A.J.Rimmer

Extraordinary. I had no idea. What if one told a 'Rastus' joke, or an Irish joke? Can one now be arrested?

Sorry, I don't see how that can be... at the very least Evra (?) must have heard him... if not how did the story ever get out? Obviously Evra heard him but Evra didn't go to the Police about it so they didn't get involved. Ok, I want to get this straight... only Evra heard Suarez, so he went to the FA, but not the police. ... but a member of the public heard Terry and went to the police, even though Ferdinand didn't bother. I'm amazed one is allowed to do that... bloody hell if I went down to my local I could have half the place arrested every day of the week.

Sorry, I don't see how that can be... at the very least Evra (?) must have heard him... if not how did the story ever get out?

A couple of weeks back 'A Time to Kill' was on the box, and the TV info blurb read 'A black man's daughter is raped and left for dead by two rednecks'. Clearly the word 'redneck' is a pejorative term for whites, just as other words are pejorative towards blacks. Why is one acceptable and the other is not? Personally, I don't believe we should have race laws. I feel people making racist remarks do themselves more harm that those they address. Incidentally, and this is not a rhetorical question, can anyone explain to me why John Terry is to be prosecuted, but Suarez is not. I must have missed something, as I genuinely do not get this.

Peterms, We have become seriously sidetracked here and are wildly off topic. This WILL be my last post on the Bentley matter, so if you wish to have the last word, please feel free. My final points are these: 1. Just because Bingham says a thing is true, does not make it true. Indeed, if we were to count up all the previous reviews of this case by the various experts, which include Judges, the Home Office and parliament, my guess is there had been at least 4 or 5... and Bingham was the only 'expert' to find in Bentley's favour. Bingham merely picked out few points which he could claim to be supportive of his case and trotted them out. Most significantly, unlike in a courtroom for example, there was no adverserial contest... just a simple tap in. 2. I quote to you from the closing lines of the wiki article on this case, "The English judgment, delivered just over two months after the Labour government took office..." The unstated implication here is clear. The article does not mention the judgment took place the year following Euro 96, or a couple of weeks after my grandfather died... No. It mentions the New Labour government because this was all part and parcel of Blair's wish to be seen as modern and compassionate. I can even remember Labour's support for Bentley's sister's campaign... but please don't ask me for chapter & verse... my memory is not that good. 3. Of course I do not think that Blair called Bingham round to No 10 and instructed him as to how he should report. Things don't work like that... at least not quite. However Bingham, being no fool, would have understood very clearly what was expected of him, and how the new landslide government expected his report to conclude...so he duly obliged. Nothing new there! 4. Finally we come to the question of joint enterprise. I categorically refute one can opt out of one's responsibility, whilst the crime in which one was engaged is still in progress. Any such precedent would turn the law into a total farce. Finally, we should remember, 60 years ago when this murder took place, the public were outraged by the death of policemen... the accepted wisdom, right or wrong, being that British criminals did not carry arms. Goddard gave the public what they expected, in the belief he was sending a message to the criminal and protecting the Bobby on the Beat.

Firstly, the decision by Bingham was the result of New Labour pandering to public opinion... rather as their 2003 (?) legislation was in response to pressure over the Lawrence case. Secondly, the idea that one can opt in or out of joint enterprise at a moment's notice is pure pap. Bently was caught in the act of commiting a crime and a policeman was killed in the course thereof. For the prosecution to have to prove a negative, notoriously difficult at the best of times, by showing Craig had not opted out of the joint enterprise is frankly ludicrous. This case would never have become famous had both culprits been hanged; indeed there must have been countless similar examples down the years. The public sympathy was based on the simple fact that the shooter, aged 16, survived, whilst his not too bright accomplkice hanged. I'm afraid we will have to agree to disagree on this.

Referring to the point you made about Craig & Bentley; the "Let him have it" issue was an entirely tangental argument. Bentley hanged not for anything he said, regardless of the interpretation, but for going on a 'job' with a man toting a gun.... joint enterprise... exactly as you point out above.

