All posts tagged Rule of Law

Diane Abbott’s Lack of Repentance for Past Support of IRA Terrorism

Today on the Andrew Marr show Diane Abbott, who could be Home Secretary if Labour win the election, refused to categorically say that she has changed her former views on supporting the IRA.

There is the following clip.

 Andrew Marr : You yourself said it would be a defeat for the British State would be a great move forward at that period of time. Do you regret your support for IRA right back in the eighties.

Diane Abbott : That particular quote you’re referring to comes from a now defunct left newspaper and it has as well as ….. no no no no, but what I am saying to you is this. It was 34 years ago, I has a rather splendid afro at the time. I don’t have the same hairstyle and 1 don’t have the same views. The hairstyle has gone and some of the views have gone.

At 49s

AM : …Do you regret what you have said about the IRA at the height of the bombing?

DA : What specifically do you want me to regret? 

AM : (caught off guard stutters, searches among papers) …You said “a defeat of the IRA would be devastating to the British people” and ” a defeat for the British State was a good thing” you said at the time when the IRA was attacking the British State. And you said “the reason for the violence was the entirely caused by the British presence in Northern Ireland”. I am saying do you think that the those statements now are wrong?

DA : This was 34 years ago. I’ve moved on. 

AM : You’ve moved on. Alright I got the quote here finally. You said “The Ireland is our struggle. Every defeat of the British State is a victory for all of us. A defeat in Northern Ireland would be a defeat indeed” was the quote. 

DA : 34 years ago. And I have moved on.

Many of us have held views that we no longer hold. Some of them we would now find distasteful or shameful. In politics, there are many who had extremist and repugnant views in the past. I do not believe that, morally, this should necessarily be a bar to high office. But you must clearly have repented of such views, and very clearly state how your current views differ from past views. This comes from my Christian perspective that we should repent of our sins and strive to leave a better life. For those seeking high political office, it is analogous to former criminals seeking to become a minister (or priest) within the Church. Having held repugnant views (or even committed criminal acts) in the past, and recognize them as such, along with the transition they have made, they might have an understanding of how to lead others away from those views, or how to combat the threat they pose to the wider communities. But Diane Abbott’s perspective is like a church considering for ministry someone who does not repent (and maybe still practice) denouncing Christian Church, proclaiming the teachings of Jesus Christ are false, and thinking that the murder of fellow Christians for their faith is of no consequence.

However, so as not to be accussed of taking a short section a longer interview out of context, I refer to readers to a video of the full interview.

For instance from 2.00 where Marr asks Abbott about the early day motion she signed in 1989 asking for the “Aboilition of conspiratorial groups like MI5 and Special Branch….”.

Or at 2.50 Marr asking about Abbotts voting against anti-terrorist legislation about 30 times. The deflection is that she voted the same way as Tory MPs. That is rebelled against her own party when in Government.

At 3.45 she is asked about why, shortly before 9/11, she voted against Al Qaeda being proscribed as a terrorist organisation. The excuse is that the legislation was for a whole list of organisations, some of which some people would argue were not terrorist organisations. In my view, the FARC group in Columbia could also be called a dissident group, or even freedom fighters. Alternatively FARC is a communist terrorist organisation that have murdered tens of thousands over the last fifty years, forcibly conscripting children into its ranks and financing it activities through kidnapping, extortion and involvement in all levels of drug trade and production. Your perspective depends on whether or not one supports the Rule of Law in Liberal-Democracies. Diane Abbott clearly did not in the past, and will not proclaim she has recanted such views. Neither would she give one example of organisation that should not have been proscribed.

To repeat, if Labour are elected Diane Abbott, could be Home Secretary. Andrew Marr lets Diane Abbott conclude on an upbeat note. At 13.20 Abbott says

I will run the best Home Office that I can. I will draw on my experience having worked there. I’ll draw on my experience as an MP at the grassroots. But we will have the best Home Office that I can run, which will draw on some of the Home Office’s best traditions and above all will keep this country safe.

