The North Briton

Shooting an Elephant

2011-12-09T13:27:00.003Z

Hurricane Bawbag answers the question: "What happens to a wind turbine when it gets a bit windy out?"

Viral Veritas

2011-09-28T17:02:00.000+01:00

"I'm fairly confident the Euro is gonna crash, and it's gonna fall pretty hard."

Paying the Dane-geld

2011-07-15T12:06:00.181+01:00

Grassroots favourite Eric Pickles received the blessing of the shade of Thomas Cranmer's yesterday, for delivering a rousing speech against the latest round of EU tyranny to the Flag Institute.

Specifically, Mr. Pickles was decrying the EU's habit of levying fines on various groups and organisations in Great Britain which it likes to make a pretence of having funded — a comic notion considering our status as a net contributor to its swollen budget — for failure to fly the European flag, brand billboards and signage with the ring of stars banner or otherwise advertise our national subjection.

The re-branding of the English Channel as the "Channel Sea" also came in for some wry criticism, as did the Arc Manche "transnational region" and the multi-million pound propaganda projects which are supposed to promote it: from "transnational street theatre" and "cross-Channel contemporary art tours" to a quixotic scheme for "cross-Channel cycle lanes."

The compulsory flag-waving was evidently the crux of the matter, however. For "any organisation which forces others to fly its flag betrays a lack of confidence and a deep sense of political insecurity". Well, perhaps. Yet for all Mr. Pickles' invocation of the Middlesex Regiment and Albuera and "fighting off that attempt at European dictatorship", the EU's flag did fly above the DCLG for Europe Week. If the organisation which forces others to fly its flag betrays a lack of confidence and a deep sense of political insecurity, what is betrayed by the nation which allows itself to be so compelled?

"If we fail to do so," Mr. Pickles tells us, "we face being fined. As do other organisations who receive or manage European funding. Now we’ll fly the flag, and cash the cheque."

I don't think Kipling would have approved:

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,

To call upon a neighbour and to say:

"We invaded you last night — we are quite prepared to fight,

Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

And the people who ask it explain

That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld

And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,

To puff and look important and to say:

"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.

We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

But we’ve proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

For fear they should succumb and go astray,

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

You will find it better policy to say:

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,

No matter how trifling the cost,

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

And the nation that plays it is lost!"

Aiming Low

2011-05-13T18:15:00.006+01:00

John Redwood's blog is one of the most thoughtful, well-considered and genuinely informative on the internet, particularly with regard to public spending and "the cuts". It is, therefore, with some reluctance that I must express my disappointment in his recent piece on the Common Fisheries Policy, in which he crows that "those who follow these things will doubtless be pleased that the UK Parliament did do its duty yesterday on this issue" — a reference to a motion MPs just passed which "urged reform".

The work of Zac Goldsmith and the Backbench Business Committee, it sets out the following: "That this House welcomes the Fish Fight campaign; and calls on the Government to vote against proposed reforms of the EU Common Fisheries Policy unless they implement an ecosystems-based approach to fisheries management, end discards in relation to all fish and shellfish with derogation only for species proven to have a high survival rate on discarding, require that all fish and shellfish are harvested at sustainable levels by 2015, ensure the involvement of fishers and other stakeholders in decision-making processes and enable the UK to introduce higher standards of management and conservation in respect of all vessels fishing within its territorial waters, taking into particular account vessel size and environmental impact."

Worthy sentiments and, make no mistake, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Fish Fight campaign is, in essence, thoroughly laudable.

However, the idea that "calling on government" to "urge" the EU to reform the CFP represents parliament finally "doing its duty" — after decades of decline in fishing communities and ecological mismanagement — is laughable. European officials can quite easily claim that the current system — indeed, almost any system they care to implement — represents an "ecosystems-based approach" to fisheries management and "ensures the involvement of fishers and other stakeholders in the decision-making process". The terms are that ill-defined.

Anthony Blair sacrificed a third of Britain's EU rebate in a vain attempt to "encourage" reform of that other great EU calamity, the Common Agricultural Policy, and got precisely no-where. The real duty of a sovereign parliament facing the problems presented by the CFP, therefore, is not to help government down the same dead-end road, but to firmly assert its rights and the rights of the nation it represents — no ifs, ands or buts. With qualified majority voting the order of the day, the EU has little incentive to listen to a country which lays those rights aside.

As it happens, both the British government and the EU already seem to have committed themselves to ending discards, making parliament's posturing on the matter somewhat superfluous. The chances of Britain being allowed to lay down terms and set quotas, however, are close to nil — not least because MPs and ministers seemingly wouldn't even dream of attempting to take back such powers. Norway and Iceland, in contrast, have exclusive control over their fisheries out to 200 miles from their coastlines. These have proved exemplary sources of employment, food security and renewable wealth for those countries for many years. It is thoroughly disheartening to see that the ambitions of British MPs — old Maastricht rebels like the venerable Mr Redwood among them — extend in comparison merely to squabbling for table scraps in Brussels.

Hayek versus Keynes - Round Two

2011-05-01T12:33:00.003+01:00

Reservoir Sceptics

2011-02-01T18:49:00.007Z

The Daily Express's Campaign for Freedom bore fruit today as some 373,000 petition coupons were delivered to Downing Street. A "delegation" from the newspaper comprised of several senior Express staffers and readers' representative Alan Brown accompanied veteran Tory eurosceptics Peter Bone, Philip Davies, Philip Hollobone, Douglas Carswell (Daniel Hannan's collaborator-in-chief) and former Labour minister Kate Hoey, who famously gained the ire of disgraced former Commons Speaker Michael Martin in 2009.

