Relax - They're Only Murderers

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2009

http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/

Relax - They're Only Murderers

So let's get this straight. For some reason the Major and I haven't quite been able to fathom, Mr Barrowclough decided to let out convicted murderer Patricia Gillette to go shopping in Bromley. Amazingly, she legged it, and is now on the loose among us. 

Well, maybe it's not so bad. Maybe she's one of those unlucky moment-of-madness type murderers, rather than a full-on hardcore headcase. 

No. Det Supt Gary Gornell has issued the following urgent warning to the public: 

"This individual is dangerous and we need to apprehend her as soon as possible. If anyone sees her, please don't approach her, but call police immediately." 

Still, hopefully you won't be the one who'll encounter Ms Gillette up that dark alley. So everything will be fine.

Although come to think of it, you may encounter convicted murderer Brian Clayton. Despite the fact that he'd already absconded once before, Mr Barrowclough decided to let him out to go shopping in Solihull last month. Amazingly, Clayton legged it, and is now on the loose among us. 

Police say he is also dangerous and anyone seeing him should dial 999 immediately.

Of course, convicted murderers don't have to escape in order to come back among us. Loads of them just get let out on parole. 

Yesterday we heard how convicted murderer Mark Shirley was released last year, and within months was attempting to re-enact the horrific murder for which he had been jailed.

"Giving evidence, the victim fought back tears as she relived the "disgusting" attack. She said Shirley repeatedly alluded to his murder victim, but she had no idea what he was talking about. 

She said: "He said he once knew a lady, a sweet lady and her name was Mary. He kept saying I was a trustable and sweet lady like her." She told the court that he said he was going to “cut me to make me smell as sweet as Mary.” 

The woman said Shirley raped and sexually assaulted her on her own kitchen table. The attack stopped only when the woman’s son returned home, and Shirley fled."

It is absolutely outrageous. The only reason this poor woman had to go through this is because the hand wringing liberals who preside over our criminal "justice"system quite deliberately released a convicted murderer into our midst. A murderer. Not a pick-pocket or a TV licence dodger, but a convicted MURDERER.

And what do these arrogant humbugs have to say for themselves?

"Mr Shirley's case has been referred to the Parole Board review committee. The review committee will consider and identify what lessons can be learnt from this case in order to help prevent further such incidents." 

We can save them the time. 

There is only one lesson, and it is this: convicted murderers should never ever be allowed out. 

Either on parole or on shopping trips.

Is that so hard to understand?

Cost Of Aid Admin

Big overheads

We've blogged the waste and misdirection in the government's £7bn pa international aid programme many times (see all previous posts gathered here).

Now, Ben Farrugia of the TaxPayers' Alliance has taken a closer look at how much of the Department for International Development's (DfID) budget gets Lost Along the Way, before it ever reaches the people we're supposed to be helping.

His key finding is that around 14% is lost to administrative and other non-front line costs at DfID and the various external agencies through which it funnels thebulk of its aid - ie multilateral organisations such as the UN and the EU, and Non-Governmental Organisations such as Oxfam and the Red Cross. 

That's a shocking overhead, which by next year will be costing us over £1bn pa.

 But even more shocking to Tyler is the the fact that it's the NGOs which are the worst offenders. 

After all, we expect the UN and the EU to be bloated, inefficient, and self-serving - that's what tax-funded big government is all about. But most of these NGOs still purport to be charities. And charities are surely meant to be run on a shoestring by passionate enthusiasts working for a pittance. The TPA's summary table tells a rather different story:

So when the government channels our tax pounds through Oxfam, the Red Cross, and Christian Aid, it seems less than two-thirds reaches the frontline. The rest is overhead.

As it happens, Tyler has a particular and personal reason to be upset about Oxfam. Because many moons ago, it was while engaged on a fund raising project for Oxfam that he first set his eyes on sweet Mrs T. 

At the time, Oxfam told us that virtually all the dosh was going to help real people starving in Africa and India. And wide-eyed young innocents that we were, webelieved them.

Of course, back then Oxfam was probably more reliant on private donations rather than tax-funding . So maybe it was more careful with its costs. But these days, like many other "charities", Oxfam gets a fair chunk of its money from the taxpayer - just under one-third of its net income. And that can be a very corrosive arrangement, changing the entire ethos of a charity, and turning it into little more than another branch of government (see previous blogs, eg here and here).

Unfortunately, this problem looks set to get a whole lot worse. If Mr Cam is serious about replacing Big Government with The Big Society,we're going to making a lot more use of charities and "social entrepreneurs" in the field of welfare here at home. Which will mean yet more bodies pushing to get their snouts in the public trough.

All we can say is that Cam at least recognises the problem. A little commented-on paragraph from his poverty speech reads:

"If we are to break the culture of charities and social bodies being dependent on the state for hand-outs we need to look at how government can use loans alongside grants to help make them more sustainable and effective."

We're not at all clear how that would work in practice, but he should certainly implement a similar critical approach to the money we hand over to the aid NGOs.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2009

A Perspective From History

No time for a proper blog today, but Tyler is a sucker for long-term charts. So we must just pass on a chart from the IMF's latest World Economic Outlook. It shows the growth of world GDP since 1870, plotted against the ten major financial crises that cropped up over the period.

Some obvious points jump out:

• Despite serious setbacks that seemed terminal at the time, we have always pulled through in the end: against the long-term upward trend - largely driven by technological advance - even the biggest crises now look like mere ripples.
• The Great Depression was very painful, but the world economy actually recovered long before WW2 and all that enforced government spending
• The three decades following WW2 really were a golden age
• The crises seem to be getting more frequent, yet their impact on world GDP seems to be less

So what should we conclude?

First, we will come through our current difficulties. Inventiveness and enterprise will ultimately drive us forward once again.

Second, financial crises are part and parcel of the way we progress. They don't mean the market system is bust, and they don't mean the end of capitalism.