We need a return to preventative policing based on foot patrols, with budgetary sanctions against recalcitrant Chief Constables, and with Police Forces at least no larger than at present.
Those Forces must be subject to local democratic accountability. And that accountability must be though Police Authorities composed predominantly of councillors, not by means of elected sheriffs, which, like directly elected mayors, have no place in a parliamentary rather than a presidential res publica, and are wholly incompatible with the defence, restoration and extension of the powers of jurors, magistrates and parliamentarians.
As surely as elected sheriffs are incompatible with fiscal responsibility. On what sort of platform do you think that anyone would ever win any such election? On only one sort of platform, ever.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
When Docklands Had Shore
Huffing and puffing that, if this is what he is and and if such a figure can exist, Britain's most senior Sharia judge has denied that rape within marriage was a crime under Sharia law.
Well, perhaps it isn't, as it wasn't under English law, which is an awful lot easier to change, until really very recently. He would certainly know better than I, and better than his noisiest detractors today. And it is academic anyway, since the matter is for the same Police and the same Courts regardless of whether or not either or both parties is Muslim.
However, 15 years ago, it seems that this cove, who was at the time a co-opted member of the Tower Hamlets Education Committee, was named as having been involved in war crimes during the Bangladeshi War of Independence. That elicited this response from the then MP for Bethnal Green & Stepney, Peter Shore:
"It is not for me to make judgements about particular cases. The law officers of the Crown ought to investigate, and having done so, should refer any prima facie cases to the prosecuting authorities."
Where is the party to which Peter Shore would now belong? Where is now the party to which he did belong? What are you doing to restore it as a force in British politics?
In Shore's old neck of the woods, Labour has become the branch office of the Awami League, which may not be Islamist, but which is more Bengali-communalist than Islamists are in principle supposed to be (Bengalis are in fact the Awami in question), and which is still, when all is said and done, a foreign party, indeed the governing party of a foreign country.
At a meeting last night, improperly held in the Palace of Westminster, it voted to "isolate" Lutfur Rahman, apparently oblivious to the fact of its own having lost the election, and of Rahman's having won it. "Isolate" him from what, exactly?
Well, perhaps it isn't, as it wasn't under English law, which is an awful lot easier to change, until really very recently. He would certainly know better than I, and better than his noisiest detractors today. And it is academic anyway, since the matter is for the same Police and the same Courts regardless of whether or not either or both parties is Muslim.
However, 15 years ago, it seems that this cove, who was at the time a co-opted member of the Tower Hamlets Education Committee, was named as having been involved in war crimes during the Bangladeshi War of Independence. That elicited this response from the then MP for Bethnal Green & Stepney, Peter Shore:
"It is not for me to make judgements about particular cases. The law officers of the Crown ought to investigate, and having done so, should refer any prima facie cases to the prosecuting authorities."
Where is the party to which Peter Shore would now belong? Where is now the party to which he did belong? What are you doing to restore it as a force in British politics?
In Shore's old neck of the woods, Labour has become the branch office of the Awami League, which may not be Islamist, but which is more Bengali-communalist than Islamists are in principle supposed to be (Bengalis are in fact the Awami in question), and which is still, when all is said and done, a foreign party, indeed the governing party of a foreign country.
At a meeting last night, improperly held in the Palace of Westminster, it voted to "isolate" Lutfur Rahman, apparently oblivious to the fact of its own having lost the election, and of Rahman's having won it. "Isolate" him from what, exactly?
The Tea Party Tory?
Pat Buchanan is not a Tea Party person: they are not really or primarily "culture war" people, whereas Buchanan is; and that is before we even start about foreign policy. So his comparison of Cameron to the Tea Party is by no means necessarily complimentary.
The Friends They Deserve
Dennis Dale writes:
Some supporters of Israel see in the latest Wiki-leak the opportunity to bury the Goldstone Report and attendant international criticism of Israel’s war in Lebanon. Israeli MK Michael Ben Ari, of the Kahane strain, would bury along with it those former (and no longer useful) American high officials whose expenditure in American blood–largely to rid Israel of a hostile neighbor–continues:
On Monday, Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben Ari said he filed a formal complaint with the UN, calling for war crimes investigations of senior American politicians and “international arrest warrants for US government leaders.”
The neocons have the friends they deserve.
Pryor adds:
The Israelis are world renowned experts in torture and “security” matters generally. They’re so much better than Americans at this that the governors of New Jersey and Pennsylvania hired them to run their respective states’ Homeland Security departments.
Israel trained a large percentage of the torture crews of Latin and South America from the 70s on. Many of the trainers had learned their craft in one or another of the totalitarian Communist bloc states prior to migrating to Israel. Later, thanks to neocon patronage and the post-9/11 fashion of excusing and even glorifying the most thuggish aspects of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians (never forget John Podhoretz crowing “We’re all Israelis now!”), Americans were eased into emulating this aspect of the Jewish state.
Now that we’re deep into the torturing, murdering and collateral-damaging game that they taught us, they call for war crimes investigations of the poor dupes who thought their teachers would be pleased with them. Not because they have any objection to war crimes, but because calling Americans into the dock will cloud the issue of their own crimes. With friends like this indeed.
