Mark's Blog

Merry Christmas hope you all have a great time

I love this song!

It doesn’t matter what you do for a living its pretty much universal that you are accountable to someone. Politicians have to be re-elected and even CEOs of major companies have to be approved and can be removed or censured by the company’s shareholders. Even if you own your own business you will pay a price if you make a mistake. You will lose business, could possibly be charged with various offences if someone is hurt or injured as a result of your negligence. It seems near universal that in some way you are accountable for your actions. Except there is a group of people that don’t seem accountable in any way and that is judges. We hear time and time again of judges releasing violent offenders on bail despite the advice of the police or the Crown Prosecution Service. Or we hear them giving out laughably lenient sentences such as a fifteen year old boy who was ordered to give the girl he raped a bit of money(I cant remember the exact amount now but it was a paltry figure) to “have a nice holiday.”

We here this time and again but apart from some hollow sounding rebuttal from whichever MP they can get in front of a camera quick enough nothing really seems to happen. The judiciary have to be independent from the government that is a logical and absolutely necessary distinction and you cannot leave it in the hands of the government to decide who should and should not be a judge. However we do need some mechanism to make judges accountable to the public who ultimately judges should be serving. The concerns of the public with unduly lenient sentences or the release of violent offenders on bail when their is a significant chance that the defendant might re-offend and possibly tamper with the victim need to be addressed.

I return to this thought every now and again normally when I read in the paper of someone who has been murdered because of the negligence of one of these judges and it was the case of Jane Clough that I was reading about earlier that prompted me to write this, tragically this young lady who was a mother and dedicated nurse in Blackpool was murdered by her violent ex partner whilst he was on bail accused of raping and beating her. He was released on bail by judge Simon Newell despite both the Crown Prosecution Service and police objecting on the grounds he was both highly likely to abscond and also highly likely to tamper with the main witness.

Its time for a clamp down on dodgy decisions by judges and a clearer system for the public to have some confidence and control over judges that release violent offenders on bail and hand out unduly lenient sentences. The public should be protected from violent offenders and like in just about every other profession judges should be accountable for the bad decisions they make especially when it ends up in the death of a victim when they have been informed by the police and Crown Prosecution Service that this individual has a high probability of attacking said victim.

I personally would favour elected judges or a system of elected judges to local areas who then as a body appoint higher judges. Its either that or there needs to be a proper independent body that the public trusts to hold judges to account when they make negligent mistakes or just plain are not up-to the job. At the present time in the UK I don’t feel that anyone has any real confidence in the judiciary and this is something that needs to change.

I think I am lucky I am not famous I have no wish to be famous and I don’t have any particularly famous close friends or relatives. This suits me fine I have no wish to be in the limelight I like being anonymous! Some people obviously choose to be famous such as footballers, pop stars and actors. They put themselves into the spotlight and particularly when you get a hipocrit footballer who then complains about press intrusion when they are caught literally with there pants around there ankles carrying on an extra marital affair I can’t say as I particularly feel sorry for them. They chose to put themselves in the position where the press take an interest in them. They know they could be found out, and they choose to carry on with these affairs behind the backs of there wives. People do have a right to expect a certain degree of privacy and there are laws to protect us from unwarranted intrusions such as PC and phone hacking this is right and proper and as it should be. However you should not expect the courts to shut up people who know about your sorded little affair you knew you were in the limelight and you took a chance tough luck buddy you got exactly what you deserved!
I do however read the testimony of J K Rowling author of the Harry Potter books to the Leveson inquiry with some disgust. The way her children have been targetted by the press is appauling and should be illegal. Children have no choice who there parents are be it a shop worker, a reality TV star or an author. The press should not be able to in any way approach, photograph or use children based on who there parents are unless the parents have taken the decision to put there children in the spotlight. Now it does get a little more hazy when you are talking about the royal family as these children are potentially future king or queen of the country but as the royal family take money from the state they are giving a certain amount of permission here.

