I Deleted My Post by accident, then my shower broke.

I was supposed to post today, after being away for weekend. But I went and deleted what I was going to post, which is both a ballache, and a very silly thing to do. I was then going to have an evening wash and re-write it, when my shower started leaking water out of a crack on the ceiling of the back room, probably due to the overflow running beyond capacity and backlogging the baggage onto my dining room chair. Brilliant.

A Road to Nowhere.

It's almost strange that I would single out this article by Richard Littlejohn on road infrastructure. It is after all by his own standards quite tame. He doesn't resort to playground abuse disguised as cynical irony. He doesn't show a strange and almost obsessive homophobia in the contents, and doesn't dismiss the murder of prostitutes as no big deal. He does however comment on the road network, and as it it happens that is an area I have some (above layman's) knowledge in, and once again the article highlights the strange lack of joined up thinking we get on this topic. It also gives me a post to write, as I'm a bit thin on the ground for material. The crux of the article is about Lord Adonis (Secretary of State for Transport) bemoaning the lack of warning when the Blackwell Tunnel (A102 crosses the Thames here at Woolwich next to the Dome) left traffic stranded for 5 hours (nasty). As I know a little about the history of road building from college, and owing to Litlejohns liberal attitude to factual consistency, this stirred my interest up. Littlejohn goes on:

" Labour came to power promising a 'world-class' transport network and then put Two Jags in charge. His contribution was immediately to cancel vital road-widening and construction projects which had been in the pipeline for years."

Yeah Labour are generally less in love with road building than the Tories perhaps are. But this is not entirely accurate. I assume he means the 1989 [road building] white paper called "Roads for Prosperity." a very ambitious document that would have seen an 8 lane M25 for the whole length, and the M1 from the M25 to the M18 interchanges, just South of Sheffield amongst other things. Not withstanding that the paper was very ambitious (and didn't have the NIMBY factor to contend with.) and that some of it has actually been implemented before Littlejohn typed the article. (the entire 1959 built M1, from Luton to the M25 interchange has been virtually razed to the ground and rebuilt to 4 lanes during the widening of 2008. There are portions of the M25 is due for widening and other things to try to salvage the mess we have during rush hour.) Prosperity was axe as a scheme in 1996!, in part a response, due to the huge uproar at Twyford Down near Winchester some years prior, when the M3 was brutally ploughed through a chalk hill, and a protester chained his neck to a JCB. This is before Prescott even had a chance to paint that bus lane on the M4, due to the fact Labour were voted in the year after!

"You can still see the carnage on the North Circular road, which is lined with boarded-up houses compulsorily purchased 15 years ago in anticipation of a widening scheme which still hasn't happened. Similar projects have been shelved all over Britain."

Since 1996 several major roads have been built. Roads like these:

*M65 extended westwards from Blackburn to M6 and M61 at Preston (1997. Started under Tory govt.)
*M1 realigned and extended at Northern terminus from Leeds to A1(M) at Tadcaster (1999)
*M60 created around Manchester from pre-existing M63 and M66 motorway with new extended line around East of City (2000)
*M6 Toll Road Built (2003)
*A1(M) bypasses of Knottingly and Wetherby (2004 - 2006)
*M6 "Cumberland Gap" built to connect Carlisle to the A74(M) on the Scottish Border (2008)

The North Circular is awful, I'll give him that.

The late nineties and early 2000's saw quite a lot of road building after a gap in the late eighties.

"Perhaps matters might improve if ministers got out more and experienced the real world they have created first hand."

Lord Adonis travelled around the Motorways on a tour last year. I listened to him talk about it on Jeremy Vine on Radio 2. They couldn't use the gents loos at Toddington services apparently, cause they were broken.

"To be fair to Adonis, he has been travelling the length and breadth of Britain by train to investigate the state of our railways."

So by his own admission, he's berating him for not doing something he should have done, and actually did. So errr... Right.

"Typically, though, he has reached the wrong conclusion. He is proposing a £30billion high-speed [rail] link through the Chilterns, when what we actually and urgently need are improvements to existing services, particularly our hellishly overcrowded commuter routes."

