A comment and several emails ask if I am in favour of anonymity for rape defendants. No, I am not.
Like convictions on anonymous evidence alone, like both pre-trial convictions and pre-trial acquittals by the Crown Prosecution Service, like the secrecy of the family courts (although that is improving), and like the anonymity of adult accusers in rape cases, anonymity for defendants would violate the absolute principle that ours is an open system of justice. The vindication of a public acquittal is as important as the vilification of a public conviction.
The call for defendant anonymity is one of several examples of currently popular missing of the point.
The calls for a referendum on this or that piece of further European integration miss the point that Parliament should do its job properly by just saying no, and at the same time by restoring the supremacy of British over EU law while requiring that the latter pass through both Houses exactly as if it were the former before it enjoyed even that limited application in this Kingdom.
The calls for an English Parliament miss the point that the Parliament of the United Kingdom retains the right (which it need not necessarily ever use for the point to stand) to legislate supremely in any policy area for any part of the United Kingdom, as the devolution legislation assumes that it will do routinely, and as everyone who voted yes in either devolution referendum voted for.
And the banging on about "sleaze" misses the point, as surely as it did in the run-up to the 1997 Election, so spectacularly that one hardly knows where to begin.
Friday, 17 April 2009
Torture To Come?
"I was only following the legal advice at the time" sounds suspiciously like "I was only obeying orders".
Over Iraq and who knows what else, the Americans are busily granting themselves an amnesty, just as the Germans did in 1969, when (indeed, because) numerous leading and middle-ranking Nazis were still alive and at liberty.
The Demjanjuk whom they eventually persecute instead in order to assuage their own guilt may very well turn out to have been, and to be at the moment, some British squaddie.
Over Iraq and who knows what else, the Americans are busily granting themselves an amnesty, just as the Germans did in 1969, when (indeed, because) numerous leading and middle-ranking Nazis were still alive and at liberty.
The Demjanjuk whom they eventually persecute instead in order to assuage their own guilt may very well turn out to have been, and to be at the moment, some British squaddie.
Fishy
The French fishermen have briefly put the Common Fisheries Policy back in the news.
No amendment at Second Reading of any European Communities (Amendment) Bill ever rejects that Bill because of its failure to restore the United Kingdom's historic fishing rights (two hundred miles or to the median line) in accordance with international law, nor, for that matter, because it transfers yet further legislative power to a body which meets in secret and publishes no Official Report.
In the course of any such Bill's passage, no amendment would ever either prevent that Bill from coming into effect prior to that restoration, or prevent such effect prior to that opening up, or require British Ministers to absent themselves from the Council (and thus bring it to a standstill) while that secrecy is maintained.
Why not?
How could anyone in any of the Conservative, Liberal and Labour traditions be seen to vote against the opening up of the Council of Ministers? The Tories now at least affect to be concerned about the CFP, as some of them genuinely are and long have been. Year on year between 1979 and 1997, every Labour MP voted against it.
The Lib Dems would have to explain why every seat in Cornwall, most seats in the far North of Scotland, and others in between from North Norfolk via Berwick-upon-Tweed and North-East Fife, should continue to return them if they had failed to vote to save Britain's fishing industry. The SNP would have to explain why the voters of North-East Fife and the far North of Scotland should in that case vote for it instead.
You have to pick your fights. These ones are winnable. Indeed, properly organised in both the House and the media, they are practically unloseable.
Yet the amendments never appear.
And until there are MPs independent of the current machines, who can shame those who are not yet on these and so many other issues, they never will.
No amendment at Second Reading of any European Communities (Amendment) Bill ever rejects that Bill because of its failure to restore the United Kingdom's historic fishing rights (two hundred miles or to the median line) in accordance with international law, nor, for that matter, because it transfers yet further legislative power to a body which meets in secret and publishes no Official Report.
In the course of any such Bill's passage, no amendment would ever either prevent that Bill from coming into effect prior to that restoration, or prevent such effect prior to that opening up, or require British Ministers to absent themselves from the Council (and thus bring it to a standstill) while that secrecy is maintained.
Why not?
How could anyone in any of the Conservative, Liberal and Labour traditions be seen to vote against the opening up of the Council of Ministers? The Tories now at least affect to be concerned about the CFP, as some of them genuinely are and long have been. Year on year between 1979 and 1997, every Labour MP voted against it.
