This is a genuine offer. I will pay £100 to any person who can provide a convincing reason why Denis MacShane’s expense fiddling, involving his creating false invoices, was not a criminal offence. Your argument does not have to be unanswerable – merely respectable. Up to three prizes will be given, for the three first and not essentially the same convincing arguments.
This competition specifically is open to employees of the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service; we would love to know their reasoning. It baffles me. I confess I can think of no single circumstance in this case that would prevent MacShane being convicted for theft and fraud. What is the answer?
Denis MacShane is a criminal. If he wants to try his chances with a jury, the libel courts are open to him and I am here.
habbabkuk,
I suppose that it may surprise you that “tempi” is a noun. Cannot you as a hasbara clown find some other outlets for your smears?
No, technicolour, Komodo has got nothing to explain to you, you are grasping at straws.
What reputable nursery carer? was s/he CRB checked?, why are you diverting the focus on a victims you know of, when it is far more appropriate to expose these molesters and abusers in public.
If you want to make this into a man vs. women argument, please carry on with the diversion.
In my opinion the parents are not stringent enough, they do not care about what others think or view them as, or are pre-occupied with their Gizmo’s.
In the same vane I could bve blaming councils housing policy priorities of the 1960’s 70’s 80’s and 90’s, i.e young pregant mothers were on a fast route to getting a council house, blah blah.
This em[phasis on the victim and not the abuser is false, it is a side issue, what surely has to be busted is the culture, the all covering duvets, such as the BBC, the timidity with which this issue is being tended to, nobody dares to let rip.
Why? because they are all scared what will happen if that artificial orifice of silence falls apart.
What will it cost to put these people to jail?
how much reform do we need to implement in the police, NHS, judiciary, childcare and social service and how much will that cost?
Should we build an extra prison now?
what trust is there left in the system, which institution is morally untainted, well, at least not morally confused such as Liberty, a human rights campaigns group that has not got this issues of child abuise and explotation on its front page, after all this uproar.
What does Liberty know about the BBC@s scandalous cover up of this affair, have they coordinated any campaigns with child line?, why are they not looking at this issue from a human rights angle?
What is wrong with Liberty as an organisation, led by a so called progressive woman, that they cannot/deliberately don’t want to deal with this issue?
“No, technicolour, Komodo has got nothing to explain to you, you are grasping at straws.”
Your opinion, Nevermind. It seems Komodo can speak for itself, however.
And grasping at straws? Hardly, when this is making me want to throw up over my keyboard.
“What reputable nursery carer? was s/he CRB checked?”
What has that got to do with it? She and he were arrested, as it happens. If you want to go along with Komodo’s suggestion that the victims of child abuse bear some responsibility for the abuses directed at them, either because of their behaviour or their dress sense, please do.
” why are you diverting the focus on a victims you know of, when it is far more appropriate to expose these molesters and abusers in public.”
The focus was diverted by the above suggestion. In fact, much as I love these public witch hunts, it would be ‘far more appropriate’ if the police did their job – a job sometimes tarnished, in the case of rape by the ‘she was asking for it somehow’ attitude, though I have yet, up til now, to see it wrt children.
If you want to make this into a man vs. women argument, please carry on with the diversion.
What has gender got to do with this? Are you suggesting that men, as a general rule, think in this way? To my certain knowledge, they do not.
It is one thing to be perturbed by the commercialised sexualisation of children in the media and in fashion – most people here share that perturbation. It is quite another to trivialise the brutal reality of child rape and sexual abuse.
“This em[phasis on the victim and not the abuser is false”
I return you to Komodo’s original suggestion that paedophilia could be minimised if potential victims dressed differently. And here, and acknowledging this is way off the topic of MacShane and his expenses, I am grateful to leave it.
Craig,
September 26, 2007
“Gavin Esler”
http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=520:i-fascist-robot-the-bbcs-gavin-esler-lets-rip&catid=21:alerts-2007&Itemid=38
Karel : “tempi” is a noun? Well I never, who would have thought it?
And now I’ll end this exchange. Go back to your pils, you hasbara-sniffing, smear-suspecting Flemish fool 🙂
When you think about the Greek ‘elites’, with their swiss bank accounts, protection from prosecution and God knows what else, you have to start wondering whether we the same set-up in the UK. It only took 2,000 people to totally subvert the public discourse and the media which enable the removal of a democratic government.