To put things in perspective, the number of petition respondents clears the entire circulation of the influential left-wing Guardian newspaper by several tens of thousands. The Express, one of Britain's great campaigning newspapers since its inception in the era of Joseph Chamberlain and Tariff Reform, may not be what it was in its Beaverbrook heyday, but clearly it retains a loud, clear voice in the national discourse.

"This Catalogue of Scorn"

2011-01-25T23:10:00.090Z

Minister for Europe David Lidington took the brave step yesterday of writing for Conservative Home's 'Comment' section, telling readers "Why every Conservative can be proud of the European Union bill". The piece has already attracted more than a hundred uniformly hostile responses.

Now, while it is true that eurosceptics are perhaps more active than their ideological counterparts on sites like ConHome, what is remarkable in that not one person has thus far come to the bill's defence – the TRG contingent can normally be expected to at least raise a token handful of dissenting voices.

Perhaps the easiest way to impart a sense of the vehemence of feeling expressed is simply to offer (pared down for brevity's sake) a selection of the commentary itself:

The lock is inadequate and the tests are designed to deny referenda. Since May much has already been ceded. This Conservative is not proud of the bill.

Mr Liddington's remarks are feeble - the battle is lost, there is damn all left to fight for.

Far too much has already been ceded quite unnecessarily, and the sovereignty bill is a joke. I trust Wavy Davy about as far as I can throw him.

As Nigel Farage puts it, the referendum lock could be picked by a child.

Mr Lidington - this bill puts the lid back on the already empty jar. You know, stable doors and bolted horses ? ... The Conservative party has totally lost my trust, UKIP beckons.

It is with a deep sense of shame and furious anger that this Conservative utterly repudiates this shabby compromise Bill.

One is reminded of Chamberlain waving that stupid paper of his! Shameful stuff!

I'm sorry, I've listened to this guff for 40 years. Over and out.

Why is it that the Lisbon Treaty (or whatever) cannot be undone? It wasn't found under a burning bush chapped into a tablet of stone.

Puppies laying down with legs in the air rather comes to mind.

On past and current form, what grounds are there for trusting any UK government in these matters?

Sorry Mr. Lidington, you will never convince me, let`s have that referendum.

Ha! As if any true conservative would allow David Lidington to tell them what they should be proud of.

Almost all conservatives in this country, whether they are members of the party or not, know the EU is bad for us. It is only the MPs who do not. Lidington is kidding no one.

Conservatives have nothing to cheer from this piece of legislation, it is just a sticky plaster being put over a festering wound ... You are delusional if you think conservatives should be proud of this bill.

Forget it - this bill is a farce

We have been stitched us by a political elite, David Lidington is just repeating parrot fashion what he has been programmed to say.

As someone who is a Conservative, frankly this does not do it for me. When is the party going to admit that the UK is really no longer a sovereign country and the EU is our de facto government.

Sorry Mr Lidington. all you've done is to re-iterate the arguments which were demolished by Bill Cash et al in parliamentary debate.

David, you refer to the Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? Why not simply hold an in/out one as a result of Peter Bone's amendment? THEN we could have a bill to - in a way - to be proud of.

It's a stupid bill. Just repeal the ECA 1972 and make us leave the sodding thing.

Just because you have sold your soul for a mess of pottage, do not expect the population to praise you or be proud of you ... Bow your head in shame

I can't decide who is guiltier of stupidity, the electorate for believing anything that comes out of the mouth of the political establishment, or the political establishment for thinking the electorate can be bought off with the political equivalent of a few shiny glass beads.

Evidently, Lidington's loyalty to the EU overrides that of his loyalty (if any) to the UK.

I actually found reading this guff quite offensive. Born yesterday, were we?

I am sorry Mr Lidington, but if this insincere attempt at obfuscation represents the true feelings of those currently in charge of the Conservative party then they should feel shame rather than pride.

This, in no uncertain terms, confirms exactly why I (regrettably) gave up on the euro-tory party long ago.

"a future Parliament could repeal this law" ... [Mr Lidington's] argument is that any government which did that "would pay a very high political price indeed", but recent experience shows that a government can brazenly renege on its promise of a referendum on an EU treaty

This convoluted bill full of double speak and internal inconsistencies, from a govenment who have handed [the sovereignty] of our country to the EU hand over fist since the election, is nothing but a useless and pathetic sop to the opinions of the disenfranchised people of this country.

The leadership is ignoring the grass roots.

I wonder if the Minister imagines that things will he different once he gets that promotion; if he'll finally be free of these dissembling pontifications and can make a difference in the Ministry which deals with the issues he actually cares about. He should consider the sad case of William Hague and reconsider.

[Mr Lidington] has already sold out to the EU lovers clique.

Every PM since Heath has lied to us, "we are not losing Sovereignty", except, as they well knew, we did. We are nearly at the end game now, and you sir are fiddling whilst our Country, not yours, burns.

There is absolutely no reason why this government should be bound by traitor Brown`s signature on the Lisbon treaty. ... You could cancel it tomorrow if you wished, so why don`t you?

When it comes to this bill and the coalitions surrender to the EU there is only one word.... SHAME !

This catalogue of unanimous scorn should surely rock the purblind leadership. What a farrago of half-truths and evasions Mr Liddington puts up.

There is no chance whatsoever that this bill will trigger a referendum, nor will one single power be repatriated from Europe as a result of it. It won't prevent further powers being devolved to Europe as a result of the Lisbon Treaty, which is already enacted in law. ... It is a pointless and useless sop to Eurosceptics, and not even effective in that regard.

I've just been reading through the latest Report on this Bill from the European Scrutiny Committee ... [T]he Bill as drafted is so riddled with flaws - some fairly obvious, some much more subtle - that it would be better to scrap it and start again.

