A short history of blame

Hmm.

It’s getting hard to work out whom to blame for what these days.

Based on the Ten Commandments, Christian teachings about the value of the individual and our Anglo-Saxon and Viking notions of personal value (weregild and all that jazz), and though it was  occasionally marred or broken by notions of collective responsibility (see our brutal Norman ancestors’ massacres of everyone even suspected of being able to rebel again in Yorkshire and the earlier massacre of Norse settlers throughout England), throughout much off our history individuals tended to be held responsible for their perceived crimes. Naughty kings and other rulers were held to high standards of not messing with the powers that be and even the commonality by frequent rebellions – except again, when the institution of kingship was held to be too valuable to blame the king himself – in which case his government of over-mighty subjects was held to account.   

But otherwise, if you did the crime you did the time – in the stocks if not in prison. And it worked throughout society -kinda - through private perceptions of individual guilt and responsibility. You could punish people, deter people, take them off the streets or out of the picture altogether – and when you did that they often didn't re-offend. Simples.

Habits of law like this eventually wiped out the very popular barbarian Germanic culture of blood feud – a horribly brutal and expensive vice.

But where would the human race be today without the dear old Enlightenment?

First, there came that old progressive masochism catechism that, for example, the huge and ancient institution of  slavery was somehow caused even by some of the Abolitionists themselves and thus “we are all guilty” allowed ‘us’ all to be – ahem - tarred with the same shivery-exciting brush of lovely guilt, while at the same time feeling superior to the benighted souls who haven’t yet admitted their guilt fulsomely enough.

Today, ‘we,’ the witting and/or ignorant tolerators of all of Progressivism’s menu of evils are expected to kneel before our liberal betters and abase ourselves and give up whatever unsustainable luxury it is the progs want solely for themselves.   

This attitude has metastasised away from merely hurting our fellow creatures and recently led us into a surreal steam-punk alternative history in which the early Lords of the Air took upon themselves the typical Enlightenment task of promising to ration Progress at the then-height of its achievement; intercontinental aviation.

So you get this Zen-master scatology right out of Jules Verne Goes All Verdigris:

“While rejecting suggestions that flying is wrong and should be stopped, Cameron nevertheless argued that the rapid predicted future growth of aircraft emissions must be cut if Britain and the rest of the world are to meet national and international targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

 He naturally followed this pronouncement by attending all future international jamborees by tea-clipper, horse-and-buggy and a stout pair of brogues. Because collective responsibility is so back in fashion.

It gets better. Not only have we been stiffing our fellow Englishmen for centuries by running the Industrial Revolution scam on them at home via the domestic exploitation of labour and then exporting the whole shell game to the Empire and Colonies (all bow, scrape, rend hair shirts, etc), but right now at this end of the hockey stick we’re sticking it to Mother Nature herself: That’ll be $147,000,000,000 please, dear sir, madam, or civilisation.

Which perhaps explains the cats cradle Gordian Knot of progressive guilt-mongering that blames everyone on Earth who happens to be wearing trousers with a fly for causing Man-made Global Warming, which in turn induced man-made regional flooding, but which for some reason can’t be cured by man-made local dredging.

Thanks for clearing that one up, Dumb Jon.

So, to recap.

Breaking with centuries-old Judeo-Christian (and barbarian Germanic) teachings about personal responsibility, Progress slipped the blame for awfulness onto those who didn’t abolish active human evil quickly enough, and then neatly segued into an ethical world where merely by having nice things (say by possessing any technology more advanced than that used by the Clovis Culture) we jointly and severally become the Destroyer of Worlds. Except if it’s manufactured by Apple, ‘natch, which is so cool and little more unsustainable than the nests constructed by weaver ants. So.

It must be pretty easy again to go right back to blaming someone for actually going out and deliberately hurting someone, right?...

Not so much.

Luke Batty is believed to have been struck across the head before being knifed by his father Greg, who was shot by police after threatening paramedics with a knife.

Now this is clearly one of those random human tragedies that even my ever-more reactionary soul can’t somehow blame on Islam or the Progressive infection. The killer seems to have been insane and inherently irresponsible and so where can we lay the guilt for this awful crime, if not the natural human instinct to blame the perpetrator?

Why, it’s down to impersonal forces that fall on otherwise innocent human beings like rain – and no even man-made rain. At least nobody’s blamed common people enjoying the petrol engine or aviation fuel to date as far as I know.

