And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
One point I would also add. There is also a perception - rightly or wrongly - that the Police prioritise hate crimes because of political pressure and / or the need to be seen to be doing something about it. Police time is, in effect, a zero sum game so, if one area is prioritised, another area must inevitably suffer - which again creates inequality amongst victims.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
But your attacker will get a lower sentence if he pleads guilty. They may also get a lower sentence if they co-operate with the police. They may also get a lower sentence if they show genuine remorse.
There are a huge list of factors that influence sentencing where race is just one of many. No two crimes are the same.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
More likely tell you why is will NEVER be ok again.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
One point I would also add. There is also a perception - rightly or wrongly - that the Police prioritise hate crimes because of political pressure and / or the need to be seen to be doing something about it. Police time is, in effect, a zero sum game so, if one area is prioritised, another area must inevitably suffer - which again creates inequality amongst victims.
the prioritisation of hate crimes by the Police is a completely separate issue to whether targeting due to race should be an aggravating factor in sentencing.
Re the debate on when things should re-open, I think once the over 50's and most vulnerable are 21 days out from first jabs then that's it. We need to get on and live. There will be some residual coronavirus around and we will have to get used to it. Some may contract it but relatively few will die from it.
The teacher thing is a bit of a red herring imho. It's all down to the JCVI priority list.
After the over 50s are done teachers can all be done within a week. It's not really a big deal and it's a nice symbolic thing to do before opening schools as well.
Teachers could be done in a day!
Who would object to "Teachers' vaccination day"?
It would have to be predicated though on the schools definitely being opened afterwards. So maybe the union wont agree to this.
Interesting that the Pfizer response to the SA variant is being classes as good (rightly) because it has a robust t-cell response but the AZ vaccine had a very similar t-cell response but was on the receiving end of some very unfair briefings.
It's almost as if there is an element of the media that wants the vaccine to fail.
Easy for people with Pfizer in their arm to claim both are as good as each other.
Would anyone, given a free choice not go Pfizer?
Late to this today, but as someone with AZ in the arm its a question I have pondered. If offered a choice, I think I would have preferred Pfizer. However, what must be remembered is that the data for ALL the vaccines is still very incomplete. Real world data will give a far fairer picture, and its entirely possible that all the vaccines end up in the same rough ball park. I understand that Pfizer has introduced some extra 'stiffness' to the spike protein, and it is possible that this approach gives it the edge. We will see. Real UK data will not be long in coming. I'm also interested at the proportions of P to AZ injected so far. I think most of us expected AZ to be dominating (pretty sure UVDL did...)
I think the Irish Doctors' Association summed it up best "the best vaccine you can have is the one you can have now".
Once this is all over it will be interesting to see the relative morbidity and mortality rates of those who followed the WHO (and EMA) on AZ and those who did not.
Re the debate on when things should re-open, I think once the over 50's and most vulnerable are 21 days out from first jabs then that's it. We need to get on and live. There will be some residual coronavirus around and we will have to get used to it. Some may contract it but relatively few will die from it.
The teacher thing is a bit of a red herring imho. It's all down to the JCVI priority list.
After the over 50s are done teachers can all be done within a week. It's not really a big deal and it's a nice symbolic thing to do before opening schools as well.
Teachers could be done in a day!
Who would object to "Teachers' vaccination day"?
It would have to be predicated though on the schools definitely being opened afterwards. So maybe the union wont agree to this.
Really we'd need to wait 2+ weeks after vaccination before opening schools.
While it is true that, if we end up in a hung Parliament Labour will find it easier to form a government, the precedent of the 2015 GE campaign is that this is politically an albatross around Labour's neck.
The voters will be told that the choice at the election is not between a majority Tory government or a majority Labour government, but between a strong and stable Tory majority government or Labour's coalition of chaos led from Holyrood.
This is why a resurgence in Scotland is so crucial to Labour's hopes at Westminster. It's not because, numerically, they need Scottish seats. They can win enough English seats. It's because it kills off the political argument of a Labour government propped up by the SNP.
A difference between then and now, though, could be that perceptions of Nicola Sturgeon in England have been changed by the pandemic. The bigger question is whether the SNP actually would prop up a Labour minority government. If it does and the government is successful, the SNP loses a significant calling card for independence.
So you expect the SNP to voluntarily play nice, and to voluntarily give away their calling card? You don't see the problem in that plan?
The SNP as the scorpion 🦂 has no reason to make a success of a minority Labour frog 🐸 government.
The SNP has every incentive to allow a Labour PM to be in office but for Westminster to be a catastrophe. They are agents of chaos, they have no incentive or desire to make your Westminster government work.
Yes, I totally understand that, Phil. The issue is whether they could sell that in Scotland to the entirety of their current voting coalition, a large part of which has been taken from Labour. If you say that Scottish independence is necessary to protect Scotland from Tory governments in Westminster, working with the Tories at Westminster to bring down a Labour government may not be the smartest thing to do.
The paradox here is that Labour need to prevent independence far more so than the conservatives
The further paradox is that a Unionist win in Sindy ref is probably more likely under a Labour Westminster government than a Tory one, particularly one led by the loathed Johnson.
That is why Starmer will support PR. With Scotland gone, it's Labour's only hope of being in power (in a coalition or minority government). All parties (including Reform) will be in support of PR except the Tories who will strive to cling onto absolute power with only 40% of the vote. The other 60% will eventually prevail.
How do you see PR being implemented? Referendum? Or with SNP votes in parliament as they are leaving the country? Not sure they win a referendum, and even as a big fan of PR I am not sure using SNP votes to decide a huge constitutional change for rUK would be acceptable. Also doesnt take many rebels to stop it happening, plenty of Labour MPs are not fans of PR.
Preferably without a referendum. So it would have to be in the manifestos of all the political parties (except the Tories of course). A Starmer led government would then have the mandate to implement PR.
The Reform party is in favour of PR (naturally) but even the SNP are to their credit - even though they profit greatly from FPTP.
If its in the Labour manifesto then fine. Seems unlikely imo.
(EDIT, And of course he benefitted from his decision to renege on the promise in the very next election, where he lost the popular vote but won a majority of seats).
Alonso rides a Colnago E64 with Campag Super Record EPS gruppo. This choice is Dura Ace Approved™. No Halfords junk for our guy.
I`ve got a Trek, is that any good? Dura Ace Approved™?
Mads Pedersen won the 2019 World Championship on a Trek Domane SLR so they are being rehabilitated after the Lance years.
They have also never quite been forgiven for their acquisition and destruction of many storied MTB marques in the 90s and 00s. Klein, Gary Fisher, etc.
I wouldn't have one but you can do a fuck of a lot worse.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
A different sub-group - those trying to walk the streets after dark in that area.
Targeting someone in an isolated place is an aggravating factor also.
Another bizarre rule - why is it worse to murder someone in a wood than on a high street?
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
Yes, good header. The Cons are billy no mates. Hence why I like BOTH these bets - Cons largest party at 1.8, Starmer next PM at 5. Given the next election will barring accidents be Johnson v Starmer, this is a killer brace. They can both win - quite likely in fact - but they cannot both lose. It's a win vs flat profile. Total smug city.
Of course they can both lose. If Labour looks set to win most seats next election, then Johnson will probably retire or be pushed, in which case you could end up with Lab largest party and a Tory as next PM.