The Lib Dems would have to explain why every seat in Cornwall, most seats in the far North of Scotland, and others in between from North Norfolk via Berwick-upon-Tweed and North-East Fife, should continue to return them if they had failed to vote to save Britain's fishing industry. The SNP would have to explain why the voters of North-East Fife and the far North of Scotland should in that case vote for it instead.
You have to pick your fights. These ones are winnable. Indeed, properly organised in both the House and the media, they are practically unloseable.
Yet the amendments never appear.
And until there are MPs independent of the current machines, who can shame those who are not yet on these and so many other issues, they never will.
Delivery Service Notification
Is Paul Staines reading Gordon Brown's emails?
Gordon Brown is reading all of our emails, so why the hell not?
Gordon Brown is reading all of our emails, so why the hell not?
Loyalty
Yes, the SNP's saltire-based loyalty scheme is just a gimmick. How is independence coming along, Alex? After all, that is what your party is for. Isn't it?
But politicians of whom such a thing was not the sole point (or, if not, then they don't have one) could and should pursue, both on a national basis and at local level, both national and local produce. In food production as in everything else, those are the levels that really exist. There is no Scottish, or English, food production or distribution system as such, although food production does seem to matter more to the Scots than to the English, and good for the Scots.
Insisting on locally sourced food if possible, then British-sourced food, and only then anything else, in schools, or hospitals, or whatever? Isn't that against EU law? Well, no one on the Continent has noticed if it is. They would never dream of not doing this sort of thing, nor should they.
And anyway, all that died last month, when the French Government rightly insisted that a company which it owns relocate production from another EU member-state back to France, and rightly told the European Commission to stick it.
But politicians of whom such a thing was not the sole point (or, if not, then they don't have one) could and should pursue, both on a national basis and at local level, both national and local produce. In food production as in everything else, those are the levels that really exist. There is no Scottish, or English, food production or distribution system as such, although food production does seem to matter more to the Scots than to the English, and good for the Scots.
Insisting on locally sourced food if possible, then British-sourced food, and only then anything else, in schools, or hospitals, or whatever? Isn't that against EU law? Well, no one on the Continent has noticed if it is. They would never dream of not doing this sort of thing, nor should they.
And anyway, all that died last month, when the French Government rightly insisted that a company which it owns relocate production from another EU member-state back to France, and rightly told the European Commission to stick it.
Unite, Indeed
Fraser Nelson is annoyed that Unite officials are on course for safe seats as part of that union's bailout of the organisation still purporting to be the Labour Party.
Well, not least is this age when little things like opinions are not deemed to matter for such purposes, to have been a senior official of a major trade union is as good a qualification as any to become an MP, and a lot better than merely having been a girl who slept with David Cameron at Oxford or a boy who slept with David Cameron at Eton.
The real scandal is that, safe seats or no safe seats, the unions are still funding the organisation purporting to be the Labour Party. Why?
Well, not least is this age when little things like opinions are not deemed to matter for such purposes, to have been a senior official of a major trade union is as good a qualification as any to become an MP, and a lot better than merely having been a girl who slept with David Cameron at Oxford or a boy who slept with David Cameron at Eton.
The real scandal is that, safe seats or no safe seats, the unions are still funding the organisation purporting to be the Labour Party. Why?
One Law For All
James Delingpole thinks that no elected sheriff would so "waste" public money as to stage a drugs bust against Kate Moss and her kind.
Oh, yes, he would. And that is a very good case for having him.
Unlike the American prohibition laws, which attacked an integral part of Western culture and even then criminalised only its sale or purchase, our drugs laws attack wholly alien phenomena and rightly criminalise possession.
If the law against possession were properly enforced, then the war against drugs could certainly be won, and might already have been so.
Whereas without that enforcement, that war is not even being fought.
Oh, yes, he would. And that is a very good case for having him.
Unlike the American prohibition laws, which attacked an integral part of Western culture and even then criminalised only its sale or purchase, our drugs laws attack wholly alien phenomena and rightly criminalise possession.
If the law against possession were properly enforced, then the war against drugs could certainly be won, and might already have been so.
Whereas without that enforcement, that war is not even being fought.
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