No need... the next Labour government is going to pass legislation declaring them guilty.

Of course this pretty much reflects the summing up of the judge in the murder trial of Craig & Bentley. The judge was quite right... the law demanded that both boy and man were guilty of murder... so they hanged Bentley knowing that Craig did the shooting. Yet subsequent generations have come to question the wisdom that result. Personally I do not like witchhunts, irrespective of motives. I am also not happy that these people have stood trial a second time, irrespective of whether or not they did it... the precedent we have set contradicts all natural justice and is just too too dangerous. Also these were mere boys, and however ignorant they were, more allowance must be made for their age and the impact on their lives over the past 18 years... I see no sign of this. Furthermore, one may properly argue they too were victims of a racist society, and that however disastrously out of control were their actions, they reflected an attitude widely shared by their elders and supposed betters... listen to Dylan's Only a Pawn in their Game about the racist murder of Medgar Evers. However one may feel for Stephen Lawrence, who had a right to live his life in peace without interference from these juvenile morons, I am just not happy about the way people, of all shades and persuasions, have reacted to this... rather like the Americans celebrating the death of Bin Laden... I didn't like that either.

Fair point... but perhaps I didn't make myself clear. None of the Serbs I spoke to claimed to have actually shot Dando themselves; but a number of them were both convinced and delighted their fellow countrymen had dished up her just deserts. The significant fact being that this subject was discussed prior to her being shot.

It seems reasonably certain they were part of the gang, thus would therefore be guilty on the basis of common cause. But what happens if there's a fight at a football match and someone is stabbed... is everyone guilty? There is nothing to suggest either of these two wielded the knife; so I'm not entirely happy about this verdict. As for the forensic evidence... what I gleaned from the reporting suggested every liklihood of a reasonable doubt. Being ignorant pricks should not precude them from receiving a fair trial and this never looked like one. Incidentally, on the subject of Barry George, I knew a number of prominent Serbs in London and they were all proud of having evened the score with Jill Dando following her report on the bombing of the TV Centre in Belgrade. I never thought much of his conviction either.

Dante, believe it or not I have read only the first and last post of this whole thread, and want to say just this: I once picked up a biography of George Best stopping only to flip through the pictures. The last black and white photo was of a pensive George wearing only his shorts, sitting on a chair inside a room with the sunlight streaming down on him through the french windows. The caption read, "I sometimes wonder where it all went wrong." Well he didn't have far to look, for the answer was right there... he was holding a drink. Like it or like it not, it's the Jack that has to go. You may need a doctor, but most probably you don't. You may need medication, but most probably you don't. What is 100% for sure however, is that neither you nor any doctor in this world will ever be sure what is, or more likely what is not, wrong with you until you emerge from the fog of alcohol. It's not easy, but good luck... I hope the penny drops.

You never quite grasped the concept of 'supply and demand', did you Peterms? Of course we could let local government run the shops as well... then, like I have, we could all witness old ladies queuing in the snow at night because the annual delivery of loo rolls has just taken place. Long live equal misery for all, Comrades!

Great thread. I steered clear of the other as I've done a few of them over the years and finally gave up. The odd thing is, when nowadays I have to engage these morons, I always ask them if they believe in Harry Potter too.... strange coincidence.

I'm currently in London as my father and maternal grandmother, both lifelong Villa fans, are very ill. Fortunately I live abroad, and in recent years my local currency has more than doubled against both sterling and the dollar. I'm sometimes shocked to see how much prices here have risen, but in truth it makes no diffence to me. I can exist here very happily on overseas credit cards. However one cuts it, Britain will never become a great resource exporter. We are too small. The fallacy that we can make money through financial services has already been exposed. We may as well send chain letters. Whether we like it or not, we have to make stuff which other people want to buy. I'm no engineer or industrialist so I have no idea what to suggest... this has to be left to the market. But the market will never function properly, whilst government messes and fiddles with the control levers.

