Nadine Dorries... Again

If ever there were a missed opportunity for abortion, Nadine Dorris MP must be a front runner for said prize.

Here she is again. Wonderfully ripped to shreds apart by Unity.... again. Oh, and Il Diablo. And Bookdrunk. Solid work from three of the blogosphere's best and brightest.

One must give this horrific cunt a round of applause for her unbelievable audacity:

When on TV, It’s ok to argue your point as hard as you wish, and to use evidence and statistics to back that point up.

It’s not ok to lie.

So why do you tell lies then you useless harridan? I see that she puts in a useful caveat ''When on TV...'. So presumably it is ok to lie on her blog, in newspapers, on radio shows, in daily conversation, in Parliament...

RS

A useful resource

This may be interesting for those of you interest in the law. As reported in the Observer, the proceeddings of the Old Bailey between 1674 and 1913 are now available online here.

Go and have a look, all rather interesting.

RS

Apologies

Sorry - apologies for lack of blogging. Back at full steam on Monday - with an analysis of speed cameras and so forth and, maybe, something about prisons.

RS

Veggies

Paul McArtney has come out and said the solution to the crisis of global warming is to go veggie. Myself and the wife do our bit for the environment - we try not to use plastic bags, drink mineral water or use the two-seater too often, we use trains over planes where possible, we use long-lasting lightbulbs, we have compost heap in the garden (I think this is generally considered good) and we recycle - indeed, we have an argument every week as to which bin needs to be put out.

That isn't to say I believe the climate change gospel. I think that it is almost certainly overstated. If Paul McArtney thinks I would even consider giving up meat to combat climate change he is as deranged as his ex-wife (that is hop-a-long).

There is an eternal debate to be had about quality of life and quantity of life. Would life be worth living if we could not cut open a rare steak, tuck into a Witchery steak tartare, enjoy bone marrow and parsley salad or have pork chops and mash potato? What would Sunday be like without a gleaming roasted beef on the table or a beautiful bit of roasted lamb or fall-apart garlicky lemon chicken? How would we look forward to breakfast if we knew we would never again have the combination of bacon, sausages and black pudding ever again? How would South Africans drink their beer without biltong? What would Christmas dinner be like without Turkey or, better still goose?

We would never taste Highland Venison, rabbit, smoked salmon or enjoy rose veal. We would never be able to catch and eat a Rainbow Trout. Mutton and Haggis would be a thing of the past. Barbecues would be but fond memories. No more brisket. No more cheek. No more liver and onions. No more crispy duck. No more Scotch Pies at the football. No more Lamb saag.

What would be the point of being alive? So, in short, McArtney get fucked.

RS

The Pope

A new take on an old story.

The Pope last night criticised American church leaders for their handling of sex abuse scandals but said that an increasingly secular society needed to shoulder some of the blame.

Pardon me? Why should secular society take any blame for a Catholic priest raping a child? Surely the only people who can be blamed are a) the Priests in question b) those within the organisation that protected and promoted those who were committing sexual offences against children.

RS

Policing in Scotland

As you may have seen earlier in the week, Reform Scotland has announced that Glasgow is now more violent than New York*.

I'm not a statistician but is the difference between 631.30 incidents per 100,000 people hugely better than 731.39 per 100,000. I mean obviously there are 100 more incidents per 100,000 people but on the scale of things that doesn't suggest that the good folk of Glasgow are just meandering about and battering the hell out of each other? What do they count as Glasgow - Glasgow city (which has around 580,000) or the Greater Glasgow conurbation (which will take into account the housing estates on the outskirts) which has 1.75m? What Reform Scotland considers as Glasgow may have a huge influence on this.

Furthermore, we don't know what sort of violent incidents these mean. I would imagine, and perhaps I am being naive, that you are more likely to be shot in New York than you are in Glasgow.

Finally, in both cities, I would imagine that many of the violent incidents take place in fairly specific areas - for example, you are more likely to be beaten up/shot/mugged in Possilpark or Easterhouse than you are, say, in the West End of Glasgow.