Sure. But a position needs a resting assumption and mine is that Johnson will neither retire nor be pushed. I'm pretty confident on this. Johnson going before the election is for me almost (although not quite) a Not Happening Event. And him going anytime soon - before 2023 say - IS a NHE. This is how I make most of my betting profits on politics. I identify things which the consensus says are quite likely but in my judgment are extremely unlikely. Then I lay them or construct positions based on them not happening. I'm doing both here since I also have a big bet on Johnson still being PM on 1st July next year. Did that at 1.9 and it's 1.4 now. Target close at 1.25 (which imo will happen by Easter). My most recent NHEs have been, (i) Corbyn becoming PM, (ii) a 2nd EU referendum, (iii) a 2nd term for Donald Trump, and (iv) a No Deal Brexit. In every case I have been right and cleaned up. So now I'm going with this one, Johnson going early. Not happening. And if he does? Well then I've called it all wrong and deserve to lose my favourite shirt.
Johnson won't be Prime Minister by the next election.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
A different sub-group - those trying to walk the streets after dark in that area.
Targeting someone in an isolated place is an aggravating factor also.
Another bizarre rule - why is it worse to murder someone in a wood than on a high street?
But please remember Murder has a mandatory life sentence in all cases.
Because it gives judges discretion to tailor the offence to the specific crime.
It means that an attack on a lone woman in the woods can be punished more heavily than a drunken fight on a high street.
You cant view these factors in isolation. You have to view them in the context of an actual offence. It's likely that every crime will have many different aggravating and mitigating factors.
For example:
Aggravating factors: * Attack on vulnerable person * Attack in isolated place * Pre-planned
Then perhaps mitigating factors: * Offender is young * Offender shows genuine remorse
These are (supposed) to be used to then tailor the sentence to the particular facts of the case.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes. .
The way to stop discriminating is to stop discriminating, not to discrimininate in a different way.
And there's no evidence I've ever seen that stiffer sentences for these crimes reduce offending?
So you're basically just pandering to vocal minorities, rather than addressing genuine grievances. Classic identity politics.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
A prostitute would likely be considered a member of a vulnerable group and therefore it would be an aggravating factor.
I have just watched some of the questions at PMQs. I used to occasionally teach presentation skills, and I know I am biased against Johnson, but HOW can anyone think he is a great orator is completely beyond me. It must be the case that you really can fool some of the people all of the time. His presentation skills, even discounting his ludicrous scruffy appearance are quite dreadful. Someone should at least coach him on how to er and um less. That would be a small improvement. He really is a national embarrassment.
I don't think that many people think he is a great orator. They may, however, think he is a good speaker, which is not necessarily the same thing, lacking an amount of eloquence or rhetorical skill which is implied by oration. If it engages people it does its job. And at PMQs, confusing and chaotic delivery may well be a plus.
I don't think he is an embarrassment because he looks scruffy and is a chaotic speaker though. He's an embarrassment for many other reasons which have more substance.
I think it is rather easy to overpraise people merely because they are eloquent and otherwise well spoken, we've seen that with praise for UvDL - it's why some actors can fool people and themselves into thinking they are not spouting gibberish and the public need to hear their take on politics, because they are generally able to present well.
And some politicians might speak very well, but be utterly devoid of ideas or ability. I've really enjoyed hearing Ossof and Buttegieg speak, and am very interested to see if they are actually good at what they do, or merely good at speaking and have fooled me, for example.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
A prostitute would likely be considered a member of a vulnerable group and therefore it would be an aggravating factor.
Would it be more or less aggravating than going after someone because they're a woman (what Sutcliffe actually did), or because they're a black or any other 'hate crimes'?
Johnson won't be Prime Minister by the next election.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
It also gives him plenty of time to start his campaigning to become President of the USA.....
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
As @Gallowgate seems amazingly prepared and willing to remind you, all crime is taken seriously.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes. .
The way to stop discriminating is to stop discriminating, not to discrimininate in a different way.
And there's no evidence I've ever seen that stiffer sentences for these crimes reduce offending?
So you're basically just pandering to vocal minorities, rather than addressing genuine grievances. Classic identity politics.
The rule is not "If you commit a crime in a particular way you will receive a higher sentence". The rule is simply "these factors suggest that a higher punishment is warranted". There are also factors that suggest a lower punishment.
These factors are combined to allow judges discretion in deciding the most appropriate punishment for the crime.
You seem to be forgetting that there are a whole host of factors, both aggravating and mitigating for all crimes, and specific factors for specific crimes.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes. .
The way to stop discriminating is to stop discriminating, not to discrimininate in a different way.
And there's no evidence I've ever seen that stiffer sentences for these crimes reduce offending?
So you're basically just pandering to vocal minorities, rather than addressing genuine grievances. Classic identity politics.
You've never seen evidence that stiffer sentences for these crimes reduce offending? I hadn't realised you had researched the matter. Can you share with us the literature you have been perusing?
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
As @Gallowgate seems amazingly prepared and willing to remind you, all crime is taken seriously.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
And as I've said to Gallowgate - I do not accept or believe that all crime is taken seriously.
If all crime was taken seriously in the first place there'd be no reason to take more seriously crimes against protected groups.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
There's a very obvious counter-point here.
Even if you disregard the mental element of committing (or procuring) many murders with the goal of wiping out a race of people, the punishment for 6m murders without the "genocide" element is likely to be the same as the punishment for 6m murders with the "genocide" element.
So it doesn't realllyyyy matter.
Sure. But I'm probing the principle. All other factors being equal do people feel that a genocide has a special level of gravity over and above random slaughter. If someone does, and yet at the same time does not feel this for an individual racially targeted killing, then that's an interesting dichotomy which merits yet more probing.
As for Labour, at the moment I think they're lost.
They're tinkering around with this or that bit of a machinery: a hub nut here, a wiper blade there but the Government designed the vehicle, put it into production and are behind the wheel.
...unfortunately the vehicle in question is an Austin Allegro.
I'm not sure Labour know how to get enough people in the country to back them at the moment. Blair did - you cannot scare the comfortable middle classes who can be won over to a more left leaning government. That's the whole point of building a broad support base. At the moment too many in labour seem obsessed with what some consider 'woke' issues, and not enough on telling a story of what a Labour government would do for the economy, for health and social care, for climate change, for supporting those who cannot work. Labours great danger in my opinion, has been to become the party of the idle, not of the working classes. That may be an unfair charge, and indeed the concept of the 'idle' will outrage some. But every time a programme on TV features a work-shy single mother of 5, with a smart phone and sky TV, the narrative builds that this is an 'option' in the UK, and Labour gets tagged with being on their side, rather than on the side of those who work all hours to make ends meet. Labour needs to find a way to talk to far more people.
Keir needs to look hard at the shadow cabinet, and find some people with talent that can start to look like ministers in waiting.
Johnson won't be Prime Minister by the next election.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
I don't think so. The allure of the office is always too strong. How many have resigned in the way you imagine?
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
What's bonkers is that the Premier League has not released their own subscription service for football. I'd easily pay £20 a month just to watch Newcastle matches and probably more to watch every match.
(I'm aware of the contractual and legal issues that would prevent this in the short term)
Apparently the contractual issues isn't what is holding them back. The issue is that they would have to set up their own very large multi-lingual content production house and the tech for streaming all of this to 100s millions of people. They already do some bits and pieces, but that is very different animal from having to offering not just the matches but all the package content in many different languages.
At the moment, Sky in the UK does all this heavily lifting for them, and other rights holders in the various regions they do deals with, the same.
The economics though are such that they would really benefit if they took the leap of faith, but it isn't quite as simple as just not renewing their Sky contract and clicking their fingers.
On the tech streaming side, remember Disney bought the company who did all the MLB streaming for a significant amount of money, just for IP / infrastructure. The EPL would more than likely have to partner with a tech company to enable this.
