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June 20, 2006

An avalanche of broken intentions ....

Funny how, once one bit of a politician's Utopian vision starts to unravel, how it all seems to gather momentum - a bit like an Alpine avalanche, once started it stops when it hits the bottom. Our Illustrious Leader must be feeling as if he is caught in one at the moment, with revelation after revelation about the mess his party and their meddling have created in the justice system. It defeats the most inventive imagination to even begin to fabricate disasters for this lot and their Civil Service incompetents. Who in their right minds would allow jail birds out on parole - which implies they are under the close supervision of a Parole Officer - to take vacations abroad? Yet that is precisely what the arrogant little twit Blair shoved into the House of Lords as Baroness Scotland (did anybody ask whether the Scots thought it a good idea for her to assume what is effectively a 'Royal' title?) has approved and signed into law without even informing, never mind consulting, parliament.

OK, so we all know Blair regards Parliament as an irrelevance - but then so do most of the English population as far as I can tell - but it would be nice if just occassionally he and his cronies at least made the pretense of consulting the Chamber of Hot Air. But then, that would actually dignify it with a purpose and Blair could not stand for that.

The admission that Labour might lose the next election from one of Gordon Brown's hangers on, must be causing sleepless nights in Number 11, not least because by the time Blair does resign and hand over to dear "old Socialist" Gordon, it will probably be pushing close to the next election - and Gordo could just get kicked straight out of Number 10 having barely had a chance to settle in. It's almost like watching an alternative version of Macbeth - except Gordo is no Duncan! As I said - you can't make this up, no one would believe it in a work of fiction! Even the great Terry Pratchett would find it hard to make this any funnier tragedy - and this is the party that claimed to be sleeze free. Oh dear, oh dear. Politicians by their very nature are sleezy, ergo, they can never be completely free of the stain of their own machinations. Maciavelli; eat your heart out, by comparison to this lot your 'Prince' was a saint!

So now we have sex offenders in Bail Hostels next to schools, we have murderers released early to live next to their victims famillies and we have a reoffending rate to be ashamed of. And what does our Home Secretary do? Climbs on a soap box and starts to proclaim he's "moving them out". To where? All the experts give the view that they rarely if ever have the opportunity or stupidity to 'groom' a child that close to home or without the acceptance or access granted by befriending a family. Next he proclaims that he is "redressing the balance in justice" and supposedly swinging it back to favour the victim. Well blow me down - but I think we've heard that before somewhere! On top of this we have the Prison Governors telling us that the prisons are overflowing and close to bursting point - and would in fact be bursting of it weren't for the fact that our wonderful Home Office (remember the Secretary of State says it's not fit for purpose?) has implemented a revolving door policy - as someone comes in one side, someone is released early to make room on the other!

And in the middle of all this are groups like the Howard League who would have us believe that punishment should not be a part of justice, that justice is about rehabilitation - when the evidence is that most criminals re-offend within days of leaving a soft jail sentence.

The problem that the politicians refuse to face is that they have criminalised far to many things which should not be punished with custodial sentences. Let's face it, some acts of criminal activity - particularly in the White Collar sector - could be addressed more productively than by locking someone up. Similarly some of the things which are treated under "community service orders" should be custodial.

No one in his or her right mind should expect or even think that this government will sort this out. Forget it, this has taken them almost ten years to compound on top of their earlier meddling through the sixties and seventies - it will not be solved by this administration - and quite probably not by the next either! But chiefly it will not be solved by this government because they are yet again mistaking 'spin' for action and they have a coterie of placemen - their placemen - in positions from which they can and will frustrate every effort to sort out the mess.

The sooner we can kick Blair and his chums out of office - and preferably out of the country for good - the better. We may then be able to rebuild Britain into a decent society in which we can all live in decency, respect for each others rights and privacy. Blair has encouraged the rise of snoopers, thought police and a peculiarly British puritanism - none of which is good for democracy, justice or our nation.

As his hero Cromwell once proclaimed to an enemy; "For too long you have disgraced this house; in the Name of God - go!"

Posted by The Gray Monk at June 20, 2006 10:24 PM

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