The Home Office website lists nine Responsibilities. These include

  • keeping the United Kingdom safe from the threat of terrorism
  • reducing and preventing crime, and ensuring people feel safe in their homes and communities
  • securing the UK border and controlling immigration
  • considering applications to enter and stay in the UK
  • supporting visible, responsible and accountable policing by empowering the public and freeing up the police to fight crime

So I would ask

  1. Is the best good enough for this country, from someone who in the past has preferred terrorists to the British State, and will not now proclaim those views to be a grievous error of judgement? For those who are citizens of other countries, and love that country despite its imperfections, substitute your country in the question.
  2. Is someone who has called for the abolition of of MI5 and Special Branch (rather than calling for reforms) and not recanted those views, be a fit person to head up those organisations?
  3. Will someone who is unable to provide a single example of a dissident group on a list that included the most deadly terrorist organisation of recent times, be a person of sound judgement to decide who is fit to be let into the country?

 

My point here is that a politician does not have to always supported the British State in preference to terrorists that sought to harm Britain and its citizens, to put themselves forward as a Minister of State. But they should express a clear preference in support of the British State at the point of consideration. That includes making a clear statement that past errant views were wrong. But admission of error is something that the British Hard Left never do. They will evade, deflect, distort, and name-call, but never admit to a crack in their omniscience. Diane Abbott is a long-term leading light of this left-wing trait.

Kevin Marshall

 

by manicbeancounter on 29/05/2017  •  Permalink
Posted in General Election 2017, Labour in Opposition, Rule of Law, Spin (Propaganda)
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by manicbeancounter on 29/05/2017

https://manicbeancounter.com/2017/05/29/diane-abbotts-lack-of-repentance-for-past-support-of-ira-terrorism/

The Summer Riots – causes and prevention

Whilst I was away on holiday in Pembrokeshire, riots broke out in the cities of London, Birmingham and Manchester. The following comment was just posted to John Redwood’s blog:-

We should look at this in context. All the riots except the first in Tottenham were copycat riots. People saw that with sufficient numbers of people, looting could be carried out without fear of arrest. There was also the adrenalin rush of rioting, just like football hooliganism. The rioting stopped when people started being arrested in large numbers. They also stopped in Manchester when it started raining.

We should not overreact in issuing draconian laws. Rather it is to understand that people react to the opportunities presented to them. We had in the inner cities for a few nights to opportunity to riot and loot in the belief there would be no punishment. Many took that opportunity. This can be gleaned from the work of Prof. Gary S. Becker, who pioneered the study of the economics of crime.

Prevention of the riots in the near future might simply be to show that many of those who rioted had been caught. Therefore the belief that criminal acts in a riot would go unpunished is a false one. Beyond this, there might some minor changes. First, by more rapidly escalating the intensity of Police action in an area and nationally. Second, by instituting temporary powers of arrest in, or near, riot areas for those covering their faces. Third, if riots are in the summer, for helicopters to spray water to simulate a heavy downpour. The water might also contain a harmless dye visible under ultraviolet light (that can be removed with soap and water) to identify those who duck into side streets.

The ideas are minor. They will not quell a serious political riot – but the more serious riots of the 1980s in Brixton & Toxteth were also stopped by the rain. These are superficial “shopping riots“*. They are only a reflection of a breakdown in society insofar as there are large sections of society who lack the moral sense to respect property and other people even when there appears to be no possibility of being caught for breaking the law. The rule of law needs to be respected by vast majority of people for the vast majority of the time for civil society to exist. Otherwise, the peace can be maintained only by draconian laws and thuggish law enforcement. In such authoritarian societies the civil peace is maintained only by fear of arbitrary arrest and restraint of peaceful activities.

*This is not an endorsement of David Starkey’s other comments on the subject.

by manicbeancounter on 13/08/2011  •  Permalink
Posted in 2011 Riots, Manchester, Rule of Law
Tagged , , ,

Posted by manicbeancounter on 13/08/2011

https://manicbeancounter.com/2011/08/13/the-summer-riots-%e2%80%93-causes-and-prevention/

Reduce Gun Control to strengthen the Rule of Law?