Maybe the top politicians, journalists and major public figures in the UK are part of a similar mass deception campaign – it would explain one hell of a lot.
It was technically not a criminal offence because the whole system is criminally corrupt and crooked. Therefore, within the context of this crooked criminal system it was perfectly fine and normal. That is why
‘If you want to go along with it?’
No, technicolour, I don’t want to participate in your diversion of the subject at all, you just carry on getting yourself into a lather.
Your assumptions and accusations are breath taking, I’m not not supporting anyone’s stance or deliberations, merely suggesting that your emphasis and focus is dead wrong, on the victim rather than on the criminal lecherous mindset of people who believe they can find enough spooks and police men to cover up their crimes.
If Komodo thinks that the morals of parenting are flawed and that these kids have been fed on BS and wanton advertising, then that surely is a point to make.
I don’t think that he would want to tarnish a child that is the victim of public institutionalised mismanagement, a child who’s with a carer that is not CRB checked.
If you think I had no right to butt into the issue, tough, have it our in private if you don’t like it.
see you when you cooled down
I have had my suspicions about Gavin Esler for years, since seeing his documentary on the JFK assassination where he, unsurprisingly, totally supported the official version, and even used discredited forensic techniques to prove it, including the ‘magic’ bullet and explaining how a blowout to the back of the head does not indicate a bullet entering the front, even when there is a small bullet hole in the front (described quite incredibly in the documentary as an exit wound).
So it was with interest I read his spat on Medialens and was agog to read him bringing up Nuremberg in response to a question about Iraqi deaths – then I did a quick search – sure enough Esler is a chosenite. Now everything makes sense.
Technicolour.
What is being said, is that if we set our standard and values higher and realise a higher level of disclosure(not censorship.)
Then we just might be able to drag people up from the lower forms of society into what we feel is “acceptable behaviour.”
A concept being liberal is hard to grasp.
Some form or another is contrived to make us fail in establishing virtues across the social spectrum.
Answers on a post card please.
Well well, all the usual suspects. I have no sympathy for Cameron’s sales trip but is it not obvious there is something of a dilemma here. if Cameron refused on some moral ground he would create a sensation no doubt, but be out on his neck in a trice and replaced with someone more accommodating. Cleggy no doubt would be delighted to step in, have no fear. his moral backbone is pure latex. However Cameron does seem to relish the job, and we can speculate endlessly why. It would surprise me if there was not some kind of financial arrangement in place that will benefit the Tory p[arty and Cameron personally in some rather obscure way.
It is perfectly clear that the whole Thatcher involvement in ME arms was about personal enrichment being a part of the process of easing the sales. Of course it is scandalous, but that is the kind of people the Thatchers were-20% commission people, believing themselves deserving of a free run at the money. Skimmers, sleazy back room dealers they may be bit there would be an endless queue to do the same privileged thing.
Why do we vote for them-delusion-spin, whatever. It is a plain fact that the majority of people regard the kind of moral flexibility practised by politicians as almost an essential qualification for the job-it speaks of “real world” perspective. Of course that isa rubbishy cliche but there is really no changing that easily.
Whatever anyone says, and even if Cameron was on a hefty kickback, in the form of payments or donations from BAE, the unravelling of British manufacturing to exclude arms and arms exports would be economically catastrophic in the short term at least.
Also there is no doubt that there are plenty of unscrupulous suppliers in Europe (France and Germany would step into the breach, or the US, without a backward look). The fact that Cameron acts as Death Sales Patter Merchant -in- Chief, simply indicates the nature of the British economy, and its dependency on a very narrow range of activities, and also possibly certain strategic aims vis a vis the Middle east.
People here talk as if ME oil is an option, but it must be clear to the most dense that we are all on the hook one way or another to oil. we can unhook bit it would be difficult and require huge commitment and tolerance.
Even one of the the most avid environmentalists I know is off on a recreational trip to India as i sit here typing. We are all somewhat corrupted by events, and by our choices.
