in the way of it and fail bringing the Tories back into power then a case would be made that Labour is no better than the Tories and the only way for the Scots to get away from the Tories and Labour is to vote for independence.
I'm not so sure the SNP have been that successful in portraying Labour and the Tories are the same. It's currently untested, because we haven't had the SNP-Holyrood v Labour-Westminster match-up yet. I'm sure the SNP would like to do so, and if at the next GE Labour win power in Westminster and SNP win a majority of Scottish seats we will see them deploy the argument. I just don't think it'll run as well as it does with a Tory Government. Speculating a bit further, I think this is because Labour and SNP (save for Independence) are largely fishing in the same pond. With a Labour Government the SNP can say 'Another example of a Government imposed on Scotland against her will,' but the response from a good chunk of central belt voters could be 'Yeah, but we can live with this one.'
I think a Labour party hanging a manifesto/queen's speech on the hooks of 'Britain will not go back into the EU. We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union' might have problems getting a chunk of central belt voters to live with them. Add in a few more photo shoots with SKS and big Union flags..
True, and that could be a real wedge issue between the SNP and Labour. The EU is a real boon because it's a genuine political difference. Still, I think a lot of SNP voters won't see the Labour and Conservative Parties as two cheeks of the same arse. Some will, of course.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
Depends on the numbers.
If Labour would only have a majority in the UK with SNP support, but would have a majority in England without it, the SNP would say we are off then...
That is impossible because for Labour to have a majority in England it would have to have won most seats in England and thus the UK and could ignore the SNP anyway.
The SNP only become decisive if the Tories have a majority or most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP have a majority across the UK
UDI without Westminster consent is also illegal and has been ruled out by Sturgeon
Don't know that yet do we? There is this thing called the Supreme Court. And if an advistory referendum is good enough for Brexit ...
The idea of holding an advisory referendum is opening the door to the room of pain. Lets play the scenario: Sturgeon continues to be rebuffed by the Tory government. Is told she will be rebuffed by Labour as well. And is put back in her wee box by the Supreme Court.
At that point, permission to hold a meaningful referendum is not coming. So she holds an "advisory" referendum knowing that the people who would need to enact it will not do so. Why would unionists participate? I have better things to do with my time than engage in what will be a bitter and nasty campaign when the result will be ignored anyway.
It reminds me of when the ruling Independents on Thornaby Town Council held a local referendum on rejoining Yorkshire instead of being part of Stockton-on-Tees. 80% of the votes cast were for Yorkshire. But on a pitiful turnout. The town council then demanded that SBC respect the people's wishes and do so.
At which point SBC said: 1. We have no power to make any boundary or structural changes. That sits with the Boundary Commission for England 2. Which you already know 3. The BCE have already written to you saying they will not support such a proposal 4. Which you already know 5. So please go forth and multiply*
Why would a boycotted advisory referendum landslide win for Independence be any different?
All referendums are advisory, so what's the difference between a referendum and an advisory one, given that all already are advisory?
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Ludicrous parallel being drawn between the UK and the EU. Take a trip to Specsavers.
Well clearly the EU is much less of a threat to national sovereignty as it has a clear constitutional route for exit. If the UK doesn't then the sovereign country of Scotland, which acceded to the union in 1707, is, essentially being held captive by a hostile power. Otherwise the parallel seems far from ludicrous. The way some English people conceive of the Union is disturbing. It is voluntary and can be dissolved by any of its constituent parts unilaterally. Why is that so hard to comprehend?
What "sovereign country of Scotland"? "The sovereign country of Scotland" ceased to exist in 1707. That's like referring to the "sovereign country of Texas" and its right to secede into the CSA.
Its not captive, its simply a part of the country called the United Kingdom.
That accession into countries is "irreversible" is not ludicrous, it is accepted around the globe. I think we should respect Scots right to leave if they want to, but there is no legal reason why that must be the case.
That is not how Scots conceive of their nationhood. Whether or not Scotland should be in the union is a question on which opinion is evenly split but very few Scots would deny that the decision is Scotland's to make whenever they choose to. That the English don't understand that speaks to a failure of civic education South of the border. Let me put it in plain English: the people of Scotland are sovereign and whether we remain in the union is our business and ours alone.
What about if the people of Orkney or the Borders want to stay in the Union while the rest of Scotland votes heavily to secede?
The English love a bit of partition don't they. It worked so well in Ireland, after all. Scotland is a country. The Borders and Orkney are not a country. And they are not part of England. If Scotland votes to leave, they leave too. After all, by your logic, London, Scotland and NI should have remained in the EU.
No, the EU doesn't recognise sub-national members. The precedent for too many of its member states is rather too obvious.
Soctland is not a country. Nor is England. They were before 1707, but are no longer. The United Kingdom is a country and Scotland is a province, or state, or whatever. There seems no reason why Orkney should be denied self-determination if mainland Scotland wants it.
Does Orkney have a separate legal system to the rest of Scotland?
Orkney is only "Scottish" because of the failure to pay a dowry..... Whereupon the Earldom of Orkney was "absorbed" into the Kingdom of Scotland.
THAT Scottish legal system?
All national boundaries are the result of historical accidents. If history had played out differently then Berwick would be in Scotland, but I am not suggesting that we redraw the border. If the people of Orkney choose to secede from an independent Scotland at some point then I wouldn't personally stand in their way. But I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like they did with Ireland. FWIW I am not personally 100% sold on Scottish independence, and I wouldn't have a vote anyway as a non resident. The economic case for remaining is strong, but the political case for leaving grows with every interaction on this issue on PB.
It was not "the English" who partitioned Ireland; it was Britain, including Scotland.
That's true, apologies. I don't want the English partitioning Scotland like the British did in Ireland.
Without partition there would have been decades long civil war, given the armed UVF
Encouraged, don't forget, by a significant section of the Conservative party.
Given we are going back that far, can we mention Kier Hardie was a raging Brexity type who raged against :Lithuanian immigrants or that George Lansbury wanted us to disarm in the face of HItler?
LOL! It's a fair cop, gov! To be fair Lansbury was as a consequence replaced by Attlee!
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
He has his share of (Heavily overrepresented amongst Tory members) mad fans too.
A healthier debate on all sides on all issues with his departure I think.
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
Depends on the numbers.
If Labour would only have a majority in the UK with SNP support, but would have a majority in England without it, the SNP would say we are off then...
That is impossible because for Labour to have a majority in England it would have to have won most seats in England and thus the UK and could ignore the SNP anyway.
The SNP only become decisive if the Tories have a majority or most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP have a majority across the UK
UDI without Westminster consent is also illegal and has been ruled out by Sturgeon
Don't know that yet do we? There is this thing called the Supreme Court. And if an advistory referendum is good enough for Brexit ...
The idea of holding an advisory referendum is opening the door to the room of pain. Lets play the scenario: Sturgeon continues to be rebuffed by the Tory government. Is told she will be rebuffed by Labour as well. And is put back in her wee box by the Supreme Court.
At that point, permission to hold a meaningful referendum is not coming. So she holds an "advisory" referendum knowing that the people who would need to enact it will not do so. Why would unionists participate? I have better things to do with my time than engage in what will be a bitter and nasty campaign when the result will be ignored anyway.
It reminds me of when the ruling Independents on Thornaby Town Council held a local referendum on rejoining Yorkshire instead of being part of Stockton-on-Tees. 80% of the votes cast were for Yorkshire. But on a pitiful turnout. The town council then demanded that SBC respect the people's wishes and do so.
At which point SBC said: 1. We have no power to make any boundary or structural changes. That sits with the Boundary Commission for England 2. Which you already know 3. The BCE have already written to you saying they will not support such a proposal 4. Which you already know 5. So please go forth and multiply*
Why would a boycotted advisory referendum landslide win for Independence be any different?
