It is intended as a collaborative effort for centre-Right bloggers.
No-one knows yet how it'll work out, but I'm hoping it'll be a starboard equivalent of Harry's Place, or a Conservative Home with a wider spectrum of contributors: UKIP, Libertarians, others...
I feel honoured to be allowed to contribute (but let's see how Right that 'Right' bit can be!) and I can think of no better reason to publish my 200th post today than to publicise it.
Except perhaps to celebrate the announcement of a General Election.
A NORTH West Euro MP has reignited a debate about Muslim women wearing the burka.
Liberal Democrat Chris Davies says the burka ‘does not belong in 21st century Britain’ and is calling on Muslim women in Lancashire to take them off.
Sweet Lord, it’s like reading that Graham Norton’s been cast as Major Alan ‘Dutch’ Schaefer in the remake of Predator.
Reality soon returns with refreshing speed, however.
But Mr Davies stance has been slammed by the Lancashire Council of Mosques which believes more education is needed to understand why women choose to wear the burka.
A burka covers a woman from head to toe and only leaves the eyes visible.
Mainstream media at its best; this. Incisive. Well-informed. Obvious. Badly type-set.Inaccurate.
The issue was pushed to the forefront when Blackburn MP Jack Straw said Muslim women should not wear veils to cover their faces.
Mr Davies said that people should have the legal right to wear whatever they wish, but that politeness should not prevent disapproval being expressed.
He made the remarks after President Sarkozy of France this week attacked the burka as an assault upon the dignity of women.
Mr Davies said: “There is no mention in the Qur’an of the burka and it is a style of dress used principally in those countries where women are treated as mere chattels of men.
"I believe that it does not belong in 21st century Britain.
“I have a passionate belief that women and men are equals,
Just for fun this bit; apart from Britain’s rosy future in the European Union, I’d put this at the top of my list of the three whole things in the entire world that Liberal Democrats care passionately about.
…and both sexes should be free to express their identity through the dress they wear.
"In my experience, the burka acts as a mask, reducing identity and discouraging women from developing their own skills and personality.
“If there are men who want to use the burka to impose their own will upon women in their family they should feel the full force of society’s disapproval.”
So well done, Mister Davies, congratulations on your fine speech. It’s actually pretty brave of you to say such a thing. In Britain and in the Lib Dems it must take a pair to threaten the multi-culti consensus.
Now, what would the Liberal Democrat response be to the forced veiling of schoolgirls, I wonder? Tougher than some Tories’, I suspect, as we’ll see later.
Ooh, but the ever-vigilant mainstream media have a counter-view, because they’re all about edgy, state-of-the-art, in-your-face deep-cover investigative sound bite reprinting.
Salim Mulla, vice-chairman of Lancashire Council of Mosques, said: “It is absolute nonsense to say men force their partners, wives or daughters to wear the burkas.
Here’s some absolute nonsense for you and it’s not precisely about burqas.
Honour killing victim Banaz Mahmod was failed by police when she turned to them for protection, an investigation has ruled.
The 20-year-old Muslim begged police for help four times before her brutal murder at the hands of her father and her uncle….
The police officer who took her statement, PC Angela Cornes, dismissed her account as fantasy and wanted to charge her with criminal damage because she broke a window during her escape, her Old Bailey murder trial was told…
A month later Miss Mahmod was raped, tortured and murdered and her body was found buried in a suitcase in a garden in Birmingham three months later.
"He probably needs to talk to people like myself…
Such as this chap, coincidentally a co-religionist of his:
Yet another Muslim father kills his daughter
JUST weeks after we reported the case of an Iraqi man who beat his daughter to death in an ‘honour” killing, comes the news that a Pakistani man is behind bars in the USA after strangling his daughter. He was said to be upset that Sandeela Kanwal, 25, wanted to leave her arranged marriage.
According to this report, Chaudhry Rashid, 54, is charged with strangling his daughter with a bungee cord at their home in Jonesboro, Georgia.
…Or maybe another respected community leader like this?...