As for McShane, deplorable old opportunist hyperprick/hypocrite, though he may be, there are countless deplorable others who will simply ooze into the vacancy created by his departure.
Personally i would have not the slightest hesitation in banging McShane up for the requisite time, but it is going to be a very long haul to drag all these players up to even the most basic level that most people would recognise as acceptable.
Israel paying billions to Jews worldwide to shill on media comment boards.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9648820/Israel-invests-millions-in-drive-for-elite-cyber-warriors.html
Now read the comments and just bathe yourself in the irony of it all.
@ Destroyer of Words : you’re surprised that Gavin’s a chosenite?
ESLER, you fool, ESLER – that didn’t give you a clue???
Nevermind, I think it’s charming that you support what you wish Komodo to have said, rather than what he actually did say. Phrases like: ‘the way to avoid crime is not to invite it’ and ‘The citizen MUST take SOME responsibility for his/her/its own safety, surely?’ would certainly seem to suggest a focus by that commentator on the victim, and the victim’s behaviour, rather than on the reality of child rape and sexual abuse. Which, as commentators here have pointed out, is *not* dependent on the way the victim dresses or behaves, or on the culture or the century in question. But I am glad you put me straight.
As for being ‘in a lather’; I was feeling sick. Understandably, since I had just been presented by the idea of my fourteen year old daughter behaving like a silly teenager and been expected to agree that she as a result she bears some responsibility for whatever extreme evil an adult may wish to perpetrate on her as a result. “Mum, I was raped”. “Well, it’s your fault, you shouldn’t have been pissed and wearing shorts. You know what men are like”. I think not. An appalling response to both the victim and men in general.
“If Komodo thinks that the morals of parenting are flawed and that these kids have been fed on BS and wanton advertising, then that surely is a point to make.” Indeed. An unprovable point in the first instance, and a truism with which no-one has disagreed in the second. But where is the focus on the ‘criminal lecherous mindset of people who believe they can find enough spooks and police men to cover up their crimes’ in either? I must be missing it.
“a child who’s with a carer that is not CRB checked” – a registered childminder, in fact.
Technicolour – I’m reluctant to continue with this, since it apparently involves a personal experience of yours, and it is emotionally charged. But I would like to point out that my remarks re. inappropriate sexualisation of young people applied to those young people likely, whether encouraged by media images, or their peers, or not dissuaded by their parents, to signal “availability” to a pervert. It’s a partial line of defence, and could only be interpreted rationally as applying to adolescents in the main.
Not, by the wildest stretch of imagination, four-year olds. OK? Even more not four-year-olds in care. Different case entirely.
And I’m not condoning paedophilia, whoever the victim. Categorically not. OK? Just in case you were thinking of having another go along those lines.
The unpleasant ‘mouth’ of the think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, is Mark Littlewood. He used to be a PR guru for the LibDems. Also another ex Liberty type. How the worm turns.
Mark Littlewood is the Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). He has formerly been chief press spokesman for the Liberal Democrats and the Pro Euro Conservative Party.
Biography Littlewood studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford and was the Campaigns Director of Liberty from June 2001 to April 2004. When on sabbatical, he became the chief spokesperson of NO2ID.[2] He was appointed as Head of Media for the Liberal Democrats in December 2004. He resigned from this position in May 2007, after saying that the introduction of proportional representation should not be a deal-breaker when negotiating for the Liberal Democrats’ involvement in a coalition.[3][4]
Littlewood was Director of Liberal Vision from 2008 to 2009, a pro-market pressure group, before taking up his position at the Institute of Economic Affairs in December 2009.
~~~~
Now he spouts out all kinds of right wing stuff and seems to be a regular feature in news and discussion programming on the visual media, especially the BBC. He has just been speaking against the Living Wage and its unsuitability if the government’s intention is to get people off the dole.
viz
iealondon The living wage: well intentioned but misguided {tinyurl.com/chb99tm} about 1 hour ago
iealondon Proposals for a living wage are well-intentioned, but ultimately misguided {tinyurl.com/bv8cjcg}
The list of trustees of the charity (it is also a limited company) includes Michael Hintze!
