After such an extended break from blogging, you will be deeply disappointed that I restart with something as mundane and trivial as Jeremy Clarkson. I have defended the man in the past, because I much enjoy Top Gear and consider that much of what he has been criticised for in the past had been an amusing winding-up of the po-faced of the kind I employ myself. But nasty, indeed vicious bullying of a subordinate should always be a sacking offence.
That did not ought to be the question, though. He hit someone and they had to go to hospital. Where are the police? They are incredibly fond of sweeping up scores of teenagers for thought crime, but here we have an actual violent assault that spills blood, and it seems completely out of the question the perpetrator is brought to account. Why is that? I had a personal experience a couple of years ago when I was very mildly hurt – less than young Oisin – in an assault, and the police insisted on arresting the perpetrator despite my repeated requests to them not to do so. They told me rather firmly that the idea that it is the victim who has a say in pressing charges, is a myth. Why was Clarkson not arrested?
I cannot in my mind dissociate this from the non-arrest of Jimmy Savile for his crimes, despite their being well-known and reported at the time. That seems to link in to the wider paedophilia scandal, and the question of why no action was taken even in the most blatant of cases when there was compelling evidence, such as that of the extremely nasty Greville Janner MP.
But then I think still more widely as to why, for example, Jack Straw has not been charged with the crime of misfeasance in public office after boasting of using his position to obtain “under the radar” changes in regulations to benefit commercial clients, in exchange for cash. I wonder why a large number of people did not go to jail for the HSBC tax avoidance schemes or the LIBOR rigging scandal, which involved long term dishonest manipulation by hundreds of very highly paid bankers.
At the top of the tree is of course the question of why Blair has not been charged for the crime of waging illegal war. The Chilcot Inquiry heard evidence that every single one of the FCO’s elite team of Legal Advisers believed that the invasion of Iraq was an illegal war of aggression. Yet now the media disparage as nutters those who say Blair should be charged.
Then I think of all the poor and desperate people who get jailed for stealing comparatively miniscule amounts in benefit fraud, or the boy who was jailed for stealing a bottle of water in the London riots.
The conclusion is that we do not have a system of justice in this country at all. We have a system where the wealthy and governing classes and those associated with them enjoy almost absolute impunity, broken in only the rarest of cases. At the same time those at the bottom of the pile are kicked hard to keep them there. There is no more chance of justice against those in power in the UK than there is of the killers of Nemtsov being brought to book in Russia.
But what has really scared me is this thought. This situation has been like this my entire life: and I have reached the age of 56 before I realised it. A very great many people have still not realised it at all.
What does not scare me is this. I realise that if the system of justice is completely corrupted, then there is no obligation on me to follow the laws of the state. In fact it would be wrong of me to do so. I must seek my ethical compass elsewhere than in the corrupt power structure which weighs so hard upon the people.
Peacewisher… all deguise GONE.
Sorry Cos yo are a Young Ish Poster…. Or Not.
Craig,just a comment on the victim’s right to press charges.While someone may be arrested following an assault in order to obtain evidence on the matter, if the victim declines to make a statement of complaint then there can be no prosecution. The only exception to this is if the assault was of sufficient seriousness to warrant a prosecution “in the public interest”.
An example I can give of such a prosecution was a case where person A threw person B out of a (closed) first-floor window after beating them senseless.
Generally speaking however, the victim still has to press charges for a prosecution to take place. It may be different in Scotland.
(Retired Police Officer).