Her father gave up his factory job and became an Imam, the leader of his mosque…
A few weeks later Hannah tried to protect her mother so her father turned on her. She was 6 years old and from that day was punished regularly for her evil in tempting her father. Her punishments included regular rape and periods locked in the cellar. If she were to tell of what he did he threatened to kill her, and then such an evil dirty little girl like her would go straight to hell.
The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes.
Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan is accused of beheading his wife last week, days after she filed for divorce. Authorities have not discussed the role religion or culture might have played, but the slaying gave rise to speculation that it was the sort of "honor killing" more common in countries half a world away, including the couple's native Pakistan.
…and the Council of Mosques to educate himself about the issue.
And here’s a local councillor in Burnley, and a Tory, too. Makes me proud.
TWO sons who helped get their father elected into County Hall have pleaded guilty to knocking out the front teeth of a teenage girl.
Waqar Mohammed Younis, 20, and his brother Khawar Younis, 17, both of Nuttall Street, Accrington, appeared at Burnley Crown Court last Tuesday charged with occasioning actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm with intent.
See? In Accrington they don’t even keep the fun to their own – they’re involved in active outreach to support volunteering in the wider community.
"It is up to individuals if they want to wear the burka.
A Kurdish Muslim from Iraq has been jailed for life for slitting his teenage daughter's throat in a so-called honour killing after she decided to marry a Lebanese Christian…
In October last year Heshu barricaded herself in the bathroom of the family home in west London. The father broke down the door and stabbed her daughter repeatedly 11 times, before slitting her throat and leaving her bleeding in the bath.
Time for some plain, good, old-fashioned Lancashire good sense from a fine and typically Northern fellow.
Burnley-born Communities Minister Shahid Malik said: “It is not the job of government to dictate what people should or should not wear in our society - that is a matter of personal choice.
”This freedom to choose is one of the great values of our nation and why we are revered around the world.
Just like I learned at my old Mum’s knee as she stood cheerfully over my cousin/fiancée, stick in hand, as they cheerfully sewed on into the night.
”There are no laws stating what clothes or attire are acceptable and so whether one chooses to wear a veil or burka, a mini-skirt or goth outfit is entirely at the individual’s discretion.
Sadly, Goths don’t have much of a life expectancy in some parts of Lancashire either, poor kids.
Perhaps it’s the whippets?
”It is true that many Muslims feel the veil and its rationale are misunderstood and so sensible discussion provides an opportunity to create a better understanding and ultimately ensures we are more at ease with the diverse society within which we live.”
Actually, I think I understand just fine.
Mrs Northwester points out that some Muslim women choose to use the veil to protest and to protect themselves in a country that’s not very welcoming to them, and I can believe it in some cases, but there doesn’t seem to be all that much equality and respect for women throughout the community in other areas of life, so why on the face instead?
I don’t know what the Islamists call regiments of jihadi terrorists...
Oh, I tell a lie - they call them ‘wedding guests’ and ‘militants’ and ‘children.’
TWO sons who helped get their father elected into County Hall have pleaded guilty to knocking out the front teeth of a teenage girl.
Warren Michael Yale, 20, and his brother Karl Yale, 17, both of Nuttall Street, Accrington, appeared at Burnley Crown Court last Tuesday charged with occasioning actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm with intent.
The pair, whose father is newly-elected Lancashire County Councillor Mark Yale, who defeated Doreen Pollitt by a margin of only 22 votes for the seat of Accrington North, were due to go to trial until they pleaded guilty to ABH and a lesser charge of GBH without intent.
Victim Lianne Clayton, 18, of Lime Road, Accrington, has spoken out about the attack which left her without two upper front teeth and James Ryder, also 18, her boyfriend, with deep cuts and bruises and needing a CT Scan.
Child care apprentice Lianne said: "This was easily the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I still don’t know why they picked on us. I think we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Me and James were walking down the street, when a red jeep pulled up next to us and eight lads jumped out. The next thing I knew they were circling us and hitting James.
"I tried to pull them off him, but then I just remember being pushed back and being punched in the face, I think I was knocked out because when I woke up I was on the floor."
The incident happened on 24 November last year.
