I am an unabashed fan of Ken Clarke, and long have been. He was stating a simple truth when he created a furore by noting that some rapes are worse than others, a truth denied by politically correct feminist idiots who see rape not as what it is – a sordid and vicious crime of violence – but as a metaphysical act, incapble of degree, like the Eucharist. Murders can be aggravated or mitigated, but not rapes. What bollocks, and good for Ken for speaking sense.
He has now quite rightly castigated Teresa May’s claim that cat-owners cannot be deported as “childish”. Actually the frothy mouthed racist bigots cheering on their poster girl are much more dangerous than childish, but Clarke is right again. Doubtless a sacking offence.
Over 55,000 people were deported from the UK last year, and just 112 managed to stay here by using Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights – that is one in every 550 deportees, or 0.18%. Article 8 reads:
Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
How the Tories manage to disagree with that is beyond me. Bunch of xenophobic idiots – apart from Ken Clarke, who as a young man plainly wandered into the wrong party.
I think May is a dangerous woman, a bit potty but very ambitious. I was looking at her during Cameron’s ‘speech’. Ken was sitting behind her two rows back. She fixes a smile on her face which isn’t a smile. She got her own way by not allowing the US cop to take the Met job.
Quite so Craig, but it does beg the question as to which party Ken Clarke should be in
“…as to which party Ken Clarke should be in…”
Either Ken makes her look stupid; or by saying nothing, the Party looks stupid.
It’s pathetic that the Home Sec doesn’t understand the idea of ratio decidendi …
Ken Clarke is in a party. As far as I can tell, that is compulsory for being in politics.
Teresa May is as deplorable as Ken Clarke is likeable. The way she presented a blatant lie “I kid you not” as truth ought to qualify her for a job in the media.
Article 8 is very close to meaningless, in that carefully-contrived way that politicians have of appearing to say something without actually quite doing so.
“Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence”.
What on earth does “respect” mean? It reminds me of the old blow-off line “I’ll always respect you…” Which essentially means “I would prefer never to see you again”. I suggest that this right, thus articulated, does not bind any public official to do or refrain any action at all.
It gets better. Now comes the weasel clause: “…except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.
Oh, I see. Unless the government passes a law saying that someone’s “private and family life, his home and his correspondence” DON’T have to be respected for just about any conceivable reason.
As KM says (albeit misusing “begging the question”) – which party should he have joined then?
Tom Welsh –
Yes, which is why to make its repeal a racists’ rallying point is nonsensical.
Yes, it’s comforting to know that there’s still at least one Conservative who can do the nasty without the stupid. Almost all of them nowadays are content to sit back and do both.
It only takes an IQ in double figures to see at once that the Bolivian’s Cat story was rubbish. I actually emailed BBC the day before Mrs. may’s speech to protest that they allowed it through then, on ‘Today.’ Ken Clarke is a pleasant enough man. Those of us in Nottingham met him now and then at pro-Euro meetings, and in Sainsbury’s. But to be pro-Europe does not make one leftish. Remember his time at Education, and Health? A driving force for centralization and privatization more strongly than any politician before newLabour.
It’s quite rare for me to disagree with you Mr Murray but Ken Clarke is a traitor just like the rest of the EU-supporting gravy-trainers.
Ken Clarke is in the right party for his own right reasons. The problem is the opportunist oafs who join the party seeing it as a vehicle for their own selfish ambitions.
“Ken Clarke, who as a young man plainly wandered into the wrong party.”
.
No Craig, he is in the right party
http://www.bmj.com/content/331/7521/912/suppl/DC1
I should have said, what does it matter which of the main parties Ken Clarke wandered into, he would be at home in any of them!.
Barry 38, where do you think our biggest market lies? Ken Clarke recognises this and has long argued for a much stronger engagement. Although I do not agree with him on every matter, I think he has a fair mind and can think for himself without the pre chewed agenda’s from the PM’s catnip brigade.
And here from the EDP in Norwich comes the never ending story of the ‘real’ Tory attitudes, for whom power ueber alles cannot be disrupted by drink driving cllr.s, who then proceeded to a kick police inspector. He was fined, became an Independent, and got rewarded with a perky job on the finance and risk committee, howzat
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/waveney_district_council_appalled_by_position_over_shamed_drink_drive_councillor_andrew_draper_1_1080732
Since my first reply to this ongoing story did not appear and the EDP acts out its usual go slow bias and censorship, I have copied my secong reply here.
I know Mary especially enjoy’s this Cllr.s saucy antics…:)Feel free to comment on their website, the EDP is so pro Tory its not true, by publishing the investigation committee members names, the paper is effectively involving themselves in moralising in favour of the Conservative party as it exists on Waveney council.
“Since my comment has not appeared yet, I presume that this issue needs a slightly bigger audience nationally, maybe it should be raised at Tory HQ, because this behaviour by Con. Cllr.Colin Law and ex Conservative Cllr. Draper, of riotous fame, is what brings them into disrepute. Waveney council’s business is seriously compromised and to reward this councillor with fronting the finance and risk committee is putting two fingers up to us all. The Conservative Party has shown that only power matters, at any price.”
