It was sad to read of the passing of Maria Altman, a Jewish refugee from Nazis persecution, but up-lifting to read of her battle, and triumph, over the Austrian government for the return of looted art treasures stolen from her family in 1938.
It was not until 1998 that the Austrians passed a law making the return of looted art works possible but it still took Maria 8 years before they finally capitulated.
‘They had stolen the paintings………and kept them for 68 years’ she is reported as saying in 2007, ‘they never made the slightest attempt to compensate us………they just wanted to keep them’.
‘Cheats never beat’ my Gran used to say.
Tuesday 22 February 2011
Monday 21 February 2011
Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy……
Are the people at Northern Rail completely sane?
They are, it is reported, insisting a disabled woman makes a 20-mile return journey to Goole and back in order to reach the opposite platform at Thorne, near Doncaster, rather than assist her to cross the tracks.
‘It’s purely a Health and Safety concern’ Northern Rail are quoted as saying – well to miss-quote Mandy Rice-Davis, ‘they would say that wouldn’t they’?
They are, it is reported, insisting a disabled woman makes a 20-mile return journey to Goole and back in order to reach the opposite platform at Thorne, near Doncaster, rather than assist her to cross the tracks.
‘It’s purely a Health and Safety concern’ Northern Rail are quoted as saying – well to miss-quote Mandy Rice-Davis, ‘they would say that wouldn’t they’?
Friday 18 February 2011
A New Britain?
The Government has published its Schools White Paper 2010 ‘The Future Of Schools’ which makes interesting reading for any parent of school-age children.
One of its more contentious proposals is to effectively remove from parents the right of appeal to an Independent Appeals Panel against the decision of a school to permanently exclude a pupil from school. It intends to replace such appeals with a ‘review’ panel, which will no longer, as now, have the power to order a pupil’s re-instatement, no matter what injustice may have been done to the child by the school in excluding him or her. The decision on exclusions will rest solely with the school.
Only 15% of appeals against permanent exclusion are successful, but it seems even this is too many for the government.
How Mr Cameron, who co-wrote the forward to the White Paper, can square the concept of fairness and justice with the proposal that an un-elected body, a school, can in future, make life-changing decisions with no right of appeal, and thus redress, is beyond me.
I know of no other state organization, be it a court, or any of the various tribunals, where a right of appeal does not exist. Are schools to be considered as above the ancient common law rights of the people to have the decisions of those placed in authority over them subject to scrutiny?
If that is truly the way this government thinks then it’s a sad day for Great Britain.
One of its more contentious proposals is to effectively remove from parents the right of appeal to an Independent Appeals Panel against the decision of a school to permanently exclude a pupil from school. It intends to replace such appeals with a ‘review’ panel, which will no longer, as now, have the power to order a pupil’s re-instatement, no matter what injustice may have been done to the child by the school in excluding him or her. The decision on exclusions will rest solely with the school.
Only 15% of appeals against permanent exclusion are successful, but it seems even this is too many for the government.
How Mr Cameron, who co-wrote the forward to the White Paper, can square the concept of fairness and justice with the proposal that an un-elected body, a school, can in future, make life-changing decisions with no right of appeal, and thus redress, is beyond me.
I know of no other state organization, be it a court, or any of the various tribunals, where a right of appeal does not exist. Are schools to be considered as above the ancient common law rights of the people to have the decisions of those placed in authority over them subject to scrutiny?
If that is truly the way this government thinks then it’s a sad day for Great Britain.
Thursday 17 February 2011
Fairness
I’ve no particular fondness for MPs of any party but I couldn’t help but consider the fairness of the treatment of Jim Devine and Eric Illsley, convicted of fiddling their parliamentary expenses, with that of some recent benefit frauds.
Mr Illsley was jailed for 12 months for stealing £14,500 from the public purse, and Mr Devine is reportedly facing 2 years in prison for a similar theft of £8,000.
Lisa Spindler, on the other hand fiddled, (stole by any other name) £22,500 in 3 year benefit fraud and got just six months jail, and that was suspended for 12 months!
Over a 4 year period Carole Bennett claimed £43,226 she was not entitled to, theft again, and did even better, 4 months prison suspended for a year, the same as Debra Morrissey who stole £23,000 over 6 years.
Smells suspiciously like victimisation to me!
Mr Illsley was jailed for 12 months for stealing £14,500 from the public purse, and Mr Devine is reportedly facing 2 years in prison for a similar theft of £8,000.
Lisa Spindler, on the other hand fiddled, (stole by any other name) £22,500 in 3 year benefit fraud and got just six months jail, and that was suspended for 12 months!
Over a 4 year period Carole Bennett claimed £43,226 she was not entitled to, theft again, and did even better, 4 months prison suspended for a year, the same as Debra Morrissey who stole £23,000 over 6 years.
Smells suspiciously like victimisation to me!
Tuesday 15 February 2011
Water and Aircraft Carriers
I see from today’s newspapers that we are giving India one billion pounds in aid and assuming that’s an American billion, and not a ‘real’ billion, it’s still one thousand million pounds of our money (which is a one with 9 noughts behind it).