Points taken; I'd be very surprised too if SG go down the advisory route; but remember Strathclyde Water. It had a permanent impact on Scottish politics.
And people who don't vote don't count, unless of course Labour is organising the referendum in which case the dead are counted on Labour's side.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
Was ever thus. I know a Labour supporter who voted to leave the EU simply to get rid of David Cameron.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Prisons don't only work with rehabilitation of the offender. Some offenders aren't capable of being rehabilitated and any time they're off the streets they're not offending so prison works just by virtue of keeping them off the streets.
If you're only looking at recidivism after release, rather than recidivism including while in jail, then it is showing release isn't working rather than that incarceration isn't working.
OK. *most* criminals can be rehabilitated. When they are seriously dangerous they *have* to be rehabilitated or it won't be save to release them. Ever.
How much crime is driven by Beveridge's 5 Giants? Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalour and Idleness. With the exception perhaps of Disease, these are the life story of so many of our criminals. So we need to address these and remove the reason why they offend. Much of that needs to be in the outside world before they become offenders. The rest on the inside.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
Yes, I was thinking the same. Boris was a drag on the Brexit brand
It's a significant shift beyond MOE. Perhaps also the fairly unedifying spectacle of fearful EU states squabbling about gas has had an impact? But do people watch the news that carefully? Generally they don't
Even more intriguingly, this shift is counter-intuitive. We've just had acres of BREXIT CAUSES CHAOS headlines surrounding the Dover queues. Yet the sentiment shifts notably TOWARDS Brexit. People blaming the Froggles, after all?
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. She still struggles with the more uncomfortable questions, but when she goes a bit more punchy or light-hearted she actually doesn’t land it too badly - in the debate on Monday she told some jokes. They didn’t set the world on fire but she actually landed them much better than May or Brown would have. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
Depends on the numbers.
If Labour would only have a majority in the UK with SNP support, but would have a majority in England without it, the SNP would say we are off then...
That is impossible because for Labour to have a majority in England it would have to have won most seats in England and thus the UK and could ignore the SNP anyway.
The SNP only become decisive if the Tories have a majority or most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP have a majority across the UK
UDI without Westminster consent is also illegal and has been ruled out by Sturgeon
Don't know that yet do we? There is this thing called the Supreme Court. And if an advistory referendum is good enough for Brexit ...
The idea of holding an advisory referendum is opening the door to the room of pain. Lets play the scenario: Sturgeon continues to be rebuffed by the Tory government. Is told she will be rebuffed by Labour as well. And is put back in her wee box by the Supreme Court.
At that point, permission to hold a meaningful referendum is not coming. So she holds an "advisory" referendum knowing that the people who would need to enact it will not do so. Why would unionists participate? I have better things to do with my time than engage in what will be a bitter and nasty campaign when the result will be ignored anyway.
It reminds me of when the ruling Independents on Thornaby Town Council held a local referendum on rejoining Yorkshire instead of being part of Stockton-on-Tees. 80% of the votes cast were for Yorkshire. But on a pitiful turnout. The town council then demanded that SBC respect the people's wishes and do so.
At which point SBC said: 1. We have no power to make any boundary or structural changes. That sits with the Boundary Commission for England 2. Which you already know 3. The BCE have already written to you saying they will not support such a proposal 4. Which you already know 5. So please go forth and multiply*
Why would a boycotted advisory referendum landslide win for Independence be any different?
All referendums are advisory, so what's the difference between a referendum and an advisory one, given that all already are advisory?
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Prisons don't only work with rehabilitation of the offender. Some offenders aren't capable of being rehabilitated and any time they're off the streets they're not offending so prison works just by virtue of keeping them off the streets.
If you're only looking at recidivism after release, rather than recidivism including while in jail, then it is showing release isn't working rather than that incarceration isn't working.
OK. *most* criminals can be rehabilitated. When they are seriously dangerous they *have* to be rehabilitated or it won't be save to release them. Ever.
How much crime is driven by Beveridge's 5 Giants? Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalour and Idleness. With the exception perhaps of Disease, these are the life story of so many of our criminals. So we need to address these and remove the reason why they offend. Much of that needs to be in the outside world before they become offenders. The rest on the inside.
Good question - what proportion of burglaries are driven by those 5, and what proportion are driven by the same career criminals who repeatedly burgle places because that's what they do?
I think most evidence shows that it is a teeny, tiny proportion of society that does the overwhelming amount of crime - and prison works by keeping them off the street. They don't commit crime while incarcerated.
Of course rehabilitation should be attempted to try to reduce their recidivism post-release, but if they're still committing crimes after release then that doesn't show that prison doesn't work, its showing that prison was working and they need to be back in it again.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
Another point in her favour is that she's probably the senior politician who has the most genuinely post-Brexit outlook, i.e. open to new thinking without being hamstrung by the old debates about the single market.
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
Depends on the numbers.
If Labour would only have a majority in the UK with SNP support, but would have a majority in England without it, the SNP would say we are off then...
That is impossible because for Labour to have a majority in England it would have to have won most seats in England and thus the UK and could ignore the SNP anyway.
The SNP only become decisive if the Tories have a majority or most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP have a majority across the UK
UDI without Westminster consent is also illegal and has been ruled out by Sturgeon
Don't know that yet do we? There is this thing called the Supreme Court. And if an advistory referendum is good enough for Brexit ...
The idea of holding an advisory referendum is opening the door to the room of pain. Lets play the scenario: Sturgeon continues to be rebuffed by the Tory government. Is told she will be rebuffed by Labour as well. And is put back in her wee box by the Supreme Court.
At that point, permission to hold a meaningful referendum is not coming. So she holds an "advisory" referendum knowing that the people who would need to enact it will not do so. Why would unionists participate? I have better things to do with my time than engage in what will be a bitter and nasty campaign when the result will be ignored anyway.
It reminds me of when the ruling Independents on Thornaby Town Council held a local referendum on rejoining Yorkshire instead of being part of Stockton-on-Tees. 80% of the votes cast were for Yorkshire. But on a pitiful turnout. The town council then demanded that SBC respect the people's wishes and do so.
At which point SBC said: 1. We have no power to make any boundary or structural changes. That sits with the Boundary Commission for England 2. Which you already know 3. The BCE have already written to you saying they will not support such a proposal 4. Which you already know 5. So please go forth and multiply*
Why would a boycotted advisory referendum landslide win for Independence be any different?
All referendums are advisory, so what's the difference between a referendum and an advisory one, given that all already are advisory?
The 2014 one was not advisory.
Of course it was. As was the 2016 one. Miller ruled on that already.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
Yes, I was thinking the same. Boris was a drag on the Brexit brand
It's a significant shift beyond MOE. Perhaps also the fairly unedifying spectacle of fearful EU states squabbling about gas has had an impact? But do people watch the news that carefully? Generally they don't
Even more intriguingly, this shift is counter-intuitive. We've just had acres of BREXIT CAUSES CHAOS headlines surrounding the Dover queues. Yet the sentiment shifts notably TOWARDS Brexit. People blaming the Froggles, after all?
One to watch
There may be a 'something new will fix it' effect too. Disillusioned Brexit Wilkins Micawbers now suddenly confident that renewal and rebirth mean something will turn up.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
It can, but its a bit too soon to say for Stokes. Lots of special circumstances around the 5 day game this summer so far.
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
I don't, this isn't 1979.
The notion that Scottish SNP voters think Tories = Bad and Labour = Good and will flock back to Labour if Labour fail is perverse. The SNP have done quite well in convincing their voters that Tories and Labour are two cheeks of the same unionist arse.