The only sane response of a genuine Tory to this quisling bill by the arch-quisling Shameron is dismayed rejection!

As a former life long conservative activist, I am so dismayed by the dissembling and fudge by the Conservative party over the EU, I will no longer campaign or vote for the Conservatives.

I'm sorry Mr Lidington but these are weasel words in support of yet another unacceptable sell out to the Federalists and this Conservative feels shame at it, not pride.

Completely out of touch a buffoon of the first order if this man knew his subject he would realise appeasers in life get nowhere.

Far too little far too late. There's nothing there that will make me vote for Cameron.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - you are driving us to UKIP! Look at the comments on this article - NOT ONE PERSON IS HAPPY!

[W]e have to have [a referendum on AV] which no-one wants, yet Mr Lidington says holding referendums on matters of no great significance risks bringing the idea of referendums into disrepute. Eh?

Thinking that the EU can be fixed or that we can modify the relationship with this evil empire is delusional at best. This bill is just "peace in our time".

Are you really serious Mr Lindington ... If MPs do not include the amendment to place primacy with our own parliament: we will know where your hearts really lie; and I for my part would not be sorry to see you all swinging from a gibbet

I think it is rather scary how fundamentally the high command is out of touch with its core voters.

I would hate the leadership of our party to think that being anti-EU is confined to the right of the party. Concern about the way the UK is being sucked further into a Federal Europe is right accross the party.

I have read all the comments and not one has come anywhere near to saying that this placebo bill has any value whatsoever . Hang your head in shame Lidington or alternatively swan on with your comfy sinecure .

Its the government throwing the starving plebs a bone - that's all ! And a rotten heavily gnawed bone with no meat left on it at that !

Has anyone in the Conservative Party got the nerve to answer the good people who have taken the trouble to comment on this post? You really don't give a damn, do you? You have made it plainly obvious you are answerable to the EU and not to us. You don't deserve to be in power. Your betrayal to the people you are supposed to represent has been made quite clear. You ought to be ashamed!

And, finally:

David Lidington writing shortly after Senlac Hill in 1066 writes:

We have put measures firmly in place to prevent further recurrence of conquest by Normans whilst accepting that we have been conquered by Normans. It is too complicated for laymen to understand but, believe me, it is an elegant and legally binding non-invasion-by-William-lock and at no future time can an invasion and conquest that has already happened, happen again.

It was all Harold's fault anyway.

Now I'm off to learn Norman-French and narrate a documentary about the magnificence of all those nice new castles and churches so that the peasants understand what is good for them.

Bobbies — Always on the Job

2011-01-21T23:54:00.001Z

Alan Johnson was a senior figure in a government which was almost wholly destructive in nature. Yet, a bit like John Major, he despite it all has a certain quality which makes it hard to muster genuine antipathy towards him. Indeed, one cannot help but pity his circumstances, which have seemingly brought about the first genuine resignation from frontline politics for "personal reasons" of the 21st century.

But enough about him. This blog is more interested in the fate of the suspended constable who now looks to face charges of Misconduct in Public Office. Given the precedent set by a certain former Deputy Prime Minister, should we expect him to a) be made a peer of the realm, or b) get the sack and lose his pension?

One prediction has rather longer odds than the other, I suspect.

Gravitas?

2011-01-17T16:30:00.006Z

The Herald today confirms rumours that former Labour MP and founder of the Respect Party George Galloway will stand for election to the Scottish Parliament.

An unreconstructed socialist of the old school, Mr Galloway would like us to believe he made his name "taking on the US Senate" – well, a Senate sub-committee charged with investigated claims he had profited illicitly from Iraqi oil deals, at least. In truth, he owed rather more of his early fame to his very public praise of Saddam Hussein, compounded some years later by comments he made which likened British soldiers in Iraq to "wolves".

Expelled from the Labour Party after calling on those same soldiers to disobey orders even as he urged Arabs to take up arms against them, Mr Galloway managed a brief return to Parliament when his new Respect Party captured the key Muslim vote in Bethnal Green and Bow. Now back in the political wilderness, this latest play for a seat in the Scottish legislature is presented as an attempt to raise the quality of debate at Holyrood, which Mr Galloway feels is of a standard more appropriate to "Cumbernauld town council rather than a national parliament."

“It’s my contention", he says, "that today’s Scottish Parliament has too few real Parliamentarians in it, heavyweight Parliamentarians who would be recognised outside their own street ... Too many in Holyrood would regard the term 'non-entity' as an accolade and I think that’s bad for the Scottish Parliament. It’s bad for politics in Scotland."

Well, no arguments here.

But if, like me, you remember Mr Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother, by turns bullying, vindictive and utterly cringe-making, then you may find that you too question his claim that he is the man to lend proceedings "a touch of class".

Shadow Chancellor thinks National Insurance rate for employers is 20%, and wants it increased

2011-01-09T16:39:00.008Z

Behind all the vacuous noise concerning the country's "macro situation", a simple truth: Alan Johnson, our official and well-remunerated back-up Second Lord of the Treasury, does not even know the current rate of taxes he insists must be increased.

Heaven help us.

Express Crusading in Earnest

2011-01-08T17:08:00.043Z

The Daily Express has not just maintained the pace of its recently declared crusade against the European Union, it has stepped it up with a 20-page special making the case for withdrawal.

It seems that this is no mere flash in the pan after all. Indeed, the venerable Lord Tebbit is incredibly optimistic, telling us he thinks the newspaper has "scented the wind that is beginning to blow through the country" and commending it for having "recommitted itself to the cause of freedom".

That wind must become a hurricane to blow away the posturing Europhile politicians and the fat cats making money by siding with Brussels against their own country. Politicians beware.