Sorry Hitz... I'm a bit slow on the uptake today. I found the newspaper and saw the picure. Must say, I did like them chanting, "You're not secret anymore"... very funny.

Yes. That was exactly what I had in mind, Hitz.

I'll have to phrase this carefully, but I'm sure you will all read between the lines. I have never used facebook, twitter or anything of the kind, except for VT. Can anyone direct me to the appropriate twitter page that will keep me as up to date as those who live north of the border? Thanks

It's a long while since I posted on this site as I live abroad, though I'm currently back in the UK, so I looked in for the first time in ages. I couldn't say what our problem is and am not clever enough to offer any realistic solutions. However, for me there is one crucial factor: some years back I counted the different league champions between the 2 wars and in the 20 years following WW2. For both periods the were some 10 different champions plus some 10 different runners-up who never won the title. Although even a great club such as ours failed to win the title in either period, we should take pleasure in the fact that the race was so open. In short every one had a genuine chance. By contrast the past 15 years has been a joke and the the Big 4 have pretty much become the Big 2... note our cup runs last season. Whoever said football is broke is absolutely right, and I have pretty much lost interest in it.

And, at the end of the day, why should we expect them to? Or the Iraqis? Or any of the "non democratic nations"? Maybe there is more to politics than liberalism. Sure, it works for us more or less, but we have a long liberal tradition, going back 200 years or more. Even so, for most of those 200 years we excluded one group or another from our "democracy". Maybe expecting cultures where they dont have that liberal tradition to suddenly just accept that philosophy overnight and understand how to implement it effectively is being just a tad condescending? Who gave us the right to decide what's right and wrong? My Dear Fellow, I entirely agree with you. You are making my point exactly. Let these people get on with raping their wives, stoning their daughters to death and blowing eack other up. They like it. But if their fingerprint is found on one bomb in London or New York, then POW!

I know it's taking this off topic but I just thought I'd link this story to what you have just said: What can one say? At the risk of sounding like a clever dick, I spent my working life dealing with such people, and couldn't have misunderstood them that much, as I made a pretty fair living out of them. They have a wholly different value system to ours... anyone thinking otherwise is an idiot.

You really do have a low opinion of Tony Blair's intelligence if you think that. If you look back at the things for which Blair campaigned in the 80's, then later jettisoned in order to win elections, you'll see that he was a complete idiot, with the most appallingly bad judgement.... not to mention he was a God squader, like his friend Bush. In fact his only redeeming feature was his nice smiley face.

Should we have gone in and ousted Saddam - YES Should we have stayed - NO Should we have finished the job in 1991 - YES Someone once said "Armies are for killing people and breaking stuff".... I agree. Armies should be given clear military objectives. Soldiers are not policemen, builders, security staff or teachers. We should have got them out of Iraq and Afghanistan immediately the war was won. Since then we've lost lives, prestige, money and for what? Believing the Afghans will become democrats is like believing lions will become vegetarians.

Saepe summa ingenia in occulto latent I got the first one from 'Ask Oxford'... but this one has me stumped.... please enlighten.

Again I agree with you, though I doubt demonstrations and the likely bad behaviour of certain factions amongst the crowd will do much to further the cause of reform. As you say, it will be interesting to gauge the public mood, but little else. I usually prefer to be more contenious, but I also agree with your second paragraph... it is very hard to see a way forward, without a fundamental overturning of the system. If we could make one major change, short of total revolution, for which previous historical examples do not bode well, I would opt for a much deeper, more inclusive and fundamental form of democracy, with computer voting on all kinds of different issues, great and small. This may, at least to some extent, make politicians redundant. I'm really not sure where this would lead us; but perhaps people would feel more involved and included in the political process, rather than feeling alienated; thus instead of endlessly blaming the politicians, they might actually take more responsibility for their own lives, rather than rely upon the state. PS I admire your Latin.