Luke's mother Rosie Batty, who is originally from England, was at the cricket ground when her son was killed. Note the passive voice. There will be more. She told reporters in Australia that Luke, who was a keen footballer as well as a cricket player, had begged for a few more minutes with his father who he rarely saw at the end of the training session. Well, we already know that the late Greg wasn’t Father of the Year…"What triggered this was a case of his dad having mental health issues," Ms Batty told Channel Nine. "He was in a homelessness situation for many years,…which clearly implies that he did not get kicked out of any and all accommodation made available to him because he behaved irresponsibly, or something. A homelessness situation is just, well, external to our control somehow like gravity or being a Sagittarian or something, yeah?….his life was failing,… so it’s not that he failed to do whatever simple things a responsible person might do to avoid being homeless. Australia’s a socially conservative place in general but I don’t think they actually chuck you out to freeze/swelter/be bitten by spiders without trying to house you… everything was becoming worse in his life,…like snowflakes falling onto his karma and stuff… and Luke was the only bright light in his life.

Which he then snuffed out.

"No one loved Luke more than his father…Which was why he had to die, apparently.  No one loved Luke more than me… so it’s a dead heat at the tape, okay? - we both loved him."… And that’s why they did such a great job? ‘Love’ is passive too – something you feel, but don’t have to act on in any responsible way by, as a randomly chosen example, keeping him away from the deranged homeless Greg.  

Later, in an interview outside her home, she told the Herald Sun she was in "shock, disbelief",.. Whereas she did believe with all her heart, like Tinkerbell, that letting the deranged homeless father meet the ‘bright light in his life’ was a good idea and something that love bids you do… but was being supported by family and friends, and her family were on their way over to Australia from England. Land of personal irresponsibility and people with issues, like measles.

She said: "What I want to share with you is: I'm the victim of family violence,… as yo can tell by remembering my unexpectedly murdered son… and if anything come out of this, I want it to be a lesson to everybody. Goes like: ‘Let’s all keep the deranged homeless guys away from their children, or indeed anyone’s children?

"Luke was at cricket practice and I believed he was safe."

"I don't think anyone really understood or understands what someone is able to do. Nobody ever heard of deranged, homeless people hurting anyone, or nutso parents extinguishing their kids. I mean, it just doesn’t happen. And so, as a sane person, or as a caring parent, you trust the very person who killed him,..Despite his life ‘failing’ and having ‘homeless issues,’ of course… loved him, and they did love him, they loved him more than anyone else." Though this might not be quite what she had in mind.

She told how she had initially believed Luke had been accidentally injured in a "bowling accident" by his father, and it was only later she was told by police and paramedics that he had been deliberately injured.

She went on to say it was a "tragic situation that no one could see was going to happen." It’s a mystery.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen: even infanticide by the insane is an impersonal, unprecedented, unpredictable thing. Though it might come to be public policy here in dear old Blighty if the Progressives have their way. We can only hope.

Indeed, infanticide may not actually be ‘a thing’ as the kids say these days at all. It might just be nothing. Nothing at all: it just happens because of a lawless, totally unpredictable, capricious Universe.

As a footnote I’d like to point out that I for one am glad that I’m not in any kind of authority in Australia.

Picture from here.

Caliban’s Taliban.

O brave new world! That has such people in it!

…

We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

Via House of Dumb.

“Catherine Silverton, for Shahzada Khan, said he was brought up in Afghanistan, Pakistan and then the UK by a couple he thought were his parents but discovered when he was remanded they were his aunt and uncle, his real parents having died in a car crash when he was young. He had expressed remorse.

She added: 'Nothing I say on the defendant’s behalf is intended to suggest that these offences were anything other than the stuff of nightmares.'”

Or what we swivel-eyed hate-crime racist types with parking ticket records as long as your pinky finger prefer to call the reality of liberal England.

The stuff of nightmares or liberal England: which is it; because surely it can’t be both, can it? 

You decide.

Oh, and to continue Dumb Jon’s metaphor about what floats on the top of ponds, the justly punished would-be rapist Caliban has been portrayed as a hero/victim by several impeccably enlightened, one might almost say liberal thinkers, since to understand all is to forgive all, right?

A little laugh for a Monday morning

Via Blognor Regis bless him.

Alas, it's been spiced up a bit (google toys for tots+marines+stab, but it's still funny  to read stories about free men living in free countries unlike ours.

Liberalism ruins lives #2863

Captain’s log, supplemental.