I watch Russia Today because I get to know what is happening that never makes it onto our news channels. One story which particularly angers me at our MSM is the hunger-strikers in detention centres spattered about the UK. Not a breath in our news. All left to Harry Fear and reporters from Russia Today to tell us how people are detained without a hearing for twelve months and more, how the ‘prisons’ (because that’s what they are) are run by private security companies, how there are fast-tracking schemes to deport these asylum-seekers, which happen so quickly human rights’ lawyers who would defend them have no time to gather evidence. I was saddened by a report this morning about a Pakistani man who had converted to Christianity being sent back to Pakistan where because of his change of faith he may well be murdered. This is the UK you don’t see. The UK you do see is Jeremy Clarkson adding to their burden with racist slurs. The story and stories like it hashtags at:
#detainedvoices
John Goss, the Western mass media ignore or gloss over immoral behaviour by the Western powers, and Russian state media ignore or gloss over immoral behaviour by the Russian power – both perform propaganda primarily by omission.
Someone needs to collate media from all sources. If the stories were displayed in a grid structure, the omissions would betray the propagnda bias of each source.
Craig: Delighted you’re back with just as strong a bite. The Clarkson piece is spot on. Like you, I have sometimes enjoyed his over-the-top daftnesses such as:
“…we do still have an empire. It’s a small island in the Pacific Ocean and last time I looked the population was 8,000. And all of them, curiously, have Rover 75s.” Jeremy Clarkson “The Top Gear Years”, Penguin 2013, p 106. (Which island has he in mind? Pitcairn has only 40 people; and the UK has no other Pacific territories.)
We should take comfort from Clarkson’s closeness to the Cameron Oxford clique, which helps cement the toxicity of the Cameron brand.
I agree with Peacewisher that several recent exposures are encouraging signs of truth pushing aside the cover-ups. Also good news was Nicola Sturgeon’s thoughtful and clear lecture on Monday at LSE (which I was at). The text is available at
http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2015/03/20150316t1200vLSE.aspx#DynamicJumpMenuManager_1_Anchor_2 as is a podcast which shows how well she dealt with questions. You won’t see Cameron or Miliband being keen to debate with her.
Absolutely agree John Goss, UK detention centres are political holding pens for an overworked system and not one party will have an answer to it.
looking at the results of the Israeli elections, Bibi’s last call that he will never allow a Palestinian state to form has had two effects, it has galvanised some on the right to give him their vote again, putting the peace process in limbo for some more year, but more importantly, it is another corrosive agent on Israel’s economic fabric, his hard line stance will destroy Israel from within.
Housing is still an issue for Israel’s Arab population and Bibis aggressive stance towards Iran will flare up into another crisis, with the US being dragged in by the scruff of its military industrial neck.
Lets see who is the first UK party politician to congratulate him warmly on his re election, or have they done so already? Some weeks of horse trading follows and then we are back to the anti humanitarian treatment, war and strife with all and sundry.
One despairs. I think I take another break from posting, irrelevance and stupidity will reign without my comments. Off to the dentist.
Next, Osborne’s big eyewash and tax give away, don’t expect any measures on tax avoidances.
In Britain the government opposition is either in exile, in jail or dead.
That the Law has always favored the rich is an obvious given truth, as illustrated by the obscene fact that generally far stiffer sentences are reserved for crimes involving the theft of money, as compared to the crimes involving harm to another person; what signal & values does a Justice System send out, in which the maximum sentence for shop lifting is seven years, but the maximum sentence for common assault is six months ?! When the priority & respect for the person are placed secondary to crimes for financial gain, then Society is actually not protected, but corrupted by the Justice System.
Now that I’ve mentioned shop lifting, in light of Craig’s reference in his Post to the child being jailed for stealing a bottle of water in the London riots, I distinctly remember a very different attitude by the same Craig Murray, in an angry article that he posted in the aftermath of the London Riots, full of off colour remarks, basically expressing the sentiment that there was no excuse for such criminality & the authorities should lock-up these criminals & throw away the keys; I can’t quote the exact words because strangely enough the Post seems to have disappeared; those that control the Past can hide their hypocrisy very well !
I realise that if the system of justice is completely corrupted, then there is no obligation on me to follow the laws of the state. In fact it would be wrong of me to do so. I must seek my ethical compass elsewhere than in the corrupt power structure which weighs so hard upon the people.