Transport has a strange effect on the British psyche. We know that the roads are saturated, and that things like widening the M1 are at best temporary solutions, to at least perhaps get the average mileage notched up a bit. It's a sad irony that the most vocal public opinion, like these guys always seems to favour building our way out of road congestion,with more roads, which frees up yet more cars to come on roads, to cause those roads to build up as well, a vicious cycle. Aside from the obvious and serious environmental issues of more cars on the roads, there is always the inevitable backlash against large roads near residential areas, ironically that is why the North and South Circular is so bad. What should have been upgraded to a Motorway called "Ringway 2", was shelved when they realised how much of residential London would be on the receiving end of a JCB (Who wants a Motorway in the back garden?). Back to the question, I've never agreed with that build loads more roads analysis, and I think organisations like the ABD have an overt political agenda rather than a genuine interest in traffic management. We are in the situation where effective queue busting techniques, like ramp metering, and variable speed limits are unpopular, and seen as "the nanny state", which is unhelpful. It will require a much more joined up and integrated transport system, than the one we have now. We are car junkies, and any attempt to change that habit, and seriously try to reduce road congestion, will be painful and a long transition. If it can be changed, and governments tend to be wary of the motoring lobby. This doublethink about the problems of traffic we have is summed up nicely by this quote

"90 percent of commuters think other drivers should use public transport more often."

Sounds about right.

Not Gettin Down With the Kidz, or with Streetview either.

The Internet has been under fire on two fronts by the Daily Mail this week. This is hardly the most surprising revelation in the world, from a paper that thinks anything and everything that has happened in the UK since 1961 has been directly passed out of the fiery bum of Satan and then been shite splashed (with the help of the PC brigade and liberals probably) all over the the beige and posy clad metaphorical front lawns of the law abiding respectable people of Middle England. (also known as middle class white people) This also includes the world wide web (which the mails website, and the reader comments often agree with. Irony lives on), which apparently exists to directly beam hard core pornography and drugs into middle class toddlers brains. But what has got on the Mail readers collective noggin this week is; firstly the news that Google maps has extended Street View coverage to almost all the UK, and secondly and more seriously, the role of Facebook in the horrific murder of 17 year Ashleigh Hall by serial sex offender Peter Chapman, whom she met online and was lured to her death by Chapman who had impersonated a teenage boy on the net, more on this later.
I for one am glad that Street View has almost full coverage of the UK. I never knew how we managed to survive without being able to use the computer to look at strange looking people with blurred faces curiously gawping at a Streetview car in a provincial street in Doncaster. It's very addictive being able to have a nosey around old places you used to live and work, and of course has the added advantage of not having to physically travel there, which is great as I am too lazy to be bothered driving the 130 miles just to nostalgically ponce around in the centre of Worcester. But it seems (to be fair the Mail doesn't take sides) some aren't too happy. Now this isn't a new story in the UK as the residents of Broughton, Milton Keynes Village blocked a google car photographing their street (all of Broughton is covered. I decided in the interests of the residents privacy, to have a nosy anyway.) lest it invites burglars to steel their DVD players. Strangely they didn't seem to bothered to pose for the multimillion selling Mail, in the obligatory "angry people in the papers" picture, taken in broad daylight (yes) in their secluded street To be honest you can't really make out the interiors of peoples houses, the unrasterised pictures are similar quality to the pictures from the Mars Rover. The cameras are there for quantity not quality. The only thing me and a team of experts (which consisted of just me) could deduce about footage of my own house was that it was made of bricks and had windows. Street View is really; for all intents and purposes no more intrusive than walking down someones street, as for being an invasion of privacy (which is notoriously difficult to legislate what cast iron constitutes privacy), I don't think the exteriors of houses count as this. They also aren't real time pictures, as the Pugh cartoon in the Mail depicting a man spying on what his neighbours are doing doesn' t seem to understand. But we still get the unintentionally funny comments on the the article about it. Comments like this:


"Good job I didn't see it, I would have thrown a brick at the car, no one asked me if I wanted my house splashed all over the Internet, so much for Data Protection, and what about all the kids who play in my street are they photographed as well.? this is a buglers dream come true. Typical Nu Labour, snooping and spying on all of us, I'm never using google again, hope they go bust, there are plenty of search engines out there that don't help NU Labour spy on us and our children."