If the Scottish voters vote for a plebiscite and Labour stands in the way of it and fail bringing the Tories back into power then a case would be made that Labour is no better than the Tories and the only way for the Scots to get away from the Tories and Labour is to vote for independence.
I'm not so sure the SNP have been that successful in portraying Labour and the Tories are the same. It's currently untested, because we haven't had the SNP-Holyrood v Labour-Westminster match-up yet. I'm sure the SNP would like to do so, and if at the next GE Labour win power in Westminster and SNP win a majority of Scottish seats we will see them deploy the argument. I just don't think it'll run as well as it does with a Tory Government. Speculating a bit further, I think this is because Labour and SNP (save for Independence) are largely fishing in the same pond. With a Labour Government the SNP can say 'Another example of a Government imposed on Scotland against her will,' but the response from a good chunk of central belt voters could be 'Yeah, but we can live with this one.'
I think a Labour party hanging a manifesto/queen's speech on the hooks of 'Britain will not go back into the EU. We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union' might have problems getting a chunk of central belt voters to live with them. Add in a few more photo shoots with SKS and big Union flags..
True, and that could be a real wedge issue between the SNP and Labour. The EU is a real boon because it's a genuine political difference. Still, I think a lot of SNP voters won't see the Labour and Conservative Parties as two cheeks of the same arse. Some will, of course.
Many SNP voters seeing Lab as preferrable to Cons is objectively true though it may be a matter of smallish degree; it wasn't till 2003 that I had voted more times for the SNP than Labour, and I've never voted Con. However I still can't see how Starmer squares the circle of reassuring Brexiteers (specifically in the red wall) that they can still have their Brexit, and Remainers in eg Scotland that he's listening to them. He seems to be putting a lot of effort into the former acivity (with some success) and none into the latter.
If the cops cut their own murder, violence and crimes by a fifth it’s a start I guess.
Ah yes, the old telling them to cut murder, violence and crime. I’m not sure why no-ones thought to do that before.
This is big if it happens. It means if Truss becomes PM we'll have 20% less violent crime. Good news generally, of course, but if you're IN that 20% - a victim who now won't be - it's absolutely terrific and in some cases a lifesaver.
Bit of a shame if you’re in the 79th percentile and get raped
“Sorry love, can’t investigate. Already brought down crime by 20%. That’s it for the year”
I was focusing on the positives but, yep, this is the downside. A 20% reduction is very specific. Assuming it's not performative hot air it implies she's got a list of the crimes that will now be stopped. So if you're not on it - ie you're left in the 80% - you're going to be hacked off about that. Why did Liz Truss allow ME to be mugged (or worse), you'll be asking (if you can still ask things).
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Prisons don't only work with rehabilitation of the offender. Some offenders aren't capable of being rehabilitated and any time they're off the streets they're not offending so prison works just by virtue of keeping them off the streets.
If you're only looking at recidivism after release, rather than recidivism including while in jail, then it is showing release isn't working rather than that incarceration isn't working.
OK. *most* criminals can be rehabilitated. When they are seriously dangerous they *have* to be rehabilitated or it won't be save to release them. Ever.
How much crime is driven by Beveridge's 5 Giants? Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalour and Idleness. With the exception perhaps of Disease, these are the life story of so many of our criminals. So we need to address these and remove the reason why they offend. Much of that needs to be in the outside world before they become offenders. The rest on the inside.
Good question - what proportion of burglaries are driven by those 5, and what proportion are driven by the same career criminals who repeatedly burgle places because that's what they do?
I think most evidence shows that it is a teeny, tiny proportion of society that does the overwhelming amount of crime - and prison works by keeping them off the street. They don't commit crime while incarcerated.
Of course rehabilitation should be attempted to try to reduce their recidivism post-release, but if they're still committing crimes after release then that doesn't show that prison doesn't work, its showing that prison was working and they need to be back in it again.
My thought is to ask how career criminals come to be. Are kids going to careers officers at school and saying "I'd like to be a career criminal please?"
Its Ignorance. And Want. And Squalour. Too many parents are pig ignorant and do not care about what their kids do. So they skip school and become easier for the system to exclude. And off into crime they go.
Or - intervene from birth. Sure Start (cut), School and LEA welfare teams (cut), Parenting programs (cut) etc etc
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
It can, but its a bit too soon to say for Stokes. Lots of special circumstances around the 5 day game this summer so far.
Disagree. I'd say Stokes is already a heroic success as an England captain, for those four last innings victories in a row, shattering multiple records
Even if he loses every game from here on, he did that
"If we have a UK general election in 2024 and the only viable government is a Labour and SNP coalition/supply and confidence agreement and the SNP demand a plebiscite for putting Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street I suspect he’ll turn them down and dare them and ask will the SNP want to bring down a Labour government and put the Tories in power because that worked out so well for the SNP in 1979."
Depends on the numbers.
If Labour would only have a majority in the UK with SNP support, but would have a majority in England without it, the SNP would say we are off then...
That is impossible because for Labour to have a majority in England it would have to have won most seats in England and thus the UK and could ignore the SNP anyway.
The SNP only become decisive if the Tories have a majority or most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP have a majority across the UK
UDI without Westminster consent is also illegal and has been ruled out by Sturgeon
Don't know that yet do we? There is this thing called the Supreme Court. And if an advistory referendum is good enough for Brexit ...
The idea of holding an advisory referendum is opening the door to the room of pain. Lets play the scenario: Sturgeon continues to be rebuffed by the Tory government. Is told she will be rebuffed by Labour as well. And is put back in her wee box by the Supreme Court.
At that point, permission to hold a meaningful referendum is not coming. So she holds an "advisory" referendum knowing that the people who would need to enact it will not do so. Why would unionists participate? I have better things to do with my time than engage in what will be a bitter and nasty campaign when the result will be ignored anyway.
It reminds me of when the ruling Independents on Thornaby Town Council held a local referendum on rejoining Yorkshire instead of being part of Stockton-on-Tees. 80% of the votes cast were for Yorkshire. But on a pitiful turnout. The town council then demanded that SBC respect the people's wishes and do so.
At which point SBC said: 1. We have no power to make any boundary or structural changes. That sits with the Boundary Commission for England 2. Which you already know 3. The BCE have already written to you saying they will not support such a proposal 4. Which you already know 5. So please go forth and multiply*
Why would a boycotted advisory referendum landslide win for Independence be any different?
All referendums are advisory, so what's the difference between a referendum and an advisory one, given that all already are advisory?
The 2014 one was not advisory.
Of course it was. As was the 2016 one. Miller ruled on that already.
I suppose it depends on whether the Edinburgh agreement was legally binding.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Prisons don't only work with rehabilitation of the offender. Some offenders aren't capable of being rehabilitated and any time they're off the streets they're not offending so prison works just by virtue of keeping them off the streets.
If you're only looking at recidivism after release, rather than recidivism including while in jail, then it is showing release isn't working rather than that incarceration isn't working.
OK. *most* criminals can be rehabilitated. When they are seriously dangerous they *have* to be rehabilitated or it won't be save to release them. Ever.
How much crime is driven by Beveridge's 5 Giants? Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalour and Idleness. With the exception perhaps of Disease, these are the life story of so many of our criminals. So we need to address these and remove the reason why they offend. Much of that needs to be in the outside world before they become offenders. The rest on the inside.
Good question - what proportion of burglaries are driven by those 5, and what proportion are driven by the same career criminals who repeatedly burgle places because that's what they do?
I think most evidence shows that it is a teeny, tiny proportion of society that does the overwhelming amount of crime - and prison works by keeping them off the street. They don't commit crime while incarcerated.