Lianne, now has to wear a plate covering the gap left by her missing teeth, hopes to be fitted with permanent screw in replacements in July which will take six months to heal and set.
She said: "Wearing this plate is a nightmare. I hate eating in front of people at work because the plate falls out and looks horrible. I get really self-conscious and down about the mess it has left me in.
"I am relieved they have pleaded guilty and that I don’t have to give evidence in court. Even seeing them in the waiting room with my family around, left me in tears and fearful.
"Every time I see a red car I freeze. I saw them earlier this month canvassing for their dad who has just been elected and I literally turned round and ran home.
"They shouldn’t be allowed to help with an election when they can be so violent. They have never apologised."
CountyCouncillor Yale, a Tory councillor, won his seat after one of the borough’s closest margins, which saw the votes having to be counted twice.
He said: "This is a very regrettable incident. It was out of character for my sons. They are both very sorry about the whole incident and they will never behave like this in the future.
"I am very proud of my sons and they are now moving on with their lives, education and future."
The Yale brothers will now reappear on Monday 27 July to be sentenced.
Recorder Geoffrey Lowe told the pair: "This case is adjourned for pre-sentence reports so that the court can learn more about you before sentencing. I must make you aware that a custodial sentence is clearly an option. You have pleaded guilty to serious crimes."
Iran 'frees five' UK embassy staff
Royal Mail sale 'facing delays'
Arms witness hails loyalist move
OTHER TOP STORIES
Vote could end refinery dispute Blur bring curtain down on Glasto T5 check-in reopens after glitch Teens 'still fear knife crime' Doctors condemn 'commercial' NHS Building work announced for Abbey
MORE FROM THE UK
'Too few trained police' for G20 Scotland 'needs protection of UK' Scientists attack energy industry Finance sector 'improvement' Michael Jackson tops album chart Editor defends expenses story Fire breaks out at former convent Early pregnancy warning First-borns 'face more pressure'
The short-term prison sentence is a disaster for offenders and society. But there are alternatives.
It was with a heavy heart that I read of Alan Johnson's pledge this week to revive the state crusade against antisocial behaviour. Our new home secretary was concerned that the government had been "coasting" on the issue. The prospect of more rhetoric about yob culture leaves me weary.
‘Weary’ yes, but not, I suspect, bleeding to death on a pavement somewhere, or sobbing your aged rather than heavy heart out and hoping your angina won’t kick off as you stare at a lifetime’s personal possessions smashed or missing: especially the silver framed photo frame that once held a favourite and irreplaceable picture of your late husband of fifty years, perhaps?
But it's further troubling because another spike in Asbo use will inevitably cause an increase in one of the most individually corrosive, socially useless and economically indefensible elements of our criminal justice system: the short-term prison sentence.
‘Economically indefensible’ used in the Guardian is about as convincing as using feckless to describe an all-mime episode of Father Ted.
Antisocial behaviour orders, the high noon of New Labour's respect agenda, with their absurdist conditions (not to wear a hat, not to utter a particular expletive in public, not to approach a certain bridge when suicidal) seem to me designed to be breached.
Authority’s just so…silly, isn’t it? I mean, using the power of the State to threaten people who speak or behave in such as way as suggests they might violate some bourgeois moral rule. I mean, that’s so mediaeval, right?
So kids let’s just dig out those Union flags, shave our heads, put on those cherry-red doc Martens and hang around some blues bars and mosques, yeah? No problemo.
And, in a dangerous legal blurring, breaches of this civil instrument are dealt with by criminal sanction,
I’ll bet you’re really hot on protesting against how our Civil Service enforces European Union ‘guidelines’ as criminal offences dear, aren’t you?
…often leading to brief periods in custody.
‘Brief’, I know. Tragic.
Currently, 65% of Britain's prison population is serving sentences of 12 months or less.
Take a walk in these shoes, darling. Longer, tougher sentences, handed out to more (you should excuse the expression) criminals in larger, nastier, and more numerous prisons is what we need.
If Asbos offer a fast track for young, grossly disadvantaged…
Bingo! ‘Grossly disadvantaged’ is the money quote.