How it helps people who play the bugle is unclear, and how is it Nu Labours fault what a private company does?


"I have every right to privacy ! How dare this shameless country post pictures of my house on the Internet for the whole world to see !!! For all suckers saying anyone one see my house walking down the street , it is like saying, people can see me walking down the street but that doesnt mean I want pictures of me posted on the Net !!!

Fiona Sunderland"


God why can't these people see that what a private company does, is not the same as what a government does. I like comments like these, they seem to be so pompous, they think that everyone will think "Thank God for Streetview, I can now try to see if I can see Fiona from Sunderlands knickers on her washing line, from her street!" It's sad but true that Fiona's house, like my own house is of no interest at all to 99.9% percent of Street Viewers.

The second Internet gripe regards young peoples safety on Facebook. As we know Ashleigh Hall was lured to her death by a sex offender on the networking site, and that it was a tragic and senseless, but thankfully rare example of the absolute worst case scenario in meeting people on line. Now I know that meeting strangers on line can have dangerous consequences, and that the unworldiness of lonely youngsters, and the natural impulsiveness of teenagers can override their better judgement, and anyone willing to promote guidance for vulnerable kids about the risks of contact with on line is OK by me. But what I object too in this affair is the Mail blatantly distorting the risks posed by social networking (in this case Facebook), with lurid articles like this.

Now Williams-Thomas says that the editors added the Facebook references to the article after he had submitted it. (and the printed paper itself implicitly says he used facebook.), and in true Soviet Unionesque revisionism, the facebook references have now gone. I'm sure this has nothing to do with Facebook threatening to sue the Mail . But a cursory read of the article by anyone familiar with the website will easily show that he hadn't used it at all. I mean it can't even do the things he says it can.


"Even after 15 years in child protection, I was shocked by what I encountered when I spent just five minutes on a social networking [EXPLICITLY NAMED AS FACEBOOK IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE] site posing as a 14-year-old girl. Within 90 seconds, a middle-aged man wanted to perform a sex act in front of me.
I was deluged by strangers asking stomach-churning questions about my sexual experience. I was pressured to meet men with whom I'd never before communicated.
So I wasn't surprised that a vulnerable teenager, Ashleigh Hall, was groomed on Facebook before being brutally raped"


None of this can be done on facebook. You can't talk to people unless you are friends (on the site) with them, and this means you have to search for someone (who has to be signed up on facebook) you want to befriend, you've got some odds against you to locate a middle aged paedophile in one minute thirty ( sending a friend request, (and receiving a confirmation from the other person) This takes longer than 90 seconds. For a start they would have to be on-line the same time to immediately respond. You can't post real time videos either. Facebook is for the main part, communal. So these men would be posting the stuff he says they were in full view of everyone who is their "friends" news feeds. You know stuff that would draw attention, and the sort of stuff that would be kind of incriminating if the cops got hold of it.

The Streetview stuff is water of a ducks back for me. If people want to look stupid, commenting on a facility they know nothing about then that's up to them. But the Facebook (apart from being mislabeling and libelous to that company) thing misleads and obfuscates parents or friends who may not know much about the risks of the Internet, and can be mislead about where the danger really lies. So they may not be aware, or looking in the wrong places about the dangers to vulnerable people on the Internet. It does have dangerous places on it, and people need the facts, not misleading scare stories that look good for a tabloid audience. That won't help, and certainly won't stop the next Ashleigh Hall from potentially happening.

This is what happens when mob mentality is stirred up. The wrong people get hurt.

