Journal of the Plague Years

• Jacqui Smith, Blair Babe Clone and Total Prat. A rant!
• Ex Cabinetta.
• British Empire Building
• Just a Thought.
• Ignorance Is Not Innocence:
• Dianne Abbott.
• The Adversarial Nature of The British System.

Jacqui Smith, Blair Babe Clone and Total Prat. A rant!

09 May 2008 .

I regard ad hominem arguments with suspicion; in fact, I think that any coup to the person, rather than to their argument/politics, is a waste of time. Private Eye, which I read every week almost as my 'journal of record', has a side to it which leaves me cold: it's a pity that it's the satirical side, which many folk most enjoy.

So it really does quite vex me that I'm reduced to huffing and puffing at some of those we elect as our leaders (!) to so little effect that I end up resorting to disparaging epithets which in my heart I feel are beneath me... just like some of the folk I make them about... But, in the face of Jacqui Smith's most recent ill-conceived, cynical, populist, incompetent, illiberal and wholly repellent little gimmick, I suspect that I'm probably not being rude enough with regard to this particular Blair Babe Clone.

She's announced that she's going to form an 'action squad', whose job it will be to identify people who might be guilty of nuisance behaviour and 'harass' them. This won't have anything to do with those boring legal procedures, of course; the purpose is 'to ensure the tables are turned on offenders so that those who harass our communities are themselves harried and harassed.' This will be done by checking if they've paid their TV licence, car tax and insurance, council tax... (So those checks aren't made by the appropriate authorities as a matter of course? Despite the recent and threatening advertising designed to scare the wits out the elderly and vulnerable? Thanks for that tit-bit of information, Ms. Smiff...) Scary stuff, then...

You might ask; since when is it the job of the government to harass people? The manner in which this measure is presented, however, suggests that the government is way past asking that particular question.

You might ask; what respect for civil liberties is being shown by a home secretary who suggests an idea such as this? A government who sees it as part of its job to 'harass' people and to use that word (no matter how feeble the harassing may actually be)? The words 'intellectually bankrupt' spring to mind.

So yes, an epithet, to my shame... but Jacquiieiee is a prat. Unfortunately, due to her position - if not status - as home secretary, combined with her 'cleverness' but quite extraordinary lack of intellect or understanding, combined with our apparent inability to identify and excise dross, she's a dangerous prat.

And no, I'm not chattering class, living in a secure part of town; The 600-policeman invasion of the Blackstock Road the other week was my street; I know exactly what life is like lived with shitty neighbours, along with gangs, working-girls, junkies and their dealers, thugs, bullies... two of my own ex-students killed in the street (in different incidents) within 100 yards of my front door, the girl in the next door flat raped in her own bed last year and prostitutes working downstairs are only a sample of the local criminality of past few years, but the non-stop noise, the regular drunken shouting and fights are the sheer misery of some of the lives around here are every day.

So when I say that Goody Smith doesn't have the tiniest inkling of what's going on, I speak no politics because I know precisely whereof I speak.

'Jacqui Smith' 'Anti-social behaviour action squad' 'offenders' 'harried and harassed'

Ex Cabinetta.

08 March 2008 .

A couple of the more inane things said from the pulpit of ministerial office this week:

The Horrendous Hodge announced that the Proms unfairly exclude too many of our fellow citizens. She spoke, she said, in the name of a 'common collective culture'; now there's a concept to chill the heart.

Jack Straw, speaking on behalf of the common man, is 'worried' that only 9% of solicitors are from what he calls BME backgrounds. It seems that BME stands for Black and Minority Ethnic: never mind that the government's own figures state that only 8% of the population is made up of the those minorities... and less, if you go to the generation which is actually supplying the solicitors... perhaps we must promote BME 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds to that status to assuage Mr. Straw's conscience.

'Margaret Hodge' Proms 'Black and Minority Ethnic' 'Jack Straw' 'common collective culture'

British Empire Building

06 December 2007 .

An academic, from eastern Europe I think, said a few years ago that anyone who thought that the 'end of the British Empire' marked the end of English imperial design was deluding themselves. Imperialism is in our blood, he said; he pointed at not one but four English empires over the past 800 years (1 - in Britain: Wales, Scotland, Ireland; 2 - in Europe: primarily France; 3 - in America; 4 - in Oceania, India and Africa). He pointed out that we're still hanging onto much of the first, and that when each subsequent one collapsed, we simply started over on an even bigger scale than before.