The upside, they have endless content, as they own all the rights to every match, so can easily offer not just the live matches but the full catalogue of every match ever, best goals of the season etc.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
As @Gallowgate seems amazingly prepared and willing to remind you, all crime is taken seriously.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
And as I've said to Gallowgate - I do not accept or believe that all crime is taken seriously.
If all crime was taken seriously in the first place there'd be no reason to take more seriously crimes against protected groups.
That is irrelevant to the point we are discussing plus it makes you sound like a 70-yr old Daily Mail reader. "If all crime was taken seriously in the first place" - listen to you.
Go to your nearest town centre, twat the first person you see round the head with a Louisville Slugger, then take all your clothes off and sit down and then ponder on how seriously crime is taken.
As for Labour, at the moment I think they're lost.
They're tinkering around with this or that bit of a machinery: a hub nut here, a wiper blade there but the Government designed the vehicle, put it into production and are behind the wheel.
...unfortunately the vehicle in question is an Austin Allegro.
I'm not sure Labour know how to get enough people in the country to back them at the moment. Blair did - you cannot scare the comfortable middle classes who can be won over to a more left leaning government. That's the whole point of building a broad support base. At the moment too many in labour seem obsessed with what some consider 'woke' issues, and not enough on telling a story of what a Labour government would do for the economy, for health and social care, for climate change, for supporting those who cannot work. Labours great danger in my opinion, has been to become the party of the idle, not of the working classes. That may be an unfair charge, and indeed the concept of the 'idle' will outrage some. But every time a programme on TV features a work-shy single mother of 5, with a smart phone and sky TV, the narrative builds that this is an 'option' in the UK, and Labour gets tagged with being on their side, rather than on the side of those who work all hours to make ends meet. Labour needs to find a way to talk to far more people.
Keir needs to look hard at the shadow cabinet, and find some people with talent that can start to look like ministers in waiting.
This is a point. But it is largely fallacious. Labour do far better amongst those who go to work every day than amongst the general population.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
As @Gallowgate seems amazingly prepared and willing to remind you, all crime is taken seriously.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
And as I've said to Gallowgate - I do not accept or believe that all crime is taken seriously.
If all crime was taken seriously in the first place there'd be no reason to take more seriously crimes against protected groups.
That is irrelevant to the point we are discussing plus it makes you sound like a 70-yr old Daily Mail reader. "If all crime was taken seriously in the first place" - listen to you.
Go to your nearest town centre, twat the first person you see round the head with a Louisville Slugger, then take all your clothes off and sit down and then ponder on how seriously crime is taken.
Whats wrong with being a 70 year old Daily Mail reader?
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
There's a very obvious counter-point here.
Even if you disregard the mental element of committing (or procuring) many murders with the goal of wiping out a race of people, the punishment for 6m murders without the "genocide" element is likely to be the same as the punishment for 6m murders with the "genocide" element.
So it doesn't realllyyyy matter.
Sure. But I'm probing the principle. All other factors being equal do people feel that a genocide has a special level of gravity over and above random slaughter. If someone does, and yet at the same time does not feel this for an individual racially targeted killing, then that's an interesting dichotomy which merits yet more probing.
To which I've already said no. No I don't feel that.
In the 20th century we had many examples of absolute evil - Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot for instance - and no, I don't consider any of them better than the others.
Were these killing fields "better" than the Holocaust because it wasn't Jews targeted?
Re the debate on when things should re-open, I think once the over 50's and most vulnerable are 21 days out from first jabs then that's it. We need to get on and live. There will be some residual coronavirus around and we will have to get used to it. Some may contract it but relatively few will die from it.
The teacher thing is a bit of a red herring imho. It's all down to the JCVI priority list.
After the over 50s are done teachers can all be done within a week. It's not really a big deal and it's a nice symbolic thing to do before opening schools as well.
Teachers could be done in a day!
Who would object to "Teachers' vaccination day"?
But not to all who make the school work vaccination day (don't forget the cleaners, admin staff etc)
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
As @Gallowgate seems amazingly prepared and willing to remind you, all crime is taken seriously.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
And as I've said to Gallowgate - I do not accept or believe that all crime is taken seriously.
If all crime was taken seriously in the first place there'd be no reason to take more seriously crimes against protected groups.
That is irrelevant to the point we are discussing plus it makes you sound like a 70-yr old Daily Mail reader. "If all crime was taken seriously in the first place" - listen to you.
Go to your nearest town centre, twat the first person you see round the head with a Louisville Slugger, then take all your clothes off and sit down and then ponder on how seriously crime is taken.
If you think all crime is taken seriously then I have a bridge to sell you.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
As @Gallowgate seems amazingly prepared and willing to remind you, all crime is taken seriously.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
And as I've said to Gallowgate - I do not accept or believe that all crime is taken seriously.
If all crime was taken seriously in the first place there'd be no reason to take more seriously crimes against protected groups.
That is irrelevant to the point we are discussing plus it makes you sound like a 70-yr old Daily Mail reader. "If all crime was taken seriously in the first place" - listen to you.
Go to your nearest town centre, twat the first person you see round the head with a Louisville Slugger, then take all your clothes off and sit down and then ponder on how seriously crime is taken.
Whats wrong with being a 70 year old Daily Mail reader?
Nothing. I apologise. They are a great and should be protected group. I was indulging in a hate crime. Now I hate myself.
Another example to justify the need for mitigating and aggravating factors:
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
Charged as importation of a very small amount
High purity
Failure to comply with current court orders
Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.
@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
I have just watched some of the questions at PMQs. I used to occasionally teach presentation skills, and I know I am biased against Johnson, but HOW can anyone think he is a great orator is completely beyond me. It must be the case that you really can fool some of the people all of the time. His presentation skills, even discounting his ludicrous scruffy appearance are quite dreadful. Someone should at least coach him on how to er and um less. That would be a small improvement. He really is a national embarrassment.
I don't think that many people think he is a great orator. They may, however, think he is a good speaker, which is not necessarily the same thing, lacking an amount of eloquence or rhetorical skill which is implied by oration. If it engages people it does its job. And at PMQs, confusing and chaotic delivery may well be a plus.
I don't think he is an embarrassment because he looks scruffy and is a chaotic speaker though. He's an embarrassment for many other reasons which have more substance.
I think it is rather easy to overpraise people merely because they are eloquent and otherwise well spoken, we've seen that with praise for UvDL - it's why some actors can fool people and themselves into thinking they are not spouting gibberish and the public need to hear their take on politics, because they are generally able to present well.
And some politicians might speak very well, but be utterly devoid of ideas or ability. I've really enjoyed hearing Ossof and Buttegieg speak, and am very interested to see if they are actually good at what they do, or merely good at speaking and have fooled me, for example.
A certain former government advisor pointed out that the political system we have selects for the ability to fluently bullshit on any topic. The ability to do it off the cuff is particularly highly regarded.
I seem to recall one recent American president being surprised that X was still a problem. Since he had given a speech on X some months before...
Blimey! That's not the TCR of the mid eighties. Giving King's Cross a run for its money.
When Crossrail (eventually) opens - and it will, one day - it's going to blow everyone's mind.
Tottenham Court Road has been "ready" for almost 2 years now, so I'd take this with a pinch of salt until all its safety certification, interoperability and sub-surface regulatory approvals are signed off.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
I know someone who used to work for Sky. Ever since Netflix was launched he would say that Sky was doomed once the content owners worked out they could make more money selling direct to the consumer.
Sky is doing extremely well. They are part of Comcast, have a tie-in with Disney and are pioneering world cinema with original titles in their brilliant dedicated Sky World Cinema and Sky Originals brands. They're even building a dedicated state-of-the art studio in this country at Elstree.
Your dear satellite dish installer friend is talking utter bollox I'm afraid.