Of course rehabilitation should be attempted to try to reduce their recidivism post-release, but if they're still committing crimes after release then that doesn't show that prison doesn't work, its showing that prison was working and they need to be back in it again.
My thought is to ask how career criminals come to be. Are kids going to careers officers at school and saying "I'd like to be a career criminal please?"
Its Ignorance. And Want. And Squalour. Too many parents are pig ignorant and do not care about what their kids do. So they skip school and become easier for the system to exclude. And off into crime they go.
Or - intervene from birth. Sure Start (cut), School and LEA welfare teams (cut), Parenting programs (cut) etc etc
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Lots of people on here very scathing of Truss. I hold no candle either way - right now I'd prefer a Labour government under Starmer - but I'm interested to know what it is about her that makes people so sure she will be a rubbish PM?
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
I've said this before about Truss. It's worth remembering that Johnson's populist politics and simple answers are popular, even if it was easy to ridicule.
Her election-winning potential is being underestimated. Labour have to work hard to convince people they're a better option.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
It can, but its a bit too soon to say for Stokes. Lots of special circumstances around the 5 day game this summer so far.
Disagree. I'd say Stokes is already a heroic success as an England captain, for those four last innings victories in a row, shattering multiple records
Even if he loses every game from here on, he did that
True, but it could easily come very unstuck. Note we got to bat last on all four matches - sides will be looking at that somewhat. Don't be surprised if SA bowl first if given the option next month.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
Solid lead. The Cons have their work cut out to achieve much 'swingback' for the GE imo.
It seems to be reaching a new equilibrium at around 7 post-Johnson. Which means it wasn't all just about him. Unless there's a very substantial new leader bounce, that means no GE till 2024. Which means owning the worst of the economy. The problems are mounting up and getting worse. Apart from the Boris problem of course.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
Gooch, rather than Stokes, would be your best example.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Lots of people on here very scathing of Truss. I hold no candle either way - right now I'd prefer a Labour government under Starmer - but I'm interested to know what it is about her that makes people so sure she will be a rubbish PM?
Silliness. The exhortation to all of us to go and fight the good fight in Ukraine. The Self publicity. The Thatcher outfits.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
I don't think it is all obvious or indeed without counterarguments. For instance: As I pointed out, the UK in its current form is only 100 years old; If it was so obviously a single political entity then you wouldn't find almost half of the population of two parts of it wanting to be independent or part of another country; The EU does have a parliament that passes laws; Nobody in Scotland thinks they should be in the union because we did the slave trade together three hundred years ago. Feel free to engage in mindless insults, it diminishes you not the targets of your "wit". It is more fruitful if you engage constructively, though.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
"We rule ourselves", do we, Mr Leon? I don't feel that I do.... We are losing our rights and freedoms one by one, as the Johnson regime finds excuses to pare them away. They do not have a democratic bone in their body.
I felt safer with a super-national body keeping an eye on what our government was doing to us - not that the EU has proved to be all that much use with regards to developments in Poland and Hungary.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Lots of people on here very scathing of Truss. I hold no candle either way - right now I'd prefer a Labour government under Starmer - but I'm interested to know what it is about her that makes people so sure she will be a rubbish PM?
It's probably because the people now fawning over her were the same ones who fawned over Boris. What is it about Truss that makes their opinions suddenly more reliable?
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Lots of people on here very scathing of Truss. I hold no candle either way - right now I'd prefer a Labour government under Starmer - but I'm interested to know what it is about her that makes people so sure she will be a rubbish PM?
I asked that a couple of days ago, because I don't undertand it. The only answer I got was from a left-winger which basically boiled down to "she's right wing".
Maybe she'll be terrible - it's always an option. But I can't see how people can be sure.
Certainly the two worst PMs in my lifetime were those who spent years if not decades expecting to become PM. I can't see Truss as being in that category.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
If the Tories are stupid enough to go to the electorate with two changes of leader in a single term then they deserve everything that’s coming to them.
Short of scandal and sleaze they can’t axe another leader IMHO without completely destroying themselves in the process.
I don’t think they can do it. And I don’t think they will actually - they’ll have to fight and die on the hill that they choose this time.
One thing about Boris - forget about the lies and so forth - , it strikes me he could have been an objectively shit PM because "He's a big character".
Neither Starmer nor Truss will be able to do that - it'll be much more policy/record focussed, and that's a damn good thing.
The tragedy is that Boris could have been a good or even great prime minister if only he had been a "good chap". Boris was brought down by his own deeply flawed character.
But would he even have been a contender without a long and successful career as a shit? I doubt it.
He wouldn't. I'm subjecting myself to "Boris" the podcast atm - felt I had to - and it's clear that his remarkable ability to uncouple himself from things like telling the truth was key to his ascent.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
Sunder Katwala is one of the most polite people on Twitter. I find his obsession with race stats a little wearying, but that's his field, and he is judicious and measured, and never rude, aggressive, any of that
If you need to block him the problem is YOURS. Maugham can't stand even being contradicted, let alone being made to look foolish
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
It can, but its a bit too soon to say for Stokes. Lots of special circumstances around the 5 day game this summer so far.
Disagree. I'd say Stokes is already a heroic success as an England captain, for those four last innings victories in a row, shattering multiple records
Even if he loses every game from here on, he did that
True, but it could easily come very unstuck. Note we got to bat last on all four matches - sides will be looking at that somewhat. Don't be surprised if SA bowl first if given the option next month.
I still can't believe batting last is the correct option in tests. More to do with the fact Bairstow and Root are in a vein of otherworldly form at the moment, I think we'd have got all those wins batting 1st and 3rd tbh.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Lots of people on here very scathing of Truss. I hold no candle either way - right now I'd prefer a Labour government under Starmer - but I'm interested to know what it is about her that makes people so sure she will be a rubbish PM?
Silliness. The exhortation to all of us to go and fight the good fight in Ukraine. The Self publicity. The Thatcher outfits.
Thatcher cosplay is of limited utility. It'll get her elected. However. If you have tumescence for the new Maggie, you're already voting Tory. For plenty of others it'll be a cue to remind you why you shouldn't. And, of course, if you're under 45 it's about as relevant as saying the new Lord Salisbury or summat.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Prisons don't only work with rehabilitation of the offender. Some offenders aren't capable of being rehabilitated and any time they're off the streets they're not offending so prison works just by virtue of keeping them off the streets.
If you're only looking at recidivism after release, rather than recidivism including while in jail, then it is showing release isn't working rather than that incarceration isn't working.
OK. *most* criminals can be rehabilitated. When they are seriously dangerous they *have* to be rehabilitated or it won't be save to release them. Ever.
How much crime is driven by Beveridge's 5 Giants? Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalour and Idleness. With the exception perhaps of Disease, these are the life story of so many of our criminals. So we need to address these and remove the reason why they offend. Much of that needs to be in the outside world before they become offenders. The rest on the inside.
Good question - what proportion of burglaries are driven by those 5, and what proportion are driven by the same career criminals who repeatedly burgle places because that's what they do?
I think most evidence shows that it is a teeny, tiny proportion of society that does the overwhelming amount of crime - and prison works by keeping them off the street. They don't commit crime while incarcerated.
Of course rehabilitation should be attempted to try to reduce their recidivism post-release, but if they're still committing crimes after release then that doesn't show that prison doesn't work, its showing that prison was working and they need to be back in it again.
My thought is to ask how career criminals come to be. Are kids going to careers officers at school and saying "I'd like to be a career criminal please?"
Its Ignorance. And Want. And Squalour. Too many parents are pig ignorant and do not care about what their kids do. So they skip school and become easier for the system to exclude. And off into crime they go.