Because when some toe-rag slips a screwdriver into your door frame and nicks off with the pension money and some other unconsidered trifles, it’s disadvantage that propels him into your home – not any conception of moral agency, free will, or wickedness. The psychoanalysts and anthropological relativists dealt with those old superstitions yonks ago. Clouting the undeserving possessors of cash and valuables is an illness.
…men into the prison system, then short-term custody traps them in a revolving door of offence and reoffence.
Gotta dance! Gotta sing! Gotta find my way onto somebody’s premises ‘cos no-one told me about the fifty-lots of support organisations and funds and benefits I can claim on my way out of jail! Just haddta get out into the sunlight and find me some wrinkly old fart or single mother to relive of the burden of property.
I’m not sick; I just want a drug!
This is not an argument against prison.
Prove it.
It is an argument against the costly, superficial palliative of locking away…
Thought not. It’s not a palliative for the truly vulnerable in society, such as the women, pensioners and absent taxpayers who tend to fund criminals’ free-form socialism, but who don’t have to worry about such things while said crims are banged up. It’s not a palliative because it’s the cure.
…the most vulnerable...
How bloody vulnerable is a twenty-year-old man with a hunting knife when he’s surrounded by peaceful commuters or booze-dulled night-clubbers?
… among us...
But they aren’t among us if they’re locked in F-Block, which is an actual argument in favour of prison, as distinct from your more virtual kind…
…for periods of time that render rehabilitation meaningless.
True enough. I expect it’d take much longer than any month or so to break the mental, emotional, and pscycho-chemical habits of years or decades or even a lifetime. I mean, if you truly believe that therapy, neuro-linguistic reprogramming and so on can take substance abusers and wife abusers and remould them into decent citizens when it takes twelve whole years at school to teach many healthy and unabused children to read and write badly, then it’s likely to take quite a long time to get results from your vulnerables.
Might I suggest a minimum sentence of two years for any act of violence or house-breaking?
Asbo refuseniks are only a minor constituency of a group that, it bears repeating, makes up more than half of all prisoners.
I wonder whether the prison shortage and the liberal attitudes of many magistrates might have something to do with the shortness of sentences, rather than the ‘pettiness’ of their crimes?
We're not talking about serious, violent criminals but shoplifters…
I’d like £100–worth of your favourite possessions please from your home or some of your work tools from your place of employment taken at a time of my choosing without your prior agreement.
…the homeless…
Lots of ‘free’, i.e. State-funded accommodation in this country. This sort of homelessness isn’t a curse from Heaven or Hell: it’s the name for one consequence of bad decisions taken by human beings. You have to be pretty damn gross to get chucked out of homeless hostel.
…and those who petty-thieve to fund a habit.
So that’s alright then. Now it may be that drug dependencies or alcoholism do to some extent erode free will to such an extent that some or all rules will be ignored by addicts in pursuit of their substance of choice. They will, you seem to imply, be prepared to do anything, pretty much short of violence, to fund their habit.Why the hell should the rest of us put up with the dirt and the smell and the expense of time of reporting crimes to the police for statistical purposes? Those particular policemen can’t chase up quite so many truly violent criminals if they’re taking Crazy McShaky off to the drying-out cells or dragging a shrieking Tracksuitina O’Giro to the patrol car as she scatters obscenity-larded assertions of her ‘rights’ to everyone in earshot and dropping ruined and now unsellable shoplifted Next underwear into the gutter. What price is there on peoples’ fear about their lost security because you believe that these shambling zombies should be treated the same as philology dons or the Spanish ambassador?
According to the latest briefing from the Prison Reform Trust, published tomorrow , about half have mental health needs, while a quarter are drug- or alcohol-dependent.
Wow, The Prison Reform Trust, huh? I don’t suppose you’d expect much of a throw away the key kind of argument from that particular body, to quote Wikipedia: They work closely with the campaign group SmartJustice who promote alternatives to custody. Alternatives to custody actually means 'a life of crime.'
Next week, Meat is yummy, nutritious, and fun to find: a report on game hunting and gralloching by The Vegetarian Society.