Following yesterday’s half-hopeful post about the apparent redemption of ubermuppet and punishment-intolerant judge, ‘Judge’ Beverley Lunt (yes, James, that is her surname), Julia commented that the prisoner will likely re-offend. True enough. He’s a yo-yo; I should think, and will - like Arnie - be back.

And as for the lovely Bev’s ‘previous,’ which is as long as her arm, and indeed as long as the arm of The Law, we can see how her long record of aiding the criminals at the expense of the victim has probably led to further injustice - condemning the innocent to jail.

Poor Mr Hussain, jailed for 2 ½ years for beating up a burglar who’d tied him and his wife up and threatened her with a knife. As Ranting Stan points out, this judgment is part of our rulers’ collective and ubiquitous insanity. But what might Mr. Hussein have done instead of chasing after the violator (one of a gang of three) of his home and armed aggressor against him and his wife?

The Solomon-like wisdom of Judge John Reddihough puts us straight:

Jailing him, Judge John Reddihough said some members of the public would think that 56-year-old Salem 'deserved what happened to him' and that Mr Hussain 'should not have been prosecuted'.

But had he spared Mr Hussain jail, the judge said, the 'rule of law' would collapse.

He said: 'If persons were permitted to take the law into their own hands and inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting the criminal justice system take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse.'

Man, I swear that Judge Reddihough uses the Internet recreationally. What is there in Britain today that might have indicated to Mr. Hussain and his brother that if letting the criminal justice system take its course would lead to anything like justice for that or any terrorized family? What makes Heady Reddy think that the rule of law exists at all, or that we are still in a civilised society?

Judge Brainy explained:

'The prosecution rightly made it plain that there was no allegation against you, Munir Hussain, in respect of the force you used against Salem in defending your own home and family or of the force used by either of you in apprehending Salem’.

You simply have to follow a few simple guidelines.

You have to know what they are about to do and wait for them to get in, it seems. It’s only sporting.

You can be sure they won’t be back on the streets any time soon; and that they don’t intend to kill you, so why even consider using violence?

Okay, even violent, blood-soaked and drug-crazed strangers who break into your home after assaulting pregnant women deserve fair warning in case you pick up a knife and they die from wounds later after fighting off medical helpers.

That’s our criminal justice system. Keep on paying those taxes, chaps. You know it’s worth it.

A worm turns?

There’s good news. And then there’s bad news.

This from The Lancashire Telegraph.

Judge jails violent Darwen mugger, 19, with 43 convictions

By Wendy Barlow

A VIOLENT teenage mugger from Darwen with 43 previous convictions has been sent to detention for three years for his latest crimes.

Burnley Crown Court heard Paul Smith, 19, had flouted court orders and licence.

He had previously been given a community order for robbery-prompting a judge to say: "Perhaps if he had been detained earlier we wouldn't be here now."

OMG! Wonders never cease! You’ll never guess who the judge is! It’s only Beverley Lunt, that's all; your actual Beverley Lunt.

And if she can do her job, then any of them can do their jobs.

Judge Beverley Lunt also told the defendant the offences were nasty and that he was a bully.

She said a sentence measured in days was never going to happen again.

The judge told Smith: "You are only going to hear the word years.

"You are in a different league now. It's a Crown Court."

The defendant, of Winterton Road, Darwen, admitted attempted robbery, robbery and asked for an offence of robbery to be considered. All took place in the Blackburn area.

Sarah Statham, prosecuting, told the court on May 5, a man with learning difficulties went to his local shop and the defendant asked for a cigarette.

The victim told him the word please wouldn't go amiss. Smith said 'please', the victim gave him a cigarette and the defendant then told him: "If you make me say please again, I will kill you."

The victim went into the store and came out with a carrier bag of lager and wine.

As he got home, he was approached by the defendant, who grabbed his nose and snatched the bag, ripping it and smashing the bottle.

He then repeatedly punched the victim, until his mum intervened and Smith ran off.

Miss Statham said on May 29, a 17-year-old was walking away from an off-licence when he was approached by three men.

The defendant asked the victim for a cigarette, then punched him and his two accomplices joined in.

Smith then stole the victim's phone while he was on the ground.

The prosecutor said on June 17 the next victim, who knew the defendant and had had disagreements with him in the past, was walking away from a shop.

He was approached by Smith who punched him in the face.

The victim's mouth bled and he ended up on the ground.