Change we can believe in at last, then? Time will tell.

Déjà vu

2011-01-06T01:15:00.310Z

"Revealed:" announced the headline of yesterday's Scottish edition of The Times, "conspiracy of silence on UK sex gangs".

This is the supposedly revelatory news of a "pattern of abuse" of underage white girls by groups of Asian men becoming established across the Midlands and the north of England. Seventeen prosecutions relating to "on-street grooming" of girls aged 11 to 16 – overwhelmingly white – had been identified by reporters, thirteen of them undertaken only in the last three years, resulting in the conviction of 56 men for offences ranging from child abduction to rape. Of the 56, only three were identified as "white" (though details are scanty and this description is often somewhat misleadingly assigned to Albanians) with the remaining 53 being (predominantly Muslim) men of Asian extraction.

The exposé managed to give the lie, at least, to repeated public denials by police forces and other state-run or sponsored agencies of there being any discernible "ethnic dimension" to such crimes, which have significantly increased in freqency since the late 1990s. They even found a Chief Inspector – one Alan Edwards – to "speak out" on how constables and child protection workers have allowed "groomers" to flourish for fear of being accused of racism if they acted. (Small wonder, unfortunately, considering what they learned about the level of support they could expect from politicians and the judiciary in the event of such accusations following Operation Swamp in th 1980s.)

But it is not officialdom's fearful self-delusion which was the most disheartening thing in this story, nor even the crimes themselves and their horrible details – 12-year-olds forced to have abortions, nurses examining 13-year-old victims and finding they have been raped more than fifty times, and so on. No, it was instead the artificial quality of The Times' shock and indignation; the hollow ring in its editorial's breathless demands for the story to be subjected to "the disinfectant of sunlight". For the truth is that nothing in the story should be news to anyone – especially the people at The Times.

Observe, for example, BBC Panorama's documentary, "Teenage Sex for Sale", broadcast back in 2008:

Documentary commences around 3:50

It is the same tale; even equivocal rent-a-mouth Mohammed Shafiq seems to be a recurring feature. Very young girls plied with drugs, raped, phyiscally absued, threatened – sometimes at gunpoint – and forced into unpaid prostitution. The government estimate we were given was of at least 5,000 child prostitutes across the country. We hear of a pilot police operation in Wolverhampton back in 1998 uncovering a criminal network which from that city alone stretched out to London and Cardiff, resulting in dozens of prosecutions – far more than the paltry few "identified" by The Times – before it was quietly dropped. .

Can The Times really have missed all this? It seems unlikely considering they too covered "grooming" before this week's alleged exclusive – they covered it before even Panorama.

Sadly, it is all an old story; one which will incite strictly limited debate: is it appropriate we discuss the ethnicity and religious backrounds of the abusers and their victims, shouldn't The Times and others be praised for "breaking the silence", mustn't we remember that most Muslims find the abuse abhorrent, etc. It will then fade quietly away. Perhaps a year later, the safety valve will be turned again, and the story will reemerge, packaged yet again as something bold and breaking. Matters will have worsened in the interim.

This is the real "conspiracy", if it can be described as such, which we can see reasserting itself already in today's Times as the newspaper apparently contents itself with having generated a few meaningless "Calls for action", and we are reassured us that the Deputy Prime Minister is now "[leading] demands for tough measures". Of course this is not really the case at all. Mr Clegg merely said "I checked with the Home Office and they have assured me that we are keeping the case for further research under review" – a sly way of repeating what the Home Office said already, i.e. "we've read your report but we have no intention of reseaching the matter". The Home Office knows already that it would not like what such research would tell it: that the blame lies with a limp-wristed criminal justice system, with the natural consequences of uncontrolled mass immigration, and with the failures of the multicultural project.

"What does it matter", we are told offenders say in the Netherlands, where the problem is slightly more advanced, "if a girl has sex with a man three or four times or if she has sex with a hundred men? Either way she's a whore. ... Girls here [in Europe] are all whores." This attitude will never change, not so long as integration remains entirely off the agenda, and the indigenous, liberal culture and the proud history which bore it continues to be not promoted but at best neglected and at worst actively denigrated.

Popular Democracy or Prussian Democracy?

2010-12-27T18:10:00.012Z

Daniel Hannan thinks plans to have popular petitions initiate debates and even bills in Parliament will restore our democracy. John Redwood, on the other hand, warns we should not get our hopes up. I confess I incline towards the perspective of the latter.

It is not that Mr Hannan's vision of a more accountable, responsive legislature is not thoroughly laudable; on the contrary, I suspect the implicit defence of elitism by those uttering predictable jeers of "populism" – another word for democracy – is motivated by the certain knowledge that the society they want to build is not the one people would petition for.

The problem, as Mr Redwood indicates, is that no matter how many people petition for a given measure, "it [will] not change the votes in the Commons." Parliamentarians simply will not pass bills they do not like into law, whatever the level of public support. There is every chance they will find ways to avoid even debating some petitions, not wishing to be seen to repeatedly ignore issues people are passionate about.

Consider the precautions taken by the EU Commission when provisions for citizens' initiatives were written into the Lisbon Treaty: Commissioners reserve the right to reject not only the registration of proposals they consider "abusive" or "devoid of seriousness", but also the rather more vague category of those they consider "manifestly against the values of the Union". Consequently the initiative procedure is entirely worthless; a senior British attaché I spoke with in Brussels actually went so far as to dismiss it as "utter bollocks".

Perhap the British legislation will not be as barren as the Commission's. Perhaps it is Mr Hannan who is right, and this will be a positive step towards direct democracy. But it would be wise to watch its progress through Parliament carefully, lest it instead develop into something which attempts to head it off, and we find ourselves left with an exercise in meaningless "consultation" worthy of Frederick the Great.

