Archive
Legal?
I was interested to read a cou0le of days ago that Osama Bin Laden’s son-in-law had been arrested by the CIA in Jordan and flown to the US where he has already appeared in court, charged with ‘plotting against America’. He may well be a bad man, in line for his just deserts, but . . .
As a Kuwaiti citizen is there any basis on law for his arrest on foreign soil? If there is, when can we expect to see Kim Jong-un in a US courtroom?
Question
If the Jordanian government were to drop all charges against Qatada, then could he be deported?
Right but wrong
You got it wrong in so many areas, Ed, the government of which you and your pals were a very recent part. You screwed everything up by incompetence or neglectful oversight: not just immigration but also the economy, the banking industry, health, justice. It’s a long list.
So, why should the electorate believe for one second that you would get any of it right next time?
Vince Jong-un
I had a breakfast brainwave this morning, while watching the news, headed by North Korea and the LibDem conference. Why not send Vince Cable to negotiate a treaty with Kim Jong-un?
However it wasn’t long before I saw the flaw in the idea. Given that in his time Vince has been a member of four political parties, he’d probably join him.
Buyer beware
I read this morning that 2,000 new claims are lodged every day for compensation in respect of improperly sold payment protection insurance. PPI has become a huge industry. It’s a dripping roast for ambulance chasing lawyers. It’s costing banks billions at the very time when they are supposed to be rebuilding after the crisis.
Why?
I have no trouble in accepting that in cases where borrowers were pressured aggressively or coerced into signing up for such insurance, payback is due. But in others, where the punters simply didn’t know that PPI was included in their package, I’m sceptical. I don’t see why people should be compensated for their own failure to read the small print. I did Latin at school; I know what caveat emptor means.
Why do I give a toss about this? Because I am seriously pissed off by unsolicited text messages from con-men telling me that I am due two or three grand in compensation for missold PPI when I know for sure that I have never had that sort of cover.
A sensible Westminster government would put a statutory time limits on PPI claims. Unfortunately we don’t have one.
Babble
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/21574930
Flavour of the month, but what language does she speak and why the **** should anyone care? People are homeless, people are hungry, people are dying of preventable disease, so why are we giving airtime to some spoiled kid in a posh frock?
What’s the real story?
Thirty years ago, I worked in politics. Back then I believed that the BBC’s coverage was institutionally biased, not necessarily against one party but against the perceived favourite in any situation. Looking at its coverage this morning of the Eastleigh by-election, it seems to me that nothing has changed.
BBC reaction to the LibDem victory has been neutral, UKIP’s second place being the big story. The Tories on the other hand, have been ‘humiliated’, according to its political correspondent.
Really? Presumably Robin Brant is experienced, or he wouldn’t be standing in front of the camera with a microphone in his hand. In that case he should have taken a closer look at the numbers. They suggest that if ‘humiliation’ is being alleged, both the coalition parties stand accused, but it seems that the concept of a humiliating victory is beyond Mr Brant’s comprehension. It seems so, but there’s a greater story in play.
Let’s look at the numbers. While beaten into third place, the swing against the Conservatives was actually less than that against the winners, and the margin between the two coalition parties was less than Chris Huhne’s LibDem majority at the 2010 general election. While acknowledging that the turnout was only 52.8%, the numbers are still spectacular. The LibDems polled 11,624 votes fewer, while the Tory vote fell by 10,543. Its majority over the party in second place was cut from 3,864 to 1,771. On the face of it it won only because it started from a higher base than the Tories. The UKIP leader Nigel Farago (I know, it’s Farage, but isn’t my version a far better name for a politician?) suggests that his party may have polled more votes than anyone else in the ballot box, losing only because of postal votes cast ten days before election day. He may have a point; 20% of Eastleigh electors voted postally in 2010 and for yesterday’s by-election over 14,000 postal ballot papers were issued.
Where did I get these numbers? From the coverage by Sky News, which in my humble, left the BBC lagging behind years ago in the quality of its political analysis.