Smith carried on the assault, took £15 from the victim's pocket and walked away.

He was arrested two days later and questioned.

Miss Statham said the defendant's previous convictions included wounding, robbery, theft and battery.

Peter Warne, defending, said the penny was starting to drop for his client and that Smith's father would say he thought his son was growing up.

Defending lawyers have to say something to help their clients, I’m all for that, but one wonders what victims of crimes 1 to 42 would think if they heard this little swine’s was beginning to ‘get it.’

I also love that conditional ‘Smith’s father would say.’ Where is the dear fellow at his son’s time of need? Working on his allotment, perhaps: judiciously spreading well-rotted compost to condition the soil over winter; or assiduously re-cladding his pigeon loft before the winter’s cold bites too deeply' or some other poor but honest action typical of Northern working-class manliness.

So has Judge Lunt become, after so many years promoting Lancashire’s crime wave, learned her lesson? Been mugged, perhaps?

Or has Laban’s exposure of her anti-punishment, one-liberal crusade against ever inconveniencing criminals finally obliged her to realise that the worm must turn? Anyway, it's a possible sign of hope before Christmas.

Never let a day go by

I’m reading The Divine Comedy at the moment.

Italian poetry was not at the heart my English literature studies, though the Lord only knows that everybody up to the 19^th Century novelists referred to it often enough, the unoriginal swine. How unlike us innocent and constantly innovating 21^st Century bloggers.

Anyway, bit of false advertising on Dante’s part because - aside from a really rather good crack about a bishop and a baboon and the famous running gag about the size of the Pope’s crook - it’s not exactly proving to be a laugh a minute, know what I mean?

The point of it being a comedy is that it’ll get better by the third part (Divine Comedy 3: in Paradise it’s a Scream), but at the first it’s pretty grim as we see the sinners punished in Hell in a variety of imaginative and appropriate-seeming ways for such crimes as incest and adultery and sodomy and greed.

And sometimes all of them in the same act. Kyewl!

Neutrality in the sense of never taking a stand over any moral issue gets you eternity running after a military banner and being stung by wasps and hornets (and anyone who’s ever heard an Italian scooter engine will know how annoying that can be). I can’t wait to see what saying the N word while white will get you.

It’s all very satisfactory so far in a Daily Mail Readers’ Comment Section sort of way.

One frequent feature of the sinners when Dante and his guide Virgil (not Virgil as in W-w-w-well, Mi-Mister T-Tracy, but the other one) interview them along the lines of what have they got you in here for?, is their dishonesty in their attempts to delude both themselves and their visitors about the nature of the sins and their own culpability for them.

The sinners will do anything; say anything, to deny the rightness of their torments and the wickedness of their damning sins.

It’s all very modern-seeming…

Good news from the doughty Guardian newspaper.

The murder rate in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level in 20 years, with 648 homicides recorded in 2008/09 – 136 fewer than the year before. Home Office statisticians said the drop was "not a blip".

Annual crime figures published yesterday show the number of murders and manslaughters and infanticides fell to a level not seen since 1989.

Let’s come back to that good news later, shall we?

A detailed breakdown follows:

The crime figures also show that the recession has so far had a less than expected impact on the underlying crime rate, although domestic burglary has risen by 1% in the past year, fraud – including credit card and online fraud – has risen by 5% and shoplifting has increased by 10%.

But the overall crime rate in England and Wales in the 12 months to March 2009 is officially declared to have remained stable with an estimated 10.7m offences as measured by the British Crime Survey (BCS).

That’s only about one ‘offence’ per six people resident in the UK. Knock off ‘offences’ like the illegal use of dustbins to dispose of rubbish and reporting school bullying, and it’s Earthly paradise, here we come.

Crime in England and Wales actually fell by 5% according to the less reliable police-recorded crime figures.

Now if anyone; anyone at all, wants to explain why police recorded crime figures are held to be less reliable than those produced by the noble Home Office statisticians, then feel free to use this blog’s comments facility.

Home Office statisticians asked yesterday about the impact of the recession on the crime figures said: "There may be pressures coming through. This recession is quite different from the last, which happened at a time of increases in crime. This is one where crime is falling."