I have commented on John Redwood’s Blog about the response to the murderous rampage by Derrick Bird through Cumbria. My claim that we may reduce gun control as a result needs to be substantiated. This posting does so in three parts.

  1. The posting, where I made the claim.
  2. A thought experiment on diverting police resources from gun control to tackling burglaries.
  3. The Rule of Law implications.

 

1. Posted to John Redwood’s blog

The Prime Minister’s response is the correct one. Government should act where there is an expected net benefit to society.

There are two sides to the argument.

Prevention – To argue how not only how any future occurrence could be prevented by the new measures.

Resource Diversion – To demonstrate that the implementation of any measures would be a worthwhile diversion of resources. That is both the police time in enforcement and the public’s time in complying with the regulations.

The rampage of a madman through Cumbria should mean a complete rethink on gun control. Paradoxically, it could mean less onerous regulations. The new laws introduced after Hungerford and Dunblane have not prevented a reoccurrence, but do involve a lot of police time and inconvenience to a section of the law-abiding public. There has been a net loss to society. The key to effective gun control is to concentrate on the substance and not on the political appearances.

2. A Thought Experiment

The tragic murders by a gunman on a rampage are, mercifully, very rare indeed in this country. Our laws should try to prevent an occurrence, but not at the expense of other things. For instance, the police claim there is a lot of time spent on enforcing exiting regulations. Suppose the effect of this has been to deaths from these rampages from 2 a year to 1. Now suppose that enforcement takes the equivalence of 200 police officers full time. This time instead is devoted to chasing up investigations into burglaries, with the result of one less burglary a week per officer. This could mean apprehending only one persistent burglar a year, or simply a team of officers reducing the number of burglaries per week of a professional burglar. Burglaries cause misery and upset. Suppose for every thousand burglaries there are ten serious confrontations and one very serious case of grievous bodily harm.

Also, for every hundred burglaries suppose one elderly person has their life reduced by a year due to the shock, fear and insecurity. Let us also state that the career of a police officer is 40 years.

So excessive gun control means, in this though experiment, one life saved for every five police officers spending their entire working careers on enforcement. This may be an exaggeration, as there is no evidence that the draconian laws have reduced the frequency of these mass killings, and the amount of police time spent on enforcement may be greater.

Alternatively those two hundred officer years will mean 10,000 fewer burglaries, 100 less cases of GBH and 100 years of extra years of lives prolonged. If average life expectancy is 80 years, that is one life saved for every four police officers spending their entire working careers on enforcement. There is no measure for misery caused by burglaries, though the cost of burglaries is in extra police resource, and higher insurance costs.

So on one hand you have law enforcement that means the a police officer spending their entire working career causing inconvenience to a large number of law-abiding citizens with have a one-in-five chance of saving one life. Or, alternatively, preventing one burglary a week. That, in turn, reduces the number of more serious crimes, and reduces the instances where crime makes people less secure in their own home, even shortening their life expectancy. They may, effectively, save more lives. But this is the tip of the pyramid. It is the other crimes that they will prevent as well, making people feel safer.  

3. The Rule of Law Implications

The police solving of minor crime provides a very positive image to the victims of crime, along with those in the wider community. People see the police as an agency that serves their interest, making them feel safer. Failure to clear up minor crime means contact with the police is simply to get a crime number for the insurance claim and a contact to the victims support unit. Major contact with police officers is for those who have transgressed (mostly traffic offences), or are suspected of doing so (stop and search late at night in inner cities). Therefore, by clearing up crime, the law-abiding see the police as their agents, not as people to be avoided.

Gun control is enforced by tight regulation of those who possess firearms. It means the police carrying out routine and regular checks on the personal circumstances of those involved and the places where those firearms are stored. Contact with the police is that of a potential suspect. It can thus serve to undermine the Rule of Law.

by manicbeancounter on 05/06/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Gun Control, Rule of Law
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by manicbeancounter on 05/06/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/06/05/reduce-gun-control-to-strengthen-the-rule-of-law/