It’s only Monday – politicalbetting.com

System

It’s only Monday – politicalbetting.com

Here’s the thing. There is an issue with policemen being asked to make exceptionally difficult judgments and being let down by their bosses or judged unfairly in hindsight. There is an issue with criminals being sentenced to Potemkin sentences and the public feeling that crime is not taken seriously. There is an issue with people being judged by an excitable, inconsistent court of public opinion and denied proper process. But when bodies such as the police have – through constant misbehaviour, arrogance and a refusal for far too long to address these issues – lost trust, it is difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt. When politicians react in a panicked way or to make themselves look good, it is harder than it should be to attribute “good faith” to their pronouncements or even listen to them. That is the situation this government and the police have got themselves into.

Read the full story here

Clutch_Brompton

Real Conservatives back the rule of law. The current bunch are not real Conservatives. Just Cons.

HYUFD

I think it was perfectly sensible of the Home Secretary to request a review of the terms under which the police deploy firearms so they can be sure on what grounds they can be used.

Unless and until Brand is charged of any offences there should also be some limits on what the media can report on the matter

Nigelb

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Leon

This article would perhaps be better served as a thoughtful weekend longform piece, rather than slotted into the hurly burly of the weekday, as politics (finally) speeds up

Malmesbury

Clutch_Brompton said:

Real Conservatives back the rule of law. The current bunch are not real Conservatives. Just Cons.

If the Met Armed Response units want to have the ethics and accountability of street gangs, why should they be considered part of the rule of law.

Part of the rule of law is being subject to it.

kinabalu

I think our politics - and esp the Conservative party - have dropped off a cliff in the last 7 years.

Nigelb

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

HYUFD

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Omnium

Malmesbury said:

Clutch_Brompton said:

Real Conservatives back the rule of law. The current bunch are not real Conservatives. Just Cons.

If the Met Armed Response units want to have the ethics and accountability of street gangs, why should they be considered part of the rule of law.

Part of the rule of law is being subject to it.

Cowboys vs Indians - this time though it's entirely clear that the right of the matter is against the gangs.

I'm rather tired of this endless stream of criminality.

linto

Well said Cyclefree. From reading on X it seems like the Met officers fear 2 things, the CPS just doing it as they don't want a repeat of the Baker kerfuffle and a lack of support from senior officers. Hence the commissioners public statements which are inconsistent at best but purely targeted at those who have withdrawn even if it is very much too little too late.

Cyclefree

Leon said:

This article would perhaps be better served as a thoughtful weekend longform piece, rather than slotted into the hurly burly of the weekday, as politics (finally) speeds up

My darling - given the way the police and our politicians behave these days - it it would probably have to be 7 times as long.

Every day is Foot-In-Mouth day with this lot.

HYUFD

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

Cyclefree

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Stuartinromford

Malmesbury said:

Clutch_Brompton said:

Real Conservatives back the rule of law. The current bunch are not real Conservatives. Just Cons.

If the Met Armed Response units want to have the ethics and accountability of street gangs, why should they be considered part of the rule of law.

Part of the rule of law is being subject to it.

Cliques who are practically accountable to themselves are always dangerous. "I am the law" is far worse than "I serve the law". See also "the will of the people".

But the realpolitik is horrible here. Short term, these guys are irreplaceable and they have guns.

I'd love to say to them "Fine. Here's your new posting. Remember, underline the headings nice and neatly, every day forever." But it doesn't work like that.

Which is why police reform is so difficult, which is why some police forces are so blooming awful.

HYUFD

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

StillWaters

https://thecritic.co.uk/chris-kaba-and-the-rush-to-judgement/

This is a good article

Cyclefree

linto said:

Well said Cyclefree. From reading on X it seems like the Met officers fear 2 things, the CPS just doing it as they don't want a repeat of the Baker kerfuffle and a lack of support from senior officers. Hence the commissioners public statements which are inconsistent at best but purely targeted at those who have withdrawn even if it is very much too little too late.

The Met has got itself into the deeply uncomfortable position where good officers feel that the senior bods don't have their backs, or are weak or too self-servingly political and the bad officers don't fear the bosses and assume that for all the talk the recent reports will be ignored if they can only hold out long enough.

Neither trusted nor respected - whether by staff or the public. It's one hell of a hole they're going to have to dig themselves out of. And they will need tough, emotionally intelligent and trustworthy leaders, with the hides of elephants and the political skills of Machiavelli.

DavidL

In Scotland problems also accumulate in the Criminal Justice System. GeoAmay are supposed to provide transportation for those who are in custody to get them to court and also to provide security for those appearing in the court. The current situation is disastrous. The Sheriff Principals have now provided that courts must finish dealing with custodies by 7pm on a Monday and 6pm every other night unless the accused, the summons and a representative are all present before that cut off in which case the court can be dealt with.

Everyone is extremely unhappy with GeoAmay but the reality is that no one else seems to want the contract which they probably under bid for and carries huge amounts of unpaid responsibility and PR risk.

What this utter shambles suggests to me is that it just might not be the case that the utter chaos south of the border is entirely the fault of incompetent ministers or even corrupt and self serving police officers. We need to look much more realistically at what we do and why we do it.

We have gone from a situation which positively encouraged the hiding of contrary evidence to a point where the disclosure provisions require hundreds of pages for relatively simple crimes which need to be read, discussed with the accused and just might form the basis of some contrived defence. I think that we have gone too far. We seem to increase the length of served sentences to reflect public anger without regard to the consequences for our prison service or those who work in it. We lock up more than anyone else in Europe: is it working? We have lots of prosecutions of single complainer rapes which allegedly occurred within a relationship in the knowledge that the conviction rate for such charges is pitiful. Why do we do this? Who does it help?

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible. The police are indeed blameworthy but they operate in a system that just doesn't work for anyone, the victims, the accused, the participants and the public. No one is getting what they want out of this.

Taz

In news that will come as a shock to precious few the vast majority of NFTs are now worthless.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/22/nfts-worthless-price

Nigelb

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Putin might not be where he is now.

Saddam could have been contained indefinitely - and without the enormous cost in both cash and international credibility to the US and its allies. Geopolitical developments since would almost certainly have been different.

TheScreamingEagles

Taz said:

In news that will come as a shock to precious few the vast majority of NFTs are now worthless.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/22/nfts-worthless-price

I am shocked.

Andy_JS

StillWaters said:

https://thecritic.co.uk/chris-kaba-and-the-rush-to-judgement/

This is a good article

People are too impatient these days to wait for an official verdict on anything.

TheScreamingEagles

On topic, lock them all up.

HYUFD

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Putin might not be where he is now.

Saddam could have been contained indefinitely - and without the enormous cost in both cash and international credibility to the US and its allies. Geopolitical developments since would almost certainly have been different.

Yes he would, in fact he would be even stronger, supported by arms from Saddam and with a US led alliance unwilling to intervene against dictators abroad.

In fact Iraq has turned out rather better than Afghanistan in terms of regime change (and Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan anyway)

Taz

TheScreamingEagles said:

Taz said:

In news that will come as a shock to precious few the vast majority of NFTs are now worthless.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/22/nfts-worthless-price

I am shocked.

I’m sure the one you have of a Hawaiian Pizza is still worth something !

TimS

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

I reckon Saddam would have fallen in the Arab spring. With no previous Iraq war there would be no AQI, this probably no ISIS, and the resulting violence would have been the Shia majority overthrowing the Sunni leadership, likely tacitly supported by Iran. Would the US have stepped in? Probably. What would this all have meant for Syria? Who knows.

Would the US have left Afghanistan if it were their only major post 9/11 occupation? Would Blair have given way to Brown when he did? The counterfactuals are fascinating.