I don’t believe you’ve only just realised this!
We all innately know how to behave and the law should be the very last resort. In Clarksons case resorting to the law would cause misery all round-for Oisin,Clarkson,viewers the BBC etc and cost a fortune. If Clarkson did something wrong he should apologise make amends if Oisin is satisfied with the apology and the amends that should be it.
If not only then should the police become involved.
Why bring in the state (in the form of the police and judiciary) to resolve this? -childish.
The illegal invasion of Iraq is completely different thing- 100s of thousands were killed as the result Blair’s illegal actions.
Brian Fujisan @ 1:56am
Oh dear, you must be worried. I hope your daughter and her baby make a full recovery. Love to you and all your family.
John Goss @ 7:41am
I have been visiting detainees (a euphemism for prisoners) in immigration detention centres since 1996 (I remember the date, since it was the year after my father died). Google “gatwick detainees” for more details. It’s wonderful, finally, to see a TV news organisation reporting at last on the horrors of immigration detention.
It is depressing enough to visit these places (and the Gatwick centres are better than most). But what really, really, upsets me is the vile filth against immigrants that gets spewed day after day in the tabloid press, and sadly also on the BBC. Even worse, I encounter every day otherwise perfectly normal and decent people who have absorbed and internalised this garbage, full of irrational fear of immigrants. That’s the path that leads to concentration camps, and eventually the gas chambers. We already have the prisons.
Think about it. Supposedly we have abolished the death penalty in this country, but this is the one part of our “justice” system where the penalty, in some cases, really can be death. Fortunately that has not been the case for any of the detainees I’ve visited, but it does happen. Yet over the years I’ve seen detainees’ rights to legal representation steadily being slowly whittled away.
Think about it. We imprison people who have committed no crime (the concept of “illegal immigrants” is an artificial construct: people coming to this country is no more a crime than my parents moving to Scotland from England shortly after I was born, or my making the reverse move from Scotland to England). Moreover, unlike real criminals, they are imprisoned indefinitely; if you’re a real criminal, at least you know when you’re going to be released. It’s horrifying, and all based on irrational fear.
Macky, 9:53 am; I do not believe that such a post has been deleted. I think your memory is at fault. You may mean this post:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/08/policing-criminality/
Macky, independently archived snapshots of this site can be found on the Wayback Machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110615000000*/http://craigmurray.org.uk
http://web.archive.org/web/20110814165540/http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
Since you have accused this site of altering its own record, would you please use the links above to find the article or altered text that you referred to?
If you find no such deletions or alteration, would you retract your allegations?
Clark; “You may mean this post:”
Yes, thank you, as I do think it is that one; strange that I couldn’t find it, despite some considerable time looking, and I gave up recalling the number of times Craig has simply deleted whole Posts, the last time being when two complete threads of over a thousand comments were completely deleted, simply over a mere allegation of a comment containing “Holocaust Denial”.
Anyhow re-reading that Post does indeed confirm that my recollection is correct; compare the sentiment expressed above of the injustice of the child jailed over stealing a bottle of water, with the sentiment throughout that “Policing Criminality”, post, which even has this; “If the odd looter gets killed by the police by accident by a baton round, I would view that as very sad but something they brought upon themselves.” !
A complete polar-opposite swing of views again, just like the complete turnaround his views did over Gordon Brown recently.
All this about the fate of Jeremy Clarkson says it all about today’s world!
Macky, I’ll quote a bit more from Craig’s article, lest readers succumb to the false impression that you’re inadvertently projecting:
I’m sure you’re not in favour of such wanton violence and destruction, are you Macky?
Macky, I do find interesting patterns in your comments. That you speak up for criminal rioters and Holocaust deniers, quoted Jemand the islaophobe with approval (at squonk.tk), and take every available opportunity to discredit Craig Murray while attacking any comment that raises even the slightest criticism of Russian state power. Your standards of honesty and accuracy are also rather poor. You do post a few good links, though.