This morning must have been a shock for 27 year old David Calvert, a Liverpudlian who moved to Blackpool, a shock but not; perhaps a surprise. By breakfast time this morning two and a half thousand people on facebook, with a lot of righteous anger, and not so much possession of the facts had decided to start a facebook group (some even got this name texted to their phones.) making the claim that he was none other than the secret new identity for Jon Venables who is currently in prison, and that he has received threats, obviously by people so stupid that they can't see that a man who isn't in jail at the moment, can't really be a man who is in jail at the present time. You know little technicalities like that. This has happened before; five years ago. He was mistaken for Venables, largely because of two things, he's a Scouser who moved away from Liverpool, and he spent 4 months in the clink for fraud (you know, just like murder) Inevitably the threats and insinuations duly arrived, and presumably died down. I assume his name resurfaced after people have googled Venables for his whereabouts, seen this article and Calverts name, put 2 and 2 together, and come up with the letter Z. Now he has to relive the entire ordeal over again. He is said to be too afraid to leave his house, and fears for his wife and kids, and to be honest, who can really blame him? Even more worryingly he says he has received messages threatening to get him out by any means. I must emphasise that his tormentors are apparently so dense, that they are trying to hound a man they think is Venables inside of a Fleetwood house, but who is in fucking jail for God sake !!

This doesn't really do much for the case that Venables should be outed now, or indeed ever. If some people are really acting like this, and are so fired up by this lynching mob mentality, (read the Facebook comments. They're shocking.) on the basis of so little evidence. An innocent man is now cowering in fear in his own home, when it should be self evident, even to a child, that he can't possibly be the target of their ire! I won't say this often, but I almost felt sorry for the government ministers who are trying to placate this vengeful atmosphere, and are largely not succeeding.

I also think paradoxically, it weakens the case for identifying Venables to prevent others from being misidentified for him, and falling foul of the mob. As we have seen this kind of mentality flairs up (his recall brings him back into public eye, and tabloid headlines) and tends to sort of build to a positive feedback, with the mob mentality gathering momentum. If they were outed, we would get a fair amount of coverage of them, stoking the flames, and raking it up every so often. Even the toughest law and order advocate will realise that innocent bystanders are going to get hurt (friends, relatives, neighbours,) by association, if there whereabouts were known. Although we don't know the full story of what he was recalled for, and it could be argued what about the danger they may still (if they still do) pose to others? It is still more difficult for either to be a severe danger, what with the monitoring. (the recalling however may raise questions about how they are being monitored) It is probably for the best that they slip out of the greater consciousness as much as possible, in the hope that the mob lose interest. (these things tend to run out of steam fairly quickly, after the initial source of the ire) I don't even think outing them would stop innocents being attacked. From some of the facebook comments, some of the stupider mobbers would probably attack a sardine tin with a photo of Venables stuck on it, or even footballs Tery Venables. Too little brain and a lot of rage does that.

It's easy to stoke up this kind of unthinking lynch mob atmosphere, and there are many willing to take it up. It's less easy to put the genie back in the bottle, and innocent people like the David Calverts of this world often find themselves on the wrong side of the mob, whether it's malicious gossip, shitty information or general stupidity (a bad combination if all present). As Charles MacKay wrote in his book over 150 years ago "Madness of Crowds"

"Men think in herds. It is seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover thier senses slowly, and one by one."

Still applies today.

Review. Star Trek (2009) (Spoilerish)

You know if you go to this with an open mind, and can resist scrutinizing the movie against the established franchise (which isn’t a problem if you aren’t a Trek fan, so you may be in a better position than a Trekky to judge this film.) then this is actually a really enjoyable action romp. (Or is that trek?) This is a new film from a long and established franchise that has spanned decades, was on life support for about most of Voyagers run, and eventually flat lined when Enterprises low ratings (composed of three slightly nerdy single men, an ash tray and a dog) meant Paramount wasn't going to just sign cheques away no questions asked; to anything with "Trek" in the title. It's been rebooted and repackaged for a contemporary audience, in the mold of a FX laden adventure film. It doesn’t really ponder the human condition any more than it really has too (and it doesn’t have much of that either) which could be problematic to those who may have (justified) presuppositions as to what defines the franchise. I think the scene when Spock and Kirk debate the fate of the lead baddy at the end, will be most problematic to fan consensus (after all Trek has had many different writers) on what was Gene Roddenberry's (the creator of Star Trek) take on his shows philosophy and on its greater take on the human condition.