Andy_JS

"In an Age of Scams, Self-Help Falls Short
An individualistic focus only goes so far in preventing scams and frauds.
Sohale Mortazavi"

https://quillette.com/2023/09/22/in-an-age-of-scams-self-help-falls-short/

Nigelb

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

There is no legal argument that it is ‘contempt of court’. you’ve just pulled that out of your backside.
Such remedies as there are would lie in Brand taking legal action against those who have reported stories about him. Absent that, the press can print what they like, so long as they have satisfied themselves that it is likely to be true.

IanB2

To think that Swindon markets itself for all the places you can easily drive to from there, that aren’t Swindon……

This spot in Germany, one of my regular stopovers en route to southern Europe, is an easy half days’s drive from much of northern Italy, all of Switzerland, the Austrian Tyrol, much of southern and central Germany, and the eastern half of France. If you pushed it, you could make Vienna, or Paris, or Kent, or Munich, or Venice, in a day. And you have the Black Forest, right there.

I’ve just walked the dog up the hill, from where there are views all around, including the city of Basle spread out below, a few short stops away on the commuter train, yet when I last ate out in Basle it cost £60 for a cheap meal and some wine, whereas I’ve just eaten out at the local Brauhaus here for under €30. The Germans up the hill live in modern well appointed houses, and the town itself is a mix of old and a fair bit of new - allied planes did pass this way a few times in the war. The town’s nothing exceptional, but it has some decent eating places, and when I arrived this afternoon a good proportion of the populace was sitting out enjoying the sun and coffee and cake or a beer.

The town is celebrating the 175h anniversary this month of it becoming the capital of Germany for a day (with perhaps just a tad of historical license), with an exhibition in the tourist office and a special label wine to mark the event.

If they didn’t all speak German, this would be a pretty good place to live.

Cyclefree

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

HYUFD

TimS said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

I reckon Saddam would have fallen in the Arab spring. With no previous Iraq war there would be no AQI, this probably no ISIS, and the resulting violence would have been the Shia majority overthrowing the Sunni leadership, likely tacitly supported by Iran. Would the US have stepped in? Probably. What would this all have meant for Syria? Who knows.

Would the US have left Afghanistan if it were their only major post 9/11 occupation? Would Blair have given way to Brown when he did? The counterfactuals are fascinating.

He might, like Assad he might not.

The first Gulf War was after Saddam invaded Kuwait and was fought precisely to stop dictators invading their neighbours.

IS like rebels would still have emerged in Syria regardless.

TimS

IanB2 said:

To think that Swindon markets itself for all the places you can easily drive to from there, that aren’t Swindon……

This spot in Germany, one of my regular stopovers en route to southern Europe, is an easy half days’s drive from much of northern Italy, all of Switzerland, the Austrian Tyrol, much of southern and central Germany, and the eastern half of France. If you pushed it, you could make Vienna, or Paris, or Kent, or Munich, or Venice, in a day. And you have the Black Forest, right there.

I’ve just walked the dog up the hill, from where there are views all around, including the city of Basle spread out below, a few short stops away on the commuter train, yet when I last ate out in Basle it cost £60 for a cheap meal and some wine, whereas I’ve just eaten out at the local Brauhaus here for under €30. The Germans up the hill live in modern well appointed houses, and the town itself is a mix of old and a fair bit of new - allied planes did pass this way a few times in the war.

The town is celebrating the 175h anniversary this month of it becoming the capital of Germany for a day (with perhaps just a tad of historical license), with an exhibition in the tourist office and a special label wine to mark the event.

If they didn’t all speak German, this would be a pretty good place to live.

I’ve just been at the other end, in Hamburg, which is by contrast hundreds of miles from anywhere.

Sunil_Prasannan

On topic, what Cyclefree said

HYUFD

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you do support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

Taz

StillWaters said:

https://thecritic.co.uk/chris-kaba-and-the-rush-to-judgement/

This is a good article

Yes, it is. Especially the first paragraph.

Sadly after the shooting plenty of people were keen to judge either the actions of the police or Mr Kaba.

One thing is clear. The family of Mr Kaba deserve to get answers. Even if it is not the answer they want.

IanB2

TimS said:

IanB2 said:

To think that Swindon markets itself for all the places you can easily drive to from there, that aren’t Swindon……

This spot in Germany, one of my regular stopovers en route to southern Europe, is an easy half days’s drive from much of northern Italy, all of Switzerland, the Austrian Tyrol, much of southern and central Germany, and the eastern half of France. If you pushed it, you could make Vienna, or Paris, or Kent, or Munich, or Venice, in a day. And you have the Black Forest, right there.

I’ve just walked the dog up the hill, from where there are views all around, including the city of Basle spread out below, a few short stops away on the commuter train, yet when I last ate out in Basle it cost £60 for a cheap meal and some wine, whereas I’ve just eaten out at the local Brauhaus here for under €30. The Germans up the hill live in modern well appointed houses, and the town itself is a mix of old and a fair bit of new - allied planes did pass this way a few times in the war.

The town is celebrating the 175h anniversary this month of it becoming the capital of Germany for a day (with perhaps just a tad of historical license), with an exhibition in the tourist office and a special label wine to mark the event.

If they didn’t all speak German, this would be a pretty good place to live.

I’ve just been at the other end, in Hamburg, which is by contrast hundreds of miles from anywhere.

I hope you went and saw the world famous train set….

Stuartinromford

TheScreamingEagles said:

Taz said:

In news that will come as a shock to precious few the vast majority of NFTs are now worthless.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/22/nfts-worthless-price

I am shocked.

More importantly, is the Prime Minister shocked?

TimS

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

I reckon Saddam would have fallen in the Arab spring. With no previous Iraq war there would be no AQI, this probably no ISIS, and the resulting violence would have been the Shia majority overthrowing the Sunni leadership, likely tacitly supported by Iran. Would the US have stepped in? Probably. What would this all have meant for Syria? Who knows.

Would the US have left Afghanistan if it were their only major post 9/11 occupation? Would Blair have given way to Brown when he did? The counterfactuals are fascinating.

He might, like Assad he might not.

The first Gulf War was after Saddam invaded Kuwait and was fought precisely to stop dictators invading their neighbours.

IS like rebels would still have emerged in Syria regardless.

They’d have been a much less potent force. The emergence of the ultra extreme AQ in Iraq during the Sunni uprising in Fallujah set the seed for what was to come.

Iraq would still have been under sanctions in 2011. It’s quite possible the Arab Spring would have been the trigger for US-supported regime change. Also possible it would have been every bit as bloody as 2003 of course.

algarkirk

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Yes. The rules which apply once a criminal process has started are there to ensure a fair trial.

Until and unless that point is reached the media are entitled to make whatever accusations they like about people but, crucially, are subject to the laws of libel. So it's a good idea to make sure your story stands up.

Brand is well able to use the law - well known firms of solicitors will be forming a queue - both by way of injunction and of defamation proceedings to protect and proclaim his outstandingly fine and well deserved reputation for always behaving honourably towards women.

Stuartinromford

DavidL said:

In Scotland problems also accumulate in the Criminal Justice System. GeoAmay are supposed to provide transportation for those who are in custody to get them to court and also to provide security for those appearing in the court. The current situation is disastrous. The Sheriff Principals have now provided that courts must finish dealing with custodies by 7pm on a Monday and 6pm every other night unless the accused, the summons and a representative are all present before that cut off in which case the court can be dealt with.

Everyone is extremely unhappy with GeoAmay but the reality is that no one else seems to want the contract which they probably under bid for and carries huge amounts of unpaid responsibility and PR risk.

What this utter shambles suggests to me is that it just might not be the case that the utter chaos south of the border is entirely the fault of incompetent ministers or even corrupt and self serving police officers. We need to look much more realistically at what we do and why we do it.

