Archive for February, 2008
Tories = Labour
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 28/02/2008
The Times today reveals the Conservatives are equally, if not more, committed to throwing yet more money at the NHS than Labour. The Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley has boldly so he thinks, and completely foolhardily so many of the public will think, pledged to increase spending on it by £28 billion per year to around 11 per cent of GDP.
Arrest Buttle! (Or was it Tuttle?)
Posted by Nick Cowen in Civil Liberty, Crime on 28/02/2008
The Daily Mail reports that one in eight entries on the police’s growing DNA database is incorrectly inputted, threatening to associate the DNA signature of a criminal with the record of an innocent member of the public. In the future innocent people could be arrested on the basis of an error made by a data entry clerk, a possibility imagined before in Terry Gilliam’s 1985 film Brazil, set in a totalitarian state with an ever-bungling bureaucracy.
The problem is that even if the government could sort out these problems, DNA evidence will never be a magic bullet to save our criminal justice system. Part of why it is so successful at the moment is that it is still a comparatively novel technology that average criminals have yet to learn to exploit. If it comes to be relied on in the majority of cases, dispersing other people’s DNA around a crime scene, in order to put police off the scent, will become much more commonplace and evidence based on it will become just another thing for lawyers and juries to examine, trying to tease out the facts from mere conjecture. To make criminal justice effective, as discussed last week, we need a system that concentrates on reducing crime rather than “managing” offenders.
Could Have Fooled Me… Almost
Posted by David Conway in Security on 26/02/2008
Today’s Times reports that 20,000 Muslim leaders have just issued a declaration condemning terrorism as un-Islamic.
Their declaration was made at a conference held yesterday at the Dar Uloom madrassa in Deoband, northern India. It runs:
“Islam is a religion of mercy for all humanity. Islam sternly condemns all kinds of oppression, violence and terrorism.”
Clearly, Muslim scholars should know what their own religion condemns and what it condones far better than any non-Muslim. But the remarkably pacifistic tone of the declaration not only seemed too good to be true. It also seemed at variance with numerous other claims made by Muslims and non-Muslims alike that Islam condones and sometimes mandates physical violence in the form of jihad.
Could any further light on this matter be shed by visiting the website of the madrassa at which yesterday’s declaration was made?
continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.
At least attempted armed robbery still constitutes a breach of bail conditions
Posted by Nick Cowen in Crime on 21/02/2008
A worrying case has emerged this morning. A shopkeeper managed to fend off an attempted robbery by stabbing the assailant with his own knife. From the details available, this response was proportionate since the shopkeeper suffered wounds in the struggle as well (it was clear that the robber was prepared to carry out his threat to attack). Yet the shopkeeper now may face charges of murder, manslaughter or assault, pending a review by the CPS. While it is proper for the police to investigate deaths along these lines, unless there is more to this case than meets the eye, this is a highly disproportionate response to a citizen protecting his life and property.
In Whose Hands Does London’s Safety Now Rest According to Counter-Terrorism Chief?
Posted by David Conway in Security on 19/02/2008
Who is it that can keep London safe in the run-up to the Olympic Games?
If you have been tempted to answer either the ‘Metropolitan Police’ or the ‘Special Branch’, then you would have been wrong.
That is the view of the recently retired head of the Special Branch’s Muslim Contact Unit.
continued on the Centre for Social cohesion blog.
‘Crass, childish, behaviour’
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 15/02/2008
Richard Vize writes what can only be described as a vitriolic attack on the BMA in his editorial in the Health Service Journal this week, describing them as resorting to ‘sabotage to block the modernisation of our primary care services’ and ‘crass, childish behaviour’.
His particular gripe is that the BMA’s GP Committee has, very unhelpfully it must be said, advised practices they are within their legal rights to withhold data being requested by Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) on practice opening hours and the availability of appointments as part of an audit ordered by the Department of Health (DH). In this sense, Mr Vize is entirely correct in his attack, quite rightly pointing out that ‘GPs cannot take state money then refuse to be held to account for the services they provide’. But then, in the context of the whole debate on extended opening hours one can feel slightly sympathetic.