Or - intervene from birth. Sure Start (cut), School and LEA welfare teams (cut), Parenting programs (cut) etc etc
There are well-heeled career criminals. There are some people who can never have enough. Why did one of my employers steal from his clients? He wanted their lifestyle.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
Sunder Katwala is one of the most polite people on Twitter. I find his obsession with race stats a little wearying, but that's his field, and he is judicious and measured, and never rude, aggressive, any of that
If you need to block him the problem is YOURS. Maugham can't stand even being contradicted, let alone being made to look foolish
From what I can see of him, I'm surprised that he was made a QC. Maybe he's good at his chosen area of law, and a complete arse in every other respect.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
For some people the convergence of modern politics to the “boring question of an X percentage difference of Government spending (GDP)” is an existential issue.
If all that separates you from the Evul Tories is 5% of GDP, then you might have nightmares where you wake up to realise you are now JRM.
Hence the need for the hatred and the shibboleths.
If the cops cut their own murder, violence and crimes by a fifth it’s a start I guess.
Ah yes, the old telling them to cut murder, violence and crime. I’m not sure why no-ones thought to do that before.
This is big if it happens. It means if Truss becomes PM we'll have 20% less violent crime. Good news generally, of course, but if you're IN that 20% - a victim who now won't be - it's absolutely terrific and in some cases a lifesaver.
Bit of a shame if you’re in the 79th percentile and get raped
“Sorry love, can’t investigate. Already brought down crime by 20%. That’s it for the year”
I was focusing on the positives but, yep, this is the downside. A 20% reduction is very specific. Assuming it's not performative hot air it implies she's got a list of the crimes that will now be stopped. So if you're not on it - ie you're left in the 80% - you're going to be hacked off about that. Why did Liz Truss allow ME to be mugged (or worse), you'll be asking (if you can still ask things).
This is not the Pareto Principle I don't think but the 80/20 split makes it look like it is. What there is, is a quite sensible low hanging fruit principle going on. Say illegal knife carriers are a proxy for murder and violence, it is quite credible that the 20% least committed and most pussyish knife carriers take only 5% of the effort to deter from knife carrying, and therefore knocking them off is an efficient use of time.
I think the actual Pareto principle says the converse, that the 20% most committed knifeists do 80% of the knife crime.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Lots of people on here very scathing of Truss. I hold no candle either way - right now I'd prefer a Labour government under Starmer - but I'm interested to know what it is about her that makes people so sure she will be a rubbish PM?
Silliness. The exhortation to all of us to go and fight the good fight in Ukraine. The Self publicity. The Thatcher outfits.
Thatcher cosplay is of limited utility. It'll get her elected. However. If you have tumescence for the new Maggie, you're already voting Tory. For plenty of others it'll be a cue to remind you why you shouldn't. And, of course, if you're under 45 it's about as relevant as saying the new Lord Salisbury or summat.
I'm under 45, and if someone struck me as a new Thatcher (like Kemi did) I'd be all over it like a rash.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
...
I believe this is very common. I was a witness for an assault case where the defendant plead guilty after being told I'd been patiently waiting for hours at court to testify.
It must cause lots of difficulty in scheduling cases.
Yes. There is a legal principle, and like many of them it helps law breakers. Any person is entitled to put the case against them to proof. They have to do nothing at all, say nothing, and just wait for the process to occur. If they don't already know they will soon find out from their peers, from experience and from their defence lawyers.
Incentives are given to shorten this - like sentence reduction. But the defendant can ignore it all.
In a just and liberal society subject to the rule of law all sorts of things have to be stacked in favour of the accused.
People are beginning to notice this in a big way because it applies to exceedingly unfashionable and unwoke criminals like white collar criminals, rapists and paedophiles as well as cool kids. It is noticeable that woke and Guardian opinion on this finds it in general objectionable but without any serious conclusions as to how it can be changed. That's because except in superficials, it can't.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Another Twitter activist who isn't having a good week is Alex Andreou. He ended up blocking Owen Jones after this exchange.
@sturdyAlex If you’re a ‘progressive’ witnessing this total Tory meltdown, a competition between two evil fools to embarrass each other, while the country literally burns, and your instinct is to interject and publicly flame Starmer, delete your account and hand over your phone to your mum.
@OwenJones84 So it was OK to literally agitate for people to vote against the Labour party when Theresa May's government was in meltdown, but now anyone who criticises Keir Starmer for abandoning his leadership promises should be silenced?
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Lots of people on here very scathing of Truss. I hold no candle either way - right now I'd prefer a Labour government under Starmer - but I'm interested to know what it is about her that makes people so sure she will be a rubbish PM?
Silliness. The exhortation to all of us to go and fight the good fight in Ukraine. The Self publicity. The Thatcher outfits.
Thatcher cosplay is of limited utility. It'll get her elected. However. If you have tumescence for the new Maggie, you're already voting Tory. For plenty of others it'll be a cue to remind you why you shouldn't. And, of course, if you're under 45 it's about as relevant as saying the new Lord Salisbury or summat.
I'm under 45, and if someone struck me as a new Thatcher (like Kemi did) I'd be all over it like a rash.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Lots of people on here very scathing of Truss. I hold no candle either way - right now I'd prefer a Labour government under Starmer - but I'm interested to know what it is about her that makes people so sure she will be a rubbish PM?
Silliness. The exhortation to all of us to go and fight the good fight in Ukraine. The Self publicity. The Thatcher outfits.
What you're describing is what it takes to win with the membership. She knew her target audience would be excited by Margaret Thatcher cosplay so she gave them Margaret Thatcher cosplay. She didn't care how much all the non-members on Twitter were going to laugh at her.
Her next job is to win with general election voters. I wouldn't assume she'll make the exact same moves she was making when her target was the membership.
Is there a medical "long covid" diagnosis with clear symptoms and a programme of treatment? Otherwise isn't it all going be self-diagnosed?
My dad suffered for decades from post-polio syndrome, which the first line of the NHS page on it describes as "a poorly understood condition". Suspect LC will go the same way.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I've already said Truss' proposals are fairly bonkers. "20% of something must be done". However I can see why she is doing this. It sounds practical and punchy
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
What the Tories are essentially gambling on is Truss growing into the role.
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
Yes, it's like making someone England cricket captain
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
She'll be a disaster imho. Leadership election next summer.
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Lots of people on here very scathing of Truss. I hold no candle either way - right now I'd prefer a Labour government under Starmer - but I'm interested to know what it is about her that makes people so sure she will be a rubbish PM?
Silliness. The exhortation to all of us to go and fight the good fight in Ukraine. The Self publicity. The Thatcher outfits.
Thatcher cosplay is of limited utility. It'll get her elected. However. If you have tumescence for the new Maggie, you're already voting Tory. For plenty of others it'll be a cue to remind you why you shouldn't. And, of course, if you're under 45 it's about as relevant as saying the new Lord Salisbury or summat.
I'm under 45, and if someone struck me as a new Thatcher (like Kemi did) I'd be all over it like a rash.
You take a vast interest in politics, though.
She was a part of our lives - everyone had a view on her (good or ill) and that seeped through even as a very young child.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Prisons don't only work with rehabilitation of the offender. Some offenders aren't capable of being rehabilitated and any time they're off the streets they're not offending so prison works just by virtue of keeping them off the streets.
If you're only looking at recidivism after release, rather than recidivism including while in jail, then it is showing release isn't working rather than that incarceration isn't working.
OK. *most* criminals can be rehabilitated. When they are seriously dangerous they *have* to be rehabilitated or it won't be save to release them. Ever.
How much crime is driven by Beveridge's 5 Giants? Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalour and Idleness. With the exception perhaps of Disease, these are the life story of so many of our criminals. So we need to address these and remove the reason why they offend. Much of that needs to be in the outside world before they become offenders. The rest on the inside.