We have gone from a situation which positively encouraged the hiding of contrary evidence to a point where the disclosure provisions require hundreds of pages for relatively simple crimes which need to be read, discussed with the accused and just might form the basis of some contrived defence. I think that we have gone too far. We seem to increase the length of served sentences to reflect public anger without regard to the consequences for our prison service or those who work in it. We lock up more than anyone else in Europe: is it working? We have lots of prosecutions of single complainer rapes which allegedly occurred within a relationship in the knowledge that the conviction rate for such charges is pitiful. Why do we do this? Who does it help?

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible. The police are indeed blameworthy but they operate in a system that just doesn't work for anyone, the victims, the accused, the participants and the public. No one is getting what they want out of this.

So, apart from emigrating to less stupid nations, what's the way out?

Cyclefree

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

Try reading anything I have written on the topic of law and the police over the last 6 years and you will know you are unutterably wrong.

Honestly, you should be ashamed of what the party you support has done to one of the absolutely fundamental and vital functions of the state. It lets down good police officers. It lets down voters. It has degraded one of the public services which worked reasonably well. It was nowhere near perfect but it worked. And now it is in a state of decline because of the damage done by the idiots you support mouthing mantras they don't understand to their credulous, proudly ignorant and dwindling band of supporters.

Nigelb

TimS said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

I reckon Saddam would have fallen in the Arab spring. With no previous Iraq war there would be no AQI, this probably no ISIS, and the resulting violence would have been the Shia majority overthrowing the Sunni leadership, likely tacitly supported by Iran. Would the US have stepped in? Probably. What would this all have meant for Syria? Who knows.

Would the US have left Afghanistan if it were their only major post 9/11 occupation? Would Blair have given way to Brown when he did? The counterfactuals are fascinating.

HYUFD seems to imagine that the rest of history would be unchanged had the US not invaded Iraq.
That seems utterly unlikely to me,

HYUFD

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

Try reading anything I have written on the topic of law and the police over the last 6 years and you will know you are unutterably wrong.

Honestly, you should be ashamed of what the party you support has done to one of the absolutely fundamental and vital functions of the state. It lets down good police officers. It lets down voters. It has degraded one of the public services which worked reasonably well. It was nowhere near perfect but it worked. And now it is in a state of decline because of the damage done by the idiots you support mouthing mantras they don't understand to their credulous and dwindling band of supporters.

Rubbish, why should a Conservative government manage the police in accordance with your left liberal ideology?

The Home Secretary is correctly ensuring the police have clear terms as to when they can use force and the courts have been given more powers under this government to give longer sentences for crimes from dangerous driving to whole life terms for serial killers, child killers and police killers

HYUFD

Nigelb said:

TimS said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

I reckon Saddam would have fallen in the Arab spring. With no previous Iraq war there would be no AQI, this probably no ISIS, and the resulting violence would have been the Shia majority overthrowing the Sunni leadership, likely tacitly supported by Iran. Would the US have stepped in? Probably. What would this all have meant for Syria? Who knows.

Would the US have left Afghanistan if it were their only major post 9/11 occupation? Would Blair have given way to Brown when he did? The counterfactuals are fascinating.

HYUFD seems to imagine that the rest of history would be unchanged had the US not invaded Iraq.
That seems utterly unlikely to me,

Saddam would still be the most powerful Arab figure in the Middle East yes and a key ally of Putin

Nigelb

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you do support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

You don’t support a free press.
Should the Times not have investigated and reported the Rotherham abuse cases ?

You argument is ridiculous.

Omnium

I find it odd that the BBC choose to englamour their website with pictures of Brand. Even if he's entirely innocent of wrong-doing he's about the last person that the BBC should have shining out to the world,

bigjohnowls

https://twitter.com/Agitate4Change/status/1706342665183175012

RochdalePioneers

TheScreamingEagles said:

On topic, lock them all up.

In what? Our prisons are busting at the seams thanks for a decade and more of underinvestment.

DavidL

Stuartinromford said:

DavidL said:

In Scotland problems also accumulate in the Criminal Justice System. GeoAmay are supposed to provide transportation for those who are in custody to get them to court and also to provide security for those appearing in the court. The current situation is disastrous. The Sheriff Principals have now provided that courts must finish dealing with custodies by 7pm on a Monday and 6pm every other night unless the accused, the summons and a representative are all present before that cut off in which case the court can be dealt with.

Everyone is extremely unhappy with GeoAmay but the reality is that no one else seems to want the contract which they probably under bid for and carries huge amounts of unpaid responsibility and PR risk.

What this utter shambles suggests to me is that it just might not be the case that the utter chaos south of the border is entirely the fault of incompetent ministers or even corrupt and self serving police officers. We need to look much more realistically at what we do and why we do it.

We have gone from a situation which positively encouraged the hiding of contrary evidence to a point where the disclosure provisions require hundreds of pages for relatively simple crimes which need to be read, discussed with the accused and just might form the basis of some contrived defence. I think that we have gone too far. We seem to increase the length of served sentences to reflect public anger without regard to the consequences for our prison service or those who work in it. We lock up more than anyone else in Europe: is it working? We have lots of prosecutions of single complainer rapes which allegedly occurred within a relationship in the knowledge that the conviction rate for such charges is pitiful. Why do we do this? Who does it help?

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible. The police are indeed blameworthy but they operate in a system that just doesn't work for anyone, the victims, the accused, the participants and the public. No one is getting what they want out of this.

So, apart from emigrating to less stupid nations, what's the way out?

The problems are complicated and have accumulated over decades, all too often in an attempt to correct some previous wrong. They do not admit to easy solutions in short paragraphs on a blog. Having said that:

We need to simplify the criminal justice system so that it can process people faster and cheaper.

We need to invest in community based solutions that work. We need to learn from those who do it better.

We need to encourage community policing so that the police are once again acting on behalf of a community that they are a part of rather than an occupying force, resented, distrusted and hostile.

We need to make better use of the time that people are in prison to remove or address the reasons for their offending rather than focusing almost exclusively on punishment.

I am sure that I could come up with a few more but these are a start.

Pulpstar

Taz said:

StillWaters said:

https://thecritic.co.uk/chris-kaba-and-the-rush-to-judgement/

This is a good article

Yes, it is. Especially the first paragraph.

Sadly after the shooting plenty of people were keen to judge either the actions of the police or Mr Kaba.

One thing is clear. The family of Mr Kaba deserve to get answers. Even if it is not the answer they want.

I can't understand the further delay of a year. Looking at the cases before the old Bailey today at least one was older.
Surely it was in everyone's interest to just get on with the trial asap

RochdalePioneers

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

Try reading anything I have written on the topic of law and the police over the last 6 years and you will know you are unutterably wrong.

Honestly, you should be ashamed of what the party you support has done to one of the absolutely fundamental and vital functions of the state. It lets down good police officers. It lets down voters. It has degraded one of the public services which worked reasonably well. It was nowhere near perfect but it worked. And now it is in a state of decline because of the damage done by the idiots you support mouthing mantras they don't understand to their credulous and dwindling band of supporters.

Rubbish, why should a Conservative government manage the police in accordance with your left liberal ideology?

The Home Secretary is correctly ensuring the police have clear terms as to when they can use force and the courts have been given more powers under this government to give longer sentences for crimes from dangerous driving to whole life terms for serial killers, child killers and police killers

Same question as above. You foam on about law and order. But have defunded the courts so that it is so very difficult to convict people - or even prosecute many of them. And you have failed to invest in prisons so that there is nowhere to send the people you want to lock up.

It is the usual dumb stupid Tory nonsense. Tough on crime when it comes to sound bites. But in reality it doesn't actually matter if you lock people up cos that costs money.

OnlyLivingBoy

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

DavidL

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

On topic, lock them all up.

In what? Our prisons are busting at the seams thanks for a decade and more of underinvestment.

We have more of our population locked up than any other country in western Europe. Right now. And your solution is more prisons and more people locked up? Where is the evidence that it works? What are you trying to achieve?