And, of course, before all that, our kings were exactly the same about their possessions in France.

Our academic did not specify where England might look now, but I seem to remember that he was hinting at Europe. Personally I doubt there's either the room, the strength or the competence for another English Empire.

But... I think he's absolutely right when it comes to the pretensions of some of our politicians, and others. Our governments' arrogance and need to control are exercised in their bullying and/or moralising in those small parts of the world where we have any power, in their bullying of their own citizens, in their conviction that they have a role in influencing (militarily, all too often) other parts of the world... There's a phrase which is used regrettably frequently which I think gives the game away and proves my point:

"Britain must punch above its weight."

Why must it?

'punch above its weight' 'English Empire'

Just a Thought.

01 December 2007 .

If the BBC were to forgo paying Jonathan Ross his 18,000,000, Jonathan Ross would still appear on television, somewhere, doing the same things. The same can be said of all those game shows, reality shows and other dross with which the BBC chases ratings.

If the BBC forgoes paying 18,000,000 (along with the other sums implied by reality shows et al.) on its news programmes, those news programmes - and services - will not appear somewhere else: they will disappear.

Must be why the corporation chose to keep Ross. Hmmm.

By the way: Even when, recently, I have found the licence fee quite a burden, it has never occurred to me to vote for its abolition. But I must ask: why am I paying a licence fee for the BBC to do what commercial companies happily do on the back of advertising?

• BBC goes back to its core purposes, I vote licence.

• BBC comes over all commercial, the corporation can pay for it commercially.

'Jonathan Ross' BBC 'Star salaries'

Ignorance Is Not Innocence:

23 November 2007 .

We are legally responsible as citizens to be aware of government laws. Our cherished common law, now reduced because not highly regarded in practice by recent governments, is far more human and realistic.

While many laws will not affect most of us - I am unlikely to be affected by those concerning the keeping of chickens or the manufacture of lightbulbs - many will; in light of this, some crude statistics are scary. Those of you whom I'm teaching to suck eggs, please as always forgive me.

The figures are lifted from http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/notes/snsg-02911.pdf.

Statute laws are those which, in theory at least, were debated in parliament.

• 1960 was a historically high-legislating year: 850 public and general acts were passed; the burden was becoming so great that MPs felt that they were not able properly to scrutinise bills presented.
• by 1997 the figure was 2060 laws passed.
• 2006 saw 4609... most of which had of necessity to pass through almost on the nod.

(From time to time I see said in the media that the level of legislation is not as high as it was - it is irritating that such nonsense is allow to go unchallenged. I notice that nobody seems to have said it in front of Mr. Jeremy Paxman.)

It is a running complaint amongst serious people that, because there are so many bills demanded by initiative-oriented executives who do not frame them carefully and which are then not examined and matured in Parliament because of the rush, that the laws fail to work satisfactorily in practice: so that many laws are being updated or replaced at a rate with which it is impossible to keep up. This seems to be very much in line with the tax system, where so many people feel lost, rules change to close loopholes created by bad framing, rules change because of initiatives etc. etc. The Supreme Leader still
seems to have the reputation of having been a sound Chancellor. He Simply Was Not. The tax system was almost surreal during his watch in so many ways. I am relieved that at last the opinion seems to be forming that he actually doesn't understand how organisations work. Frankly, that has been the expressed opinion of this observer (who you have realised by now is extraordinarily omniscient) for several years.

In practical terms, the question is: How in the Bowels of Cromwell are we meant to keep track of what applies to us - except where we are directly bullied? Even the MPs who pass them can't.

(And look at how often laws are invoked to punish in a way no sane person would imagine had been intended: an old man stopped from a single heckle under The Prevention of Terrorism Act; a Tourrette's (spelling?) child ASBOed, and another child, autistic if I remember, for looking over his neighbour's fence; I suppose ASBOs for commercial fly-posting may make sense, but it's not what we expected. There are lots more examples, dear children: can you find any of them?)