Good question - what proportion of burglaries are driven by those 5, and what proportion are driven by the same career criminals who repeatedly burgle places because that's what they do?
I think most evidence shows that it is a teeny, tiny proportion of society that does the overwhelming amount of crime - and prison works by keeping them off the street. They don't commit crime while incarcerated.
Of course rehabilitation should be attempted to try to reduce their recidivism post-release, but if they're still committing crimes after release then that doesn't show that prison doesn't work, its showing that prison was working and they need to be back in it again.
My thought is to ask how career criminals come to be. Are kids going to careers officers at school and saying "I'd like to be a career criminal please?"
Its Ignorance. And Want. And Squalour. Too many parents are pig ignorant and do not care about what their kids do. So they skip school and become easier for the system to exclude. And off into crime they go.
Or - intervene from birth. Sure Start (cut), School and LEA welfare teams (cut), Parenting programs (cut) etc etc
There are well-heeled career criminals. There are some people who can never have enough. Why did one of my employers steal from his clients? He wanted their lifestyle.
There are firms of/big departments of solicitors who only do privately paid (non legal aid) criminal work. Go figure.
Is there a medical "long covid" diagnosis with clear symptoms and a programme of treatment? Otherwise isn't it all going be self-diagnosed?
My dad suffered for decades from post-polio syndrome, which the first line of the NHS page on it describes as "a poorly understood condition". Suspect LC will go the same way.
Don't think so, it's a post viral syndrome. So "self reported" is pretty much a given.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Another Twitter activist who isn't having a good week is Alex Andreou. He ended up blocking Owen Jones after this exchange.
@sturdyAlex If you’re a ‘progressive’ witnessing this total Tory meltdown, a competition between two evil fools to embarrass each other, while the country literally burns, and your instinct is to interject and publicly flame Starmer, delete your account and hand over your phone to your mum.
@OwenJones84 So it was OK to literally agitate for people to vote against the Labour party when Theresa May's government was in meltdown, but now anyone who criticises Keir Starmer for abandoning his leadership promises should be silenced?
I understand Owen Jones. He is angry because Starmer lied to him. He knew what he had to say to knobhead hard left members to get elected and made sure that he said it.
And then once elected has focused on driving away as many of the hard left nobbers as possible. What Jonesy should be upset about is that he was foolish enough to listen to the obvious lies and think it to be truth.
How naïve were that lot? It was obvious that Starmer was stringing them along.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
Well he has a winning smile and a winning ticket in the national lottery. Oh that's not what you mean?
Unfortunately there is evidence
Russia’s coffers are groaning with foreign gold. The sanctions are not working. The rouble is at an 8 year high. Putin can turn the winter energy screw on Germany, causing a 10% drop in German GDP
The IMF has just predicted a vastly better outcome for the Russian economy next year than was envisaged
Putin is winning
And yet they're scraping the barrel in their forces, using decrepit machines kept out in the open for decades, while Ukraine is using new HIMARS equipment with great effect to destroy Russian ammo dumps.
And the movement recently has been to see the Ukrainians encircling Kherson and potentially about to retake Kherson.
This isn't over yet or all one way traffic.
Though its certainly true that in the Russian/Ukrainian war the first country to surrender was France, and the second might be Germany - but that doesn't mean Putin is winning.
Russia has pretty much gone all in. 85% of it troops from across 8 time zones are now committed to the Ukraine Special Operation. It is so Special, it has left its borders to the east wide open. China could take everything east of the Urals right now if it was so inclined (and didn't mind losing a few cities in a nuclear exchange). All for Putin's vanity project, meant to be remembered across the ages. Well, he got that bit right....
The news on the taking out overnight of the Antonovskiy Bridge is interesting. It is no longer a route through which Russian troops can quickly retreat to Crimea. It is a big piece of the jigsaw for an upcoming Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south. Trapping and taking prisoner many thousands of Russian troops is one of the few routes I can see to getting a meaningful round table discussion on ending the war quickly. As well as destroying supply lines, HIMARS delivers Ukraine the capability to cut off Russian escape routes.
The Russians are claiming to be preparing military exercises in the East. Perhaps these will turn out to be a rather Potemkin-style exercise, but Russia's ability to maintain an extended conflict has already been underestimated.
Those whose ability to maintain an extended conflict has been underestimated are the Ukraininans and their backers in the West. How is Russia's extended conflict going on in the west and north of Ukraine? It barely withstood first contact with the enemy.
Russia is now reduced to a terrorist outfit, lobbing missiles into markets to kill normality much as the Taliban and Al Qaeda did. On the ground, they are raping and looting the areas they have "liberated" from "the Nazis".
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Another Twitter activist who isn't having a good week is Alex Andreou. He ended up blocking Owen Jones after this exchange.
@sturdyAlex If you’re a ‘progressive’ witnessing this total Tory meltdown, a competition between two evil fools to embarrass each other, while the country literally burns, and your instinct is to interject and publicly flame Starmer, delete your account and hand over your phone to your mum.
@OwenJones84 So it was OK to literally agitate for people to vote against the Labour party when Theresa May's government was in meltdown, but now anyone who criticises Keir Starmer for abandoning his leadership promises should be silenced?
I understand Owen Jones. He is angry because Starmer lied to him. He knew what he had to say to knobhead hard left members to get elected and made sure that he said it.
And then once elected has focused on driving away as many of the hard left nobbers as possible. What Jonesy should be upset about is that he was foolish enough to listen to the obvious lies and think it to be truth.
How naïve were that lot? It was obvious that Starmer was stringing them along.
It also assumes Starmer isn't just saying what he needs to say at each stage. Who knows what he'd do in power.
The Tories will highlight his dishonesty to his own people, that is for sure.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
...
I believe this is very common. I was a witness for an assault case where the defendant plead guilty after being told I'd been patiently waiting for hours at court to testify.
It must cause lots of difficulty in scheduling cases.
Yes. There is a legal principle, and like many of them it helps law breakers. Any person is entitled to put the case against them to proof. They have to do nothing at all, say nothing, and just wait for the process to occur. If they don't already know they will soon find out from their peers, from experience and from their defence lawyers.
Incentives are given to shorten this - like sentence reduction. But the defendant can ignore it all.
In a just and liberal society subject to the rule of law all sorts of things have to be stacked in favour of the accused.
People are beginning to notice this in a big way because it applies to exceedingly unfashionable and unwoke criminals like white collar criminals, rapists and paedophiles as well as cool kids. It is noticeable that woke and Guardian opinion on this finds it in general objectionable but without any serious conclusions as to how it can be changed. That's because except in superficials, it can't.
Didn't feel that way when I got done for a TS10 a few years back. (It was raining heavily, noone was about so I slowed to a halt over the line on the crossing which took me a couple of feet over it on the front of the car).
Victim surcharge was the most comical bit, there literally was no victim. No need for mens rea from the prosecution !
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Another Twitter activist who isn't having a good week is Alex Andreou. He ended up blocking Owen Jones after this exchange.
@sturdyAlex If you’re a ‘progressive’ witnessing this total Tory meltdown, a competition between two evil fools to embarrass each other, while the country literally burns, and your instinct is to interject and publicly flame Starmer, delete your account and hand over your phone to your mum.
@OwenJones84 So it was OK to literally agitate for people to vote against the Labour party when Theresa May's government was in meltdown, but now anyone who criticises Keir Starmer for abandoning his leadership promises should be silenced?
I understand Owen Jones. He is angry because Starmer lied to him. He knew what he had to say to knobhead hard left members to get elected and made sure that he said it.