My people and I have come to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

The 'Crossbow Cannibal' and California's Three Strikes Law

2010-12-22T19:38:00.010Z

Stephen Griffiths – the self-styled 'Crossbow Cannibal' – has been told he will die in prison. He was caught after being captured on CCTV shooting dead Suzanne Blamires, his third (known) victim, as she ran from his flat. Before dragging her back inside he turned to the camera, raising a bottle of juice and offering it an eerie toast.

Griffiths's crimes stand out as particularly horrific in an era when acid attacks, brutal gang rapes and casual stabbings have become disturbingly unremarkable. He recorded himself spray painting lurid slogans on the corpses of his victims, proclaiming "I am Ven Pariah. I am the bloodbath artist. Here is a model who is assisting me." He informed police constables with cool pride how he had mutiliated and dismembered the three prostitutes, "slicing and dicing" in the bathtub he called his "slaughterhouse" before partially devouring them, "some raw".

It is easy to see why most people do not believe such men can be either rehabilitated or deterred. But they can be stopped. Stephen Griffiths's crimes could not, for instance, have happened in California.

This is because there he would have long before fallen foul of that state's superb "Three Strikes" law. Passed with 72% approval in a referendum following a popular ballot initiative, the legislation stipulates the following:

A criminal with a previous conviction – or 'first strike' – for a serious or violent crime should not be eligible for probation or a suspended sentence if they offend again; instead, they should on their 'second strike' be given a term in prison twice as long as would normally be the case.
A criminal with two or more previous convictions faces 25 years to life on their 'third strike', with multiple sentences to be served consecutively rather than concurrently.

The principle at work here is that it is not acceptable for the state to play dice with people's lives by putting convicts who have demonstrated persistent criminality and a capacity for violence back among the public. In contrast, the British concept of criminal justice represents perhaps the ultimate abrogation of this principle, and Stephen Griffiths exemplifies this.

By the time he was twenty Griffiths had already spent three years in custody for cutting the throat of a supermarket manager after being caught shoplifting – a derisory sentence for what one would think would be a charge of attempted murder, but there it is. Diagnosed as a "sadistic, schizoid psychopath", he spent some time at Rampton, and was described by a psychiatrist as having a "preoccupation with murder – particularly multiple murder". Later, he would later tell his probation officers of how he saw himself becoming a murderer some time after reaching his early thirties.

Nothing was done, of course, and by 1992 he was in court again following an affray in which he had held a knife to a young girl's throat, seemingly for no reason. In California this would have been a 'second strike' entailing a heavy custodial sentence. In Great Britain he was given a two year sentence, but evidently only a portion of it was spent behind bars for in 1993 he was once more back in court, this time for illegal knife-carry and possession of air pistols. In California, this would have been Griffiths's third strike, and (since there were two seperate offences) meant at least fifty years in prison. Stephen Griffiths would have been out of the game.

But in Great Britain it only meant probation, and a body count of at least three.

Steampunk

2010-12-16T17:53:00.016Z

Peter Hitchens, in a memorable Question Time exchange with Iain Duncan Smith, once dismissed as "foolish Tory nonsense" an accusation that he wanted Britain to return "to the Age of Steam". Yet it would be difficult to deny that there is an air of whistfulness in a piece written by Mr Hitchens earlier this month which touched upon the subject; indeed his closing comments seem to suggest he thinks a return to the Age of Steam might be worth considering.

"Steam will work when almost everything else doesn't", he asserts, prompted by the sight of aging, coal-fired locomotives pressed back into service during the recent snowfall. "When I lived in Moscow, I visited a vast park full of enormous black steam engines, each with a red star painted on its smokebox, waiting to be recalled to service when the great day came. ... All motorised transport, and even aircraft, would be knocked out by the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) from nuclear weapons. The only machines which would continue to function were steam engines and bicycles. So the Soviet Army had maintained a reserve of steam engines, ready to roll westwards in case there was no other way of invading Germany."

Continuing this Cold War theme, Mr Hitchens asks the following: "The AK-47 is the absolute proof of the contention that simple, crude, reliable devices are often more use than over-engineered, needlessly complex ones. ... Does this have any implications for the way in which we design and build such things as railways, now?"

I make no great claims of expertise on transport matters, but recent criticisms of High Speed Rail 2 by Conservative MPs such as Steven Baker (highlighted by ConservativeHome) make it a question worth exploring. Mr Baker has declared that "It is a myth that the UK lacks a fast national railway network" at a Westminster Hall adjournement debate, and that in fact "We have routes capable of 125 mph, with quicker rail journey times between the capital and the five largest cities than in other major western European countries. For instance, the average journey time in the UK is 145 minutes. It is 151 minutes in Spain, 184 in Italy, 221 in France and 244 in Germany."

Personally, I have always been broadly in favour of investment in a modern high speed rail network, but prejudice should not be allowed to get in the way of the facts (if facts these are) and if Mr Baker is correct a steam renaissance would not be too ridiculous. Sir Nigel Gresley's Mallard reached speeds over 125 miles per hour as far back as 1938, after all, and in following years the Milwaukee Road class F7 would often touch 125 mph while undertaking day-to-day duties. More than once an F7 was observed forging through heavy snowstorms, still maintaining speeds of up to 110 mph. Is there any reason to doubt that similar and more than likely superior performance could be achieved today with modern materials and metallurgy?