I really hope that the Leveson inquiry comes up with tougher laws to protect family, friends and especially children of the rich and famous unless they or there parents put them into the spot light. There also needs to be much tougher guidelines on how evidence and stories are obtained. The press have no automatic right to publish anything gained illegally ie phone hacking, PC hacking, hidden cameras or microphones. There does however need to be some protection for the publishing of details of official documents. The role of the whistleblower needs to be properly protected, this inquiry should not be stifle good and proper detective journalism which are bringing stories of public interest to the people. However public interest does not cover pictures of the children of J K Rowling or details of Max Mosley’s bizarre sexual practices!

This is totally legit and amazing offer from google. If you install a small extension to your google chrome web browser which counts the number of web browser tabs you open google will donate money for each tab opened. Google have stated that the only information they are collecting is the number of tabs opened. Its a great and free way to give to charity without doing anything other than installing one simple extension!

http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/p/cause/#tnc

As you have no doubt noticed I have made a few changes and added a few plugins for wordpress. The biggest change I have made is to change commenting over to the DISQUS system. I did this as it allows people to make comments without creating an account and you can use whatever form of login is most convenient be it facebook, twitter or openID. Unfortunately this does mean the internal user database is no longer used for comments. You can still comment anonymously for the time being but if spam or abusive comments ever become a problem this will be blocked forcing people to login with an account from facebook, twitter, DISQUS or openID.

Whilst you use facebook or twitter to login and post your comment I have no access to any of your confidential facebook or twitter information. You do not enter your login details to this site but if you have any further questions please check the DISQUS website directly.

I admit like many on the left I was rather disappointed by the previous labour administration on many fronts, I didn’t find there agenda to be very radical and it amounted to little more than more of the same. After nearly 20 years of tory rule we had a labour government that came in and didn’t at first make a big splash. However I think to truly judge how much the previous labour government actually delivered we only have to look around us. We live in a country that has undergone massive regeneration during the last labour administration. New hospitals, schools and serious improvements in the delivery of essential public services such as the NHS. I remember vividly during the tory years local news reports of some poor soul who had been in extreme pain for years on some occasions before being seen by a doctor. However labour made some serious mistakes there was a general erosion of civil liberties and being dragged into a war in Iraq and Afghanistan which might have been justified but the planning and general execution of both campaigns seems to have been rather poor. Its a real shame that it has taken a tory led government to abolish the ID card scheme an expensive waste of precious government money.

I was really disappointed that the previous labour administration weren’t more radically left wing. No freeing up of the draconian anti union laws drawn up. No real talk of renationalising the utility companies or public transport system, which have gotten worse and a lot more expensive in private ownership, in spite of all the tory double talk about efficiency savings and competition driving service levels up and prices down.

Now after all this you probably have a good idea that I am firmly of the left, which I unashamedly am. I see the links between everyone in society and know that its in the best interests of us all when we have a government and services which meet the needs of everyone especially those who are most disadvantaged. This is why I was so unhappy that we have now been con demned by the liberal democrats who seem to have spat in the faces of all those that supported the manifesto that the liberal democrats were elected to bring forward. I see the coalition agreement seems to broadly follow the tory manifesto but seems a long way away from what the people that voted liberal democrat actually voted for. It seems we truly are back to the hack and slash and screw the poor and disadvantaged of the Thatcher years, admittedly with better PR and a veneer of respectability bought in by the liberal democrat sell outs.

Whilst Dianne Abbot is the labour leadership candidate I would naturally support the most, it has to be about more than me it has to be about getting rid of the current condem coalition, and for that we need labour to win. For that we need a party that appeals to a broad range of people, and for me that means supporting David Miliband. Whilst he is not not radically left wing enough for me, he would never get elected if he was and its far better to get some of what you want a fairer government for all than to stick with the left and whinge about how the tories are wrecking our essential public services.

Well I rejoined this week If you want a say in who will lead the opposition to tory cuts for the rich, then join the only major national party that opposes tory cuts!