One thing it does do well and takes from the original series, which is chosen as it is the most recognisable part of the franchise to people new to Trek, is to recreate the great characterisation of the original crew. Particular stand outs are Chris Pine as Kirk. He fortunately doesn't try to impersonate Bill Shatner in the role, but delivers us a cocky but still likable lead. Kirk in the original was a seat of the pants guy (and doesn't believe in the no win scenario like this Kirk) but this was tempered by his experience and command role, this Kirk through the events in the movie has had differing circumstances, where he has had the lifestyle of a drifter and a rebel who has been through the school of hard knocks, and perhaps because of the tough knocks he's had we sympathise with him despite him being cocky. So he doesn't come across as a swaggering, priggish cock. Zachery Quinto is also excellent as Spock, he almost feels and looks like a young Leonard Nimoy, one of the best bits of casting I've seen. He also plays the role with subtle differences to the original. This one has more trouble bottling up his human half, (and this dichotomy of his half human status is most of the human element of the show.) and tolerating a certain young future captain. His "up yours" to the Vulcan council is a great scene (especially in regard to his mum. Freud would have a field day), and this leads too some harrowing scenes between the two on the bridge. The other bridge crew each get at least a look in (unlike much of the original) Karl Urban is superb as Dr. "Bones" Mccoy, as the cynical but thoroughly decent ships medic, Zoe Saldana adds a zesty bite to her role as Uhura, and doesn't come across as just background eye candy. Simon Pegg is comedy relief as chief engineer Scotty. The scenes of Kirks birth are played well and give the film an emotional and poignant punch at the beginning of the film to drive the rest of it along. We care about these people, and what's happening to them.
The film has been designed to appeal to a wide audience not just the trekky niche. This will inevitably mean it will appeal more to the non trekky elements, than the fan base, so someone who has never seen the show can enjoy it purely on its own merits, rather than needing a framework in the context of the franchise, which is more the case for the Next Generation films. In fact you could probably drop all the Trek references , and change the names of the ship and the planets /aliens and it would still work as a film. This means that it has quite a different feel to the older films. It's not a bad feel, but for me it was most noticeable in the scenery and visuals of the films. The warehouse shots of the Enterprise engine room and the abandoned base feel grungey and industrial, which don't seem to fit into the shiny Star Trek universe to well. But besides this, for the fans, there are subtle nods to all the shows in there. The people writing it obviously have a deep respect for the 60's show, and the action scenes are as tightly paced and exciting as the best of the episodes were.

The film has only two really majorish flaws with it. The first is that the execution of the plot can sometimes be a bit dodgy, with obvious holes in logic. Apparently federation planets don't have any surface defences whatsoever to fight back against a baddy Romulan ship that just sits there. Why is this mining ship of all things like the most powerful and biggest thing ever built? Where are these guys mining at? Mordor? All sci-fi mining ships are always grotty and rusty (in space??!!) The matter that makes black holes (literally a hole. So the laws of physics must have been rebooted as well.) I mean come on! But if you take all this with a pinch of salt you should be OK. The second, and more serious flaw is the main baddy Nero. He just never gets the characterisation he deserves as main villain. Eric Bana is a great actor, he was chilling, idiosyncratic and charming as the lead in Chopper but his talents are wasted here, and we get none of these on display. Just him standing about in the gloom glaring in the middle distance at everything and everyone, and I never felt we knew him or what motivated him. The other Romulans are really only there to be baddys to get shot.

But if you take it for what it is, a well paced action film with a bit of pathos here and there. It's a well spent two hours. Whether the more dedicated trekkie can make the leap, or whether it is the right direction for trek films in general (I thought a sort of high concept, ideas driven reboot like the new Batman films would have been nice) is another matter entirely.

This isn't about Justice for James

As we have seen this week, John Venables, one of the two 10 year old boys who tortured and murdered toddler James Bulger in Liverpool in 1993, has been recalled to prison after breaking the conditions of the strict terms of his release licence. (for his entire lifetime.)