So, I have some issues about the methodology. However, even if we accept that Glasgow is a place where life is nasty, brutish and short (as opposed to the majority of the population being nasty, brutish and short), is Reform Scotland's solution viable or sensible?

The report told how New York had introduced a more accountable and transparent police service, combined with a zero tolerance approach to policing and it said that crime in the American city fell by 67% between 1993 and 2004.

Ok. A more accountable and transparent police services is desirable but is it true that zero tolerance worked? As Steven Levitt has pointed out, crime across the USA fell during those years - regardless of whether policing was ''zero tolerance'', ''no broken windows'', ''more bobbies on the beat' or ''community policing''.

Others have stated that fall in NYC's crime rate was largely to do with the end of the crack cocaine epidemic. This might be pertinent then...

Glasgow City has the worst levels of heroin addicition in Scotland (3.31 percent of the population). The average heroin addict needs to steal £160,000 worth of stuff per annum to feed their habit. Now if 3.31% of the 580,000 need to steal around £160,000 worth of goods and cash to feed their habit, I think we have found one of the major causes of violent crime. Drug addicts may well commit violent crime (burglary, mugging, armed robbery etc) to feed their habit. Others will go into prostitution etc.

Perhaps Reform Scotland should be asking for heroin to be decriminalised and available over the counter - I'd imagine that would do a lot to cut violent crime, petty crime and prostitution rates within the city. It would also fit with Reform's overarching principals.

RS

* Why New York is always used as a comparison I don't know. I'd imagine, and this may be simple Edinbugger snobbery, that Glasgow has always been fairly violent... Is Glasgow like NYC in many ways? Are there better comparisons within the UK - say Liverpool, Manchester or Newcastle? Or in Europe?

The New Mrs Putin

It looks like Vladimir Putin wants a new Mrs. Putin. Who can blame him?

Too soon?

A young apprentice sent me this photograph. A little soon?

RS

Tories to blame for selling gold

Absolutely unbelievable.

I was wondering over the weekend how long it would take for Brown & Darling to blame the Tories for their mistakes over the last year?

RS

PS - next up at some point tonight an analysis of Reform Scotland's report on crime in Glasgow.

Snouts in the Trough

Oink Oink!

Nice to compare across Europe... I wonder how these compare to the Eurocrats?

RS

Nick Clegg

In the run-up to the leadership election: I am a liberal by conviction and by upbringing.

A story from the Telegraph today outs him as a University Tory.

Now this doesn't really matter. Lots of us make mistakes at university... however, he did deny this during a very close campaign. If he had admitted this, could Huhne have won?

RS

Now the council is watching you...

You may have seen this story elsewhere.

Let's look at this shall we....

A council yesterday admitted using laws designed to track serious criminals to spy on a family for nearly three weeks to find out if they were lying about living in a school catchment area.

I admit my knowledge of RIPA is not what it should be but I'm not certain that trying to get a child into a school (even if the parents are intending to move out of the catchment area) is a 'serious crime'. Terrorism is a serious crime. Murder is pretty serious too. Rape is damned serious. Getting a kiddywink into St. Snob's School For The Intelligent and Good Looking is not.

The family are angry after Poole borough council, in Dorset, revealed it had followed them and watched them at home to check whether they lived in the correct area for one of their three children, a three-year-old girl, to be accepted at a local school

This wasn't some simple stakeout then, was it? It was following a family with a young child. It is, without being too hyperbolic, state-sanctioned stalking.

Tim Martin, Poole council's head of legal and democratic services, said: "The use of RIPA procedures ensures that surveillance is properly authorised and provides protection for the subject of the investigation.

Well done, Tim Martin. You have just won an award. The award is very rarely given out but it is only given to those who truly deserve it. You have won The Reactionary Snob Award For Outstanding Achievements in the field of Abject Cuntery. ''Legal and Democratic Services''? What the fuck does that even mean? Provides protection for the subject of the investigation? What? That's stretching it a bit, non? If you mean they are protected by having two goons follow their every move how can I disagree? I'd contend that it is a bit of an invasion of privacy and a total waste of police and council time?

The council is keen to ensure that the information given by parents who apply for school places is true. This protects the majority of honest parents against the small number of questionable applications.