And then once elected has focused on driving away as many of the hard left nobbers as possible. What Jonesy should be upset about is that he was foolish enough to listen to the obvious lies and think it to be truth.
How naïve were that lot? It was obvious that Starmer was stringing them along.
It also assumes Starmer isn't just saying what he needs to say at each stage. Who knows what he'd do in power.
The Tories will highlight his dishonesty to his own people, that is for sure.
If the Tories are smart they'll run social media campaigns targeting those on the left with the gaps between Starmer's earlier rhetoric on nationalisation and his current position. People will squawk that it isn't fair or something.
Bailey has won her claim against her Chambers, but not against Stomewall:
1/The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief when it published a statement that I was under investigation & in upholding Stonewall’s complaint against me.
A rant here but on the topic of stopping burglaries, telling the courts to stop them would do better than telling the Police to do so.
A revolving door of crime where the same people keep committing the same crime, only to sometimes be arrested, sometimes go to court, only to years later be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their merry way achieves nothing.
Especially when the court's "punishment" is to issue a fine, a fine which will no doubt be paid off by the proceeds of their next burglary if it gets paid at all.
I've three times been the victim of a burglary. First time as a teenager the TV was stolen while I was in the house, I called out to the burglar (thinking it was my mum returning home, I was studying for my exams) and they must have ran off with just the TV. Was never caught who did it.
Second time, 2010, I was woken up by the burglar and went downstairs in my boxers only to see them stood in my kitchen. They ran, I chased after them and got their reg plate they drove off in. They were arrested a week later, they pled guilty and were given a fine and a suspended sentence.
Third time, 2019, they were caught red handed by a Police officer breaking into my place of work not long after I'd locked it up. Police heard the alarm going and literally arrested them red handed. They claimed they were innocent of any crime, that the doors being kicked in was like that when they got there and that the IT they had in their boot they'd picked up because they had the owners permission to remove it. As they were pleading not guilty I had to go to Court to confirm that the doors weren't kicked in when I'd locked them earlier and that I had not given permission to take the goods they'd stolen. Thanks to Covid the Court date was repeatedly postponed and delayed, three separate times I went to Court only to be told it had been postponed, twice because one of the defendants had "tested positive" the night before.
Final time I arrived at Court and the CPS lawyer said as soon as I arrived that since I had arrived, they were changing their plea to guilty. I'd be curious if lawyers here have a thought on this, but apparently its a common play by defendants to plead innocent hoping the prosecution witness never arrives, in which case the case would be dismissed.
After all that messing around, they were issued with a community service order and a fine. No imprisonment. Years of messing around and immediately back on the streets to rob someone else.
I can imagine the frustration! And this is the lived experience that so many people have - crime and ASB out of control and nobody doing anything about it. Labour 1997 coined "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and that remains the goal. You can't just lock up more scumbags because (a) there aren't enough jails and people don't want to pay for more, and (b) they come out and pick up as they were, having learned new skills to evade capture.
So we have to go after why scumbags burgle and steal and assault and that means early years interventions and specialist support staff through schools and qualifications and jobs. None of which the Tories have any interest in.
Like Patel's fact-free claims about stopping migrants, they can say "get the police to do more" but won't resource them and won't enable the penal system and won't work with families to stop the next generation of scumbags developing.
Its just hot air. Because Truss doesn't care.
Furthermore, people in jail, or indeed on probation, are much less likely to reoffend on release if there is some appropriate education. As I understand it that education has been severely cut over the past few years, to the frustration of those who have been trying to provide it!
I don't understand Tory attitudes to crime. "Lock them up" only works with rehabilitation of the offender. Which they cut. In prisons properly funded to cope. Which they cut. Prosecuted in courts able to cope. Which they cut. Arrested by police officers sufficiently resourced to do so. Which they cut.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Actually, that is not so
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
OK fine - so to achieve that we would still need to invest in the police (cut), in the CPS (cut), in the courts (cut) and in the Prison Service (cut).
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
I believe the evidence is that the most effective deterrent effect is the likelihood of getting caught & getting punished promptly thereafter.
Unfortunately, the current government has chosen to cut the legal system to the bone, destroying the latter & has cut police numbers, as well as burdening the police with many "social workers of last resort" jobs, by cutting actual social care, so affecting the former.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
Comments
I actually asked that question in a rather interesting context recently. I am still waiting for a response on that…
A test to determine whether they're actually needed is no bad thing.
Sure, the Remain side lied. But so did the Yes side in 2014, who never had any intention of the matter being settled for a generation if they lost.
But the system is massively underresourced and that is getting worse. In particular defence solicitors and counsel are seriously under paid and cannot do their jobs properly. This means trials are not adequately prepared, clients are not talked into pleading guilty, defence evidence is almost non existent and court delays as a result of the availability of agents are commonplace. The more underresourced it is the harder it is to be efficient.
Another, more recent, problem is that there is an increasing disparity between the staffing of the Crown and the defence. My daughter has just started her traineeship in a criminal legal aid firm. When she qualifies in 2 years time she could expect to be paid about £32k for that work in today's money. Or she can become a fiscal where she will get paid £45K + public sector rights such as more holidays, incredibly generous pensions, sick pay, maternity rights etc.
The problem is that fiscals need defence agents just as I require defence counsel when prosecuting in the HIgh Court. All parts of the system need each other to work efficiently and properly. And right now they are out of synch.
But a differential for the consideration given to early, and court house door guilty pleas is not a bad idea.
I have no principled problem with "lock them up" - criminals should go to jail and be rehabilitated. But to chant that as a mantra and then enact policies which make it less likely? That's just stupid.
Russia also has enormous resilience in turns of taking shocking losses, and it has a history of prevailing after terrible beginnings, in wars. If Russia REALLY wants to win this war, at least in terms that Putin can show to his people, it will win - ie it seizes a chunk of eastern Ukraine, and establishes a permanent land corridor to Crimea. And absorbs a few million Ukrainians as new Russian citizens
What happens THEN is much murkier. I foresee (as do many) a long horrible insurgency, which Russia could easily lose, after a decade or so
https://twitter.com/HetanShah/status/1552236619511513090
Studies show that above a certain tariff, jail sentences do work as a deterrent. And the banged-up criminals do not reoffend
But the sentences have to be huge: 10 years or more
Basically, you have to become Singapore
At that point, permission to hold a meaningful referendum is not coming. So she holds an "advisory" referendum knowing that the people who would need to enact it will not do so. Why would unionists participate? I have better things to do with my time than engage in what will be a bitter and nasty campaign when the result will be ignored anyway.
It reminds me of when the ruling Independents on Thornaby Town Council held a local referendum on rejoining Yorkshire instead of being part of Stockton-on-Tees. 80% of the votes cast were for Yorkshire. But on a pitiful turnout. The town council then demanded that SBC respect the people's wishes and do so.
At which point SBC said:
1. We have no power to make any boundary or structural changes. That sits with the Boundary Commission for England
2. Which you already know
3. The BCE have already written to you saying they will not support such a proposal
4. Which you already know
5. So please go forth and multiply*
Why would a boycotted advisory referendum landslide win for Independence be any different?
What UK Thinks: EU
@whatukthinks
Latest
@YouGov
@thetimes
poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (+2); wrong 49 (-4). Fwork 21-22.7 (ch since 13-14.7). https://bit.ly/3PCU9yj
Given that view, the only thing that can work is imprisonment and the fear of imprisonment.
I might disagree with this view, but it seems pretty easy to understand.
If you're only looking at recidivism after release, rather than recidivism including while in jail, then it is showing release isn't working rather than that incarceration isn't working.
https://twitter.com/lostinhist0ry/status/1551969374889988096?s=20&t=xswQyOkOqNYhBl-g4Td9pw
Are we sure that isn't Shoreditch in 2022?