There was something tangibly ghastly about James Bulgers murder. I was 13 when he was killed on a railway line in a grim estate in Liverpool, and I remember it well. How could two kids do the things they did? Snarling adults pounding at steel mesh windows of a police Transit Van, trying to get at two 10 year old boys inside. The incendiary headlines like the "Star" offering 20 grand to "snare the bastards who slaughtered Jamie", and the Expresses "Monsters", and the infamous grainy CCTV footage of the two boys luring him to his fate. We have a strange dual standard about children in the UK. On the one hand, as a glance at any of the obituaries to dead children, whether Baby P, or yet another hit and run victim, will show -there's talk of angels in heaven, and innocent tots full of love. But then we are castigated by Time magazine for deliberately alienating and fearing our bling crusted, and hoodie wearing teenagers. It is perhaps not too much of a stretch to say that some of the visceral hatred directed towards them was because they shone a dark and shattered mirror in the publics face about something we don't want to see. Pre teen childhood violence. It lead to much soul searching. How do we square that two boys brutally killed a toddler in such a hideous manner, with the circle of the presumption of childhood innocence, and how they could be judged by adult standard. It created a debate on criminality that has never been adequately settled, and still stirs up strong emotions even today, as we have seen.

As the two are subject to lifelong anonymity orders (including new identities) that the press have to (reluctantly as we'll see.) legally abide by, the details of what he has been recalled for are vague, but it seems that if the Sunday Mirror is to be believed, that it may pertain to suspicion of child porn. From what dribs and drabs the press are legally allowed to disclose about Venables, it seems that release has been mentally tough for him, with reports that he uses alcohol and drugs and has, on more than one occasion - blurted out his real identity to strangers. (and even possibly inmates at where he is being held.) The tabloids are of course going to town on him being banged up again. It is in their eyes a vindication of their theories that the pair are monsters beyond the pale of all human redemption, and that if they had been allowed to publish their whereabouts (this theme is recurrent in editorials, and loaded statements in articles on the case) this would not have happened. The government are coming under fire from both the tabloids and emotionally charged interviews with James parents who believe that their sons killers got off too lightly in the first place anyway, and want what alleged terms Venables was recalled for made public, and even Venables new identity to be made known if and when he stands trial. Gordon Brown and Jack Straw have put out rather tenuous statements about how they sympathise with "public opinion" on the issue but are unwilling to interfere with the workings of the legal system. Jack Straw was quoted as:

"I said on Wednesday that I was unable to give further details of the reasons for Jon Venables' return to custody, because it was not in the public interest to do so.
That view was shared by the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

We all feared that a premature disclosure of information would undermine the integrity of the criminal justice process, including the investigation and potential prosecution of individual(s).

Our motivation throughout has been solely to ensure that some extremely serious allegations are properly investigated and that justice is done. No-one in this country would want anything other. That is what the authorities remain determined to do."

Now leaving aside the fact that calling for the details (and by extension the identity of the man himself) of the terms of the breach of licence he is only suspected of doing is a complete legal minefield of thorny issues. It would also likely jeopardise any proceedings that could be subsequently brought against him, a judge could easily say that a jury who knew Venables was in the dock could be too easily swayed by this knowledge to come to a reasonable conclusion about this separate case, and that the verdict does not stand up to the required standard of acceptable justice. Then you have the legality of breaking an anonymity injunction. It would cause severe problems for any future proceedings against him that may be put in place. On a more personal level, revealing what has happened would make him easily identifiable to other inmates / wardens, and revealing his new identity means everyone can identify him. Now whatever your views on forgiveness of past crimes or punishment and retribution, I find it very hard to swallow that a move that would potentially lead to a vigilante lynching of a man who, although committed a dreadful crime, did so at ten years old. This kind of thing has no place in any civilised society. It would also set a dangerous precedent in legal procedures. If we want a good and humane justice system, it must be fair and applied objectively and evenly, not shook up to cater to the whims of stoked up mob mentality, which means some will be dealt with more severely in relation to others who are not as infamous