Now this is really rather good news for someone, ideologically, and well worth remembering. The previous recession - and I suppose it must mean the one under the Tories as I don’t recall any part of the last 12 years being described as a ‘recession’ until a footnote in a BBC article about the ‘recovery’ on the BBC last week – made crime rates rise. Do you remember it back in the early/mid 1990s and even before that in the manufacturing jobs holocaust of the 1980s – all those poor, underfunded single mums and former lathe operators and Yorkshire pit pony replacements breaking into the homes of the rich to steal fresh fruit and vegetables and proper text-books for their malnourished and non-grammar schooled children?

It had been expected that domestic burglary, which rose by 4% during the calender year 2008, would continue to rise but the 1% increase recorded in this set of figures implies that the economic slowdown is not having the expected effect on the underlying crime rate.

New Labour’s recession – so prudent and prosperous that even the poor feel less need to housebreak.

Some individual categories of crime, such as credit card and online fraud are showing increases. But an apparent 25% surge in personal thefts, including pickpocketing and "stealth" theft, which show up on the BCS, is recorded as a 12% fall in the police-recorded crime figures, suggesting that the picture is unclear.

No – not unclear. It suggests in fact that A) bureaucracies tend to become politicised and therefore they do what politicised bureaucracies do, and that B) both Home Office and the police ‘service’ are politicised bureaucracies, and that C) personal theft is possibly up, possibly down, but definitely moving in one particular direction, but we’re not sure which direction, just like global temperatures appear to be changing, but generally in a downward direction, which is why we call it global warming and not global cooling. Remember, we’re both using the Al Gore-invented Internet here, dear Reader - bear with me.

The figures also show a 313% increase to 818 cases in frauds by company directors.

A development so sinister; so obviously and unequivocally hazardous to our way of life and indeed to the continued existence of multicellular life on Earth itself, that the Guardian needs to offer no more details.

(Author’s note – evading legitimate taxes and ordering goods and services that a director has no intention of paying the suppliers for are Bad Things, and I’d like to know more and see such criminals punished severely for it.)

The reduction in the homicide rate, which includes murder, manslaughter and infanticide, means the annual total of 648

That’s fewer than two per day. Rejoice.

… is now close to the 1979 figure of 629. Attempted murders also fell by 7% last year.

Nice choice of date there. After 12 years of murder rates reducing, New Labour have got the number down to the low level it was at the end of the last Labour government to bankrupt the nations’ finances.

Overall violent crime was reported to have remained stable by the BCS and fell by 6% on the police figures. Violence against the person involving injury fell by 7% to 421,000 incidents.

There was a significant further fall in gun crime with the number of incidents involving a firearm down by 17% to 8,184. The number of fatal shootings fell from 53 to 38.

Good on our paramedics – and bad on all those illegal gun owners whose sharpshooting appears to be on the wane. Hmm, law abiding sportsmen and firearms enthusiasts have been disarmed for twelve years now. And yet, somehow, a few dozen people are being shot each year. Could it be that the threat of death by gunshot is coming from some other community than amateur target shooters and huntsmen? I wonder how much of officialdom takes the rap for these encouraging figures?

The Home Office chief statistician, David Blunt,

His name, no doubt, proletarianised from David Blount-Instrument.

… said there was little change, however recorded, in overall levels of knife crime. This is despite recent government claims to have made progress in the most-affected areas. The number of fatal stabbings has fallen in the past from 270 to 252 but attempted murders involving a knife were up from 245 to 271. Robberies involving knives were down 2% from 17,058 to 16,701.

That’s about only one stabbing per 5000 people in Britain. not bad.

It’s reassuring to think that, of the next 5000 people you see on the high street and at the supermarket and at motorway service stations, only one of them will suffer from the serious prospect of having several inches of steel stuck into their body or scored across their face this year.

Credit card fraud, particularly involving online shopping transactions, continues to rise, with 2.8m fraudulent transactions recorded last year. "Card not present" fraud has soared by 243% since 2001 in line with the rapid growth of online shopping. To meet the problem banks are replacing online use of pin numbers and security codes with passwords.

The annual crime figures also show sex offences fell by 4% to 51,000 recorded offences, but within that figure rapes of women increased by 5% to 12,000 cases.

Yey! The porn industry’s either dealing with the soft-core flashers, peeping toms and gropers by taking them out of the picture by putting their dreams into the pictures, or is inspiring more to take it to the next level. Maybe improved and cheaper supplies of dental hygiene items and globalisation cheap clothing and toiletries are getting a few more of the former sort laid once in a while? Good thing we’re not so messed up about sex after decades of liberalism and freedom.