Sorry to have diverted slightly, showing the nasty law abusing, kicking and screaming side of the Tory party, nowt to do with Ken.
While I agree with Clarke’s comments over May’s cat hiatus, I cannot join you in cheering for him. Not until he realises that the legal aid reforms he is overseeing are an utter disaster, that fixed fee for legal aid is an evil system, and becuase he oversaw the closure of Refugee and Migrant Justice and latterly Immigration Advisory Service, depriving thousands of competent legal advice
It’s an extraordinary and rather sad situation when a Conservative Justice minister is patently so much more liberal, humane and progressive than not only virtually all his Cabinet colleagues, but than his Labour opposite number too. It’s worrying that Cameron has taken T May’s side in the (significant) row over the cat. I fear that Ken’s days in government may be numbered, and with him any last hope of prison reform.
The Conservatives aren’t conservative, Labour has nothing to do with representing the interests of working people, and as far as I can see the Liberal Democrats include some of the least liberal politicians I have ever heard of. That comes as no surprise, because all modern parties (except for the unelectable fringe) consist of pragmatic managerialists, whose only concern is using technical means to get and hold on to power. (Oh, and rich pickings when they retire from active politics).
I question the figure of 112. I suspect that many thousands or tens of thousands each year are given leave to remain based on Article 8 grounds.
How sad this world is
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-15188454
I have to agree with your sentiments Brian B., his Independence and free mind is bound to upset the totalitarian line.
I saw that too Guest. One could ask why the BBC put such things up. On the Surrey page we have this about a cyclist being pushed off his bike by a car passenger. Are they trying to make us believe that our society is becoming more brutal? My experience is that it is not. People are definitely not as community minded as they used to be but are not generally cruel and thoughtless as is portrayed.
.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-15198770
.
The BBC website is more ‘tabloid’ in content than it used to be. Competing with the Mail?
Guest, and isn’t that the truth about asylum seekers? It’s not Teresa May’s version. Though a family man can be in this country for 10 years and have no citizen status, even though his children go to school here, and because he could not get citizenship, and was worried about not being able stay, either jumped or fell to his death, to taunts of ‘jump’ from a ‘caring’ group below. As you say, how sad this world is!
Mary, cyclists can be treated as having no rights to be on the road. Some Passengers (it’s happened to me a few times) will have their windows down and shout at the top of their voice to try and scare the living daylights out of you. To them it’s a bit of fun. But I still think “Dickhead!” when it happens and may even shout it after them. There are others who just cut you up as though you’re not there, or overtake you and suddenly turn left so you have to brake. Sill it’s not as bad as Budapest, and nowhere near as bad as Istanbul. We’re digressing.
mary/John Goss, just in the last few weeks, I have talked to at least three people about the dire situation we are in, in every case they put 100% of the blame on immigrants. I have never heard such hated racist talk like it since the 1950s and the intake of immigrants at that time. I thought we had come along way from that, sadly, it seems not. I am really sickened by so many of my fellow citizens. I truly dread what the future holds for all of mankind.
Ingo Draper is a nice example of a Tory bovver boy isn’t he and yet some of the rioters went to prison. Why didn’t he get some porridge for being three times over the limit and for kicking the police inspector? Perhaps the beak is known to him.
.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/waveney_district_council_appalled_by_position_over_shamed_drink_drive_councillor_andrew_draper_1_1080732
.
btw Your comment is not up there although it contains no typos. 😉
Cats can do a lot of good things – lessen stress, predict earthquakes and so on. I love them. But they certainly cannot stop you getting deported. I like Ken too although his party does not appeal to me at all. BUT he lets logic rule rather than giving in to pure bigotry and a creepy, sleazy, opportunist desire to pander to certain elements within the party. The fact that the man had a cat does not constitute a causal link between that fact and his right not to get deported due to respect for his family life. I gather the cops do not like Teresa May. I can understand that. I can see how they’d think she’s not very bright, bigoted and looking for the approval of the fascistic, racist elements within the right-wing camp. Barking!
All this cat stuff is of course diversionary to take our attention off the stalled economy, the perilous state of the banks and the savagery being enacted in our name in Libya and Afghanistan. Also the ‘reforms’ to the NHS, ie its destruction.
Guest, I hear racist comments from time to time, not as often as you seem to be hearing them over the economic crisis. But there are pockets in the UK where racism seems more prevalent. Birmingham is quite good in not being racist, sometimes I think it takes positive discrimination too far in the direction of unwarranted ethnic support, as I think it sometimes does with its support for women. There should of course be equal opportunities. But I have particular sympathy for asylum-seekers, having known one or two, and it saddens me to think that the era of Enoch Powell and the “rivers of blood” oratory might be returning. I hope not!
“He has now quite rightly castigated Teresa May’s claim that cat-owners cannot be deported as “childish”.”
.
“Immigrant cat story: Ken Clarke ‘regrets’ jibe at May”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15199000