Questionable? I remember the good old days when, you know, you were innocent till proven guilty and when the state only followed citizens if there was a palpable and current threat to the rest of the population.

The Home Office said the RIPA legislation did not appear to have been used inappropriately.

Fuck you, you sordid, 'orrible, malignant cunts. RIPA is a woeful bit of legislation as it is but surely it should not be used for such minor instances.

RS

Brown Trousers... again

I have accused Brown, many times, of being a cowardly politician. I have sniggered that this timid leader has written three books on ''Courage'' when, in reality, he probably puts both full-fat and semi-skimmed on his cornflakes as to avoid making a choice. I have laughed and poked fun as he has wriggled out of every political challenge. I have said that he is a political soft-cock - a man who when the legs of political opportunity are akimbo and wanting nothing more than a pounding from the Prime Minister... he suffers from brewers droop.

However, his behavior over the Olympics is so complicated it is as if he is playing an advanced game of hokey-kokey.

On the one hand:

"We will not be boycotting the Olympic Games. Britain will be attending the Olympic Games ceremony. I think President Sarkozy said himself he expected Britain, because we are going to host the next Olympics, to be present at the Olympic ceremonies and I will certainly be there."

On the other hand:

He will not be attending the opening ceremony.

But wait:

We knew all along that he wasn't going to the Opening Ceremony.

On the one hand, he wishes to meet the Dalai Lama. On the other hand, he allows Chinese thugs to surround the Olympic Torch and trot up to Downing Street, shakes their hand and then doesn't fucking touch the Torch.

Does he honestly think we won't notice that as he grins and waves, surrounded by goons, he won't touch the torch? It's an empty gesture like one of those wankers who waves his water over whisky at Burns Suppers to toast the 'king over the water'. It's like signing the Lisbon Treaty behind closed doors all over again. This is a man, remember, who welcomed the Saudis last summer yet won't be seen in the same room as Mugabe.

Can you imagine Gordon Brown having the balls to do a Rudd - to stand up and blast the Chinese publicly? I can't imagine him doing it in the UK in English let alone in Mandarin in Beijing. Of course not because that would involve taking and holding a position.

He wants us to do something about China but what exactly? He's changing position as often as a Aberdonian whore when the riggers are in town - nobody knows what he thinks about China, nobody knows what he wants to do but he is trying to please everybody at once. He doesn't want to anger the Chinese for any number of reasons, he wants to show to the world he wants to support a feudal theocracy in Tibet, he wants to show to the anti-China protestors they have a point, he'll welcome Chinese goons to Downing Street yet he won't touch the torch and he is picky about which morally abhorrent dictators he'll eat smoked salmon sandwiches with.

My head is spinning. What the fuck is he doing? I can't keep up.

RS

Vigilantism

Isn't this story rather depressing? Doesn't it say a lot about so many things? That we actually need to remind people not to take the administration of ''justice'' into their own hands...

RS

Saudi Probe

One of my most furious pieces came in December 2006 over the Attorney General's intervention in the SFO's investigation into alleged corruption by BAE.

It is good news indeed that this ruling has come through. I wonder if that means the SFO will re-invigorate their investigation? Or would that be against the national interest?

Lunchtime edit: An update here. Some lovely quotes:

''... is difficult to identify any integrity in the role of the courts to uphold the rule of law, if the courts are to abdicate in response to a threat from a foreign power''

''It is difficult to identify any integrity in the role of the courts to uphold the rule of law, if the courts are to abdicate in response to a threat from a foreign power''

And: “We fear for the administration of justice if it can be perverted by a threat.”

He concluded: “No one, whether within this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of justice.”

Quite.

RS

Searching Popes

This story interested me. Good to see that no one is above the law...