Some supporters of Israel see in the latest Wiki-leak the opportunity to bury the Goldstone Report and attendant international criticism of Israel’s war in Lebanon. Israeli MK Michael Ben Ari, of the Kahane strain, would bury along with it those former (and no longer useful) American high officials whose expenditure in American blood–largely to rid Israel of a hostile neighbor–continues:
On Monday, Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben Ari said he filed a formal complaint with the UN, calling for war crimes investigations of senior American politicians and “international arrest warrants for US government leaders.”
The neocons have the friends they deserve.
Pryor adds:
The Israelis are world renowned experts in torture and “security” matters generally. They’re so much better than Americans at this that the governors of New Jersey and Pennsylvania hired them to run their respective states’ Homeland Security departments.
Israel trained a large percentage of the torture crews of Latin and South America from the 70s on. Many of the trainers had learned their craft in one or another of the totalitarian Communist bloc states prior to migrating to Israel. Later, thanks to neocon patronage and the post-9/11 fashion of excusing and even glorifying the most thuggish aspects of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians (never forget John Podhoretz crowing “We’re all Israelis now!”), Americans were eased into emulating this aspect of the Jewish state.
Now that we’re deep into the torturing, murdering and collateral-damaging game that they taught us, they call for war crimes investigations of the poor dupes who thought their teachers would be pleased with them. Not because they have any objection to war crimes, but because calling Americans into the dock will cloud the issue of their own crimes. With friends like this indeed.
One Is The Government, The Other Is The Opposition
The old joke does rather spring to mind here:
A Fianna Fáil back-bench TD has come up with an unusual way of effectively guaranteeing the party’s continued success at elections, in spite of its consistently dire opinion poll performances – he has suggested a merger with Fine Gael. Chris Andrews, a TD for Dublin South East, made the suggestion on Saturday evening on his Twitter page in the wake of the latest Red C opinion p0ll, published in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post, which gave his party just 18% of public support, down 6% in just four weeks.
Responding to a tweet from a user (presumably) criticising the inner workings of the party, Andrews said: "FG are not getting the traction in the polls because people see little difference between FF and FG. A merger makes sense to me." Asked when he thought such a merger could take place, he then added: "If people were serious it shouldn’t take long. I believe there is as much difference within FF as there is between FF and FG." He yesterday added: "Civil war alignment is no longer relevant. Times have changed and body politic needs to change. My opinion – take it or leave it."
Speaking on this morning’s Morning Ireland, Andrews explained that his argument for a ‘merger’ would perhaps have been better described as a “realignment of the political groups within the body politic”. “Most people would say there’s little difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – and even within Labour as well – and I’m just reflecting this view,” he said. He admitted that the coming general election would be undoubtedly the toughest he would ever have faced, and that his intention would be that political parties would realign to a left-of-centre and right-of-centre model, as is observed by most European countries.
Though Andrews’ comments could be construed as a panic tactic as Fianna Fáil seeks to avoid an electoral slaughter, the fact that he comes from a party dynasty – his brother Barry is a ‘super-junior’ minister, while his father Niall, uncle David and grandfather Todd were all also senior members of the party – may add more weight to his suggestion.
A Fianna Fáil back-bench TD has come up with an unusual way of effectively guaranteeing the party’s continued success at elections, in spite of its consistently dire opinion poll performances – he has suggested a merger with Fine Gael. Chris Andrews, a TD for Dublin South East, made the suggestion on Saturday evening on his Twitter page in the wake of the latest Red C opinion p0ll, published in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post, which gave his party just 18% of public support, down 6% in just four weeks.
Responding to a tweet from a user (presumably) criticising the inner workings of the party, Andrews said: "FG are not getting the traction in the polls because people see little difference between FF and FG. A merger makes sense to me." Asked when he thought such a merger could take place, he then added: "If people were serious it shouldn’t take long. I believe there is as much difference within FF as there is between FF and FG." He yesterday added: "Civil war alignment is no longer relevant. Times have changed and body politic needs to change. My opinion – take it or leave it."
Speaking on this morning’s Morning Ireland, Andrews explained that his argument for a ‘merger’ would perhaps have been better described as a “realignment of the political groups within the body politic”. “Most people would say there’s little difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – and even within Labour as well – and I’m just reflecting this view,” he said. He admitted that the coming general election would be undoubtedly the toughest he would ever have faced, and that his intention would be that political parties would realign to a left-of-centre and right-of-centre model, as is observed by most European countries.
Though Andrews’ comments could be construed as a panic tactic as Fianna Fáil seeks to avoid an electoral slaughter, the fact that he comes from a party dynasty – his brother Barry is a ‘super-junior’ minister, while his father Niall, uncle David and grandfather Todd were all also senior members of the party – may add more weight to his suggestion.
Providence
There are many bad things about Lincoln Chafee. But Obama's effective endorsement of him by declining to endorse Frank Caprio is yet another giving of the lie to the notion that Obama is some sort of sectarian Leftist; he is clearly not even too partisan a Democrat. That lie was, of course, also given by the initial good turn that deserved this other.
Hard Cheese
We took a significant step towards this sort of thing when we banned hunting, or at least pretended to. The guilt also rests with farmers who have voted for "free" market politicians and parties, and with other politicians and parties for their failure to mobilise what is necessarily the most socialised sector. Roll on electoral reform.
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