On Thursday 30 April, this blog had 2,849 unique visitors. That brought the total number of unique visitors for all of April to precisely 74,000. The chances of that being an exact thousand are, of course, just one in a thousand.
Which set my mind thinking on the following incredible coincidence of numbers in recent news headlines. I wonder if we might make a film about it, like that really boring one “The Number 23” with Jim Carrey. We could call it “The Number Nil”.
Number of People Dead in the UK in the Great Pig Plague – Nil
Number of people charged in Gordon Brown’s Manchester “Very big terror plot” – Nil
Number of responsible caring parents of Madeleine McCann – Nil
Number of the 117,000 people stopped and searched by police in 2007/8 under section 44 of the Terrorism Act, who were then convicted of a terrorism offence – Nil
The trebling in a year of the number of people stopped and searched under anti-terror laws, is another example of the massive growth and abuse of police power under New Labour. Nobody was convicted of a terrorist offence after being stopped and searched. 0.06% were charged with a terrorist offence. Just under 1% were charged with a non-terror related offence.
In London the police have been using these stop and search powers to set up cordons, particularly on tube stations in high immigrant areas. The idea is that if they search enough immigrants they are bound to find a few carrying drugs or knives, and it helps them meet their New Labour arrest, charging and conviction (clearup) targets.
Number of Labour politicians who will take any notice of what you say? Yes, you’ve guessed it – nil.
Below are three reported tenets of policing by Robert Peel:
# Whether the police are effective is not measured on the number of arrests, but on the lack of crime.
# Above all else, an effective authority figure knows trust and accountability are paramount.
# The police are the public and the public are the police.
I think the police have gone way past their use by date.
This “terrible scary epidemic” of what appears to be a pretty harmless bug has achieved three things: Partially knocked Brown’s troubles out of the headlines, partially knocked the USA torture memos out of the headlines, and made a small fortune for D Rumsfeld, while gazillions of Tamiflu doses continue to be stockpiled. Instead of a facing a trial for war crimes, he’s raking in the dosh.
Hi Craig!
Do you have special information about the McCanns, other than that they left their child asleep, briefly untended, whilst they ate nearby — according to the media?
If that’s all the evidence for their supposed irresponsibility, couldn’t we-all give ’em a break?
Their child has been gone, fate unknown, for a couple of years. They’ve been flayed alive by the media-scum, simply for the sake of their — the scum’s — ratings.
What they must have suffered, and continue to suffer, must exempt them by now from any further flaying for taking one small risk that went wrong, which plenty of parents have taken when things seemed pretty safe.
Or have you some special information that changes everything radically, Craig? Best wishes, RhG
Rhisiart,
I have no special information.
It was not briefly unattended. They left a toddler and two babies unattended for hours, in a foreign hotel room across a pool, a lawn and a wall from whether they were eating – and had done so before.
I once had to leave Jamie unattended, on his first birthday, in a cot in an Italian hotel room while I dashed to pick up something for him from reception. I was away from him for leaa than two minutes, probably, but I panicked like mad.
A babysitting service was available but they did not pay for it despite having well-paid jobs. The best thing you can call the is unnaturally irresponsible parents. The worst thing they could be?
Interested if you have had three and one year old kids, Rhisiart, and how long you personally have left them unattended in an alien environment. Every parent I know finds that deeply weird.
Sorry, Rhisiart, the phrasing of that bit sounds like I am attacking your parenting skills, which isn’t what I meant!
I have enjoyed three holidays in Praia da Luz (pre McCann), and it was not at all the sort of place where paedophiles or child abductors were likely to be on the prowl. Sleepy and laid back to the point of boredom, in fact.
I am not a mind reader, and have no idea what goes on in the minds of the McCanns. But I do sense more than a whiff of “the lady protesteth too much” about them, and cannot for the life of me see why they keep on and on cranking up publicity about their tragic loss – which is by no means unique, though other parents in a similar position don’t kick up such a fuss and don’t have s former Downing Street spin doctor in their employ either.
Thanks Craig,
That’s quite something. 117,000 stops and searches under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and not one conviction for terrorism. I’ll have to remember that.
The Terrorism Act 2000 is not emergency provision, but permanent statute. In any case, there was no basis for proclaiming an emergency in 2000.
It is a permanent law which hands to the executive the power to arrest and detain without charge because an officer thinks you were preparing to do something. Detention is punishment. The courts are not involved. The police and the executive branch become judge, jury and executioner. Am I right in saying that this venal legal instrument violates the principle of the rule of law, even though it is a law itself?
No document can destroy the sacred right of a people to sovereignty over itself.
Best Wishes,
Stephen
A link between the McCanns and the police state of Labour?
Yes.
A population with a gross sense of entitlement, no interest beyond themselves and their ‘needs’.
The McCanns exercised their right to drink and eat while their very young children slept all alone, a good distance away.
They and sadly, the little girl, paid the price.
The UK population exercise their right to do NOTHING about the insanity around them.
They will pay the price too.
To be a real human being, you must be awake and alert and vigilant, well-read, reasonably physically and mentally healthy, aware of all the real issues and prepared to take ALL the responsibility for yourself and your family, and not live in a TV-inspired fantasy world.
The McCanns, sadly, are in the vast majority, who do none of the above.
Thats why the child has gone and freedom in the UK is going too.
And these people are doctors! The ‘God complex’ is still healthy in these idiots, I guess.
Here’s a good one. Number of ‘high profile’ paedophile ring investigations allowed to reach their natural conclusions by the political elite? A big fat zero. So what does that indicate then? Hmmm…
Madeleine McCann was not abducted.
While not being a knee-jerk conspiracy theorist, I do find the connections indicated here interesting:
http://trannyfattyacid.blogspot.com/2007/10/gordon-browns-reason-for-helping-gerry.html
Hi Rhisiart
Craig is correct to highlight in his opinion that the McCanns were bad parents for leaving their children repeatedly unattended.
“Do you have special information about the McCanns, other than that they left their child asleep, briefly untended, whilst they ate nearby — according to the media?”
As Craig points out; they left their ‘children’ alone. What is surprising about the McCann circus is how they have managed to avoid action being taken by the Police. In countless incidents involving child alone cases the parents get charged and processed through the courts, particularly if the parents are working class non professionals.
“If that’s all the evidence for their supposed irresponsibility, couldn’t we-all give ’em a break?”
The evidence of their “supposed irresponsibility” is factual Rhisart, not subjective.
“Their child has been gone, fate unknown, for a couple of years”.
I think it is highly likely that this unfortunately child is dead.
“They’ve been flayed alive by the media-scum, simply for the sake of their — the scum’s ?” ratings”.
You mean people keep raising the issue of their neglect and abandonment?
“What they must have suffered, and continue to suffer, must exempt them by now from any further flaying for taking one small risk that went wrong, which plenty of parents have taken when things seemed pretty safe”.
How do you know they are suffering? Why do you continually use subjective opinion and attempt to present it as evidence? For the record, the McCann’s didn’t take a small risk.
Since when are leaving three children alone by deliberately acts on the part of their parents considered a “small risk”?
The McCanns’ are guilty of multiple accounts of abandonment of their children. That in my opinion is three separate charges per parent at each instant and an additional charge of conspiracy to abandon. As the McCanns are both Doctors; I am sure that they must have heard of the Children’s Act 1989.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University