It's actually Netflix who are financially much more dodgy. They are constantly in debt, leveraged up to the hilt and forever commissioning zillions of new titles either which never make it through to production or which get dropped after a very short run.
BT seems to be merging with Sky by pushing its BT TV customers onto Now Tv packages. Do not know what the implication for BT Sport in the long term.
A fascinating new string to the Unionist obsession with currency bow. The George Galloway Comedy Vehicle has chosen exactly the right moment to fixate on the physical appearance of the £ in your pocket/wallet that has been living there untouched and unseen for months and months.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
As @Gallowgate seems amazingly prepared and willing to remind you, all crime is taken seriously.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
And as I've said to Gallowgate - I do not accept or believe that all crime is taken seriously.
If all crime was taken seriously in the first place there'd be no reason to take more seriously crimes against protected groups.
That is irrelevant to the point we are discussing plus it makes you sound like a 70-yr old Daily Mail reader. "If all crime was taken seriously in the first place" - listen to you.
Go to your nearest town centre, twat the first person you see round the head with a Louisville Slugger, then take all your clothes off and sit down and then ponder on how seriously crime is taken.
If you think all crime is taken seriously then I have a bridge to sell you.
What on earth do you mean by "taken seriously".
Are you really suggesting that locking someone in prison for 4 years rather than say, 4.5 years means that the former is not taken seriously?
Yes, good header. The Cons are billy no mates. Hence why I like BOTH these bets - Cons largest party at 1.8, Starmer next PM at 5. Given the next election will barring accidents be Johnson v Starmer, this is a killer brace. They can both win - quite likely in fact - but they cannot both lose. It's a win vs flat profile. Total smug city.
This is a really good point. Starmer being replaced seems the only risk...
And that is extremely unlikely. Unless there is a black swan event pertaining to health or scandal he will surely be given his crack at it. He was the clear choice of the party - members and MPs - and his polling and performance is solid even as he leaves his top gears untouched for now. No, not worried about that.
Interesting that the Pfizer response to the SA variant is being classes as good (rightly) because it has a robust t-cell response but the AZ vaccine had a very similar t-cell response but was on the receiving end of some very unfair briefings.
It's almost as if there is an element of the media that wants the vaccine to fail.
Easy for people with Pfizer in their arm to claim both are as good as each other.
Would anyone, given a free choice not go Pfizer?
Late to this today, but as someone with AZ in the arm its a question I have pondered. If offered a choice, I think I would have preferred Pfizer. However, what must be remembered is that the data for ALL the vaccines is still very incomplete. Real world data will give a far fairer picture, and its entirely possible that all the vaccines end up in the same rough ball park. I understand that Pfizer has introduced some extra 'stiffness' to the spike protein, and it is possible that this approach gives it the edge. We will see. Real UK data will not be long in coming. I'm also interested at the proportions of P to AZ injected so far. I think most of us expected AZ to be dominating (pretty sure UVDL did...)
I think the Irish Doctors' Association summed it up best "the best vaccine you can have is the one you can have now".
Once this is all over it will be interesting to see the relative morbidity and mortality rates of those who followed the WHO (and EMA) on AZ and those who did not.
I reckon that quote is right. I was jabbed with AZ yesterday and am pleased to get any vaccine. I'll be very thankful if it mitigates my own fate but the public health issue is much more important.
Why are the media bleating on about the economy having its worst year since 1709 or something? Of course its going to be bad if you shut everything down for the best part of a year. Not sure what the point of stating the obvious is.
Johnson won't be Prime Minister by the next election.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
This is a very lucid and compellingly constructed argument that could have easily been a header but I still think ego wins. There is simply nothing more to him than ego.
Another example to justify the need for mitigating and aggravating factors:
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
Charged as importation of a very small amount
High purity
Failure to comply with current court orders
Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.
@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
Walk around almost any city and it won't take you long to smell cannabis. So yes it is absolutely 100% true we don't take possession with the intent to supply seriously most of the time. The Singaporeans do, we don't.
Which is part of the problem as then you lead to discrimination as a white person with posession might be treated better than a black person with intent as there's so many factors that its easier to target someone if you want to and have your own bias. Inconsistency aids the institutionally biased.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
I know someone who used to work for Sky. Ever since Netflix was launched he would say that Sky was doomed once the content owners worked out they could make more money selling direct to the consumer.
Sky is doing extremely well. They are part of Comcast, have a tie-in with Disney and are pioneering world cinema with original titles in their brilliant dedicated Sky World Cinema and Sky Originals brands. They're even building a dedicated state-of-the art studio in this country at Elstree.
Your dear satellite dish installer friend is talking utter bollox I'm afraid.
It's actually Netflix who are financially much more dodgy. They are constantly in debt, leveraged up to the hilt and forever commissioning zillions of new titles either which never make it through to production or which get dropped after a very short run.
Netflix have an issue, but Disney is the elephant in the room. They huge amounts of historic content and massive wide ranging rights to popular modern stuff, and they now own the tech to deliver it.
They also own things like ESPN, so know how to bid for sports rights and deliver on those.
Netflix don't want to get into sports streaming and Amazon have shown they don't really have the expertise. Disney do.
If Sky was to lose the footy to say Disney / ESPN, that is a huge percentage of their business gone there and then. To be so reliant on one set of rights (and why they pay huge amounts every time) is not a good business position.
And....so far Sky original content output has been overwhelming crap. Nobody is signing up to Sky for Gangs of London.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
As @Gallowgate seems amazingly prepared and willing to remind you, all crime is taken seriously.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
And as I've said to Gallowgate - I do not accept or believe that all crime is taken seriously.
If all crime was taken seriously in the first place there'd be no reason to take more seriously crimes against protected groups.
That is irrelevant to the point we are discussing plus it makes you sound like a 70-yr old Daily Mail reader. "If all crime was taken seriously in the first place" - listen to you.
Go to your nearest town centre, twat the first person you see round the head with a Louisville Slugger, then take all your clothes off and sit down and then ponder on how seriously crime is taken.
If you think all crime is taken seriously then I have a bridge to sell you.
What on earth do you mean by "taken seriously".
Are you really suggesting that locking someone in prison for 4 years rather than say, 4.5 years means that the former is not taken seriously?
Come on...
Differential *detection & prosecution* is a fact of life.
Hence, out in the countryside, some classes of property crimes are NFA'd
Why are the media bleating on about the economy having its worst year since 1709 or something? Of course its going to be bad if you shut everything down for the best part of the year. Not sure what the point of stating the obvious is.
It's a thing that happened, it should be reported so people know the extent of the issue. If they were to feign shock or anger that it has had its worst year since 1709 that would be silly, but as something to report I don't see the issue.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Another example to justify the need for mitigating and aggravating factors:
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
Charged as importation of a very small amount
High purity
Failure to comply with current court orders
Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.
@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
Walk around almost any city and it won't take you long to smell cannabis. So yes it is absolutely 100% true we don't take possession with the intent to supply seriously most of the time. The Singaporeans do, we don't.
Which is part of the problem as then you lead to discrimination as a white person with posession might be treated better than a black person with intent as there's so many factors that its easier to target someone if you want to and have your own bias. Inconsistency aids the institutionally biased.
Which crimes the police target is a completely different to issue to the sentencing. We are talking about sentencing.
Main danger for the Tories is the economic "narrative". What will it be? There is little appetite for "austerity". Indeed quite the opposite from the Red Wall MP's. Meanwhile the vast majority of backbenchers are instinctively and ideologically averse to tax and spend. And we are skint. Largesse is fine, but who pays? That is the circle to be squared.
Talking of largesse, another £30bn or so was committed yesterday with HS2 being given the go-ahead to start building the route from North of Birmingham to Manchester.