One thought concerning some of these rapes; how many are gang–based, and what, if any, is the demographic breakdown? Or are these highly specialized burglaries from the declining/not declining stealth theft figures? Who can tell?

There was a slight rise in the risk of becoming a crime victim in England and Wales – 22% to 23%. This compares with the 40% risk when crime peaked in 1995.

Despite this sustained fall in crime in England and Wales over the past 14 years the majority of the public – 75% – believe crime is increasing nationally. People tend to have a more positive view of their own neighbourhood.

Like me.

I voted on YouGov recently to say my own neighbourhood was OK – but the one next door isn’t – there was one of that dwindling number of murders in the next street but one earlier this year, which is over the canal. But the poll didn’t ask me about over the canal – just about my neighbourhood and the country as a whole.

Only about half think crime is on the increase in their area.

Public confidence in the police and local councils to tackle antisocial behaviour appears to have increased and is up from 45% to 49% even though the home secretary, Alan Johnson, said recently he believed the government had been "coasting" on the issue.

This is the last annual set of crime figures to be published before the general election. Johnson called them "encouraging" but the Conservatives claimed the government was covering up the scale of the problem of knife crime.

Now, back to that first good news.

The murder rate in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level in 20 years, with 648 homicides recorded in 2008/09 – 136 fewer than the year before. Home Office statisticians said the drop was "not a blip".

Annual crime figures published yesterday show the number of murders and manslaughters and infanticides fell to a level not seen since 1989.

the number of murders and manslaughters and infanticides fell to a level not seen since 1989.

the number of murders and manslaughters and infanticides.

murders and manslaughters and infanticides.

Let’s look at a few weeks’ news from a town that’s been Labour forever, and which should therefore be an earthly paradise and not the sexist, patriarchal, homophobic Christian Paradise of Italian poet Dante.

murders. Only attempted. Phew!

murders. Not so phew.

murders and manslaughters and infanticides. Maybe the full set, but let’s wait and see what the court decides.

Arson (but not against young children this time) seems to make the cut here and here, and the heroic rescue by local MP from would-be self-arson by an immigrant here.

Regarding that last one, I actually like living in a country whose elected representatives value human life so much in person that they risk burns to save their deranged fellow-man. I could and do join one of the commentators in wondering why this worthy and not very expensive UK MP is spending our valuable time looking after an illegal immigrant rather than her actual constituents and countrymen, but still and all her motives were of the finest.

And that’s why we ought to save Western civilisation (formerly known as ‘Christendom’), and not try to delete it.

Despite this sustained fall in crime in England and Wales over the past 14 years the majority of the public – 75% – believe crime is increasing nationally. People tend to have a more positive view of their own neighbourhood.

Compared to the neighbourhood next door, mine is Paradise of Earth. But only compared to them.

And so, dear Guardian writer, would you care to speculate why the majority of unenlightened and honest (because anonymous) layman polled members of You Gov and crime surveys don’t believe or trust mutually contradictory official crime statistics?

Do you know what your sin might be?

We know what the punishment is, and who’s on the receiving end.

Mind how you go, sinners

Outrageous plagiarism, Part Three.

More lazy holiday-time linking today to other people's hard-researched and original posts from Wikio's most linked-to political blog bar 133.
Today's the day once more for the lovely Julia.

Hmm.

South Yorkshire must be a haven of peace, tranquillity and order for their police to be able to take this kind of intimate step and thus provide ever more intimate personal services to its no doubt expanding pedestrian population.

Once the populace is fully pedestrianised and using exclusively approved green public transport and for essential journeys only - such as to the graveside or to attend peaceful anti-racist demonstrations - I expect the SYPD (motto: "To overprotect and dictate") to start educating its newly fitter, slimmer and all-schlepping footsoldiers of the tax stream about and sanctioning them for other crime-inducing antisocial behaviours of which they have, until this enlightened age, been guilty.

Such social crimes might include displaying valuable consumer goods in uncurtained rooms during the working day and thus bringing temptation to South Yorkshire's no-doubt justly aggrieved youth. Also the unpardonable sin of walking unaccompanied at night whilst attractive and female will probably be punished fairly soon and very often while meantime the Pennine Stasi check any remaining private sector glove compartments for tell-tale signs of possessions and other suspect stuff.

The koala tea of mercy

Is this a kangaroo court case, my possums?