As I said before, the tabloids have always had the Bulger killers in their sights. Partly it is due the uniquely awful nature of the killing and with it the enormous amounts of public consciousness the murder resonated, and in that lies stories people want to read, and the tabloids are willing to supply. What also fuels this obsession with the pair is the press injunction that provides them anonymity. Obviously tabloids and their bombastic editors love the enormous influence and ability to make mischief whilst sitting out the consequences of the near useless PCC (I honestly think the Tweenies would do a better job running this organisation). The injunction is a block on their power and they hate that. Also they are thinking of the potential windfall in readers if their identities were allowed to be printed. Probably everyone, to varying degrees is a little curious about what became of them. Memorable murders bring in readers (that's why we all still know the name "Jack the Ripper") and have a strange interest to some people. I'd imagine a "Bulger Killers Revealed" headline would be a goldmine for a red top editor. This injunction is the only thing stopping this happening, and that is why we get comments that subtly hint at this like Carole Malone from the NOTW:

"And if now, Venables knew the public would be told of his every transgression, it might just kick him back on track. No, his identity must never be revealed because he'll be pursued by lynch mobs.
But the result of years of anonymity is he now thinks he's bulletproof, that whatever crime he commits the police will protect him. It's a privilege afforded to no other criminal - except, perversely, the very worst ones.
So what is this government's message to young thugs - the more heinous the crime you commit, the cushier life you'll have?
Nice one! At least it is if you're a child killer!

and the Mail on Sunday editorial. How they typed this with a straight face I'll never know?:

"We do not know. But the bitter irony in this case is that with myriad rumours swirling around, Venables may be being maligned in a way he may not deserve.
Forget the fact that, once again, Labour has put the rights of the criminal ahead of those of the victim and his family.
Forget the £4million that has been spent on rehabilitating Venables and Thompson - giving them new identities and a lifestyle almost certainly more comfortable than they would have enjoyed had they not killed James.
What is truly disturbing is that somebody can be jailed in Britain without the authorities having to reveal why."

The Mail has some considerable sympathy with the need for Venables' anonymity to be preserved. But equally we believe in the sacredness of open justice and that incarcerating people in secret is the first step towards the Kafkaesque world of totalitarian regimes."

Now the press claiming that they are fighting the noble fight, when they are just pursuing naked self interest is nothing new, but there is one person who I do think is being manipulated by all this, and perhaps isn't aware that she is being used as a tool to promote other agendas. That is Denise Fergus, James' mother. Now let me stress I have absolutely nothing but sympathy for her and her plight. Losing your child in the most appalling way possible, and having to relive his last moments through a lengthy trial, and then being denied the sense of catharsis at the trials conclusion, due to the unique and more morally ambiguous nature of the juvenile killers is something no one should ever endure in their lifetime. Although I don't agree with her desire to see her child's killers "outed" I can understand why she feels let down by the system. No-one can tell her that she is wrong to feel the way she feels, because almost no-one endures what she has so tragically had to bear. But sadly Mrs. Fergus is tabloid dynamite for stories like these, and editors keen for the "right" kind of soundbites, and are pounding on her door. She says all the right things (She still hates the pair, and time has not dulled that) and comes out with those hard line unanswerable rhetorical questions (what about my rights over the killers rights. I've got a life sentence, they haven't) that are make great quotes for right wing newspapers. It's hard not to feel for her, constantly being interviewed whenever a particularly salient murder makes the headline. The emotional toll it must take on her? It is sad to think that the Suns "Justice for James" e-petition (over the government not publishing the exact details of what Venables has been recalled for) may be seen as a genuine campaign to help the family of a young murder victim than what it really is, an attempt to flog a shed load of papers.

Richard Littlejohns take on Michael Foot.