If the Tories ever try and wear an Osborne-like hair shirt again, they'll just be laughed at.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Yes I can see that. But the bloke who bottled you (god forbid) didn't in so doing instill, or seek to instill a terror in all people who exactly match your grouping. That is what a hate crime is. And hence the perpetrator of a hate crime will get a harsher sentence than the bloke who bottled you. That is just how it is. And rightly so, I'm afraid.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
No need to say "left handed carpenters with beards" we have plenty of real world examples already.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
As @Gallowgate seems amazingly prepared and willing to remind you, all crime is taken seriously.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
And as I've said to Gallowgate - I do not accept or believe that all crime is taken seriously.
If all crime was taken seriously in the first place there'd be no reason to take more seriously crimes against protected groups.
That is irrelevant to the point we are discussing plus it makes you sound like a 70-yr old Daily Mail reader. "If all crime was taken seriously in the first place" - listen to you.
Go to your nearest town centre, twat the first person you see round the head with a Louisville Slugger, then take all your clothes off and sit down and then ponder on how seriously crime is taken.
If you think all crime is taken seriously then I have a bridge to sell you.
What on earth do you mean by "taken seriously".
Are you really suggesting that locking someone in prison for 4 years rather than say, 4.5 years means that the former is not taken seriously?
Come on...
Differential *detection & prosecution* is a fact of life.
Hence, out in the countryside, some classes of property crimes are NFA'd
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
I know someone who used to work for Sky. Ever since Netflix was launched he would say that Sky was doomed once the content owners worked out they could make more money selling direct to the consumer.
Sky is doing extremely well. They are part of Comcast, have a tie-in with Disney and are pioneering world cinema with original titles in their brilliant dedicated Sky World Cinema and Sky Originals brands. They're even building a dedicated state-of-the art studio in this country at Elstree.
Your dear satellite dish installer friend is talking utter bollox I'm afraid.
It's actually Netflix who are financially much more dodgy. They are constantly in debt, leveraged up to the hilt and forever commissioning zillions of new titles either which never make it through to production or which get dropped after a very short run.
Netflix have an issue, but Disney is the elephant in the room. They huge amounts of historic content and massive wide ranging rights to popular modern stuff, and they now own the tech to deliver it.
They also own things like ESPN, so know how to bid for sports rights and deliver on those.
Netflix don't want to get into sports streaming and Amazon have shown they don't really have the expertise. Disney do.
If Sky was to lose the footy, that is a huge percentage of their business.
Disney+ winning the footy would be an absolute gamechanger.
Why are the media bleating on about the economy having its worst year since 1709 or something? Of course its going to be bad if you shut everything down for the best part of a year. Not sure what the point of stating the obvious is.
Johnson won't be Prime Minister by the next election.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
My thoughts, pretty much. Though, I think he'll bog off next year, rather than this.
Like the Donald, Boris really wants to be a winner.
He will want to say, "I walloped Labour three times, twice in London, once at the Generals. I gave Remain a punch on the nose at the Referendum. And I smashed COVID out of the park, did Brexit & gave the EU a bloody good cudgelling -- I never lost."
The closer GE 2024 looks, the more likely it is SKS versus AN Other.
The golden rule of politics is choose your opponents wisely. Boris was up against the First and Second Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Ken and Jeremy.
SKS is not great, but he is not the Third Horseman.
Another example to justify the need for mitigating and aggravating factors:
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
Charged as importation of a very small amount
High purity
Failure to comply with current court orders
Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.
@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
Walk around almost any city and it won't take you long to smell cannabis. So yes it is absolutely 100% true we don't take possession with the intent to supply seriously most of the time. The Singaporeans do, we don't.
Which is part of the problem as then you lead to discrimination as a white person with posession might be treated better than a black person with intent as there's so many factors that its easier to target someone if you want to and have your own bias. Inconsistency aids the institutionally biased.
Which crimes the police target is a completely different to issue to the sentencing. We are talking about sentencing.
I feel you've missed the point completely.
No its not because it plays every step down the chain.
If the courts aren't likely to give a serious sentence the CPS is less likely to prosecute, the Police are less likely to arrest and investigate etc etc etc
You can't just cut one off from the other. They're all linked and integrated.
Why are the media bleating on about the economy having its worst year since 1709 or something? Of course its going to be bad if you shut everything down for the best part of a year. Not sure what the point of stating the obvious is.
Swedish economy......3.5 per cent contraction.
US economy......4 per cent contraction
UK economy......10 per cent contraction.
Next question please.
They're not measured the same or like-for-like comparisons.
Another example to justify the need for mitigating and aggravating factors:
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
Charged as importation of a very small amount
High purity
Failure to comply with current court orders
Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.
@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
Walk around almost any city and it won't take you long to smell cannabis. So yes it is absolutely 100% true we don't take possession with the intent to supply seriously most of the time. The Singaporeans do, we don't.
Which is part of the problem as then you lead to discrimination as a white person with posession might be treated better than a black person with intent as there's so many factors that its easier to target someone if you want to and have your own bias. Inconsistency aids the institutionally biased.
Which crimes the police target is a completely different to issue to the sentencing. We are talking about sentencing.
I feel you've missed the point completely.
No its not because it plays every step down the chain.
If the courts aren't likely to give a serious sentence the CPS is less likely to prosecute, the Police are less likely to arrest and investigate etc etc etc
You can't just cut one off from the other. They're all linked and integrated.
Um no. I'm pretty sure the CPS do not consider the likely sentence when deciding whether to prosecute.
Another example to justify the need for mitigating and aggravating factors:
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
Charged as importation of a very small amount
High purity
Failure to comply with current court orders
Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.
@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
Walk around almost any city and it won't take you long to smell cannabis. So yes it is absolutely 100% true we don't take possession with the intent to supply seriously most of the time. The Singaporeans do, we don't.
Which is part of the problem as then you lead to discrimination as a white person with posession might be treated better than a black person with intent as there's so many factors that its easier to target someone if you want to and have your own bias. Inconsistency aids the institutionally biased.
Which crimes the police target is a completely different to issue to the sentencing. We are talking about sentencing.
I feel you've missed the point completely.
No its not because it plays every step down the chain.
If the courts aren't likely to give a serious sentence the CPS is less likely to prosecute, the Police are less likely to arrest and investigate etc etc etc
You can't just cut one off from the other. They're all linked and integrated.
Um no. I'm pretty sure the CPS do not consider the likely sentence when deciding whether to prosecute.
So the CPS don't consider aggravating factors when deciding whether to prosecute? Seriously?
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Irish joke: Paddy and Liam are trying to get a horse under a bridge, but the bridge is just too low. Liam: We could take his shoes off. Paddy: But it's not his feet that don't fit, it's his ears.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
Why are the media bleating on about the economy having its worst year since 1709 or something? Of course its going to be bad if you shut everything down for the best part of a year. Not sure what the point of stating the obvious is.
Swedish economy......3.5 per cent contraction.
US economy......4 per cent contraction
UK economy......10 per cent contraction.
Next question please.
That is not correct though is it? More or Less covered this a few weeks ago. Different measure are used for each economy. A like for like comparison put the UK mid range, although the UK measure was more accurate.
Anyway @Philip_Thompson answer the question. Are you really suggesting that someone being sentenced to 4 years in prison is the justice system not "taking the offence seriously" compared to say, 4.5 years in prison?
And if not, at what point is the cut off? Because realistically these are the differences we are talking about. There seems to be a level of Daily Mail-esque scare mongering here that a white person committing GBH on a black person will get 5 years in prison and a black person committing GBH on a white person will get no prison sentence. It doesn't work like that.
