Merry Winterval!
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Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Shorter David Willetts.
(With apologies to Don Paskini.)
"As only 270,000 people married last year, it's clear that marriage is in danger of becoming the preserve of the middle classes. This obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with the ever increasing cost of getting married, but instead to do with the fact that there is no recognition of marriage in the tax system. By recognising the institution in the tax system (and putting the state to work to help couples stay together, but we'll make sure that we keep this relatively under our hats) we will at a shot vastly increase the number of couples who will tie the knot and live happily ever after. That this will also be a massive tax break for the already married, overwhelmingly middle and upper class that traditionally vote for us is neither here nor there. Nor is it an example of Conservative class war. Only the despicable Labour party does that."
(P.S. My eldest brother was due to get married this year to his long-term fiancée. They called it off, not because they would be penalised for getting married by the tax system, but because they could no longer justify the cost of the ceremony and reception etc, something which Willetts completely dismisses as an issue.)
"As only 270,000 people married last year, it's clear that marriage is in danger of becoming the preserve of the middle classes. This obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with the ever increasing cost of getting married, but instead to do with the fact that there is no recognition of marriage in the tax system. By recognising the institution in the tax system (and putting the state to work to help couples stay together, but we'll make sure that we keep this relatively under our hats) we will at a shot vastly increase the number of couples who will tie the knot and live happily ever after. That this will also be a massive tax break for the already married, overwhelmingly middle and upper class that traditionally vote for us is neither here nor there. Nor is it an example of Conservative class war. Only the despicable Labour party does that."
(P.S. My eldest brother was due to get married this year to his long-term fiancée. They called it off, not because they would be penalised for getting married by the tax system, but because they could no longer justify the cost of the ceremony and reception etc, something which Willetts completely dismisses as an issue.)
Labels: class war, Conservatives, David Willetts, family breakdown, marriage, politics, the new Tories
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Season's greetings from the UK Border Agency redux.
Martin Edge provides his version of the UK Border Agency's highly compassionate Christmas card:
Labels: asylum seekers, child detention, civil liberties, New Labour, UK border agency, Yarl's Wood
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Monday, December 21, 2009
Scum-watch: This man deserved brain damage.
Every single time there's a "controversial" case of someone attacking a burglar or a criminal, almost always when said intruder has been fleeing the scene, as now in the Munir Hussain jailing, or previously and most notoriously when it came to Tony Martin, either the government or the opposition review the law of "reasonable force" or promise they'll change it, only to later quietly drop it or decide not to because the law as it stands is perfectly adequate. Every single time the tabloids and the occasional broadsheet get on their high horses and complain bitterly, often invoking that an "Englishman's home is his castle", and that in said castle said Englishman should be allowed to rip the intruder's head off and spit down the hole and receive a medal for removing from the gene pool such a disgusting piece of human filth. Every single time said tabloid and broadsheet also quietly drop it.
I'm not sure though that any publication has gone so far in the past to say that either the deceased or injured person deserved the treatment they received. The Sun however thinks this is exactly what Walid Salem needed:
The Tories are proposing that only "grossly disproportionate" behaviour towards someone should result in their being prosecuted (as David Cameron suggested as long back as 2005, only for it to be quietly put at least on the back-burner). Isn't chasing a burglar who is fleeing and then adminstering a beating so severe that the person attacked suffers brain damage "grossly disproportionate"? Not according to the Sun. It was however according to a jury, who heard all the mitigating circumstances involving the case and how Salem had threatened to kill Hussain's family, yet still felt that the attack on Salem justified a conviction for grievous bodily harm with intent. This isn't just a case of a liberal namby-pamby politically correct judge deciding that Hussain's crime was serious enough to warrant a relatively light in the circumstances 30 months in prison, of which Hussain will probably only serve a third, but of a jury of members of the public, among them doubtless Sun readers, who felt that it warranted a conviction. True, they didn't decide on the sentence, but 30 months is hardly the harshest sentence which could have been passed. Salem also didn't "walk free" from court, as the Sun has it: he was given a two year suspended sentence for the very reason, as the judge pointed out, that he couldn't adequately plead as a result of his injuries. Otherwise he would received a substantial custodial sentence himself.
As Catherine Bennett asked on Sunday, what sort of society is it that praises vigilantes with cricket bats and iron bars? Ours, of course. The self-same newspaper (and indeed tabloid media as whole) that regards yobs that use violence on the slightest of whims as the scum of the earth turns to the other side when it's a beating that was, in the Sun's terms, deserved. The judge, about the only person who comes out of this with any credit, noted exactly what would happen after his verdict:
And then, in lines which no newspaper or commentator has been able to adequately deflect, he explained exactly why they needed to be punished:
Which is it seems what some would clearly like to happen.
I'm not sure though that any publication has gone so far in the past to say that either the deceased or injured person deserved the treatment they received. The Sun however thinks this is exactly what Walid Salem needed:
How many fathers brave enough, strong enough and angry enough would have held back?
The Tories are proposing that only "grossly disproportionate" behaviour towards someone should result in their being prosecuted (as David Cameron suggested as long back as 2005, only for it to be quietly put at least on the back-burner). Isn't chasing a burglar who is fleeing and then adminstering a beating so severe that the person attacked suffers brain damage "grossly disproportionate"? Not according to the Sun. It was however according to a jury, who heard all the mitigating circumstances involving the case and how Salem had threatened to kill Hussain's family, yet still felt that the attack on Salem justified a conviction for grievous bodily harm with intent. This isn't just a case of a liberal namby-pamby politically correct judge deciding that Hussain's crime was serious enough to warrant a relatively light in the circumstances 30 months in prison, of which Hussain will probably only serve a third, but of a jury of members of the public, among them doubtless Sun readers, who felt that it warranted a conviction. True, they didn't decide on the sentence, but 30 months is hardly the harshest sentence which could have been passed. Salem also didn't "walk free" from court, as the Sun has it: he was given a two year suspended sentence for the very reason, as the judge pointed out, that he couldn't adequately plead as a result of his injuries. Otherwise he would received a substantial custodial sentence himself.
As Catherine Bennett asked on Sunday, what sort of society is it that praises vigilantes with cricket bats and iron bars? Ours, of course. The self-same newspaper (and indeed tabloid media as whole) that regards yobs that use violence on the slightest of whims as the scum of the earth turns to the other side when it's a beating that was, in the Sun's terms, deserved. The judge, about the only person who comes out of this with any credit, noted exactly what would happen after his verdict:
"It may be that some members of the public, or media commentators, will assert that Salem deserved what happened to him at the hands of you and the two others involved, and that you should not have been prosecuted and need not be punished."
And then, in lines which no newspaper or commentator has been able to adequately deflect, he explained exactly why they needed to be punished:
"However, if persons were permitted to … inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting justice take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are the hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse."
Which is it seems what some would clearly like to happen.
Labels: bullshit, crime, Munir Hussain, Scum-watch, self-defence, Sun-watch, Walid Salem
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