The traditional coal-fired steam engine is anathema to the age of climate targets and carbon mania, of course, but Mr Hitchens need not fear. "Fireless" steam locomotives, fitted with a large reservoir tank instead of a boiler and firebox, are already enjoying a mild resurgence. Once valued for their ability to carry out duties where cleanliness, quiet and the elimination of fire hazards were important – mines, mills, plants and so on – they are now being reconsidered for service as shunts. This is because they lose less energy idling than their diesel-powered equivalents, while being capable of utilising otherwise useless waste steam from industrial processes for power into the bargain. Modern, more efficient fireless locomotives, scaled up for mainline use, could easily be powered entirely from renewable sources (though traditional methods could provide their power equally well, if necessary) and their steam accumulators complemented by solar cells and waste heat engines.

The Devil is in the detail, as ever, and in all likelihood issues associated with cost or infrastructure make modern steam a wholly impractical proposition. Still, in the country of Stephenson it has to at least be worth the price of a feasibility study, no?

Constable and PCSO victims of Labour's Criminal Justice Act 2003

2010-12-15T19:32:00.005Z

News comes via Inspector Gadget of a Police Constable and a Community Support Officer hospitalised following an attack in west London. The attack on the pair was carried out as they undertook the perfectly mundane task of checking bus tickets. Both are said to be seriously injured, the constable reportedly in "life-threatening condition" with a slashed throat.

Gadget offered the following prediction to "the Magistrates and Defence Lawyers who lower themselves to read this Blog":

the offender is on bail, wanted after failing to appear, on licence or should have been ‘inside’ for previous violence offences but has been let out early.

Sure enough, it now seems that their assailant drew his blade after checks revealed he was wanted for recall to prison. This will come as an embarassment to Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clarke; chiefly because it comes barely a week after his (allegedly unilateral) decision to drop the Conservative's election pledge on illegal knife-carry, but also because it bucks the spurious narrative he has been able to swindle into place – willingly assisted by Jack Straw and an inattentive media – of Labour as having enthusiastically embraced the "Prison Works" philosophy while they were in power.

That the villain of this piece was at liberty to carry out his attack in the first place is, after all, almost certainly due to the provisions either for automatic parole at the halfway point of any determinate sentence or "Home Detention Curfew", introduced in that party's horrendous Criminal Justice Act of 2003 and which stand out as particularly idiotic in a bill replete with asinine measures.

More Lessons from Slovakia

2010-12-14T15:09:00.003Z

I find increasingly that I am beginning to share Open Europe's fascination with Slovakia. The small eastern European country stood out alone this August in its determined refusal to be bullied into participating in the Greek bailout; berated by the EU Commission for this breach of "euro solidarity" Slovak Finance Minister Ivan Niklos declared that he did "not consider [the bailout] as solidarity if it is solidarity between poor and rich, of the responsible with the irresponsible, or of taxpayers with bank owners and managers”, earning praise from observant souverainistes.

Now Slovakia is standing out again, as Speaker for the Slovak legislature Richard Sulik thinks the unthinkable in a piece written for the economic daily Hospodarske Noviny. His country made the sacrifices it did to join the euro in the first place only because "a stable currency and solid rules" were promised; two years on, with the euro's position more precarious than ever, Sulik is "sad to see that the rules are not the same for everyone, not to say that they do not exist at all."

The answer, he writes, is to do something the architechts of the single currency always said would be impossible:

"We need to stop trusting eurozone leaders blindly and draw up a plan B: going back to the Slovakian Koruna."

One hopes that where the Slovaks lead, others will follow.

Boris Johnson: "We told you so."

2010-12-13T16:16:00.007Z

"I think we deserve an apology", writes Boris Johnson in The Telegraph, the "we" in question being "all the Euro-sceptics, Euro-pragmatists, Euro-realists and Euro-hysterics who were alarmed by some of the optimism that surrounded the birth of the single currency."

"Do you remember the disdain with which we were treated? We were told that we were boss-eyed Little Englanders. ... We were a blimpish embarrassment to our country, a bunch of idiot children who had to be shooshed while the grown-ups got on with their magnificent plans."

"So it gives me a tingling pleasure to report that everywhere you look on the map of Europe we have been proved resoundingly and crushingly right."

Mr Johnson has not exactly covered himself with glory of late, it is true, with his long-standing and continued support for an illegal immigrant amnesty and his absurd description of Conservative plans to cap housing benefit as "Kosovo-style social cleansing". But, with these latest comments, one is tempted to say that all is forgiven.

[A]ll those snooty Europhile politicians and journalists who sneered at us for our doubts should be forced to crawl in penitence to Dublin Castle, scourging themselves with copies of the Maastricht Treaty. We have been vindicated, and the least they can do is admit it. They know who they are.

Amen to that.

Nigh Incontrovertible?

2010-12-12T21:03:00.004Z

Via ConservativeHome we learn of the Civitas Institute's latest press release on Britain's emerging prisons policy, issued in response to Kenneth Clarke's recent and oft repeated assertion that "crime fell throughout the Western world" from the mid-1990s onwards as a result of increasing prosperity rather than increasing use of prison.

Civitas, with reference to Eurostat-derived charts measuring the total number of crimes recorded by police against prison populations throughout the West, contends that it is not true to say that crime fell across the board consistently in the period, and moreover that there certainly is sufficient evidence to suggest both that falling crime rates usually corresponded with increasing use of incarceration and spikes in crime rates with decreases in its use.

Correlation does not necessarily imply causation, of course, but evidence of an observable trend looks compelling.

Iceland Stands Tall Again

2010-12-08T12:49:00.302Z

Little Iceland was a target for particularly vindictive gloating when it lay stricken in the wake of recession. Why? Because Europhiles throughout the continent had long despised its blue-eyed sheiks. The free trade, comfortable budget surpluses and ever-climbing per capita GDP Iceland enjoyed outside the gargantuan suprastate next door stood as a defiant repudiation of the canon that small countries unwilling to "enhance" their sovereignty by paying homage to the European Commission would find themselves destitute and isolated.