HYUFD

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

HYUFD

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you do support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

You don’t support a free press.
Should the Times not have investigated and reported the Rotherham abuse cases ?

You argument is ridiculous.

A police investigation is now under way into Brand, the media should not be reporting it further until either charges are laid or not

rcs1000

StillWaters said:

https://thecritic.co.uk/chris-kaba-and-the-rush-to-judgement/

This is a good article

That's an excellent article.

Leon

Stuartinromford said:

DavidL said:

In Scotland problems also accumulate in the Criminal Justice System. GeoAmay are supposed to provide transportation for those who are in custody to get them to court and also to provide security for those appearing in the court. The current situation is disastrous. The Sheriff Principals have now provided that courts must finish dealing with custodies by 7pm on a Monday and 6pm every other night unless the accused, the summons and a representative are all present before that cut off in which case the court can be dealt with.

Everyone is extremely unhappy with GeoAmay but the reality is that no one else seems to want the contract which they probably under bid for and carries huge amounts of unpaid responsibility and PR risk.

What this utter shambles suggests to me is that it just might not be the case that the utter chaos south of the border is entirely the fault of incompetent ministers or even corrupt and self serving police officers. We need to look much more realistically at what we do and why we do it.

We have gone from a situation which positively encouraged the hiding of contrary evidence to a point where the disclosure provisions require hundreds of pages for relatively simple crimes which need to be read, discussed with the accused and just might form the basis of some contrived defence. I think that we have gone too far. We seem to increase the length of served sentences to reflect public anger without regard to the consequences for our prison service or those who work in it. We lock up more than anyone else in Europe: is it working? We have lots of prosecutions of single complainer rapes which allegedly occurred within a relationship in the knowledge that the conviction rate for such charges is pitiful. Why do we do this? Who does it help?

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible. The police are indeed blameworthy but they operate in a system that just doesn't work for anyone, the victims, the accused, the participants and the public. No one is getting what they want out of this.

So, apart from emigrating to less stupid nations, what's the way out?

Stop importing people from high-crime societies. That would help, enormously. Look at the Disaster of Sweden

But, of course, no one can ever say this

HYUFD

RochdalePioneers said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

Try reading anything I have written on the topic of law and the police over the last 6 years and you will know you are unutterably wrong.

Honestly, you should be ashamed of what the party you support has done to one of the absolutely fundamental and vital functions of the state. It lets down good police officers. It lets down voters. It has degraded one of the public services which worked reasonably well. It was nowhere near perfect but it worked. And now it is in a state of decline because of the damage done by the idiots you support mouthing mantras they don't understand to their credulous and dwindling band of supporters.

Rubbish, why should a Conservative government manage the police in accordance with your left liberal ideology?

The Home Secretary is correctly ensuring the police have clear terms as to when they can use force and the courts have been given more powers under this government to give longer sentences for crimes from dangerous driving to whole life terms for serial killers, child killers and police killers

Same question as above. You foam on about law and order. But have defunded the courts so that it is so very difficult to convict people - or even prosecute many of them. And you have failed to invest in prisons so that there is nowhere to send the people you want to lock up.

It is the usual dumb stupid Tory nonsense. Tough on crime when it comes to sound bites. But in reality it doesn't actually matter if you lock people up cos that costs money.

'Our unprecedented prison-building programme is the largest in more than a century and will deliver an additional 20,000 prison places by the mid-2020s.'
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-new-prison-places-to-rehabilitate-offenders-and-cut-crime#:~:text=Our unprecedented prison-building programme,release and protecting the public.

RochdalePioneers

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

On topic, lock them all up.

In what? Our prisons are busting at the seams thanks for a decade and more of underinvestment.

We have more of our population locked up than any other country in western Europe. Right now. And your solution is more prisons and more people locked up? Where is the evidence that it works? What are you trying to achieve?

No no - I don't want to lock more people up. The Tories do. But aren't spending any money on being able to do so.

It is - as usual - utterly hypocritical.

ydoethur

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

I thought Uday had health problems following an assassination attempt (in addition to being a mad corrupt rapist) so Qusay had been designated as Saddam's successor?

DavidL

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

On topic, lock them all up.

In what? Our prisons are busting at the seams thanks for a decade and more of underinvestment.

We have more of our population locked up than any other country in western Europe. Right now. And your solution is more prisons and more people locked up? Where is the evidence that it works? What are you trying to achieve?

No no - I don't want to lock more people up. The Tories do. But aren't spending any money on being able to do so.

It is - as usual - utterly hypocritical.

You don't think it is even slightly hypocritical to condemn the Tories for not spending even more on the prison estate when you don't want more people locked up? I would suggest we spend at least enough. Whether we spend it well is a different question.

Leon

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

On topic, lock them all up.

In what? Our prisons are busting at the seams thanks for a decade and more of underinvestment.

We have more of our population locked up than any other country in western Europe. Right now. And your solution is more prisons and more people locked up? Where is the evidence that it works? What are you trying to achieve?

No no - I don't want to lock more people up. The Tories do. But aren't spending any money on being able to do so.

It is - as usual - utterly hypocritical.

lol

More prisons for fewer prisoners!

Listen to yourself

rottenborough

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Nigelb

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you do support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

You don’t support a free press.
Should the Times not have investigated and reported the Rotherham abuse cases ?

You argument is ridiculous.

A police investigation is now under way into Brand, the media should not be reporting it further until either charges are laid or not

To quote the Times:
“… “Anyone with even the sketchiest knowledge of how the media works surely knows that every single word of reporting on Brand has been rigorously scrutinised before publication.”

The column concluded: “The attorney general’s censorious warning has no basis in law. She should withdraw it immediately.”..”

Your opinion, just as the AG’s, has no basis in law.

rottenborough

Leon said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

On topic, lock them all up.

In what? Our prisons are busting at the seams thanks for a decade and more of underinvestment.

We have more of our population locked up than any other country in western Europe. Right now. And your solution is more prisons and more people locked up? Where is the evidence that it works? What are you trying to achieve?

No no - I don't want to lock more people up. The Tories do. But aren't spending any money on being able to do so.

It is - as usual - utterly hypocritical.

lol

More prisons for fewer prisoners!

Listen to yourself

Sobering reading:

The alarming Americanisation of British prisons

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/62133/the-alarming-americanisation-of-british-prisons

Stuartinromford

Leon said:

Stuartinromford said:

DavidL said:

In Scotland problems also accumulate in the Criminal Justice System. GeoAmay are supposed to provide transportation for those who are in custody to get them to court and also to provide security for those appearing in the court. The current situation is disastrous. The Sheriff Principals have now provided that courts must finish dealing with custodies by 7pm on a Monday and 6pm every other night unless the accused, the summons and a representative are all present before that cut off in which case the court can be dealt with.

Everyone is extremely unhappy with GeoAmay but the reality is that no one else seems to want the contract which they probably under bid for and carries huge amounts of unpaid responsibility and PR risk.

What this utter shambles suggests to me is that it just might not be the case that the utter chaos south of the border is entirely the fault of incompetent ministers or even corrupt and self serving police officers. We need to look much more realistically at what we do and why we do it.

We have gone from a situation which positively encouraged the hiding of contrary evidence to a point where the disclosure provisions require hundreds of pages for relatively simple crimes which need to be read, discussed with the accused and just might form the basis of some contrived defence. I think that we have gone too far. We seem to increase the length of served sentences to reflect public anger without regard to the consequences for our prison service or those who work in it. We lock up more than anyone else in Europe: is it working? We have lots of prosecutions of single complainer rapes which allegedly occurred within a relationship in the knowledge that the conviction rate for such charges is pitiful. Why do we do this? Who does it help?