MR MICHAEL HINTZE
PROFESSOR MARTIN RICKETTS
PROFESSOR DAVID MYDDELTON
MR KEVIN BELL
MRS LINDA WHETSTONE
MR MICHAEL FISHER
PATRICK MINFORD, PH.D.
MR ROBERT BOYD
MR NEIL RECORD
DR MARK PENNINGTON
The highest paid official/member of staff and I assume that this is Littlewood, who is the Director General, earns between £90k-£100k. This information is in the accounts to December 2011. P 15
{http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends51/0000235351_ac_20111231_e_c.pdf}
The Living Wage is £8odd an hour
The mimimum wage is £7odd an hour
Littlewood’s take is £52 an hour assuming he earns £95,000 pa
Littlewood is a total hypocrite and he should NOT be heard or seen on the airwaves of the state broadcaster.
Apologies for being on topic, but I want a shot at that prize.
“I will pay £100 to any person who can provide a convincing reason why Denis MacShane’s expense fiddling, involving his creating false invoices, was not a criminal offence.”
It’s because crime is politically defined. Mr MacShane’s actions did not constitute conduct prejuducial to the ruling order, and it therefore cannot be criminal. Immoral, unethical, extremely shitty, whatever. But it can’t, by definition, be criminal. Crime is what we do, not what they do.
‘The citizen MUST take SOME responsibility for his/her/its own safety, surely?’
Focuses on NOT BEING a victim, btw. You disagree with the idea?
Published October 1997
“Secrecy imposed on the exposure of alleged child abuse – news and feature”
http://www.nickdavies.net/1997/10/01/secrecy-imposed-on-the-exposure-of-alleged-child-abuse-news-and-feature/
“to signal “availability” to a pervert.”
Being too young for sex seems to be the signal. So don’t get born until you’re 16?
Clarification on the amounts of the living wage and minimum wage
The living wage – which is £7.45 per hour across the UK except for London where it is £8.55 per hour – does not have any legal force, but is part of a campaign by the Living Wage Foundation and Citizens UK.
It is considerably higher than the official minimum wage that employers must legally pay, which stands at £6.19 per hour for those over 21, £4.98 for those over 18, and £3.68 for 16 and 17-year-olds.
~~~~~
Big deal.
Vronsky wrote –
“Apologies for being on topic, but I want a shot at that prize.
It’s because crime is politically defined. Mr MacShane’s actions did not constitute conduct prejuducial to the ruling order, and it therefore cannot be criminal. Immoral, unethical, extremely shitty, whatever. But it can’t, by definition, be criminal. Crime is what we do, not what they do”
…hold on ,i just made that point before you – perhaps less eloquently but i still made it. I’d be happy to share the prize fairly.Let’s say 70/30?
(70 to me)
Completely O/T? (Citizen’s responsibility dept)
Just had a guy at the door claiming that “the broadband” had been upgraded and that it was now absolutely free. Checked date, observed fireworks; not April 1st. Sent him on his way without (a) much ado (b) money (c) information, and checked local broadband status. Status =status quo. Checked “upgrade broadband scam” on Google. Aha. Seems TalkTalk are using questionable sales techniques. Read and learn:
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1341393
Advisory ends.
“hope I did not hurt any feelings”
Not at all, Courtenay. Not mine, anyway.
@Jives,
If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, my heart goes out to you.
I’ll leave that there.
——-
I agree with Tech, above. And more importantly (to me) I know that both my sons would agree as well.
Facile, Vronsky. The risk is confined to under-16’s. I reckon it makes sense to reduce it as much as possible. As it would be with the accident rate among 21-year-old newly qualified drivers.
“ESLER, you fool, ESLER – that didn’t give you a clue???”
No, Esler is a not uncommon German name. If he was called Gavin Cohen-Goldstein I might have twigged.
“The risk is confined to under-16′s. I reckon it makes sense to reduce it as much as possible.”
Put them in burqas then? Is that your answer? It would appear to follow.
Back on subject:
MacShameless is innocent of Fraud as he was a Labour MP/minister born in Glasgow. Ticks all the boxes.
In fact, the only sure way to prevent all these poor hapless men being enticed into having their way with under-age girls, better to segregate the sexes entirely after puberty, and then marry off the girls when they’re 16.
Right, Komodo? That would “reduce the risk as much as possible”.