Thus the 2008 financial crisis was – seemingly – a triumphant vindication of the Europhile credo. While in Iceland the banks which had spearheaded its commercial "outvasion" collapsed into administration and external debt levels soared, in the EU sheer mass, multi-national regulation and the all-important euro had purchased safe harbour from the economic storm, and its acolytes never missed an opportunity to crow.

Their triumph was short-lived, of course. The EU's harbour was not so safe after all, and its institutions soon found themselves forced to beg, borrow and extort whatever they could to stave off catastrophe. Trillion dollar eurozone bailouts evaporated into the ether, Greece went into total meltdown, and the much put-upon Irish had to be bullied and cajoled into historic levels of public indebtedness. (It does not take the gift of clairvoyance to see who will be next, either.)

Iceland, meanwhile, though shamefully abused by the British Labour government at its most vulnerable by means of twisted anti-terror laws and forced to avail itself of the predatory IMF, has stayed the course of recovery and exited its recession. Devaluation (a path not open to the Greek or the Irishman) has helped exports, and the economy has grown by 1.2% alongside a 17% increase in the national OMX share index. Talk of accession to the EU now seems utterly utterly fanciful.

Iceland achieved this feat in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds through displaying the same exceptionalism and perseverance that saw their little trawlers through the Cod Wars, and by defying so-called conventional wisdom. "The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail", was the verdict of the superbly-named Icelandic President, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson:

"These were private banks and we didn't pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks."

Yes, despite the urgings of their Social Democrat government and the veiled threats of outsiders, Icelanders rejected by 93% an all too familiar scheme to burden ordinary taxpayers with the accumulated debts of a reckless private banking sector when it was put to a referendum, and it has paid off.

There is a valuable lesson here, not just for Europhiles, but for conservatives subscribing to the profoundly anti-free market notion that banking institutions are "too big to fail", too.

Slovak Politicians Lead the Way

2010-12-07T20:48:00.006Z

Word comes via Open Europe today of an excellent defecit reduction initiative in Slovakia.

The idea, described by National Council member Ondrej Dostal, is simple: "Lawmakers are responsible for passing the state budget in parliament, therefore responsible for the deficit level."

So why not relate politicians' pay to their performance, as is so often suggested for other public servants?

If draft legislation is passed, politicians' salaries will be bound to the deficit: the more they spend, the less they will earn. They would each take home 15.6% less in 2011, double the size of the 2010 deficit of 7.8% of GDP. Further cuts would follow the next year – although of only 9.8% if they manage to reduce the defecit to 4.9% as projected.

One can think of few better ways we might exercise the minds of our own MPs on achieving value for money for taxpayers!

£43,000 in unpaid bills owed to taxpayers by Labour

2010-12-02T20:27:00.004Z

We are informed today by Guido of the £43,000 Labour owes the public following its use of a kind of taxpayer-funded overdraft during its general election campaign. Five of the six unpaid invoices are for party political use by Ministers of government cars, causing Mr. Fawkes to question – quite legitimately – why their appropriation for such purposes was not declared nearer the time.

[W]ere Labour using ministerial cars without admitting they were going to campaign events? Given their casual disregard for taxpayers money in office it wouldn’t really come as a surprise.

Another "Disappointment"

2010-11-05T22:36:00.199Z

A new chapter in the stupefying tale of hook-handed maniac Abu Hamza al-Masri, an almost reassuringly unambiguous figure in a world of increasingly greying morality.

The notorious imam, who could quite easily pass for a Bond villain (he lacks the sympathetic origin story required for comic books), once said said that "[a non-Muslim] ... is like a cow. Boy, anybody [can] take him. ... Then he's a [sic] booty; you can sell him in the market. If Muslims cannot take him, you know, and sell him in the market, then you just kill him. It's OK."

This gives a taste of what one might have expected attending past sermons at Finsbury Park mosque, but of course Mr al-Masari is more than just a man with unpleasant religious views: the cleric is currently incacerated because he is wanted for extradition to his Egyptian homeland, the United States and Yemen for his role in a number of terrorist plots. (Though given a derisory seven year sentence by British courts in 2006 after being convicted on six charges of soliciting to murder and three charges of stirring up racial hatred, with further charges relating to possession of "terror manuals" and the production of terrorist propaganda thrown in, he was long ago eligible for release under the terms of Labour's 2003 Criminal Justice Act, which entitles prisoners to automatic release halfway through their sentences.)

No extradition has yet taken place because, despite his almost laughably palpable villainy, al-Masari – whose cost in council housing, NHS treatment, welfare payments, trials and legal appeals already stood at a minumum of £2.75 million as of early 2009 (we could now add the cost of custom taps, among other things), according to the Taxpayers' Alliance – has had an enthusiastic ally in the form of the European Court of Human Rights.

First, they ruled nations subject to their authority could not deport or extradite anyone to countries where they could face the death penalty – which a clear majority of Britons think should be reintroduced here. (So much for respecting cultural diversity.) This ruled out Egypt and Yemen, but left the US, which was willing to give assurances to Britain, cast in the role of reluctant protector, that al-Masari would not be executed. Quick as a painstakingly labourious legal flash, European judges issued another ruling: al-Masari could not be extradited there because there was a good chance he would be given a life sentences, and life sentences which actually involve spending your life imprisoned breach your human rights (watch this space for appeals by British criminals on whole-life tariffs). Anyway, American prisons aren't up to the five-star standard Europe expects for criminals, and so any sort of prison sentence could constitute "inhuman and degrading" treatment.