I'll try to avoid posting articles on Richard Littlejohn. Trying to pin down exactly what is wrong with the articles he writes is like trying to explain why you didn't think Gigli was a good film, or subtly pointing out to Shane McGowan of the Pogues, just why he should try out those people called dentists now and then. Where, and at what logical point do you even possibly begin to start? It's frankly quite depressing to be faced with most of his articles (a black hole of bad puns, lousy skits on 70's sitcoms about gay policemen or whatever, and all the other thinly veiled prejudices and spite he doles out.) and I leave it to the guys who post on Mailwatch to do that sort of thing. I'd just end up slitting all my arteries with rusty garden shears mid way through an article, at the sheer volumes of drivel Littleprick taps out on his word processor. But as he's written about Michael Foot, like I did I thought I should comment on it.

Now as anyone who knows the name Jan Moir will know, the Mail has no objections about their journos writing speculative innuendo and insinuation about the target of their article, irrespective of if they are still warm in the morgue, and this one is no better (I mean they didn't pull any punches for a former boy band member, what hope did a former Labour leader have?) Michael Foot. Good Old Footy. No dangerous deluded hypocrite. In it we learn that the late party leader was a draft dodger during WW2; that he was a Soviet stooge, oh and he wore a donkey jacket at the cenotaph (sigh). Well I did a bit of research into "Footys" background here and here. It's a wonderful research tool, is t'internet, and don't think I'm pointing this out to lazy columnists. So lets have a look at Dickys claims.

FOOT WAS A BATTLE DODGER.

Littlejohn says Foot all but shirked fighting in the second world war, (fine line between conscientious objector and cowardice) to lap it up in comfort in smart Islington society. Well it does seem he was rejected for military service due to asthma problems. It also is unfair that Littlejohn said that he didn't contribute to the war effort. He wrote a popular book condemning appeasement. He was editor of the Evening Standard during much of the war, a protected position, and considered necessary for the domestic war effort. (Londons largest local newspaper) and was considered one of the most able public morale boosting editors. His pieces outlined the need to defeat Hitler, and the strength and value of British democracy against Nazi tyranny. Now it's a "how long is a piece of string" argument what is considered "doing your bit" in war time. But I think that being an editor strongly supporting the need to act against Hitler was a pretty important responsibility in that war. He also claims Foot let others do the fighting against Francos forces in the Spanish civil war, (he did not fight himself.) but he ignores the fact that Foot did visited dissidents to the Franco regime (I'm sure he'd have loved a left wing critic of his regime chewing the fat with his enemies, in his own prisons) in the 70's and was almost imprisoned for doing so. Not the actions of a cowardly person I think.

FOOT WAS A SOVIET STOOGE.
Littlejohn stops short of calling Foot an outright traitor to Britain during the Cold War. But he does claim that Foot was unaware / unwilling to comment on Stalin's crimes, and the repression the USSR committed on the Warsaw Pact countries. This doesn't seem to be the case if we read up on him. Although he was undoubtedly a socialist, and believed in some aspects of Marx's philosophy, he was vocally disappointed that the USSR was behaving dictatorially, and that a long established liberty supported British based system coupled with socialism would have avoided the bloodshed that occured under the regime. He opposed Stalins tyranny and Gulags, and was pilloried by some on the left for what he said, and condemned the tanks being sent in to Hungary in 1956. He even supported NATO.

He also wasn't an outright pacifist in the sense we would understand it, and the charge levelled by some against anti-nuke protesters. (all wars are unjust all the time.) He was passionately anti -nuke and pro CND. He did however support the action in the Falklands against the junta in Argentina. This contradiction between a hatred of war and a need to preserve democracy even by force bothered him immensely throughout his life.

THE DONKEY JACKET.
If you can't go for the big things, just resort to low rent ad hom attacks. And they say that journalism these days relies to much on dumbing down, and low level cheap sniping. I can't imagine why.

Now let me stress I'm NOT saying he should have been banned from writing it. I just think we need a bit more journalistic rigour when we are writing articles that have some pretty serious insinuations (draft dodging and being a kept creature of a hostile power) in them, towards a man who hasn't even been dead for 3 days. It's not too much to assume that Britains (reputedly) highest paid columnist should perhaps do a bit of homework (I didn't know that much about Foot until I researched for these posts) before committing to print. You know, its like good practice.