Uh oh – a large blip has just appeared on the fadmeter. Yep – Nu Lab have been pretending to take crime seriously again. The gimmick d’jour is giving the families of homicide victims the right to tell the court about their grief. Ineffectual posturing and Therapy Nation ? I’m surprised it’s taken this long.
Tempting though it would be to dismiss these proposals as yet another attempt by Nu Lab to avoid doing anything significant, they do have two things in their favour: the ‘Dracula splashed with holy water’ reaction of the bewigged fools and the fact that m’learned fiends' arguments against have been absolutely garbage.
Objection number one from the enemy within is that allowing the families of victims to address the court will create different classes of victims, so that when relatives give speeches channelling Shakespeare, then the sentence will be much higher than if the relatives sound like John Prescott, and you know how much the courts hate the idea of different classes of victims, which is why they were so vigorously opposed to ‘hate crimes’ legislation.
What ? ...Really ? Forget that last bit then.
The courts are perfectly happy with differential sentencing based on the identity of the victim; all they’re quibbling about is the level of classification of the victim. They’ll happily base sentences on the group identity of the victim, but they’re shocked – shocked! – at the idea of sentencing taking into the victims own individual qualities. So the courts will be able to take into account that the victim was black, but not that he led a blameless life as a much-loved pillar of the community. If this doesn’t already strike you as insane, imagine the same rules being applied to the defence.
Ah yes, that’s the other absurd argument. Laban – the Nazi! – tries the old trick of accurately quoting a Liberal, in this case the most reliably disgusting Liberal Brit blogger of them all. The point is, of course, that the Left is perfectly happy with the courts considering the whole range of Therapy Nation drivel – but only in connection with the defence. Happy to consider ? There’s a whole industry of otherwise unemployable Libs making a life and a living coming up with dead pets, twinkie defences, parental atrocity stories and the like: probation officers, social workers, psychologists…. Judges are perfectly happy with the courts being turned into an episode of Jerry Springer – but only if it helps the scumbags.
Is it any wonder that the L3 inevitably end up making finely argued points like this: “next time I hear someone say:- "He'll come out of prison one day - it's us that are serving a life sentence", I shall throw up”. Personally, I’m glad he eschews emotional arguments. But let’s consider the form of words used. After all, it is indisputably true that the family of the victim will grieve for their loss until the end of their days, while the killer will serve a term of imprisonment that is neither too uncomfortable nor too lengthy before returning to his old life. Our Liberal friend must agree, since he doesn’t challenge the basic point – his argument is merely that he doesn’t like it. It’s the Guardian reader’s equivalent of ‘you suck!’ We’re not supposed to make these points otherwise we won’t be really in with the in crowd.
This is why the Left has gone to Defcon One over the policy. Nothing threatens Liberal domination of the legal system like public scrutiny. The prospect of ordinary members of the public talking honestly about how crime has affected their lives is the one challenge the Liberal judiciary cannot face. They could usually get away with it when they had total control of the courts – they could use any old mixture of bureaucracy, junk science and sentimental nonsense to try and justify themselves, safe in the knowledge that they could keep any discussion of actual, y'know, crimes at an abstract level. Suddenly, ordinary, decent members of the public will be given a platform to explain to their fellow citizens just who it is that the Liberal judiciary wishes to protect. That's all - just tell the public the truth, but that's all you need to expose just who the modern Left are. That's why the ever-egalitarian L3 are left making deranged points about the fact that these rights will even extend to Scousers - it's all they've got left.
Tempting though it would be to dismiss these proposals as yet another attempt by Nu Lab to avoid doing anything significant, they do have two things in their favour: the ‘Dracula splashed with holy water’ reaction of the bewigged fools and the fact that m’learned fiends' arguments against have been absolutely garbage.
Objection number one from the enemy within is that allowing the families of victims to address the court will create different classes of victims, so that when relatives give speeches channelling Shakespeare, then the sentence will be much higher than if the relatives sound like John Prescott, and you know how much the courts hate the idea of different classes of victims, which is why they were so vigorously opposed to ‘hate crimes’ legislation.
What ? ...Really ? Forget that last bit then.
The courts are perfectly happy with differential sentencing based on the identity of the victim; all they’re quibbling about is the level of classification of the victim. They’ll happily base sentences on the group identity of the victim, but they’re shocked – shocked! – at the idea of sentencing taking into the victims own individual qualities. So the courts will be able to take into account that the victim was black, but not that he led a blameless life as a much-loved pillar of the community. If this doesn’t already strike you as insane, imagine the same rules being applied to the defence.
Ah yes, that’s the other absurd argument. Laban – the Nazi! – tries the old trick of accurately quoting a Liberal, in this case the most reliably disgusting Liberal Brit blogger of them all. The point is, of course, that the Left is perfectly happy with the courts considering the whole range of Therapy Nation drivel – but only in connection with the defence. Happy to consider ? There’s a whole industry of otherwise unemployable Libs making a life and a living coming up with dead pets, twinkie defences, parental atrocity stories and the like: probation officers, social workers, psychologists…. Judges are perfectly happy with the courts being turned into an episode of Jerry Springer – but only if it helps the scumbags.
Is it any wonder that the L3 inevitably end up making finely argued points like this: “next time I hear someone say:- "He'll come out of prison one day - it's us that are serving a life sentence", I shall throw up”. Personally, I’m glad he eschews emotional arguments. But let’s consider the form of words used. After all, it is indisputably true that the family of the victim will grieve for their loss until the end of their days, while the killer will serve a term of imprisonment that is neither too uncomfortable nor too lengthy before returning to his old life. Our Liberal friend must agree, since he doesn’t challenge the basic point – his argument is merely that he doesn’t like it. It’s the Guardian reader’s equivalent of ‘you suck!’ We’re not supposed to make these points otherwise we won’t be really in with the in crowd.
This is why the Left has gone to Defcon One over the policy. Nothing threatens Liberal domination of the legal system like public scrutiny. The prospect of ordinary members of the public talking honestly about how crime has affected their lives is the one challenge the Liberal judiciary cannot face. They could usually get away with it when they had total control of the courts – they could use any old mixture of bureaucracy, junk science and sentimental nonsense to try and justify themselves, safe in the knowledge that they could keep any discussion of actual, y'know, crimes at an abstract level. Suddenly, ordinary, decent members of the public will be given a platform to explain to their fellow citizens just who it is that the Liberal judiciary wishes to protect. That's all - just tell the public the truth, but that's all you need to expose just who the modern Left are. That's why the ever-egalitarian L3 are left making deranged points about the fact that these rights will even extend to Scousers - it's all they've got left.
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