Another example to justify the need for mitigating and aggravating factors:
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
Charged as importation of a very small amount
High purity
Failure to comply with current court orders
Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.
@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
Walk around almost any city and it won't take you long to smell cannabis. So yes it is absolutely 100% true we don't take possession with the intent to supply seriously most of the time. The Singaporeans do, we don't.
Which is part of the problem as then you lead to discrimination as a white person with posession might be treated better than a black person with intent as there's so many factors that its easier to target someone if you want to and have your own bias. Inconsistency aids the institutionally biased.
Which crimes the police target is a completely different to issue to the sentencing. We are talking about sentencing.
I feel you've missed the point completely.
No its not because it plays every step down the chain.
If the courts aren't likely to give a serious sentence the CPS is less likely to prosecute, the Police are less likely to arrest and investigate etc etc etc
You can't just cut one off from the other. They're all linked and integrated.
Um no. I'm pretty sure the CPS do not consider the likely sentence when deciding whether to prosecute.
So the CPS don't consider aggravating factors when deciding whether to prosecute? Seriously?
Well no because aggravating factors have no bearing on the prosecution itself. They are presented after conviction at sentencing.
I could be wrong with this. There is the "public interest" test but as far as I'm aware that is used to give the CPS discretion not to prosecute those who help people to to travel to Switzerland to end their lives, etc.
I could see the EPL doing what the UFC did, whereby they have their own dedicated premium channel, but have a deal with Disney. The underlying tech / delivery is via Disney and you have to have ESPN+ subscription to buy the PPVs in the US. Furthermore, ESPN then also are involved in production of events, make supplementary content, "boost" the events to drive PPV buys.
The UFC still have huge control of their brand and events, but aren't the ones having to invest £100 millions in managing streaming tech.
Anyway @Philip_Thompson answer the question. Are you really suggesting that someone being sentenced to 4 years in prison is the justice system not "taking the offence seriously" compared to say, 4.5 years in prison?
And if not, at what point is the cut off? Because realistically these are the differences we are talking about. There seems to be a level of Daily Mail-esque scare mongering here that a white person committing GBH on a black person will get 5 years in prison and a black person committing GBH on a white person will get no prison sentence. It doesn't work like that.
That's not the cut off. It isn't 4 years versus 4.5 years - for most offences its no jail time at all versus potentially years.
Since you brought up drugs sentences its worth noting that the overwhelming majority of drug offenders, even once caught, get no time whatsoever in jail. Nothing, no jail time.
So yes - its absolutely the case we're not taking drugs seriously when for the vast majority of offenders there is no prison sentence. Which is precisely why the law isn't respected.
Why are the media bleating on about the economy having its worst year since 1709 or something? Of course its going to be bad if you shut everything down for the best part of a year. Not sure what the point of stating the obvious is.
Swedish economy......3.5 per cent contraction.
US economy......4 per cent contraction
UK economy......10 per cent contraction.
Next question please.
That is not correct though is it? More or Less covered this a few weeks ago. Different measure are used for each economy. A like for like comparison put the UK mid range, although the UK measure was more accurate.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Irish joke: Paddy and Liam are trying to get a horse under a bridge, but the bridge is just too low. Liam: We could take his shoes off. Paddy: But it's not his feet that don't fit, it's his ears.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
Come forward and name a generation that has fared better. You can't, because there isn't.
Anyway @Philip_Thompson answer the question. Are you really suggesting that someone being sentenced to 4 years in prison is the justice system not "taking the offence seriously" compared to say, 4.5 years in prison?
And if not, at what point is the cut off? Because realistically these are the differences we are talking about. There seems to be a level of Daily Mail-esque scare mongering here that a white person committing GBH on a black person will get 5 years in prison and a black person committing GBH on a white person will get no prison sentence. It doesn't work like that.
That's not the cut off. It isn't 4 years versus 4.5 years - for most offences its no jail time at all versus potentially years.
Another example to justify the need for mitigating and aggravating factors:
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
Charged as importation of a very small amount
High purity
Failure to comply with current court orders
Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.
@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
Walk around almost any city and it won't take you long to smell cannabis. So yes it is absolutely 100% true we don't take possession with the intent to supply seriously most of the time. The Singaporeans do, we don't.
Which is part of the problem as then you lead to discrimination as a white person with posession might be treated better than a black person with intent as there's so many factors that its easier to target someone if you want to and have your own bias. Inconsistency aids the institutionally biased.
Which crimes the police target is a completely different to issue to the sentencing. We are talking about sentencing.
I feel you've missed the point completely.
No its not because it plays every step down the chain.
If the courts aren't likely to give a serious sentence the CPS is less likely to prosecute, the Police are less likely to arrest and investigate etc etc etc
You can't just cut one off from the other. They're all linked and integrated.
Um no. I'm pretty sure the CPS do not consider the likely sentence when deciding whether to prosecute.
So the CPS don't consider aggravating factors when deciding whether to prosecute? Seriously?
Well no because aggravating factors have no bearing on the prosecution itself. They are presented after conviction at sentencing.
I could be wrong with this. There is the "public interest" test but as far as I'm aware that is used to give the CPS discretion not to prosecute those who help people to to travel to Switzerland to end their lives, etc.
I would be amazed if the public interest test doesn't take aggravating factors into account. I find that hard to believe.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Irish joke: Paddy and Liam are trying to get a horse under a bridge, but the bridge is just too low. Liam: We could take his shoes off. Paddy: But it's not his feet that don't fit, it's his ears.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
Come forward and name a generation that has fared better. You can't, because there isn't.
Another example to justify the need for mitigating and aggravating factors:
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
Charged as importation of a very small amount
High purity
Failure to comply with current court orders
Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.
@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
Walk around almost any city and it won't take you long to smell cannabis. So yes it is absolutely 100% true we don't take possession with the intent to supply seriously most of the time. The Singaporeans do, we don't.
Which is part of the problem as then you lead to discrimination as a white person with posession might be treated better than a black person with intent as there's so many factors that its easier to target someone if you want to and have your own bias. Inconsistency aids the institutionally biased.
Which crimes the police target is a completely different to issue to the sentencing. We are talking about sentencing.
I feel you've missed the point completely.
No its not because it plays every step down the chain.
If the courts aren't likely to give a serious sentence the CPS is less likely to prosecute, the Police are less likely to arrest and investigate etc etc etc
You can't just cut one off from the other. They're all linked and integrated.
Um no. I'm pretty sure the CPS do not consider the likely sentence when deciding whether to prosecute.
So the CPS don't consider aggravating factors when deciding whether to prosecute? Seriously?
Well no because aggravating factors have no bearing on the prosecution itself. They are presented after conviction at sentencing.
I could be wrong with this. There is the "public interest" test but as far as I'm aware that is used to give the CPS discretion not to prosecute those who help people to to travel to Switzerland to end their lives, etc.
I would be amazed if the public interest test doesn't take aggravating factors into account. I find that hard to believe.
Having looked into it you are in fact right. The seriousness of the offence is taken into account in the decision to prosecute. However I doubt the CPS would refuse to prosecute in an identical case where one was racially motivated and one wasn't. I'm open to any evidence that this isn't the case.
Anyway @Philip_Thompson answer the question. Are you really suggesting that someone being sentenced to 4 years in prison is the justice system not "taking the offence seriously" compared to say, 4.5 years in prison?
And if not, at what point is the cut off? Because realistically these are the differences we are talking about. There seems to be a level of Daily Mail-esque scare mongering here that a white person committing GBH on a black person will get 5 years in prison and a black person committing GBH on a white person will get no prison sentence. It doesn't work like that.
That's not the cut off. It isn't 4 years versus 4.5 years - for most offences its no jail time at all versus potentially years.
