Let's Hope Selling Peerages is Not Too Heinous

Apparently, the arch-twit of the Labour cabinet (a competitive title, but well-deserved), Lord Falconer, has said that there are some people who should die behind bars because 'people expect that'.

This sort of thing infuriates me. Why do we bother having a professional judiciary if people are going to be sentenced by calumny in the media! Why do we bother employing Lord Wolff and others if Rupert Murdoch is going to decide how long our prisoners are going to stay in jail. The fact is that if we did what the majority of people 'expect' then this country would have gone to the dogs a long time ago.

The laws of this country are far too complex and well thought out to be subject to mob rule and the manipulation of the press who, let's face it, have something of their own agenda. People are far too easily whipped-up into a self-richeous frenzy to be allowed to decide something so important. Has anyone watched the scenes outside an American jail as a prisoner is about to be executed? The sight is absolutely chilling. The problem is that it is those who have sinned who are particularly fond of casting stones.

I realise that there are people out there who have done horrible things and that people would like to see them punished, but even criminals are humans and are subject to human rights and the laws of the land. The fact is that people are the product of the society in which they are brought up, and these demonstrations of public outrage are nothing more than humiliating displays of self-flagellation in a society that has failed itself.

And if we should allow this new form of public trial, I would imagine that Lord Falconer would hope that selling peerages is not the next crime to capture public outrage

Also, I'm pleased to note that Gordon is increasing the scope of his foreign policy credentials, after this apparent visit to Lilliput.

Stop Treating Children Like Adults

Apparently, a commons selcet committee has ruled that each school should have a school council. Here I agree - the school management does not always understand the consequences of their decisions and it is important that pupils can get their views across. Also, it is important for the self-esteem of children to feel enfranchised in the decision-making process.

However, in my experience of leading school councils, the people elected to them, whilst representative of the school body ( the 'cool kids'), were very rarely articulate enough to get their point across effectively, or introspective enough to know what it was about a proposition that instinctively made them dislike it.

I certainly don't agree with the idea that pupils should have a say on the appointment of staff and the running of the school, as was suggested by the committee.

Our school was one of those awful 'progressive' ones, and a few pupils were allowed to interview prospective headmasters. I vehemently disagreed with the rest of the student panel, whose only criterion for a good head was that they would promise them the world. Many of these things, if they are honest, they have no right to promise and have never been implemented, because they were highly impractical.

I agree that children need to be given some responsability for them to get used to the idea of making decisions for themselves and other people. However, they are not yet mature enough to make decisions of that magnitude, and are often unaware of the vital context of the adult world.

Treating children as equals means that we should respect their opinions as fellow human beings, but accept that they are made within the context of someone who has never had to care for themselves in the real world. This isn't patronising, it's just sensible.

LePen for Presidential Candidate!

Before you read the title and hit me, let me explain what I mean....

I do not think that Jean-Marie LePen would be a good, or even adequate president. Blaming France's problems on immigration is like blaming global warming on the flatulence of cows - maybe it has an effect, but are you seriously going to cull them all? The fact is that France is in decline because of restrictive employment laws and all the red tape that comes with the French's preferred style of government (and Europe). Immigration is a cheap and easy excuse, and it is all too easy to stir up that sort of racial hatred.

However, it is absolutely appauling that a man who can get into the second round of a presidential election, can fail to be allowed into the next race because of a democratic nicety. French officials are, in effect, by-passing democracy by failing to give people the chance to vote for LePen.

I hope that these officials will look hard at themselves and ask whether their judgement is really better than that of the voters and, if not, will sign the bloody piece of paper. Then, and only then, will Jean-Marie get the kicking he deserves and we can put the spectre of racism firmly in France's past.

Making martyrs solves nothing

Family Values

There are times when I feel very embarassed about being a Tory. Unfortunately, as I sit here listening to the tax breaks for married couples debate on Question Time, this is one of them.

It's not that there's anything wrong with the Tory policy. I think that the family is one of the cornerstones of society. Thus, whilst we believe in treating every individual person equally and fairly, there is no reason why we cannot support institutions that contribute positively towards society and to the bringing up of children. Let us not forget that these children cannot take care of themselves and that the state has far more forceful ways of defending their welfare.

However, as sensible as this policy is, the only sensible people that seem to support it are the politicians. Everyone else is a nutter! Watching the debate on Question Time, I can see all the supporters of the policy actually foaming at the mouth! If the Conservative Party aren't careful, the only people who will support us are religious fundamentalists and those in their dotage.

I am continually surprised about how the Liberal agenda seems to have the monopoly of the national morality. Why is it that we can either believe that the state can provide for all our material wants or that it has absolutely no business interfering in anything that we do and nothing in-between.

Of course, the government has to be very careful before it assumes the role of 'society', of which it is only distantly representative and which shouldn't really be dictating to individuals anyway. However, part of this role is surely protecting children from instability and protecting the rest of us from crime and social disorder. These are almost certainly symptoms of the breakdown of local, people-sized society, of which the family is an inherent (although not the only) part.

Whilst I have some sympathy with the argument that we should not be dictating to people how to live their lives, I do hope that a few more normal people outside the religious establishment will actually get that the Conservatives aren't actually trying to marry us all off - they are just trying to encourage social responsability.

The Liberal Democrats

Has anyone noticed how the Liberal Democrats only ever talk about how they are going to win the next election?

This seems strange to me, as they are the only major party that stands no chance of winning the next general election.

Ming has marked the first anniversary of his becoming leader of the Liberal Democrats by defending his record thus far which, to be honest, indicates a pretty inauspicious reign. But, to anyone who remembers his acceptance speech, it will sound especially tired.

Ming swept to victory last year in an election in which one of the candidates suffered aligations about his private life, one was completely unheard-of and the majority of votes were returned before any of the speeches had been given anyway.

In his acceptance speech, Ming then proceded to tell us how the Liberal Democrats needed policies fit for government (in an eerie echo from his parties history). Since then, the only thing that we ever hear from him is how labour is failing, the Tories are and ideas vacuum and how he is not just a safe pair of hands (although how he manages to square this with the fact that, by his own admission, he has spent the last year "steadying the ship" is anyone's guess).

"Judge not, lest ye be judged" says the bible, apparently, and the Lib Dem mud-slinging is fooling no-one and making them look silly. They would be far better off unveiling policies.

Chinese Re-Education"

And so, I see, China is finally dragging itself into the middle ages. Next week, the people's congress will be discussing whether it is right to detain people in labour camps without trial because the police suspect them of something. If the bill passes, the period of this detention could be limited to less than 18 months.

Apparently, this has been well received by the Chinese media, which sees the law as "increasingly out of step with the country's progress in protecting human rights".

Interesting question - the state has the capacity to do us great harm. By failing to do that harm, is it actually "protecting" our human rights? Perhaps we should be grateful that our beneficient state has not chosen to lock us all in hard labour camps producing things for the state.

It is interesting that wherever the state is powerful, it is through its own self-aggrandisement. The fact that the Chinese government considers itself the arbiter of human rights is the reason that it is so easily able to flout them.

Whilst we can criticise the Chinese government for its appauling atrocities against its people, I think it is only fair to point out that this is the inevietable outcome when people are willing to cede their consciences to a higher body, never thinking that that body may have an agenda itself.

Let us make sure that we are never in a position to allow the state to "protect" our human rights