Friday, March 16, 2007

Tridentine Folly



One of Britain's Trident Submarines - a bit useless against suicide bombers on the London Underground

Whatever else we may think of recently elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, he has certainly livened up politics.

Last time the UK Parliament had to consider renewing the contract by which Britain agrees to pay the USA a huge sum for the privilege of being Uncle Sam's nuclear base in Europe and thus first in the firing line if anything kicks off between America and Russia, David Cameron was leader of the opposition and the traitor and war criminal Tony Blair was Prime Minister.

There was never any chance that Parliament would vote down the diktat of His Excellency Fuhrergeneralissimo, President for Eternity Blair. Presented with an opportunity to "do the right thing" the Conservatives showed, as we knew they would, that they are mealy mouthed, wet-arsed cowards who whimperingly yearn for another dominatrix to do their thinking for them.

They cite tactics as an excuse for their yellow bellied cowardice. What tactics? If Trident had been rejected (in modern warfare, against a nutter with a rucksack full of bleach and acetone on a rush hour tube train, it would be about as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot) Blair would have faced a vote of confidence. Which he would have won.

Had that happened Blair would truly have been a lame duck Prime Minister, his political potency castrated and his legacy in ruins he would have had to stand by and watch his party polarise as the Tories did after the fall of Thatcher.

Now that would have been tactics.

Unfortunately Boy - boobs Cameron did not have the balls. Now, we are happy to say, Jeremy Corbyn does, he will oppose Trident (for the wrong reasons but a result is a result) and with the backing on SNP MPs couls severely damage Camero's credibility, if not defeat him and force a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister on this issue.

Because of intemperate remarks allegedly made on Andrew Marr’s Sunday morning television news magazine by Gen Sir Nicholas Houghton, the chief of the defence staff (“Pacifist Jezza not fit to be PM,”) a row has erupted about whether serving army officers are allowed to have an opinion.

What Houghton had actually said to Marr and realised that the senior soldier had tiptoed, not through the tlips, but through the Trident debate more deftly than print media had reported overnight.

I don’t think Sir Nick (as we should all think of him) poses any kind of threat. He seems emollient and sensibly bland; perhaps his appointment in 2013 was a reaction to his feisty predecessor, Gen Sir David (now Lord) Richards, who was inclined to launch surface to Ivory Tower missiles at government bean counters over budget cuts or David Cameron’s cadet corps’ strategic thinking.

But don’t think this sort of trouble will now melt away, for several reasons. Like most public servants, the military is pretty cross these days about the political class, Tory as well as Labour, for asking the soldiers (mostly), sailors and aircrews to do more for less, with less pay and fewer perks too. Even on Remembrance Day, it’s fair to point out that more pensioners have met an early death because of the cuts than soldiers, but their grievance is also legitimate.

So Cameron got it in the neck from Richards over Libya, as Gordon Brown and Tony Blair once did from the pyrotechnic former SAS man Lord Guthrie.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Cannabis and Common Sense

11 November, 2015


The cannabis cadeuceus (image source)

This is a story from the British courts (back in 2005), it should concern us all however. It is not particularly about the rights and wrongs of cannabis, it is about the exculsion of compassion and common sense from the legal process. When the law is managed by bureaucrats we will soon lose our freedoms. I update because only last week a similar case came before a US court, with a similarly bureaucratic and compassionless outcome.

Sixty - Eight year old Patricia Tabram of Hemshaugh, Northumbria was convicted at Carlisle Crown Court yesterday of possessing cannabis. She had admitted growing three plants in her wardrobe for self medication purposes. Mrs Tabram, who suffers from depression and arthritis mixes the dried, ground laves with various foods to lift her depression and give her respite from the chronic pain in her joints. She claims cannabis it the only therapy which works on her symptoms without causing debilitating side effects. A cup of hot chocolate containing a little cannabis gives her five hours relief from pain, the court was told.

Now this person who does not have much quality of life left nor much to look forward to in her remaining years is faced with the prospect of having to do 250 hours community service (with crippling arthritis, yeah right!) and pay £1000 legal costs. Because of the conviction her home in a sheltered unit provided by a Housing Association is also at risk.
In passing sentence Judge Barbara Forrester said she understood Mrs. Tabram only used the drug for self medication and had no intent to supply others but the law limited the scope for leniency.

It has always been a principle of Western justice since the Ancient Greeks gave us the basis of our civilisation (though it is too rarely observed in recent centuries when vengeance and retribution seem to be the only principles that matter) that justice should be tempered with compassion. If ever there was a case for a judge set a precedent in the interests of justice this was it.

Sadly, under the bureaucratic dictatorship that economic liberalism has imposed on us in the past three decades, common sense is always overridden by rules and regulations. Judges seem ever more reluctant to give verdicts that challenge a bad law because the government, which is jealous of the power of an independent judiciary, may use it as an excuse to further undermine that independence. This has led to many deplorable decisions by the dispensers of justice.

Another social commentator at an American website wrote last week of a "social recession" in the free world. It is hardly surprising. When those with the authority to do so are afraid to challenge bad laws, respect for the law breaks down. And when respect for the law breaks down we cease to be a society and become a rat pack.

Ian Thorpe at Authorsden


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