In the public domain - by Richard...

In the public domain - by Richard...

It is good to see this headline with the term "beneficial crisis" used so prominently. I like to think that the phrase was coined by myself and Booker. Certainly Booker was using it in the Daily Mail in August 2001, in his column in September 2001 and also in November 2002.

And, of course, we used it liberally in The Great Deception, first published in 2003, when we explained that the concept had been a central part the planning for European integration since 1975 - it was the foundation of the plot to introduce the single currency. The "colleagues" knew they could not do it in one hit, so introduced a deliberately flawed scheme, relying on a succession of beneficial crises then to allow them to acquire the powers the needed to manage the currency.

To see the term acquire a life of its own is thus extremely heartening. Recognition of the fact that the high and the mighty use – and often deliberately fabricate – crises for their own purposes is one step towards the antidote, whence we refuse to be spooked by the scares of the night.

Over the last few decades, the beneficial crisis – so often based on scares like global warming – has been one of the most powerful of all the political drivers. Now, having labelled it, we are better placed to call the bluff of those who wish to harness its power.

I blame the parents - by Richard... Sunday, August 28, 2011

A man held on suspicion of looting a mobile phone store in the riots is, we are told, the son of a former police boss. Mark Duvall, 26, was arrested on Friday in connection with an attack on a Vodafone shop in Woolwich, South London.

His father, Len Duvall OBE, was chairman of the Met Police Authority and is leader of the Labour Group on the London Assembly. Last week, the London Assembly member for Greenwich and Lewisham called for public help to track down the rioters.

He said: "I'm dismayed and outraged by the mindless violence, theft, criminal damage and risk to life we have seen in Greenwich and Lewisham and around London".

The one thing for sure, however, is that the police are handling this crime correctly. Following concern that the police over-reacted to high-profile crimes, the public were told the following :

In certain cases blanket coverage by the media may lead to the public perception that police are targeting resources to high profile stories. The Met have confirmed to the Authority that this is categorically untrue and we want to reassure London's communities that all investigations are resourced proportionally.

The author of this statement, by the way, was Len Duvall OBE.

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Too thick to learn - by Richard...

Two recent offerings demonstrate why the Tories are going nowhere on the European Union. The first comes via Autonomous Mind in two tranches, an Open Letter to Roger Helmer anda rebuttal of the great man's comments. The second is a piece from arch Speccytwat James Forsyth in the Mail on Sunday.

Turning to the Roger Helmer effort, this demonstrates, beyond peradventure, that the man really is not a eurosceptic – merely a Tory timeserver, who serves to garner votes in support of a cause that inherently favours European political integration.

Forget not that the Tories took us in to the "Common Market" and, of the two great building blocks of the European Union, the Single Market Act and the Maastricht Treaty, both were negotiated and approved by Tory administrations.

The clue, therefore, to Helmer's false claim (for it is he who would have us believe he is an "outer") is a response to Autonomous Mind and the question: why do some eurosceptics in Westminster occasionally appear to support some integrationist measures?

To that the Great Sage, puts his own rhetorical question: "Is it better to seek to move the Conservative Party in a Eurosceptic direction over time (which implies some compromise with Party policy), or to make one grand kamikaze gesture which rules you out of the action ever after ...?".

And there lies the constant and continuous deception. If after nearly forty years, the Conservative Party has not yet moved in a Eurosceptic direction, then it is a fair bet that it never will. Yet, year after year, decade after decade, the Myrtle tendency wants us to discard the evidence of our own eyes and believe that one day the impossible will happen and the Tories will lead us out of the European Union.

Turning then to the Speccytwat, we then find a variation of the Tory theme, with the young Forsyth pontificating about how – on the basis of yet another inane an expensive EU law – Dave and his merry men need to "tackle Britain's relationship with the EU".

And here lies dribble. As my erstwhile co-editor is fond of pointing out, Britain does not have a relationship with the EU – Britain is part of the EU. This country can no more have a relationship this body than can we suggest that our own left feet have relationships with our own bodies.

The problem with which we are confronted, therefore, is that the Tory commentators are so incredibly thick that they cannot even get past first base. They survive in a fog of incomprehension, compounded by their own impenetrable stupidity. That ensures that we are not likely to make any more progress in the next forty years than we have in the last.

The moronic Forsyth, however, is determined to stretch incredulity to the limits of elasticity and beyond, advancing the idea that The Boy whom he so much adores should be looking for a new Cabinet Secretary on the retirement of Gus O'Donnell, with a proven ability to cut regulation and reduce red tape.