But a few things:

a) Why is the Ambassador so keen to apologise? I don't think we've done anything wronghere.
b) Why was the body search not completed? Because he caused a fuss? That's not good enough, I'm afraid. If I object the next time I have to pop down to London, do I just get waived through? Hardly rigorous...
c) When I was reading the story I half-thought it was going to end by saying, due to the delays, we'd sent the Coptic Pope to be sorted in Milan. So it does seem to be improving down Heathrow way...
d) Are we going to start doing this to all religious leaders and VIPs? I pity the poor soul who has to body search Cardinal Ratzinger or Helen Clark but would imagine the good ol' fashioned British jobsworths to make sure Carla Bruni-Sarkoz is rigorously checked the next time she is over. Indeed, if Alex Stubb comes through Heathrow maybe Macnumpty will volunteer.

RS

Mosley, Clegg and Blair

A few brief things before a full-blown return to blogging:

Blair to call on faith leaders to ''awaken the world's conscience''. Well, it fisks itself! There are so many things wrong with the idea - that the world has a conscience, that if it does that it will listen to faith leaders, that faith leaders wish to do so in partnership with each other and, most obviously, whether anyone in the world actually listens to what Chuckles says any more.

Da Fink is talking balls here. Just because there is a difference between a social transaction and a market transaction has no impact on the privacy of the individual.

The Israeli schoolchildren turning up late for school once late-fines had been introduced is completely different from this case. Mr. Mosley wasn't getting whipped by Nazis for free at any point and there is no 'social obligation' for him to be whipped, beaten an lashed by buxom Aryans in the same way that there is a social obligation for kids to go to school and be there in time for assembly and to sing 'Onward Christian Soldiers'. For any number of reasons the two are not analagous, similar or, indeed, the same.

In Finkelstein's world, it would be ok for BUPA to publish records of their patients. The patients after all are, like Mosley, paying for something they want and for something they could get free elsewhere if they so wished. I don't see why BUPA shouldn't publish which clients have STDs, erectile disfunction etc if we use Fink's logic.

Indeed, the second comment on the piece cites psychiatry as an example - if Mosley had decided to work out his demons through talking to a shrink rather than having his bottom skelped, should it be a private matter or should the public know what is going on?

I am with Mr. Syed here. Disgust carries not a shred of moral or legal force when it is directed at those engaged in mutually consenting behaviour, whether it involves sex, spanking or leopardskin handcuffs - well struck, sir... a fine shot through the covers.

Isn't this piece rather depressing? When will employers begin to invest in them even if they do break various employment laws....

And to Cleggy, Cleggover, Cleggsakimbo etc. Whilst I think he was stupid to answer the question (nothing is more likely to put one off one's lunch than to imagine a Liberal Democrat mid-coitus) about how many women he had slept with, I would imagine that his wife had more to say about his answer to whether he would cheat or not ''I would certainly hope not'. Then again, these liberals...

RS

Lomborg

I'm a big fan of Bjorn Lomborg and his latest piece in the Guardian is as thought-provoking as ever.

RS

PS - normal blogging will resume tomorrow. A good ol' fashioned Snobbish fisk methinks.

Bits and bobs

Here's a few things:

The full Keith Simpson recess reading list. I'm slowly but surely becoming a fan of old Keith Simpson - his reading lists are always interesting (I know I blogged about this a couple of weeks ago but I couldn't find the full list... the Goose delivers).

One of the other uber-bloggers, Politicalbetting, shows us that Salmond is winning the battle in Scotland... no surprises there. It is like watching Tiger Woods in matchplay against toddlers with exceptionally poor hand-eye co-ordination skills. As I say, I think the only trick he has missed is to call for a referendum on The Lisbon Treaty in Scotland... it would put considerable pressure on Brown at a time when he is on the ropes, it would raise the issue of a referendum (something he surely wants to do) and would highlight the Scottish Parliament's lack of power when it comes to calling for a referendum. Still, not a bad performance by Wee Eck all told.

Does a politican's private life matter in the modern age? I would agree with Montgomerie here. I find it a bit off that Cameron on the one hand allows the press into his home, uses WebCameron and uses his son as an example of the NHS working and then, on the other hand, wishes us to not ask questions about whether or not he used drugs at university. I couldn't give a toss, as it happens, how many people Nick Clegg has slept with... I had him down for a 'One in a bed sex romp' type.

I tend to round-up things and I almost always include a Freakonomics post... so here we are. Go and predictify things!

RS