What will all this mean in two years, come the next General Election? Nothing directly, but what does it mean now for the party leaders? It means we will see a lot more of Mr Farago from now on. It means that Nick Clegg is absolutely secure. Most significantly, it means that the nail holding Dave Cameron’s jacket has become very shoogly, and that is the real story that the BBC is seeking to advance, through its florid, if unsupportable language.
Que?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21547513
This should also be a requirement for people working in call centres operated by UK financial institutions. Ever had one of those calls where you couldn’t understand a word the person in Mumbai was saying?
Horse-shit
Another reflection from my beach-walk. I’m not a dog owner but I borrow one occasionally, so I’m aware of the social and legal pressure that is put upon us to clean up what we must now call, it seems, our pets’ ‘poo’.
That is all well and good, but having just negotiated a public path on a popular walk, I find myself asking, fairly loudly, why the same duties are not imposed upon people with horses. We may not fancy them in our Tesco Spag Bol, but they can crap anywhere they like? Excuse me?
Could it be that while the dog is the common man’s best friend, laws and attitudes are still framed largely by the horse-owning classes?
Tory lapdogs
I’ve just returned from my lunch-break walk, down to the beach. There were hundreds of people there enjoying the unexpectedly fine day. No surprise then, that the car park was full. But pretty soon, if things go according to plan, East Lothian Council is going to charge motorists for parking in ten coastal leisure areas, hitherto free, and among them will be Gullane beach.
That’s right; a peaceful place of public pleasure and if you need a car to get there and don’t have a blue badge, you’re going to have to pay to get in. A council whose stated policy is to improve the visitor experience is in reality going to drive those visitors away. Why? Please tell me why. Given the nature of our weather, the money raised is hardly going to fund new schools and hospitals. Indeed, it’s likely to be one of those taxes . . . and make no mistake folks, thats what it is . . . that costs more to collect that it brings in.
This is the council’s statement:
‘The parking fees will be collected by a combination of automatic barriers and ticket machines. It is expected that work to install the necessary infrastructure including electricity and road works will cost around £700,000. The work will be carried out in phases from 2013 to 2015. Council estimates that following the introduction of charges there will be an initial drop in visitor numbers but a recovery soon afterwards with an increase in visitors of 10% over a 10-year period, yielding an average net annual income of £440,000.’
I would like to know the basis of that income forecast, but I can bet you that it does not take into account a very likely circumstance, that at the next Election, which will take place the year after the infrastructure work is complete, the present administration will be booted out and replaced by a party, or parties, whose manifesto will include a pledge to abolish coastal parking charges.
The current administration, whose spiteful policy this is, is a coalition of Labour, a minority party on the council, and their traditional arch-enemies, the Conservatives. The councillor returned by my village is one of those Tories, which means, presumably that he voted for a step that is manifestly unpopular with the majority of the people who chose him to represent them. I can tell him that the last thing expected by the blue-rinsed ladies and suited gents who ticked his box at the last election was that they would have a Labour council as a result. The second last is that when they drive down to the bents to exercise their pets, it would cost them two quid a time.
I’m for hanging Councillor Day and his colleagues up by their thumbs, but that might be a little extreme. Instead, I’d happily sign a recall petition to remove them from office. Sadly such machinery doesn’t exist. It’s time that it did.
Dopes
I’ve thought for some time that WADA needs its wings clipped. Seems that I’m not alone.
Private Fraser
‘We’re all doomed!’
The economic saboteur strikes again. Thank God he’s going soon.
A nation again? We always were.
I read this morning that two ’eminent’ lawyers have given David Cameron legal advice which suggests (I haven’t looked for caveats yet, but there will be some, I’m sure) that an independent Scotland will be a ‘new state’ and will have to negotiate new international agreements, membership of national groupings etc, while for England/Wales/Northern Ireland it will be business as usual. Oh aye?
I have a few comments on that one, now that I’ve stopped laughing.