No one but a moron could utter something quite so stupid – the idea that a Cabinet Secretary can succeed in achieving something that a prime minister and his cabinet, and the entire elected parliament, have failed to do.

Most of all though, it ignores the reality of the European Union – regulation is not an à la carteoption. Adoption of the acquis communautaire is an essential and inseparable part of our membership of the European Union. The only way out, is to get out – to leave the EU entirely.

And it is this that these incredibly thick Tories simply cannot deal with. Instead, they prattle and blather - but the only ones to think they are clever are themselves.

With forty years of membership under our belt, you would have thought they might possibly have learned something about the EU ... but it is Tories of which we speak. "Too thick to learn" might be their real party slogan.

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No confidence in the system - by Richard...

Booker's dogged determination to shine the light of day into the families court system seemed to take a knock last week, whenThe Mirror and then the Daily Mail (amongst others) pitched into the Vicky Haigh case.

This followed high court judge Sir Nicholas Wall, who had decided to make his judgment on the case public, justifying his breach of the wall of secrecy by citing the "scandalous allegations" put in the public domain "via email and the internet".

In his column today Booker responds, pointing out that the reason for Wall deciding to break all the normal rules of secrecy surrounding child care cases was that for months, details of this case had been advertised on the internet by a private investigator, Liz Watson.

Last Monday, at the behest of Doncaster social services, Wall decided to bring matters to a head. He ruled that the parties to the case could for once be named and that papers relating to it, including two earlier court judgments, should in due course be published. He then sentenced Miss Watson to nine months in prison for breach of secrecy rules.

Relying on the findings of the two lower courts, Wall stated that Miss Haigh had coached her daughter into making lengthy statements to the police and social workers that she had been abused by her father.

There is obviously much about this case that still cannot be reported, but at least Wall's ruling will give the public a chance to decide whether the assessment of the evidence by the earlier judges seemed persuasive.

Crucially here, Wall has dismissed the claims of abuse as lacking "a scintllla of evidence", even though detailed evidence was submitted, including video recordings of interviews carried out by the police, and statements from investigating officers.

Purely on this basis, Wall is demonstrably wrong, but the man has something of a track record in making such unqualified statements. In 2008, in another case, he was complained about to the judicial ombudsman by John Hemming MP, after he had witheringly dismissed Hemming's arguments that a crucial document in the case was forged.

"I find it not only unacceptable but shocking", Wall ruled, "that a man in Mr Hemming's position should feel able to make so serious an allegation without any evidence to support it. In my judgment it is irresponsible and an abuse of his position".

In response, Hemming presented the ombudsman with several pages of transcript showing how he had produced lengthy evidence for his claim, set out in meticulous detail. Rather than stating that he had not had "any evidence", it would have been more accurate for Wall simply to state that, having considered it, he had not found the evidence convincing.

Booker too has felt the lash of Wall's tongue, when he rushed to endorse the criticisms of him by a family judge for the "inaccuracy" of my reporting on another unhappy family case. Wall was so eager to defend the system over which he presides that he seemed unaware of the fact that the judge who had criticised him had been forced to come back the following day to correct three errors in the two points he had made about him.

Booker concludes his piece by writing that, when judges have such power to make their own rules about what can and cannot be reported, it places a special responsibility on them to be rather more measured in their language than they sometimes allow themselves to be.

The point though, is that Wall is defending the system – and is using his power to do so. And the media, going for an easy touch, have fallen in will Wall and taken the free pass to write up a story they have no means of verifying and have not bothered to check. A judge has said it. Whether it is true is neither here nor there – it is reportable and safe.

Hemming has also weighed into this affair, defending his own role, arguing that the adversarial nature of the family courts is inappropriate to deal with the sensitive issues involved. One side wins, the other side loses, he says. Hence if you have an allegation of abuse that is true, but the court has decided it is false then the court makes the wrong decision and potentially places the child with a parent who has maltreated the child.

Expressing his own personal view, Hemming says we need to review the adversarial nature of private family law to have a less adversarial system and one which looks more so for a compromise than a winner takes all outcome.

What is happening currently, though, is that Wall is perpetuating the adversarial nature of the system, and inviting the media to take sides in a complex dispute, where – all of a sudden – the secrecy which normally binds family court hearings has been partially set aside.

And therein is one of the key issues. Wall's disclosures are only partial – and therefore partisan. He is not defending the rights of the children involved, but the system which he represents.

That system, as we have noted, is not one in which we can have any great confidence. Wall has not improved our confidence in it
.