Anyway @Philip_Thompson answer the question. Are you really suggesting that someone being sentenced to 4 years in prison is the justice system not "taking the offence seriously" compared to say, 4.5 years in prison?
And if not, at what point is the cut off? Because realistically these are the differences we are talking about. There seems to be a level of Daily Mail-esque scare mongering here that a white person committing GBH on a black person will get 5 years in prison and a black person committing GBH on a white person will get no prison sentence. It doesn't work like that.
That's not the cut off. It isn't 4 years versus 4.5 years - for most offences its no jail time at all versus potentially years.
Why are the media bleating on about the economy having its worst year since 1709 or something? Of course its going to be bad if you shut everything down for the best part of a year. Not sure what the point of stating the obvious is.
Swedish economy......3.5 per cent contraction.
US economy......4 per cent contraction
UK economy......10 per cent contraction.
Next question please.
They're not measured the same or like-for-like comparisons.
Lets see how things measure up in 12 months time.
The YoY figure is more reliable than the index which has a lot of odd statistical quirks in it. Purely basing it on the GDP numbers the YoY contraction is 7.8% which is probably the closest internationally comparable figure we have got. If we shift state spending from output to input as they do in the rest of the world I'd guess our contraction for 2020 would be more like 5.5-6%, but that's a bit of a guesstimate.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Irish joke: Paddy and Liam are trying to get a horse under a bridge, but the bridge is just too low. Liam: We could take his shoes off. Paddy: But it's not his feet that don't fit, it's his ears.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
Come forward and name a generation that has fared better. You can't, because there isn't.
That is not where the fallacy is.
So you admit the boomer generation had it the best ever. Good. The choice, given the nature of covid, was to at least keep our children in school so maybe some more very sick boomers died. Or maybe didn't, who knows.
Anyway @Philip_Thompson answer the question. Are you really suggesting that someone being sentenced to 4 years in prison is the justice system not "taking the offence seriously" compared to say, 4.5 years in prison?
And if not, at what point is the cut off? Because realistically these are the differences we are talking about. There seems to be a level of Daily Mail-esque scare mongering here that a white person committing GBH on a black person will get 5 years in prison and a black person committing GBH on a white person will get no prison sentence. It doesn't work like that.
That's not the cut off. It isn't 4 years versus 4.5 years - for most offences its no jail time at all versus potentially years.
Comres poll has Anas Sarwar ahead of Monica Lennon on net favourability for the Scottish Labour leadership election amongst Scots, the result of which is due on 27th February.
Of the 2 candidates, Sarwar is on -7% and Lennon on -11%, both candidates are ahead of outgoing SLab leader Richard Leonard who is on -22%, Sarwar also would have a higher approval rating than Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross who is on -10%, in terms of being the lead Unionist to take on Sturgeon.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
There's a very obvious counter-point here.
Even if you disregard the mental element of committing (or procuring) many murders with the goal of wiping out a race of people, the punishment for 6m murders without the "genocide" element is likely to be the same as the punishment for 6m murders with the "genocide" element.
So it doesn't realllyyyy matter.
Sure. But I'm probing the principle. All other factors being equal do people feel that a genocide has a special level of gravity over and above random slaughter. If someone does, and yet at the same time does not feel this for an individual racially targeted killing, then that's an interesting dichotomy which merits yet more probing.
To which I've already said no. No I don't feel that.
In the 20th century we had many examples of absolute evil - Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot for instance - and no, I don't consider any of them better than the others.
Were these killing fields "better" than the Holocaust because it wasn't Jews targeted?
Thanks for the picture of all those skulls, Philip. It really helps.
But, ok, so you don't view genocide having a special gravity over and above random slaughter. It's a pure numbers game to you. Fair enough. I hope you're not sacrificing authenticity of feeling in order to chase logical consistency - a common flaw of facile thinkers - but assuming you're not, okie dokie. That's your view and you are perfectly entitled to it.
Anyway @Philip_Thompson answer the question. Are you really suggesting that someone being sentenced to 4 years in prison is the justice system not "taking the offence seriously" compared to say, 4.5 years in prison?
And if not, at what point is the cut off? Because realistically these are the differences we are talking about. There seems to be a level of Daily Mail-esque scare mongering here that a white person committing GBH on a black person will get 5 years in prison and a black person committing GBH on a white person will get no prison sentence. It doesn't work like that.
That's not the cut off. It isn't 4 years versus 4.5 years - for most offences its no jail time at all versus potentially years.
Comres poll has Anas Sarwar ahead of Monica Lennon on net favourability for the Scottish Labour leadership election amongst Scots, the result of which is due on 27th February.
Of the 2 candidates, Sarwar is on -7% and Lennon on -11%, both candidates are ahead of outgoing SLab leader Richard Leonard who is on -22%, Sarwar also would have a higher approval rating than Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross who is on -10%, in terms of being the lead Unionist to take on Sturgeon.
I hope various surgeries, vax centres and so forth realise just how quickly we can likely get through the 65 - 69 cohort. The letters to group 5 & 6 should probably have gone out together.
Comments
There are a huge list of factors that influence sentencing where race is just one of many. No two crimes are the same.
Once this is all over it will be interesting to see the relative morbidity and mortality rates of those who followed the WHO (and EMA) on AZ and those who did not.
They have also never quite been forgiven for their acquisition and destruction of many storied MTB marques in the 90s and 00s. Klein, Gary Fisher, etc.
I wouldn't have one but you can do a fuck of a lot worse.
'Blokes walking along the road when the pubs have turned out' is not an identifiable group.
Black, gay, jew, red hair - these are identifiable groups which, to a lesser (red hair) or greater (the others) extent have suffered institutional discrimination and violence in the past. It is to discourage this and to reassure those groups that such behaviour is treated more harshly than other crimes.
And by all means if @Philip_Thompson struggles with the concept or says "what about left handed carpenters with beards?" that is fine by me.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
Because it gives judges discretion to tailor the offence to the specific crime.
It means that an attack on a lone woman in the woods can be punished more heavily than a drunken fight on a high street.
You cant view these factors in isolation. You have to view them in the context of an actual offence. It's likely that every crime will have many different aggravating and mitigating factors.
For example:
Aggravating factors:
* Attack on vulnerable person
* Attack in isolated place
* Pre-planned
Then perhaps mitigating factors:
* Offender is young
* Offender shows genuine remorse
These are (supposed) to be used to then tailor the sentence to the particular facts of the case.
"What about prostitutes"?
Prostitutes have been targetted for centuries. The Police didn't take Peter Sutcliffe's murders as seriously as they should have because they thought he was "only" going after prostitutes. Is attacking a prostitute because they're a prostitute a hate crime? I honestly don't know if they're a protected group, but is it any better or worse than attacking others?
Prostitutes have suffered institutional discriminate and violence in the past haven't they?
Take all crime seriously - whether its an attack against a gay man, a black man, or a disabled woman, or a prostitute . . . take it all seriously and deal with it all. Don't pick winners and losers.
https://twitter.com/nickgutteridge/status/1360190657017630723?s=20
Assuming they hit their targets.....
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
And there's no evidence I've ever seen that stiffer sentences for these crimes reduce offending?
So you're basically just pandering to vocal minorities, rather than addressing genuine grievances. Classic identity politics.
I don't think he is an embarrassment because he looks scruffy and is a chaotic speaker though. He's an embarrassment for many other reasons which have more substance.
I think it is rather easy to overpraise people merely because they are eloquent and otherwise well spoken, we've seen that with praise for UvDL - it's why some actors can fool people and themselves into thinking they are not spouting gibberish and the public need to hear their take on politics, because they are generally able to present well.