One, if that’s true, it’ll be a price worth paying.
Two, Scotland has been a nation for a thousand years, and since 1603 Scotland has been a distinct national entity within a United Kingdom. In 1707 a parcel of rogues allowed the Scottish Parliament to be subsumed by its opposite number in Westminster. We have been paying the price ever since, but we remain a nation with our own borders institutions and national characteristics. When we join the ranks of the United Nations, we will do so with a history that stretches back far further than the great majority of its members. Should we choose to join the European Union the story will be the same.
Three, the last time a Westminster Government published its legal advice it was in a vain attempt to justify its participation in the Iraq War. Please pass me a pinch of salt.
Four, we have an adversarial legal system; thus, by definition, lawyers are far from infallible.
Over the next eighteen months or so, there will be many more scare stories like this. I welcome them. The more you tell Scots that they can’t do something, the likelier we are to go out and prove you wrong. So, Dave, bring it on.
On being a Scot
The Electoral Commission’s recommendation last week on the wording of the question that will go on the ballot papere for the referendum on Scottish independence prompted remarkably little debate. We are now to be asked simply ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ This change was accepted without argument or debate by the Scottish Government, which had intended to ask ‘Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?’
Did the governing party expect a more radical alternative, rather than hair-splitting? Was that why Nicola Sturgeon was so quick to agree? She’s not going to tell us, but I suspect that was the case.
I suppose that one question is as good as another. To me the words on the paper are not the issue; it’s the unspoken question that each voter should ask that counts, the one I’ve asked myself already. ‘Are you Scottish first, British second, or vice versa?’ Me? I’m a true Scot, born, bred and brought up in an ancient nation. As such, I do not want the major decisions that affect my life, and the future path of my nation, on economic policy, taxation, defence, foreign relations, and institutional regulation, to continue to be taken by a majority elected in another country to a parliament that sits hundreds of miles away.
For the next eighteen months we are going to be fed scare stories by one side and bullshit by the other. None of it matters to me. I’ve answered my key question, without the help of the eminent former controller of BBC Scotland and his commissioner colleagues. Having done so I feel that it’s my duty to vote ‘Yes!!!!”
The Scottish Tories need to be Ruth-less
Once again, I am pleased to give a plug to a piece by Kenneth Roy, editor of the Scottish Review, and one of Scotland’s finest journalists. One of the prime functions of the thinking press (I draw a distinction between them and the red-tops) is to highlight and hold up to ridicule the sillier pontifications of our political classes, in this case Ms Ruth Davidson, Leader (but not for much longer, I suspect) of the Scottish Conservative Party.
Spanish strife
Scotland isn’t alone in fighting with itself over independence.
Go now
Another Scottish Review belter from the keyboard of Kenneth Roy.
Dear Leader Salmond
Nice on by my friend John, in christening our First Minister, Kim Jong-Eck.
Come on!
Finally, it’s official. For winning the Tour de France and another Olympic gold medal, Bradley Wiggins is made a knight of the realm. So is Ben Ainslie for winning four successive sailing golds. K’s also for the coaches Dave Brailsford and Dave Tanner, and Sarah Storey , the Paralympic cyclist becomes a dame. In the second tier CBEs go to Mo Farah, Jess Ennis, David Weir, Victoria Pendleton and Katherine Grainger. All well deserved, and congratulations to them.
Then there’s Andy Murray; Olympic tennis gold medallist, the first British male Wimbledon finalist since 1938 and the first British man to win a tennis Grand Slam event since 1936. Where do we find him in the Honours List? In the third tier. Andy says he’s delighted to receive an OBE, and I’m sure he is. I imagine he’d have been even more delighted to receive a CBE, and ecstatic to be knighted. As it is, I won’t be the only Scot to feel slightly scandalised by his rating on the Gong scale, particularly when one notes the CBE awarded for services to the computer gaming industry. And I might not be the only golfer to be surprised that in the post-Olympic frenzy, the Miracle at Medinah seems to have been completely overlooked.
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