However, it is Statutory Instruments, being issued by ministers under enabling laws that are sometimes unbelievable wide and/or vague, that are truly scary - and, since they do not need to be scrutinised by parliament, truly undemocratic. The most obvious recent example was the sudden expansion of the right of access to our telephone conversations for 800 organisations by ministerial degree... totally undebated. Hitler should have had such power... ah, sorry, he did.

• The numbers of SIs issued is climbing steadily, not just under The Dear and Supreme Leaders - under Wilson, Thatcher and Major too: from 2000 per year a generation ago (and they said there were too many then) to 10 000+ per year now.

(And you are fully informed about exactly how many (of the very many of them) that affect you???)

But...
We know that brown's a democrat (tra-la-la)
Because he always tells us that (tiddle-de-dee).

'Statute law' 'statutory instrument' 'The Prevention of Terrorism Act' 'Common law'

Dianne Abbott.

19 November 2007 .

A personal comment on Dianne Abbott, quondam MP.

This public figure has not been backward in coming forward on the issue of racism. She is black.

I know very little about her, though I have seen her a few times on a late night political chat programme on TV. However, I have seen enough of her to hear her come up with:

1) An objection to "blue-eyed, blonde Finnish nurses" doing work in British hospitals that could perfectly well be done by people of Caribbean origin.

2) A (gratuitous) comment that "Northern Europeans have a particular problem with alcohol". (BBC This Week, latest episode)

I wonder if she ought to be a bit more careful.

'Dianne Abbott' 'blue-eyed Finnish nurses' 'problem with alcohol'

The Adversarial Nature of The British System.

02 November 2007 .

Divorce must inherently be one of the most confrontational issues in public intercourse: until recently, the legal system in England within which divorces were orchestrated seemed to be designed to make the experience as traumatic and damaging as possible. That, at least, seems to have become a little less true.

However, the formal structures of our society do seem incredibly adversarial. Our parliament ought to be a laughing stock - so much of our politicking is party and personality that watching, for example, PMQ reminds one of nothing so much as a dysfunctional public school full of spoilt kids. Menzies Campbell was ousted because he couldn't match the alpha male testosterone; whether or not he was actually quite a mature and balanced man never came into it. Well, perhaps that's the price of going democratic: you get rid of the arrogant and incompetent and end up with the arrogant and post-modern.

Perhaps politics must be confrontational in any democracy; but in so many other ways Britain seems so much more confrontational than other European countries.

In their criminal justice system, the French can manage an Examining Magistrate; in our courts law we simply have rival lawyers slogging it out: which is really the better way to get at the truth?

Our family courts, specifically in our secretive dealings with dysfunctional families and troubled children, where parents are sometimes not only excluded from, but barred from any knowledge of, proceedings, seem to me to be a scandal of Dickensian proportions.

I think we're getting worse: the police were far less aggressive thirty years ago than now; a combination of their increasing politicisation and the developing target culture could have been devised intentionally to make them the enemy of many law-abiding people.

And I think it's become more insidious: too many people have a financial interest, for example, in punishment. Traffic wardens and their organisation will only make a profit by finding more people to fine; local councils make a profit by fining excessive speed rather than, for example, offering radar-based reminders or warnings via those lit-up speed signs. And what seems to me to be barbaric - privatised prisons... punishment for profit; when I was young only a certain type of professional lady did that...

And now, rubbish bins... On the whole, people seem to understand the need for sorting and recycling; delays in implementing these have actually been political - the responsibility, fact, of our central and local governments... but never mind, we are getting there, albeit slowly. But; the whole business has become aggressive, threatening, confrontational, in councils all over the country.

What else? People are smoking? Demonise them! Immigrants? Demonise them! Fat? Okay, in this case the demonising is from our tabloids more than from government, but the tabloids are being set the example. Enough. If I haven't made my point yet, I don't suppose I'm going to.

'adversial politics' confrontation 'Traffic wardens' 'Examining Magistrate' immigrants smoking 'family court' PMQ

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