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible. The police are indeed blameworthy but they operate in a system that just doesn't work for anyone, the victims, the accused, the participants and the public. No one is getting what they want out of this.

So, apart from emigrating to less stupid nations, what's the way out?

Stop importing people from high-crime societies. That would help, enormously. Look at the Disaster of Sweden

But, of course, no one can ever say this

Trouble is, that does nothing about the underlying issue. Quoting @DavidL,

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible.

It's not just law and order (though thanks for the suggestions, @DavidL.) It's everywhere we look.

And yes, other nations have massive problems. But there's a very specific British form of stupid, and it's getting out of hand.

Omnium

The BBC are leading with snaps of a possible sex offender - they've swapped the pictures around to get the maximum effect. The Police are in disarray, and in part that's because they can't rely on us, the public, having their backs.

HYUFD

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you do support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

You don’t support a free press.
Should the Times not have investigated and reported the Rotherham abuse cases ?

You argument is ridiculous.

A police investigation is now under way into Brand, the media should not be reporting it further until either charges are laid or not

To quote the Times:
“… “Anyone with even the sketchiest knowledge of how the media works surely knows that every single word of reporting on Brand has been rigorously scrutinised before publication.”

The column concluded: “The attorney general’s censorious warning has no basis in law. She should withdraw it immediately.”..”

Your opinion, just as the AG’s, has no basis in law.

You cannot know that until any trial and the result of that trial

HYUFD

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Trump may be debating from jail by then if the GOP even still allow him to be candidate

Leon

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Now that Trump has come out as More Liberal on Abortion than most GOP candidates, I am genuinely unsure as to why he is such a threat

So he *might* defund Ukraine, or he might actually seek a peace that could work - saving 100,000s of lives. What is Biden doing apart from feeding a war machine which chews up people?

He might also pursue a very isolationist, America-first economic and trade - oops, Biden is doing that

What else? He might actually stop migrants illegally crossing the border? That is increasingly the cry of Democrats in NYC, DC, LA, etc

So what's left? What makes Trump so awful? I honestly can't see it. Because he breaks constitutional norms? Dems have done this for a decade or more, disputing elections and warping the media (see: the ban on discussing Lab Leak until Trump was defeated)

Nigelb

It is, of course, a felony to purchase a gun while under federal indictment.

Trump visits gun store in South Carolina, buys a Glock
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4222060-trump-visits-gun-store-in-south-carolina-buys-a-glock-campaign/

ohnotnow

Stuartinromford said:

Leon said:

Stuartinromford said:

DavidL said:

In Scotland problems also accumulate in the Criminal Justice System. GeoAmay are supposed to provide transportation for those who are in custody to get them to court and also to provide security for those appearing in the court. The current situation is disastrous. The Sheriff Principals have now provided that courts must finish dealing with custodies by 7pm on a Monday and 6pm every other night unless the accused, the summons and a representative are all present before that cut off in which case the court can be dealt with.

Everyone is extremely unhappy with GeoAmay but the reality is that no one else seems to want the contract which they probably under bid for and carries huge amounts of unpaid responsibility and PR risk.

What this utter shambles suggests to me is that it just might not be the case that the utter chaos south of the border is entirely the fault of incompetent ministers or even corrupt and self serving police officers. We need to look much more realistically at what we do and why we do it.

We have gone from a situation which positively encouraged the hiding of contrary evidence to a point where the disclosure provisions require hundreds of pages for relatively simple crimes which need to be read, discussed with the accused and just might form the basis of some contrived defence. I think that we have gone too far. We seem to increase the length of served sentences to reflect public anger without regard to the consequences for our prison service or those who work in it. We lock up more than anyone else in Europe: is it working? We have lots of prosecutions of single complainer rapes which allegedly occurred within a relationship in the knowledge that the conviction rate for such charges is pitiful. Why do we do this? Who does it help?

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible. The police are indeed blameworthy but they operate in a system that just doesn't work for anyone, the victims, the accused, the participants and the public. No one is getting what they want out of this.

So, apart from emigrating to less stupid nations, what's the way out?

Stop importing people from high-crime societies. That would help, enormously. Look at the Disaster of Sweden

But, of course, no one can ever say this

Trouble is, that does nothing about the underlying issue. Quoting @DavidL,

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible.

It's not just law and order (though thanks for the suggestions, @DavidL.) It's everywhere we look.

And yes, other nations have massive problems. But there's a very specific British form of stupid, and it's getting out of hand.

Stop talking Britain down. Our unique form of stupid is why we had to leave the EU. Now we have the sovereign freedom to be stupid on our own terms without pesky 'Eurocrats' suggesting things like 'could you be less stupid?'.

rottenborough

Nigelb said:

It is, of course, a felony to purchase a gun while under federal indictment.

Trump visits gun store in South Carolina, buys a Glock
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4222060-trump-visits-gun-store-in-south-carolina-buys-a-glock-campaign/

He does know they are not made in America?

ydoethur

rottenborough said:

Nigelb said:

It is, of course, a felony to purchase a gun while under federal indictment.

Trump visits gun store in South Carolina, buys a Glock
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4222060-trump-visits-gun-store-in-south-carolina-buys-a-glock-campaign/

He does know they are not made in America?

If you play with it, it becomes a musical instrument, a Glock in Spiel.

Leon

Stuartinromford said:

Leon said:

Stuartinromford said:

DavidL said:

In Scotland problems also accumulate in the Criminal Justice System. GeoAmay are supposed to provide transportation for those who are in custody to get them to court and also to provide security for those appearing in the court. The current situation is disastrous. The Sheriff Principals have now provided that courts must finish dealing with custodies by 7pm on a Monday and 6pm every other night unless the accused, the summons and a representative are all present before that cut off in which case the court can be dealt with.

Everyone is extremely unhappy with GeoAmay but the reality is that no one else seems to want the contract which they probably under bid for and carries huge amounts of unpaid responsibility and PR risk.

What this utter shambles suggests to me is that it just might not be the case that the utter chaos south of the border is entirely the fault of incompetent ministers or even corrupt and self serving police officers. We need to look much more realistically at what we do and why we do it.

We have gone from a situation which positively encouraged the hiding of contrary evidence to a point where the disclosure provisions require hundreds of pages for relatively simple crimes which need to be read, discussed with the accused and just might form the basis of some contrived defence. I think that we have gone too far. We seem to increase the length of served sentences to reflect public anger without regard to the consequences for our prison service or those who work in it. We lock up more than anyone else in Europe: is it working? We have lots of prosecutions of single complainer rapes which allegedly occurred within a relationship in the knowledge that the conviction rate for such charges is pitiful. Why do we do this? Who does it help?

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible. The police are indeed blameworthy but they operate in a system that just doesn't work for anyone, the victims, the accused, the participants and the public. No one is getting what they want out of this.

So, apart from emigrating to less stupid nations, what's the way out?

Stop importing people from high-crime societies. That would help, enormously. Look at the Disaster of Sweden

But, of course, no one can ever say this

Trouble is, that does nothing about the underlying issue. Quoting @DavidL,

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible.

It's not just law and order (though thanks for the suggestions, @DavidL.) It's everywhere we look.

And yes, other nations have massive problems. But there's a very specific British form of stupid, and it's getting out of hand.

Saying "we prefer migrants from low crime East Asian societies" would be an enormous step forward in preventing greater crime in our own society

Your chances of being mugged/robbed/stabbed etc by a Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Taiwanese (and so on) person are so small as to be almost Zero

Why can't we just say this? We have deliberately crippled immigraton policy in a way that is damaging the lives of British people, and for what? Why? How? Who said: "Do this"?

Mexicanpete

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Now that Trump has come out as More Liberal on Abortion than most GOP candidates, I am genuinely unsure as to why he is such a threat

So he *might* defund Ukraine, or he might actually seek a peace that could work - saving 100,000s of lives. What is Biden doing apart from feeding a war machine which chews up people?