These are problematic individuals who undoubtedly un-civilise our streets.
The common sort travel around in baseball caps and hoodies and trash or remove other peoples’ property: sometimes over their dead or battered bodies; sometime leaving them intimidated, permanently fearful and ashamed of having handed their pensions or wages or benefits over at knife-point. The other less obvious sort are no less obnoxious or guilty of this state of affairs and they are the ones who put the hoodies on the street in the first place, and who campaign relentlessly to keep them there, or briefly in our homes or workplaces for redistributionist purposes.
But the sanction and support…
They don’t need weasel-word ‘support.’ They need to have it proven to them that crime doesn’t pay: that trials work and prison awaits convicted criminals and that it’ll be no picnic inside. Perhaps after having spent long months contemplating the unlovely bulge of a cellmate’s snoring form in the bunk above, and fearful of further sentences and full of despair that this particular stretch is not going to be halved and halved again for ‘good behaviour’, perhaps then they might be ready to open their tiny minds to the possibility of living and acting in a non-criminal way when they do, eventually get out of jail. Under these circumstances and, I suspect under these circumstances alone, might problematic individuals be prepared to allow thoughts of not thieving into their heads.
…they need can never be provided by the present response of aimless deterrence.
Deterrence is indeed aimless, strictly speaking, because it’s intended to have a scatter-gun kind of effect. You know: all those who rob or mug or intimidate people on the street or at home have a good chance of spending quite a long time in the big house making nice to Tattooed Harry and His Big Bad Friend; irrespective of class, faith, sex, sexual orientation, victim group of choice or length of tadger. The nick is for everyone who decides that other peoples’ bodies or possessions are footballs and their homes and public spaces are sport stadiums.
Short sentences barely give the authorities time to assess an inmate's needs.
And that’s the crux. This is all about the criminals and their needs. It’s the felon-centred approach that is having such a strikingly similar successes rate as child-centred education.
But even a limited spell in custody does enduring damage – the fracture of family bonds,
Trust me, dear, there are plenty of piggy-eyed private landlords out there eager to put these people up in their hovels in the sure and certain knowledge that the Housing Benefit will be generous under the new Local Housing Allowance scheme. Under 25s do have particular problemhere because they’re only entitled to a much smaller Single Room Rate, and can only get typically half to two thirds the Housing Benefit that would fund a flat for single adults or even childless young couples. But:
A) Boo hoo, and
B) Oh.
Boo hoo again.
Actually, landlords have a tendency to keep lets open for people who’ve gone to jail for short periods as they know that Housing Benefit is actually quite a secure income source compared with, say; private sector wages in Mister Brown’s exciting and constantly-changing wealth-generating economy. Housing Benefit can be paid to remand prisoners for quite some time. See paragraph 5 of this lovely web page.
… the stigmatising record on future job applications.
I know, I know. It’s such a bore having to tell the HR lady at Sainsbury’s that you once kicked a supermarket guard in the pills during a vodka-finding missing in your late teens, or that some old iffy-hearted gimmer popped their clogs at 1 AM when you paid a moonlight visit is search of exchange goods for a local pharmacy. They always look at you funny, and you rarely get the job. If only someone had told me that crime doesn’t pay earlier, a chap might have stuck to his school books a bit more, or at least not tried to stick to other peoples’ stuff.
Somebody serving less than 12 months is not even allocated a parole officer, and is cast back into the community with a derisory grant of £46 to tide them over until their benefits kick in two weeks later. If this is not an invitation to reoffend, I don't know what is.
I’d guess that being told it’s not really their fault and being aware that there is a huge and active State machinery of welfare and unjudgmental ‘support’ to fall back on once they hit the streets and the people on them might be kind of an invitation, too.
I mean, if local authorities had more, nicer, and better-furnished accommodation available at the drop of a sentence for ‘offenders’ to move into straight away, that’d take some of the sting out of prison and punishment, and that’s bound to, er, make the consequences of committing a crime more scary. Innit.
There is an alternative. Community sentencing is still underused, but its efficacy is increasing. By the last tally, reconviction rates for those sentenced to under 12 months were almost twice those of offenders given alternative sentences for similar offences.