And some politicians might speak very well, but be utterly devoid of ideas or ability. I've really enjoyed hearing Ossof and Buttegieg speak, and am very interested to see if they are actually good at what they do, or merely good at speaking and have fooled me, for example.
I honestly don't know.
And there are aggravating and mitigating factors.
I have never sought to determine the boundaries of "hate crimes" - perhaps in court killing only prostitutes would be an aggravating factor.
https://twitter.com/Crossrail/status/1360181865693368320?s=20
These factors are combined to allow judges discretion in deciding the most appropriate punishment for the crime.
You seem to be forgetting that there are a whole host of factors, both aggravating and mitigating for all crimes, and specific factors for specific crimes.
Racial element is simply one of many.
If all crime was taken seriously in the first place there'd be no reason to take more seriously crimes against protected groups.
Cohort / Criteria / Size / Complete by
5 / 65-69 / 2.9m / 18.02.2021
6 / At Risk (<65) / 7.3m / 07.03.2021
7 / 60-64 / 1.8m / 11.03.2021
8 / 55-59 / 2.4m / 16.03.2021
9 / 50-54 / 2.8m / 23.03.2021
Assuming 2nd doses don't begin to ramp up significantly until the beginning of April.
Edit, also assumes 100% take-up, which is clearly not going to be the case.
Keir needs to look hard at the shadow cabinet, and find some people with talent that can start to look like ministers in waiting.
At the moment, Sky in the UK does all this heavily lifting for them, and other rights holders in the various regions they do deals with, the same.
The economics though are such that they would really benefit if they took the leap of faith, but it isn't quite as simple as just not renewing their Sky contract and clicking their fingers.
On the tech streaming side, remember Disney bought the company who did all the MLB streaming for a significant amount of money, just for IP / infrastructure. The EPL would more than likely have to partner with a tech company to enable this.
The upside, they have endless content, as they own all the rights to every match, so can easily offer not just the live matches but the full catalogue of every match ever, best goals of the season etc.
Go to your nearest town centre, twat the first person you see round the head with a Louisville Slugger, then take all your clothes off and sit down and then ponder on how seriously crime is taken.
Labour do far better amongst those who go to work every day than amongst the general population.
In the 20th century we had many examples of absolute evil - Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot for instance - and no, I don't consider any of them better than the others.
Were these killing fields "better" than the Holocaust because it wasn't Jews targeted?
Au revoir.
As to hitting their targets, despite some being slower than others is there serious concern they couldn't meet targets, assuming supply?
Possession with intent to supply
Aggravating factors:
- Targeting of any premises intended to locate vulnerable individuals or supply to such individuals and/or supply to those under 18
- Exposure of others to more than usual danger, for example drugs cut with harmful substances
- Attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence, where not charged separately
- Presence of others, especially children and/or non-users
- Presence of weapon, where not charged separately
- Charged as importation of a very small amount
- High purity
- Failure to comply with current court orders
- Offence committed on licence or post sentence supervision
- Established evidence of community impact
The idea is that we punish people more heavily if they are supplying drugs of high purity or targeting vulnerable individuals or those under the age of 18.@Philip_Thompson I know you disagree with drug offences generally however is it really a case that we don't take possession with intent to supply "seriously" if the drugs are not cut with harmful substances? Or is it more of a case that we feel such action is more harmful and therefore justifies a higher punishment?
I seem to recall one recent American president being surprised that X was still a problem. Since he had given a speech on X some months before...
Tottenham Court Road has been "ready" for almost 2 years now, so I'd take this with a pinch of salt until all its safety certification, interoperability and sub-surface regulatory approvals are signed off.
Do not know what the implication for BT Sport in the long term.
https://twitter.com/Jamie_Blackett/status/1360169384493387777?s=20
Are you really suggesting that locking someone in prison for 4 years rather than say, 4.5 years means that the former is not taken seriously?
Come on...
Good afternoon, everyone.
Which is part of the problem as then you lead to discrimination as a white person with posession might be treated better than a black person with intent as there's so many factors that its easier to target someone if you want to and have your own bias. Inconsistency aids the institutionally biased.
They also own things like ESPN, so know how to bid for sports rights and deliver on those.
Netflix don't want to get into sports streaming and Amazon have shown they don't really have the expertise. Disney do.
If Sky was to lose the footy to say Disney / ESPN, that is a huge percentage of their business gone there and then. To be so reliant on one set of rights (and why they pay huge amounts every time) is not a good business position.
And....so far Sky original content output has been overwhelming crap. Nobody is signing up to Sky for Gangs of London.
Hence, out in the countryside, some classes of property crimes are NFA'd
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
I feel you've missed the point completely.
If the Tories ever try and wear an Osborne-like hair shirt again, they'll just be laughed at.
US economy......4 per cent contraction
UK economy......10 per cent contraction.
Next question please.
Like the Donald, Boris really wants to be a winner.
He will want to say, "I walloped Labour three times, twice in London, once at the Generals. I gave Remain a punch on the nose at the Referendum. And I smashed COVID out of the park, did Brexit & gave the EU a bloody good cudgelling -- I never lost."
The closer GE 2024 looks, the more likely it is SKS versus AN Other.
The golden rule of politics is choose your opponents wisely. Boris was up against the First and Second Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Ken and Jeremy.
SKS is not great, but he is not the Third Horseman.
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1360205728825430016
If the courts aren't likely to give a serious sentence the CPS is less likely to prosecute, the Police are less likely to arrest and investigate etc etc etc
You can't just cut one off from the other. They're all linked and integrated.
Lets see how things measure up in 12 months time.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
And if not, at what point is the cut off? Because realistically these are the differences we are talking about. There seems to be a level of Daily Mail-esque scare mongering here that a white person committing GBH on a black person will get 5 years in prison and a black person committing GBH on a white person will get no prison sentence. It doesn't work like that.
I could be wrong with this. There is the "public interest" test but as far as I'm aware that is used to give the CPS discretion not to prosecute those who help people to to travel to Switzerland to end their lives, etc.
The UFC still have huge control of their brand and events, but aren't the ones having to invest £100 millions in managing streaming tech.
Since you brought up drugs sentences its worth noting that the overwhelming majority of drug offenders, even once caught, get no time whatsoever in jail. Nothing, no jail time.
So yes - its absolutely the case we're not taking drugs seriously when for the vast majority of offenders there is no prison sentence. Which is precisely why the law isn't respected.
https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/whogoestoprison.pdf
The fact that most people don't go to prison is because most crimes are low level.
It's also government policy that prison should always be a last resort.
What's the median custodial sentence actually served for GBH? Do you think its closer to 4 years or 4.5 years? Or closer to 2 months?
"Majority of Swedes ignore transport face mask advice"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56037505
Of the 2 candidates, Sarwar is on -7% and Lennon on -11%, both candidates are ahead of outgoing SLab leader Richard Leonard who is on -22%, Sarwar also would have a higher approval rating than Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross who is on -10%, in terms of being the lead Unionist to take on Sturgeon.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/anas-sarwar-frontrunner-favourability-battle-between-labour-leadership-hopefuls-poll-suggests-3130989
But, ok, so you don't view genocide having a special gravity over and above random slaughter. It's a pure numbers game to you. Fair enough. I hope you're not sacrificing authenticity of feeling in order to chase logical consistency - a common flaw of facile thinkers - but assuming you're not, okie dokie. That's your view and you are perfectly entitled to it.
A person can also be convicted of GBH from a sustained and purposeful attack that causes serious damage.
They are in many cases the same offence.
Therefore the mean is pointless because it covers both scenarios. Stop misusing statistics you don't understand.
(sight even!)