Top judge facing probe over comments about immigrants abusing benefits system

A judge who described Britain's immigration system as 'completely lax' is to face an official investigation, it was revealed today.
Judge Ian Trigger complained that 'hundreds and hundreds of thousands' of illegal immigrants were abusing the benefits system.

It is possible that it is somehow wrong for judges to pass comment during trials on larger political issues. Does anyone out there know of a convention or law against such outbursts?

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, has referred the outburst to the Office of Judicial Complaints, to rule on whether it was too political.

Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice has referred Lord Trigger to the Office for Judicial Complaints for saying drugs defendant Lucien McClearley, from Jamaican, had abused the welfare state like 'hundreds of thousands of others'

Well, I’m sure if this was the case, our elected leaders in Parliament would have answered the issue thoroughly, right?

A spokesman for the Office for Judicial Complaints said: 'The Lord Chief Justice has decided to refer His Honour Judge Trigger to the Office for Judicial Complaints, following comments the judge made in open court in the sentencing of Lucien McClealey at Liverpool Crown Court on July 28 2009.

'The referral is not related to the judge's comments on the specific case or the sentence passed.

'The OJC has been asked to focus on the propriety of the judge's statements and assertions, and whether they went beyond the facts of the case and extended overtly into the political arena.'

Well that clarifies that, though it is possible to accuse someone of a supposed impropriety when none has occurred. So is it only in trials that judges shouldn’t discuss meta-political issues?

This judge seems to have gotten away with criticizing the health and safety laws and a fair chunk of the Probation service’s practice.

Of course, he seems to be rather keen to keep a sex offender out of jail and put him to work in ‘the community’ instead, so perhaps trial comments about the system are only appropriate if the judge means to keep ‘offenders’ on the streets?

I can see the justice in that. Can’t you?

Judge Trigger made his comments as he sentenced a Jamaican man, Lucien McClearley, for two years for drugs offences at Liverpool Crown Court last week.

The 31-year-old was arrested by police who found bags of cannabis in his car in Liverpool on February 15 and cannabis worth £7,200 at his home.

Judge Trigger said: 'Your case illustrates all too clearly the completely lax immigration policy that exists ... in this country.

One might wonder here whether Judge Trigger’s comments are untrue, or merely improper in the context of a trial. Help out there, please, from our constitutional lawyers?

'People like you, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people like you, come to these shores from foreign countries to avail themselves of the generous welfare benefits that exist here.

'In the past 10 years the national debt of this country has risen to extraordinary heights, largely because central government has wasted billions and billions of pounds. Much of that has been wasted on welfare payments.

'For every £1 that the decent citizen, who is hard-working, pays in taxes in this country, nearly 10% goes on servicing that national debt. That is twice the amount it was in 1997 when this government came to power.'

Now that is overtly political, and indeed appears to be party-political to boot, and may as such be rather dodgy. But still and all, if there’s a problem in a system that bears on the case, should a judge not comment on it?

The final decision on whether the judge stepped out of line will be made jointly by Lord Judge and the Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw.

If the complaint is upheld, sanctions available range from guidance to reprimand or even dismissal.

I mean, it’s not like this man will have the key thrown away on him, or be deposited on a raft with an easterly wind behind him, is it? The law system can show commendable leniency if judges are too harsh, the swine, to some of our country’s most vulnerable sex offenders, and so here we come to see the mercy inherent in the system.

And elsewhere this judge, all un-criticised, has a go at prisons policy for not meeting prisoners’ needs as well as it should; the poor dears.

So perhaps Judge Igor Judge is right to suggest an investigation of Judge Trigger, if only because of the context.

(Say, does anyone else out there want to check that the date isn’t very, very early April?)

And at least ol’ Trigger didn’t say there was just too much criminal law to go around and show how dealing with it could solve the credit crisis, which is an economic issue.

The XX Justice, Lord X, said repeated calls for less legislation, and especially fewer crime laws, had been ignored by ministers.

Lord X complained about "major constitutional changes" being made without senior judges being consulted, and warned plans for cleaning up parliament could lead to conflict between judges and the House of Commons.

"My request is one which has been frequently addressed, but so far without success. Can we possibly have less legislation, particularly in the field of criminal justice?

"My Lord Mayor, in a rough and ready calculation, it seems to me that if every line of recent criminal justice legislation had been guaranteed by a payment to the Bank of England of £10,000 a line, the credit crisis would have been funded."

That would be silly, right?

NNW.

Picture from here.

PS. All things bright and beautiful, for gossake?

Ew!