The announcement today by the Ministry of Justice of a reduction in the time before a criminal conviction is spent is an outbreak of common sense in the issue of crime and justice.Crime is a blanket term that has ceased to serve any useful purpose when discussing offending, its causes and remedies. At the same time the legal process appears to be in constant crisis with masses of often contradictory and conflicting evidence. From policing [...]
This issue is slowly but surely becoming an issue within mainstream political debate. The debate is often only, and rightfully, considered for the worst criminals in our society which consist of paedophiles, rapists and serial killers. Recent cases have come to light with the Stephen Lawrence murderer’s being sent down for just 14 and 15 years each. Gary Dobson and David Norris were sentenced as juveniles because they were under the age of 18 when [...]
In response to my article entitled Selfish druggies don’t care about the deaths of innocent people (about the effects of driving while drugged) a Mr Ewan Hoyle made a comment, the essence of which is that driving while high on cannabis is safer than driving while tanked up on beer. I’ll come back to this. But first I will make an observation which is germane to many of my opponents on the drugs debate. Mr Hoyle [...]
There are some aspects of Drugs: Meaning, Morality and Mexicans (part 1 of … many) that appear well reasoned but I think would benefit from closer consideration. Let me start with the statement that drugs are inherently harmful. For the moment I will ignore Steve Rolles useful clarification that drugs are, more appropriately, risky. Clearly some painkillers which are class C drugs have a legitimate medical use. So it is not quite so simple as [...]
In May 2010, after the general election when the Coalition government was being created, the British public were told that things were going to be difficult for a long time and that for the country to recover from thirteen years of mismanagement a huge number of changes and reforms would have to be implemented. In terms of the economy, some progress has been made to reduce the rate at which the country is spending beyond [...]
Ron Paul has caught the eye of many followers of American politics. Having been confined to state politics for the majority of his tenure as a Senator of Texas, he burst onto the national stage in 1988 when he ran for the position of the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. He followed the same path in 2008, losing out to eventual nominee John McCain. He is again running for the same position in 2012. The Congressman [...]
The editor of this website, James Garry, rose admirably to the bait I threw with my piece on drug legalisation. Here I will attempt to respond to his criticisms one by one. My original piece stands on its own merits but I will underline perhaps its key argument: that there is a difference between laws and morals and that a free society is one that does not legislate morality. Drug-taking is probably immoral; this is [...]
In the playground name-calling that passes for modern British political debate, to accuse someone of supporting Victorian values is tantamount to accusing them of a crime. Like the dreaded witch sniffer in King Solomon’s Mines, the babbling judges of the left are quick to point their long, wrinkled fingers at sexists, ‘homophobes’, reactionaries or – worst of all – racists. To their small minds, Victorian values are cruelty, heartlessness, repression and greed, among others. Let [...]