He might also pursue a very isolationist, America-first economic and trade - oops, Biden is doing that

What else? He might actually stop migrants illegally crossing the border? That is increasingly the cry of Democrats in NYC, DC, LA, etc

So what's left? What makes Trump so awful? I honestly can't see it. Because he breaks constitutional norms? Dems have done this for a decade or more, disputing elections and warping the media (see: the ban on discussing Lab Leak until Trump was defeated)

That reads like an edgy job application to Fox News. Good luck!

SirNorfolkPassmore

Nigelb said:

It is, of course, a felony to purchase a gun while under federal indictment.

Trump visits gun store in South Carolina, buys a Glock
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4222060-trump-visits-gun-store-in-south-carolina-buys-a-glock-campaign/

Ironically, no less a figure than Hunter Biden is relying on the argument that such rules are unconstitutional as several state courts have found.

It's quite possible that the Supreme Court will rule in due course... and that it'll be relevant to both the Trump and Biden clans.

Leon

Mexicanpete said:

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Now that Trump has come out as More Liberal on Abortion than most GOP candidates, I am genuinely unsure as to why he is such a threat

So he *might* defund Ukraine, or he might actually seek a peace that could work - saving 100,000s of lives. What is Biden doing apart from feeding a war machine which chews up people?

He might also pursue a very isolationist, America-first economic and trade - oops, Biden is doing that

What else? He might actually stop migrants illegally crossing the border? That is increasingly the cry of Democrats in NYC, DC, LA, etc

So what's left? What makes Trump so awful? I honestly can't see it. Because he breaks constitutional norms? Dems have done this for a decade or more, disputing elections and warping the media (see: the ban on discussing Lab Leak until Trump was defeated)

That reads like an edgy job application to Fox News. Good luck!

Thanks. I hear they pay well

ydoethur

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

Nigelb said:

It is, of course, a felony to purchase a gun while under federal indictment.

Trump visits gun store in South Carolina, buys a Glock
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4222060-trump-visits-gun-store-in-south-carolina-buys-a-glock-campaign/

Ironically, no less a figure than Hunter Biden is relying on the argument that such rules are unconstitutional as several state courts have found.

It's quite possible that the Supreme Court will rule in due course... and that it'll be relevant to both the Trump and Biden clans.

It would be rather hilarious if Donald Trump undermined his partisans' efforts to have Biden locked up by his own actions.

But it would also be entirely typical.

Sunil_Prasannan

Nigelb said:

It is, of course, a felony to purchase a gun while under federal indictment.

Trump visits gun store in South Carolina, buys a Glock
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4222060-trump-visits-gun-store-in-south-carolina-buys-a-glock-campaign/

John McClane: That punk pulled a Glock 7 on me. You know what that is? It's a porcelain gun made in Germany. Doesn't show up on your airport X-ray machines, here, and it cost more than you make in a month.

Carmine Lorenzo: You'd be a surprised what I make in a month.

John McClane: If it's more than a dollar ninety-eight I'd be very surprised.

Carnyx

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you do support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

You don’t support a free press.
Should the Times not have investigated and reported the Rotherham abuse cases ?

You argument is ridiculous.

A police investigation is now under way into Brand, the media should not be reporting it further until either charges are laid or not

To quote the Times:
“… “Anyone with even the sketchiest knowledge of how the media works surely knows that every single word of reporting on Brand has been rigorously scrutinised before publication.”

The column concluded: “The attorney general’s censorious warning has no basis in law. She should withdraw it immediately.”..”

Your opinion, just as the AG’s, has no basis in law.

You cannot know that until any trial and the result of that trial

Your logic is intended to shuit down any criticism of any Tory Party politician or supporter just because they might end up in court sooner or later?

Penddu2

I have just been looking at the betting odds for RWC - with Ireland, South Africa, France and New Zealand all at 3-1 or 4-1 that is not generous. These are the top 4 favourites but only 2 of the 4 can even get to the final so these odds are too low.

England at 10-1 looks about right - possible but not easy. Wales at 22-1 looks much better value - especially with an easier run in than England. Not saying what is going to happen - just where is the value

SirNorfolkPassmore

HYUFD said:

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Trump may be debating from jail by then if the GOP even still allow him to be candidate

I think it's fairly unlikely Trump will be in jail at any point in 2024. It's probable he'd be at liberty even if convicted, albeit possibly with some restrictions, pending exhaustion of appeal routes. It's possible but unlikely.

Benpointer

Penddu2 said:

I have just been looking at the betting odds for RWC - with Ireland, South Africa, France and New Zealand all at 3-1 or 4-1 that is not generous. These are the top 4 favourites but only 2 of the 4 can even get to the final so these odds are too low.

England at 10-1 looks about right - possible but not easy. Wales at 22-1 looks much better value - especially with an easier run in than England. Not saying what is going to happen - just where is the value

How is Wales's run-in easier than England's?

Benpointer

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Now that Trump has come out as More Liberal on Abortion than most GOP candidates, I am genuinely unsure as to why he is such a threat

So he *might* defund Ukraine, or he might actually seek a peace that could work - saving 100,000s of lives. What is Biden doing apart from feeding a war machine which chews up people?

He might also pursue a very isolationist, America-first economic and trade - oops, Biden is doing that

What else? He might actually stop migrants illegally crossing the border? That is increasingly the cry of Democrats in NYC, DC, LA, etc

So what's left? What makes Trump so awful? I honestly can't see it. Because he breaks constitutional norms? Dems have done this for a decade or more, disputing elections and warping the media (see: the ban on discussing Lab Leak until Trump was defeated)

Where Trump is concerned you are like Big_G with the Tories, desperate for the slightest excuse to give open support.

Why seek the excuse? You know you are a Trumpite at heart.

HYUFD

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you do support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

You don’t support a free press.
Should the Times not have investigated and reported the Rotherham abuse cases ?

You argument is ridiculous.

A police investigation is now under way into Brand, the media should not be reporting it further until either charges are laid or not

To quote the Times:
“… “Anyone with even the sketchiest knowledge of how the media works surely knows that every single word of reporting on Brand has been rigorously scrutinised before publication.”

The column concluded: “The attorney general’s censorious warning has no basis in law. She should withdraw it immediately.”..”

Your opinion, just as the AG’s, has no basis in law.

You cannot know that until any trial and the result of that trial

Your logic is intended to shuit down any criticism of any Tory Party politician or supporter just because they might end up in court sooner or later?

Brand is hardly a Tory supporter!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2015/apr/29/ed-miliband-russell-brand-video-highlights

Given the former leader of the SNP is currently under police investigation alongside her husband and the leader of the SNP before that was on trial for rape, I would have thought you would have wanted senior figures in your party too to be protected from trial by media

Leon

Penddu2 said:

I have just been looking at the betting odds for RWC - with Ireland, South Africa, France and New Zealand all at 3-1 or 4-1 that is not generous. These are the top 4 favourites but only 2 of the 4 can even get to the final so these odds are too low.

England at 10-1 looks about right - possible but not easy. Wales at 22-1 looks much better value - especially with an easier run in than England. Not saying what is going to happen - just where is the value

England, at the beginning of the tournament , were 16/1

Which was absurdy generous: AS I POINTED OUT



"Good question

I’d have two bets. One for the likely winners: springboks - they’re 9/2

As an outside bet I’d go (bear with me) for England. They have a fair sprinkle of talent but are devoid of confidence and they’ve got a shit coach. But on the day they might just beat anyone and they have a very favourable draw, and they tend to do well in world cups

England are 16/1"

A day after this they went out to 18/1

https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4530917/#Comment_4530917

bigjohnowls

https://twitter.com/DoubleDownNews/status/1706250196596797613

rcs1000

DavidL said:

In Scotland problems also accumulate in the Criminal Justice System. GeoAmay are supposed to provide transportation for those who are in custody to get them to court and also to provide security for those appearing in the court. The current situation is disastrous. The Sheriff Principals have now provided that courts must finish dealing with custodies by 7pm on a Monday and 6pm every other night unless the accused, the summons and a representative are all present before that cut off in which case the court can be dealt with.