Now I’m all for helping those who can’t help themselves but………
India is currentley buying an aircraft carrier from Russia at a cost of 3.4 billion US dollars, plus an additional $1 billion for the aircraft and weapons systems and is going to order 29 MiG-29Ks for around $1.1 billion, a total cost of 5.5 billion US dollars - plus it is building two more new carriers at 6 billion dollars each, which equates to a total cost of about 17.5 Billion US dollars and which will give India the world’s second most powerful carrier fleet, at a time when we can’t even afford to run one aircraft carrier.
Now according to The Water Project Inc, providing clean water costs $10 for one person for ten years which means that if you divide $1,7500,000,000 by 10 you get 1,750,000,000, which equates to providing clean water for 1,750 million people for 10 years.
India’s population is 1,189 million, so the cost of the Indian aircraft carriers would provide all India’s population with clean fresh water for nearly 15 years!
I wonder what India will spend our £1000,000,000 ($1612,450,000) on, clean water provision maybe?
Now I’m all for helping those who can’t help themselves but………
India is currentley buying an aircraft carrier from Russia at a cost of 3.4 billion US dollars, plus an additional $1 billion for the aircraft and weapons systems and is going to order 29 MiG-29Ks for around $1.1 billion, a total cost of 5.5 billion US dollars - plus it is building two more new carriers at 6 billion dollars each, which equates to a total cost of about 17.5 Billion US dollars and which will give India the world’s second most powerful carrier fleet, at a time when we can’t even afford to run one aircraft carrier.
Now according to The Water Project Inc, providing clean water costs $10 for one person for ten years which means that if you divide $1,7500,000,000 by 10 you get 1,750,000,000, which equates to providing clean water for 1,750 million people for 10 years.
India’s population is 1,189 million, so the cost of the Indian aircraft carriers would provide all India’s population with clean fresh water for nearly 15 years!
I wonder what India will spend our £1000,000,000 ($1612,450,000) on, clean water provision maybe?
Prison Works
One way or another the UK prison population has been much in the news lately.
The Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, and his acolytes continue to propagate the myth that the UK imprisons a disproportionate number of people compared to our European neighbours, but he/they neglect to give the full story when comparing statistics between prison populations in the UK, France and elsewhere. The true comparison of prisoner numbers is not when compared to the country's population as a whole, but to the number of people convicted of a crime.
According to The British Crime Survey, there were 9.6 million crimes in the UK in 2009/10 or just under 155 per 1,000 people, while according to The University of Liverpool, for France the total number of crimes was just under 3.8 million, or a little over 62 per 1,000 people!
The EC gives figures for violent crime, in the UK of 2034 per 100,000 of population and for France just 504! So in the UK we commit two and a half times more crimes than in France and over four times as much violent crime, the sort that usually results in imprisonment!
Given the much-quoted figure for prison populations of 85,000 for the UK and 59,655 for France; comparatively, in France 1.46% of crime results in imprisonment while in the UK the figure is only 0.86%. Proportionate to crime, a better comparison than population as constantly trumpeted by Ken Clark, France jails nearly twice as many of its criminals as does the UK. Their prison population is less than ours simply because they commit less crime, not that we imprison a disproportionate number of criminals.
Figures for Germany reflect no better on the current myth; according to the United Nations, Germany has a crime rate of 79 per 1,000 of population (155 for the UK) and where 1.1% of crime results in imprisonment (0.86% for the UK).
The efforts of Ken Clark and his cohorts should be directed not to reducing the prison population by removing the powers of courts to imprison but to reducing UK crime to a rate comparative to our neighbours. I doubt the loss of 500 police officers in West Yorkshire alone will do much to achieve that aim.
The Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, and his acolytes continue to propagate the myth that the UK imprisons a disproportionate number of people compared to our European neighbours, but he/they neglect to give the full story when comparing statistics between prison populations in the UK, France and elsewhere. The true comparison of prisoner numbers is not when compared to the country's population as a whole, but to the number of people convicted of a crime.
According to The British Crime Survey, there were 9.6 million crimes in the UK in 2009/10 or just under 155 per 1,000 people, while according to The University of Liverpool, for France the total number of crimes was just under 3.8 million, or a little over 62 per 1,000 people!
The EC gives figures for violent crime, in the UK of 2034 per 100,000 of population and for France just 504! So in the UK we commit two and a half times more crimes than in France and over four times as much violent crime, the sort that usually results in imprisonment!
Given the much-quoted figure for prison populations of 85,000 for the UK and 59,655 for France; comparatively, in France 1.46% of crime results in imprisonment while in the UK the figure is only 0.86%. Proportionate to crime, a better comparison than population as constantly trumpeted by Ken Clark, France jails nearly twice as many of its criminals as does the UK. Their prison population is less than ours simply because they commit less crime, not that we imprison a disproportionate number of criminals.
Figures for Germany reflect no better on the current myth; according to the United Nations, Germany has a crime rate of 79 per 1,000 of population (155 for the UK) and where 1.1% of crime results in imprisonment (0.86% for the UK).
The efforts of Ken Clark and his cohorts should be directed not to reducing the prison population by removing the powers of courts to imprison but to reducing UK crime to a rate comparative to our neighbours. I doubt the loss of 500 police officers in West Yorkshire alone will do much to achieve that aim.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)