However you look at it, the Tories have damaged the ability to fight criminals and criminality. More hot air from the Trusster won't make any substantive change. "I want the police to catch more criminals" - how? She won't fund them.
She's also right about stopping the coppers policing Twitter. That will be hugely popular
Truss might just be the politician Labour should fear most. A skilled right wing populist but without the drawbacks of Boris (even if she has the libido)
However I am still doubtful. She might easily be a disaster, or, more likely than both, simply mediocre, and she goes down to a narrow Starmer NOM win
A healthier debate on all sides on all issues with his departure I think.
And people who don't vote don't count, unless of course Labour is organising the referendum in which case the dead are counted on Labour's side.
How much crime is driven by Beveridge's 5 Giants? Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalour and Idleness. With the exception perhaps of Disease, these are the life story of so many of our criminals. So we need to address these and remove the reason why they offend. Much of that needs to be in the outside world before they become offenders. The rest on the inside.
It's a significant shift beyond MOE. Perhaps also the fairly unedifying spectacle of fearful EU states squabbling about gas has had an impact? But do people watch the news that carefully? Generally they don't
Even more intriguingly, this shift is counter-intuitive. We've just had acres of BREXIT CAUSES CHAOS headlines surrounding the Dover queues. Yet the sentiment shifts notably TOWARDS Brexit. People blaming the Froggles, after all?
One to watch
Right now, she doesn’t have the presentation skills to reach out and engage with the public in a way that would sell “skilled right wing populism.”
However….
She is noticeably getting better each time she does a debate. She still struggles with the more uncomfortable questions, but when she goes a bit more punchy or light-hearted she actually doesn’t land it too badly - in the debate on Monday she told some jokes. They didn’t set the world on fire but she actually landed them much better than May or Brown would have. So there is a chance that with the right advice that she actually finds her feet and turns into a much more formidable opponent.
I don’t think it’s likely. But she’s got more chance of impressing on the upside than Sunak.
I think most evidence shows that it is a teeny, tiny proportion of society that does the overwhelming amount of crime - and prison works by keeping them off the street. They don't commit crime while incarcerated.
Of course rehabilitation should be attempted to try to reduce their recidivism post-release, but if they're still committing crimes after release then that doesn't show that prison doesn't work, its showing that prison was working and they need to be back in it again.
Even if they are a great player, it can be a nightmare for them - Flintoff - or it can be the making of them - Stokes?
And you never know until you do it
Once something is done, it is damn well done. He can try and come back but the man has to leave first. Can noone accept they've lost any more ?
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Its Ignorance. And Want. And Squalour. Too many parents are pig ignorant and do not care about what their kids do. So they skip school and become easier for the system to exclude. And off into crime they go.
Or - intervene from birth. Sure Start (cut), School and LEA welfare teams (cut), Parenting programs (cut) etc etc
But who knows. I could be completely wrong. We shall see over the coming months.
Even if he loses every game from here on, he did that
"A result that everyone will respect"
Her election-winning potential is being underestimated. Labour have to work hard to convince people they're a better option.
Sunder Katwala
@sundersays
·
6m
I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1552243488569393152?s=20&t=15wU-2JVAViYR5gKQjZHBQ
Unless there's a very substantial new leader bounce, that means no GE till 2024.
Which means owning the worst of the economy.
The problems are mounting up and getting worse.
Apart from the Boris problem of course.
For instance: As I pointed out, the UK in its current form is only 100 years old; If it was so obviously a single political entity then you wouldn't find almost half of the population of two parts of it wanting to be independent or part of another country; The EU does have a parliament that passes laws; Nobody in Scotland thinks they should be in the union because we did the slave trade together three hundred years ago.
Feel free to engage in mindless insults, it diminishes you not the targets of your "wit". It is more fruitful if you engage constructively, though.
I felt safer with a super-national body keeping an eye on what our government was doing to us - not that the EU has proved to be all that much use with regards to developments in Poland and Hungary.
Maybe she'll be terrible - it's always an option. But I can't see how people can be sure.
Certainly the two worst PMs in my lifetime were those who spent years if not decades expecting to become PM. I can't see Truss as being in that category.
Short of scandal and sleaze they can’t axe another leader IMHO without completely destroying themselves in the process.
I don’t think they can do it. And I don’t think they will actually - they’ll have to fight and die on the hill that they choose this time.
Sunder Katwala is one of the most polite people on Twitter. I find his obsession with race stats a little wearying, but that's his field, and he is judicious and measured, and never rude, aggressive, any of that
If you need to block him the problem is YOURS. Maugham can't stand even being contradicted, let alone being made to look foolish
However. If you have tumescence for the new Maggie, you're already voting Tory.
For plenty of others it'll be a cue to remind you why you shouldn't.
And, of course, if you're under 45 it's about as relevant as saying the new Lord Salisbury or summat.
https://twitter.com/TheIFS/status/1552200199065554944?t=0ft04Rw_WN0-mdxQqCD87g&s=19
"Oh nothing."
"Just popping out for petrol"
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
If all that separates you from the Evul Tories is 5% of GDP, then you might have nightmares where you wake up to realise you are now JRM.
Hence the need for the hatred and the shibboleths.
I think the actual Pareto principle says the converse, that the 20% most committed knifeists do 80% of the knife crime.
Incentives are given to shorten this - like sentence reduction. But the defendant can ignore it all.
In a just and liberal society subject to the rule of law all sorts of things have to be stacked in favour of the accused.
People are beginning to notice this in a big way because it applies to exceedingly unfashionable and unwoke criminals like white collar criminals, rapists and paedophiles as well as cool kids. It is noticeable that woke and Guardian opinion on this finds it in general objectionable but without any serious conclusions as to how it can be changed. That's because except in superficials, it can't.
@sturdyAlex
If you’re a ‘progressive’ witnessing this total Tory meltdown, a competition between two evil fools to embarrass each other, while the country literally burns, and your instinct is to interject and publicly flame Starmer, delete your account and hand over your phone to your mum.
https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1551829307298824194
@OwenJones84
So it was OK to literally agitate for people to vote against the Labour party when Theresa May's government was in meltdown, but now anyone who criticises Keir Starmer for abandoning his leadership promises should be silenced?
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1551981050858962944
Her next job is to win with general election voters. I wouldn't assume she'll make the exact same moves she was making when her target was the membership.
My dad suffered for decades from post-polio syndrome, which the first line of the NHS page on it describes as "a poorly understood condition". Suspect LC will go the same way.
Tory voters are now split 46/46, however, having supported him going by 54% to 33% at the beginning of July
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2022/07/26/0e433/2
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1552249238226173956
And then once elected has focused on driving away as many of the hard left nobbers as possible. What Jonesy should be upset about is that he was foolish enough to listen to the obvious lies and think it to be truth.
How naïve were that lot? It was obvious that Starmer was stringing them along.
Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
Russia is now reduced to a terrorist outfit, lobbing missiles into markets to kill normality much as the Taliban and Al Qaeda did. On the ground, they are raping and looting the areas they have "liberated" from "the Nazis".
The Tories will highlight his dishonesty to his own people, that is for sure.
Victim surcharge was the most comical bit, there literally was no victim. No need for mens rea from the prosecution !
1/The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief when it published a statement that I was under investigation & in upholding Stonewall’s complaint against me.
#AllisonBaileyWins
https://twitter.com/BluskyeAllison/status/1552250836448837633
Unfortunately, the current government has chosen to cut the legal system to the bone, destroying the latter & has cut police numbers, as well as burdening the police with many "social workers of last resort" jobs, by cutting actual social care, so affecting the former.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."