Everyone is extremely unhappy with GeoAmay but the reality is that no one else seems to want the contract which they probably under bid for and carries huge amounts of unpaid responsibility and PR risk.

What this utter shambles suggests to me is that it just might not be the case that the utter chaos south of the border is entirely the fault of incompetent ministers or even corrupt and self serving police officers. We need to look much more realistically at what we do and why we do it.

We have gone from a situation which positively encouraged the hiding of contrary evidence to a point where the disclosure provisions require hundreds of pages for relatively simple crimes which need to be read, discussed with the accused and just might form the basis of some contrived defence. I think that we have gone too far. We seem to increase the length of served sentences to reflect public anger without regard to the consequences for our prison service or those who work in it. We lock up more than anyone else in Europe: is it working? We have lots of prosecutions of single complainer rapes which allegedly occurred within a relationship in the knowledge that the conviction rate for such charges is pitiful. Why do we do this? Who does it help?

The infantile way our politics and our media discuss these things make sensible discussions almost impossible. The police are indeed blameworthy but they operate in a system that just doesn't work for anyone, the victims, the accused, the participants and the public. No one is getting what they want out of this.

This deserves a lot more likes than it got.

HYUFD

Leon said:

Mexicanpete said:

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Now that Trump has come out as More Liberal on Abortion than most GOP candidates, I am genuinely unsure as to why he is such a threat

So he *might* defund Ukraine, or he might actually seek a peace that could work - saving 100,000s of lives. What is Biden doing apart from feeding a war machine which chews up people?

He might also pursue a very isolationist, America-first economic and trade - oops, Biden is doing that

What else? He might actually stop migrants illegally crossing the border? That is increasingly the cry of Democrats in NYC, DC, LA, etc

So what's left? What makes Trump so awful? I honestly can't see it. Because he breaks constitutional norms? Dems have done this for a decade or more, disputing elections and warping the media (see: the ban on discussing Lab Leak until Trump was defeated)

That reads like an edgy job application to Fox News. Good luck!

Thanks. I hear they pay well

Yes, if you are prepared to be hated by the other side rightwing news and media tends to pay more than leftwing news and media.

Leon

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Now that Trump has come out as More Liberal on Abortion than most GOP candidates, I am genuinely unsure as to why he is such a threat

So he *might* defund Ukraine, or he might actually seek a peace that could work - saving 100,000s of lives. What is Biden doing apart from feeding a war machine which chews up people?

He might also pursue a very isolationist, America-first economic and trade - oops, Biden is doing that

What else? He might actually stop migrants illegally crossing the border? That is increasingly the cry of Democrats in NYC, DC, LA, etc

So what's left? What makes Trump so awful? I honestly can't see it. Because he breaks constitutional norms? Dems have done this for a decade or more, disputing elections and warping the media (see: the ban on discussing Lab Leak until Trump was defeated)

Where Trump is concerned you are like Big_G with the Tories, desperate for the slightest excuse to give open support.

Why seek the excuse? You know you are a Trumpite at heart.

Or, you could answer the question

After all we have seen, what makes Trump so uniquely bad?

BartholomewRoberts

HYUFD said:

I think it was perfectly sensible of the Home Secretary to request a review of the terms under which the police deploy firearms so they can be sure on what grounds they can be used.

Unless and until Brand is charged of any offences there should also be some limits on what the media can report on the matter

Isn't it the other way around?

If charges are filed then the matter becomes sub judice and reporting restrictions apply, but currently its only subject to libel laws, not judicial ones, is it not?

HYUFD

Leon said:

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Now that Trump has come out as More Liberal on Abortion than most GOP candidates, I am genuinely unsure as to why he is such a threat

So he *might* defund Ukraine, or he might actually seek a peace that could work - saving 100,000s of lives. What is Biden doing apart from feeding a war machine which chews up people?

He might also pursue a very isolationist, America-first economic and trade - oops, Biden is doing that

What else? He might actually stop migrants illegally crossing the border? That is increasingly the cry of Democrats in NYC, DC, LA, etc

So what's left? What makes Trump so awful? I honestly can't see it. Because he breaks constitutional norms? Dems have done this for a decade or more, disputing elections and warping the media (see: the ban on discussing Lab Leak until Trump was defeated)

Where Trump is concerned you are like Big_G with the Tories, desperate for the slightest excuse to give open support.

Why seek the excuse? You know you are a Trumpite at heart.

Or, you could answer the question

After all we have seen, what makes Trump so uniquely bad?

Indeed, we survived 4 years of him and Putin only invaded Ukraine after he left.

Trump was, for all his faults, the second most charismatic Republican President of my lifetime after Reagan and still has oomph, which is more than can be said for Biden.

If Americans elect him again so be it, Europe needs to take more responsibility for its own defence anyway, though I still think his charges will do for him. If it wasn't for those I think it would be odds on it he returned to the White House next year

HYUFD

BartholomewRoberts said:

HYUFD said:

I think it was perfectly sensible of the Home Secretary to request a review of the terms under which the police deploy firearms so they can be sure on what grounds they can be used.

Unless and until Brand is charged of any offences there should also be some limits on what the media can report on the matter

Isn't it the other way around?

If charges are filed then the matter becomes sub judice and reporting restrictions apply, but currently its only subject to libel laws, not judicial ones, is it not?

Now the police investigation is under way, not if that is prejudiced and any subsequent trial

RochdalePioneers

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

On topic, lock them all up.

In what? Our prisons are busting at the seams thanks for a decade and more of underinvestment.

We have more of our population locked up than any other country in western Europe. Right now. And your solution is more prisons and more people locked up? Where is the evidence that it works? What are you trying to achieve?

No no - I don't want to lock more people up. The Tories do. But aren't spending any money on being able to do so.

It is - as usual - utterly hypocritical.

You don't think it is even slightly hypocritical to condemn the Tories for not spending even more on the prison estate when you don't want more people locked up? I would suggest we spend at least enough. Whether we spend it well is a different question.

The Tories say they want to lock people up. That people who want Law and Order must Vote Tory to stop crime and lock up criminals. Then they defund the police. Defund the legal system. Clog up the courts. Overcrowd prisons which don't get investment.

That is the hypocrisy. Claiming to be on the side of law and order. Whilst empowering the criminals.

Nigelb

.

HYUFD said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Cyclefree said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

Good header.

I see HYUFD can’t read, so I’ll repost this bit.
… The Attorney-General issues a warning to the press about the reporting around Brand’s sex life. There have been no arrests, no interviews, no charges – no live investigation – just one report of a complaint in the UK. The contempt of court laws do not apply – unlike in the Kaba case. Criminal prosecutions and investigative reporting are different and necessary functions and subject to different legal regimes. The Attorney-General has no business – and no legal authority – to warn off newspapers reporting on matters in circumstances when the contempt of court laws do not apply. If she is so concerned about these laws, she would be better off speaking to the Home Secretary. Like many other aspects of the government’s actions these days, it is reactive, designed to be populist while lacking in thought or principle...

There have been media reports of multiple complaints and in depth accusations made against Brand before any charges are made.

I am no great fan of Brand but that arguably is contempt of court if it prejudices a subsequent trial if charges are made when the police investigation should be left to deal with it without excess media interference

No it isn't. The media are not interfering. They are doing their job. A pity politicians cannot do theirs.

Their job is not to provide masses of media coverage of a matter which is currently under police investigation and where no charges have even yet been made.

We have the rule of law not trial by media

The bit in bold is the bit you need to focus on.