Our own masochistic legal system is nothing if not a quick learner, and so the latest news is that our old friends at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (who ruled that the clear and present danger presented to public by Abid Naseer was trumped by Naseer's right not to be potentially roughed up by the Pakistani authorities) have announced we are not allowed to take away al-Masari's passport. The Egyptians have revoked his citizenship, you see, and apparently we have an obligation to ensure that the poor man doesn't end up "stateless".

The Prime Minister has reportedly expressed "disappointment", just as the Home Secretary did when SIAC ruled on Naseer. One wonders how much "disappointment" must be faced before it becomes the spur to change.

"It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist."

2010-10-10T18:32:00.003+01:00

James Delingpole draws our attention today to the resignation letter of Harold Lewis – an esteemed 87-year-old professor emeritus of the University of California – from the American Physical Society. Professor Lewis laments that "the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it" has "carried APS before it like a rogue wave."

Mr Delingpole felt it best to allow the professor to explain himself in his own words. I am inclined to agree:

Dear Curt [Curtis G. Callan Jr, President of the American Physical Society]:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

Tebbit Questions Major's Motives

2010-09-30T17:02:00.005+01:00

Sir John Major has added his voice to the growing chorus of Conservative movers and shakers calling for the continuation of coalition politics beyond 2015 regardless of whether or not their own party can achieve the Parliamentary majority which would allow them to disepense with the Liberal Democrats.

Former colleague Norman Tebbit has suggested that Sir John – none too keen on the sort of dissent from Ministers the coalition government has recently seen over tuition fees in his own Cabinet – is motivated by lingering resentment "of the true Tories who opposed his Maastricht surrender":

As Prime Minister, Major referred to backbench Conservative MPs who opposed the Maastricht Treaty (for which he had no mandate) as “bastards”. Now it seems he is an admirer of coalition politics in which ministers are entitled to abstain on measures which they do not like. ... I suspect that at the root of Sir John Major’s admiration of coalition government is a rankling resentment of the true Conservatives who opposed his surrender at Maastricht.

Lord Tebbit's assessment comes with the following warning, however:

That is sad rather than important. However, if he was flying a kite for the Prime Minister, who dislikes the conservatives in the Conservative Party as much as John Major did, that is more worrying. I strongly suspect that Mr Cameron wants to make his coalition into a merger between “centre ground” Conservatives and “centre ground” Lib Dems.

That would leave many Conservative voters with no choice but to support UKIP and many Lib Dem voters no choice but to support Labour.

I am not sure that is smart politics.

Conservative Councillors Get it Wrong

2010-09-10T12:38:00.008+01:00

Britghton and Hove City Council, one of a handful of British local authorities to provide webcasts of its meetings, is set to have its decision to suspend the improbably-named Green Party councillor Jason Kitcat for posting excerpts from them on his YouTube channel appealed before a tribunal. The council has elected to hire outside counsel and fight the case at substantial cost to taxpayers.

Disappointingly, the complaint which kicked off the whole sorry process originates with a Conservative councillor – one Ted Kemble – who averred that in posting the clips Councillor Kitcat

(i) had failed to treat his fellow councillors with respect, by posting the clips without the prior knowledge or express permission of Councillor Theobald or Councillor Mears; and

(ii) had abused council facilities by infringing the copyright in the webcast images

This attempt to assert councillors' proprietary ownership of what amounts in effect to the public discourse is ill at ease with the Conservative Party's transparency agenda, as are the conclusions of the investigating Standards Manager:

I consider that Cllr Kitcat did use the council’s IT facilities improperly for political purposes. Most of the clips are about communal bins, a politically contentious issue at the time. The clips are about Cllr Kitcat holding the administration politically to account for the way the bins were introduced, and were intended to highlight what the he believed were the administration’s deficiencies in that regard, based on feedback from certain residents.

Holding council administrations to account politically on behalf of residents, one would have thought, is the essential purpose of elected councillors.

Assuming Councillor Kitcat's appeal is succesful, the whole disagreeable episode will hopefully serve to hasten the destruction of the absurd Standards regime. More than that, however, it should be triggering demands for an absolute right of the public to record council meetings by any means they deem fit, and for such things as official webcasts to be made available for conversion, sharing and whatever else through Open Government Licenses.

PRISON WORKS - The Intelligence Squared Debate

2010-07-30T16:37:00.007+01:00

In April 2007, long before the Lord Chancellor launched his attack on Britain's supposed "bang 'em up" culture, three of his ideological bedfellows spoke at an Intelligence Squared debate. They were a distinguished team: Baron Wolf, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Baron Ramsbotham, former Chief Inspector of Her Majesty's Prisons, and Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust (a kind of trade union for the criminal fraternity), and they articulated perhaps the most comprehensive case against the proposition that Prison Works that can be made.

Nevertheless, they were decisively skewered, their arguments crushed in every detail, by the motley band of Dr Charles Murray, a controversial America writer, Dr Anthony Daniels – better known by his non de plume, Theodore Dalrymple – and Dr David Green, the knowledgeable but oratorically limited director of the Civitas Institute. Dr Daniels was perhaps the most persuasive of the three, particulary as he made the following concluding appeal:

Do not, finally, imagine that you are being generous in voting against imprisonment. Failure to imprison is, in fact, a regressive tax imposed upon the poor by the rich.

I cannot urge readers to listen and, more importantly, really to hear the arguments presented strongly enough.

Be sure to listen out for the audience contribution of David Fraser, whose weighty tome A Land Fit for Criminals probably remains the most important book on the subject of prison in Great Britain yet written.

VE Day - 65 Years On

2010-05-08T12:28:00.000+01:00