Clark; “I’ll quote a bit more from Craig’s article, lest readers succumb to the false impression that you’re inadvertently projecting:”
I think people will be able to read the whole Post & make their own minds up about my point about Craig;
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/08/policing-criminality/
@Clark, please don’t try to psychoanalyse me, when you get hysterical if people make comments personal comments about you.
“All this about the fate of Jeremy Clarkson says it all about today’s world!”
Nothing new under the sun Trowbridge.
The battle between Cavalier and Puritan has been around a long time now.
I fear if the roundheads go to far there will be an over reaction and things may swing too far the other way, every political correctness too far is a vote for UKIP.
Macky, I wrote about your comments, not about your psyche.
Clark; “Macky, I wrote about your comments, not about your psyche.”
Yes a whole bunch of ad hominems, and guilt by false association smears, & mirepresentations.
I’m not going to allow you to get me diverted into a boring bickering spate, but if you continue along these lines, I give you fair warning that I won’t hold back forever, & you’ll end up repeating your by now very familar cycle of hysterics.
Threats, Macky? Charming.
@Neil, Thank you for your comments about your contact with the abmination that is our immigration detention centres, and you certainly don’t need me to tell you that the system has been made worse by evolving into prison industrial complex; maybe one day Craig will turn his attention to this domestic stain of gross injustice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US20To4H140
Since Clark states that he appreciates my links;
Here’s one that shows that the UN is indeed not immune to pressure & manipulation;
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/17/un-officials-accused-buckling-israeli-pressure-childrens-rights-list
And here’s one that shows that NATO knew that it’s actions in Libya would result in the exact present chaos;
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/nato-knew-its-intervention-in-libya-would-create-chaos-and-aid-al-qaeda-aligned-islamists/
Macky 12:55 pm:
He already has, and he has used this blog to campaign against deportation to Uzbekistan; I was one of the people who responded to two of his appeals. One was won; this second one was lost:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/?s=Malyshev
Maybe Craig is better than you seem to think.
Macky certainly causes me to look through this site’s archives. Here’s an interesting article from before my involvement, regarding Ukraine and Uzbekistan:
Ukraine: Uzbek Asylum Seekers Sent Back to Face Abuse
Oops; link:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2006/02/ukraine_uzbek_a/
Mods
Well, I note that my post of yesterday at 20h31 is still marked as “awaiting moderation” and I do not understand what you are saying/proposing in your response to my post at 08h19 today.
Anyway, peu importe!
But you will be well aware of the following.
In the real world outside this blog, political argument and discourse are – for better or for worse – an inextricable mixture of the purely political and the personal. One has only to look at the build up to the general election to see the truth of this. Politicians regale voters with the personal details of public figures in an attempt to ram home the political point they are trying to make or to discredit – through the personae – the political points of their opponents.
Indeed, that phenomenon can be observed on this blog. What other purpose, for example, is served by digging up the personal details of many public figures (are they Friends of Israel; their husbands, wives and lovers; their previous careers, their friends; are they rich…)?
Even Craig is not above frequently mixing the personal with the political.
WHY, THEN, do certain Moderators attempt to censure the mixing of the political and the personal when the subject of a post is one or the other of the commenters on this blog?
If (for example) Mary, or RoS or Mr Goss see fit to attempt to discredit a political figure in the real world by descending into the personal, why should (for example) I be disqualified from raising the personal as part of my political opposition to the stand taken by Mary, or RoS or Mr Goss in this virtual world of the blog?
And, finally, let it be noted that (certain) Moderators are not even consistent in their censorship.
Lets see who is the first UK party politician to congratulate him (The Butcher of Gaza – BZ) warmly on his re election…
There you go, Nevermind:
http://uk.thetruth24.com/article/127590/cameron-congratulates-netanyahu
Though I doubt he’ll be the last of the shambling gang of self-serving moral bankrupts leading us back into the Middle Ages.