Your mistaken view would result in no need for any journalism at all because of the vague possibility that a charge might occur sometime in the future. We may as well just get handed our free copy of the latest Conservative Party press release every morning.

I could try and educate you on the law and press freedom but what would be the point? It'd be like trying to educate the speaking clock.

Clearly you do support trial by media then, rather than leaving investigations to the police and CPS and media coverage to any subsequent court case. Which is how a nation based on rule of law should work

You don’t support a free press.
Should the Times not have investigated and reported the Rotherham abuse cases ?

You argument is ridiculous.

A police investigation is now under way into Brand, the media should not be reporting it further until either charges are laid or not

To quote the Times:
“… “Anyone with even the sketchiest knowledge of how the media works surely knows that every single word of reporting on Brand has been rigorously scrutinised before publication.”

The column concluded: “The attorney general’s censorious warning has no basis in law. She should withdraw it immediately.”..”

Your opinion, just as the AG’s, has no basis in law.

You cannot know that until any trial and the result of that trial

Your logic is intended to shuit down any criticism of any Tory Party politician or supporter just because they might end up in court sooner or later?

Brand is hardly a Tory supporter!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2015/apr/29/ed-miliband-russell-brand-video-highlights

Given the former leader of the SNP is currently under police investigation alongside her husband and the leader of the SNP before that was on trial for rape, I would have thought you would have wanted senior figures in your party too to be protected from trial by media

You are entitled to your views on what the media should and should not report.

You're also entitled to make up shit about what the law has to say about the matter.

But we don't have to take the latter seriously.

Sunil_Prasannan

Leon said:

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Now that Trump has come out as More Liberal on Abortion than most GOP candidates, I am genuinely unsure as to why he is such a threat

So he *might* defund Ukraine, or he might actually seek a peace that could work - saving 100,000s of lives. What is Biden doing apart from feeding a war machine which chews up people?

He might also pursue a very isolationist, America-first economic and trade - oops, Biden is doing that

What else? He might actually stop migrants illegally crossing the border? That is increasingly the cry of Democrats in NYC, DC, LA, etc

So what's left? What makes Trump so awful? I honestly can't see it. Because he breaks constitutional norms? Dems have done this for a decade or more, disputing elections and warping the media (see: the ban on discussing Lab Leak until Trump was defeated)

Where Trump is concerned you are like Big_G with the Tories, desperate for the slightest excuse to give open support.

Why seek the excuse? You know you are a Trumpite at heart.

Or, you could answer the question

After all we have seen, what makes Trump so uniquely bad?

Pretending he won in 2020, when he actually lost by 7 million votes?

Biden 81 million
Trump 74 million

BartholomewRoberts

HYUFD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

HYUFD said:

I think it was perfectly sensible of the Home Secretary to request a review of the terms under which the police deploy firearms so they can be sure on what grounds they can be used.

Unless and until Brand is charged of any offences there should also be some limits on what the media can report on the matter

Isn't it the other way around?

If charges are filed then the matter becomes sub judice and reporting restrictions apply, but currently its only subject to libel laws, not judicial ones, is it not?

Now the police investigation is under way, not if that is prejudiced and any subsequent trial

There is no trial currently. The law is clear on when reporting restrictions begin, that hasn't happened yet.

You're wanting to reverse when reporting restrictions apply. Quite reasonably the limits on what the media can report are not until someone is charged, but from when they are, as that is when it becomes sub judice.

tlg86

StillWaters said:

https://thecritic.co.uk/chris-kaba-and-the-rush-to-judgement/

This is a good article

Yes, very much a case of only time will tell. I think it's possible that he was using his car as a weapon but that the CPS think that's no excuse for shooting him. Of course, juries are a form of democracy so it won't matter what judges or lawyers think.

Leon

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Leon said:

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

(FPT)

HYUFD said:

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

Nigelb said:

Omnium said:

Burgessian said:

Interview with Michael Heseltine, now 90 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmmMXdQ9qw&ab_channel=HouseofLords

Fluent, cogent and eminently sensible.

For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80, I am increasingly of the view that handing government over to the oldies is not the worst thing we could do.

I'd rather have a nonagenerian Hezza running the show than any of the current lot in office, or opposition.

He's a bit Teflon. I don't think we missed out in any way in having him out of mainstream politics. I cannot think of a politician who has been placed so well and has delivered so little. The only contender is Brown.

I tend to disagree.

He did good work with Docklands, and in Liverpool.
He was instrumental in persuading Thatcher to adopt the council house right to buy policy - and had he been listened to, we might have avoided its deeply malign effects on both local government finance, and our housing stock:
"...At the time Heseltine permitted councils to use up to 75% of sales receipts for renovating the housing stock, and was angry in later years when this was cut back by the Treasury..."

He was also pretty effective at managing his departments - a skill which seems beyond most ministers these days.

In a government other than Thatcher's, with whom he was constantly at loggerheads, and who denied him senior cabinet posts, he might have achieved a great deal more.

Spoke a lot of sense, and eloquently with passion. A bit like Ken Clarke. Conservatives worth listening too, and voting for, now seen as lefties by todays Tory members.

The real problem is that our political and voting system forces ambitious young politicians who are really centrist to choose between Tory and Labour, so that they can have a national political career, within which they have to hide many of their true beliefs in order to further said career, and they can only speak out once they are powerless and it’s too late.

And at the same time directs various extremists, who really belong in fringe parties with handfuls of MPs, into the main parties where they lurk and await their chance to pull our politics out toward the fringes.

I doubt Heseltine or Clarke in particular ever saw themselves as centrists. They were and are conservatives with a small c, but intelligent enough to accept that there are times when the state is best placed to provide solutions too, rather than rely on a particular dogma always being correct.

They are pragmatists, but clear centre right pragmatists.

On most issues Heseltine and Clarke were closer to New Labour and the LDs than Thatcherite Conservatives, indeed on Iraq they were even left of Blair

That wasn’t a right/left question - it was a right/wrong one.
And they were right.

Not necessarily, if Iraq was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would certainly be supplying Putin with arms now and Iraq still under a brutal regime

Saddam Hussein would be 86 years old by now, in a country where male life expectancy is 68. I think it's highly unlikely he'd still be alive, let alone in power!

Or even worse Uday

"For all the criticism of Joe Biden running for office at 80,"

The GOP campaign will focus on Harris - who as veep may very well become POTUS in two years or so if Biden wins.

I am increasingly of the view that this is shaping up to be a bloody disaster by pushing on with Joe.

As a mate said to me this afternoon over a cuppa - how is Biden going to handle the TV debates with Trump? He can't have a flash card for every possible quick fire question.

Now that Trump has come out as More Liberal on Abortion than most GOP candidates, I am genuinely unsure as to why he is such a threat

So he *might* defund Ukraine, or he might actually seek a peace that could work - saving 100,000s of lives. What is Biden doing apart from feeding a war machine which chews up people?

He might also pursue a very isolationist, America-first economic and trade - oops, Biden is doing that

What else? He might actually stop migrants illegally crossing the border? That is increasingly the cry of Democrats in NYC, DC, LA, etc

So what's left? What makes Trump so awful? I honestly can't see it. Because he breaks constitutional norms? Dems have done this for a decade or more, disputing elections and warping the media (see: the ban on discussing Lab Leak until Trump was defeated)

Where Trump is concerned you are like Big_G with the Tories, desperate for the slightest excuse to give open support.

Why seek the excuse? You know you are a Trumpite at heart.

Or, you could answer the question

After all we have seen, what makes Trump so uniquely bad?

Pretending he won in 2020, when he actually lost by 7 million votes?

Biden 81 million
Trump 74 million

What did Hillary do? Or Al Gore?

Disputing elections looks like a fine old Yankee tradition, to me

And Trump didn't tell social media to close down globally-important news stories