Did you also know that the topic of penal reform generates 63% of spurious or misleading statistics; coming in a close third to climate change and government employment figures?
Last year, 55,771 people successfully completed community payback sentences, which translates into over eight million hours of labour benefiting local areas.
I wonder if this is true? It is a truly good idea forcing convicted felons who aren’t insanely or irregularly violent clearing wasteland or cleaning up fouled social housing and the like, but I wonder how many mere thieves who only steal to fund a habit are entirely trustworthy. How closely is their behaviour monitored? And if they are back in their former accommodation and their old neighbourhoods, how do their silent, unsupported victims feel about that? Stigmatised at all, do you think, or worse?
Still, hand-wringing over socially excluded minor offenders gains little traction with a government that is all too aware of the boost its perceived light touch on nuisance crime gives to the BNP.
To hell with the victims, past, present, and future of minor crimes – the fascists are coming!
See how the different campaignsin the culture wars all end up joining up with each other? What’s truly evil about ‘nuisance crime’ is that it helped close to a million adult human beings vote for the jackbooted hordes of, ah, people in suits, at the Euros. Forget Granny’s neighbour’s tearful phone call at 11 PM one Saturday night, it’s the fuehrer with the eagle’s head and the lion’s body that should be sneaking into your nightmares.
Which is why the campaign Make Justice Work has been smart in commissioning the first independent cost-benefit analysis of short-term sentencing versus community alternatives.
The results are astonishing. It estimates that the country would have saved almost £1bn had drug-using offenders in custody for 12 months or less been given residential treatment under community sentencing. The annual savings for the first six years after conviction would have been £60m-£100m. Compare the £2.3bn price tag of the latest prison building programme.
The full analysis will be released on Monday, at a launch set to be attended by Dominic Grieve, the shadow justice minister. His junior, Edward Garnier, has spoken positively about community sentencing, though the Conservatives' latest prison policy paper fixates alarmingly on the need for recognisable uniforms for offenders working locally.
So the Right wing of the political class agrees with a section of its enormous Left wing, and we sociocons are supposed to jump up and down cheering?
To be fair to the present Tory party (and being fair to the present Tory party translates as ‘not horsewhipping the regional officers around the county town or shooting the Shadow Cabinet on sight’), there may actually be a useful cleavage between jail for the violent ones and the work-party and curfew for the others – it seems on the face of it to be so sensible that its might even resemble something actually conservative. Except…
Who, exactly, will be making the decisions about whom to jail and who to put to work?
Given the apparent inevitability of a Tory administration next year, it's important to interrogate their policies in advance. Jonathan Aitken, who headed a report on prison reform for the Centre for Social Justice in March, believes that the party is more willing than ever to consider alternatives to custody, though he notes that progressive thinking does not always transfer into government.
‘…progressive thinking does not always transfer into government’ – does this perhaps mean ‘Once you’ve got to read the court reports and look at crime scene photos and skim the post-mortems on a daily basis, a Home Secretary might reluctantly decide to do something a little different from the very strict and not at all malleable pre-election guideline/aspirations/bullet-point hints that some naïve individuals took to be election pledges in that old manifesto thingy?
I hope so.
The Scottish parliament is putting through legislation to embed a presumption against custodial sentencing below six months – a genuinely radical step that neither Conservatives nor Labour are yet willing to subscribe to.
This would be one of those scorched-earth, pre-Tory government anti-personnel devices the soon to be slaughtered Left are hoping to insert into the body politic.
As Roma Hooper, of Make Justice Work, says: "Short-term sentencing is a waste of money and also disingenuous to victims." Because it's nobody's justice if your bag-snatcher is back on your estate after three months inside, having received zero addiction treatment, just sharper criminal tutoring.
Hear, hear. Let’s start with that three months inside bit and work on from there, shall we?
‘Optimistic,’ because we’ve got to keep fighting and tearing the social Left down, one miserable prejudice at a time. 'Tentative' because there are a lot of people like Libby Brooks in the ironically-named criminal justice system to deal with.
