Well how much is porn on the Internet, Jacqui?

Everyone is a bit puzzled as to why former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith chose to tell us about her ignorance of the porn industry. One would have thought that she would try and avoid headlines which included her name and the word “porn”, given that her disgrace was based in part on the fact that she claimed her husband’s X-rated videos on expenses.

Most of the comment, in fact, has been about the photograph with which the Times illustrated its article, showing Smith in a rather louche leather coat standing in a Soho Street, like a Madame on her way to inspect a new batch of recruits for her brothel. What caught my eye was the headline in the iPad version of the article. Where the print version was headed “I never knew the Internet was so full of porn, admits Jacqui Smith” the iPad version read “I never realised how much porn was on the Internet, admits Jacqui Smith”. The ambiguity in this subtly different version brings with it a clear reminder of that previous occasion when the cost of porn escaped her notice. Was the sub-editor having a laugh at her expense, I wonder.

For myself, I do not particularly blame Smith for not noticing that entry on her domestic Internet bill. She was a busy woman and, as with Baroness Scotland’s unfortunate oversight in respect of her illegal immigrant cleaner, it is something easily done. They share a collective responsibility in that they were members of a government which was particularly unforgiving of our daily oversights, burdening businesses and individuals with a mass of petty compliance obligations and hordes of petty little runts-in-office to catch us out and punish us. Indeed, one of the best results of the Parliamentary expenses scandal in which Smith was the star turn has been that MPs now know what it feels like to be caught out for every trivial infringement of the rules.

Big Society undermined by thick policemen and CPS prosecutors

The story of the Manchester policeman who ignored a gang of street vandals but arrested their victim raises all sorts of issues. Police who neglect their duty, and misuse arbitrary power are bad enough. What of the prosecutors, who hauled the victims through the courts whilst declining to prosecute the policeman who struck newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson? And what hope is there for David Cameron’s big society?

In most stories where a victim of crime takes on his or her tormentors, they have been driven to it because the police prefer to stay in their warm police stations ignoring calls for help. The Telegraph article Women arrested for swearing at yobs, tells of an occasion when PC Plank was actually present, and made an arrest.  You must have someone to drag off to the cells if you are going to get your bonus points, and the small female victim will do if you lack the guts to take on the perpetrators.

A brick was thrown through Miss Harrop’s window, and her boyfriend “left the house to confront six youths standing outside, but a patrolling police officer witnessed him being chased away by the group, who later returned to the street outside the property”. The policeman just “witnessed” this did he? Perhaps some Health & Safety regulation barred him from doing anything to help. Perhaps he was just too cowardly.

In the absence of any intervention by the police, Miss Harrop went out and gave her undoubtedly strong views using, so the charge sheet said, “abusive words within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress”.  I cannot quite picture the sort of yob who throws bricks through windows and chases people down the street but who is likely to be distressed by a small woman shouting at him. Thick policemen I can understand, but the charge-sheet was presumably drawn up by someone notionally possessed  of a brain.

Four stories in one day to remind us why we need judges

We are going to need a strong judiciary in these dying years of New Labour. Four events reported today remind us how contemptuous Government has become of those who elect it.

The Government announced plans to exempt MPs from a requirement to detail their expenses. The Treasury announced that it would not be hurrying to compensate those who lost their pensions in Equitable Life. The Government said that Heathrow Airport is to be extended without Parliamentary debate. And John Mortimer, fierce fighter for individual liberty, died. I do not suppose there was in fact a connection between this last event and the other three, but it is easy to see one.

Gordon Brown is Peter Grimes

We have a dislikeable man with no interpersonal skills in a coastal town in Suffolk. Although thought by some to be skilled at his business, his biggest achievement was thrown away when the climate turned against him. He is particularly unpleasant to junior staff. Everything he touches turns bad and his attempts to describe his vision for the future turn into repetitious rants which no-one listens to or believes. He is hated by almost everyone as much for his character and demeanour as for his inability to handle events. After his latest disaster, even his few friends advise him to push off and sink out of sight. His departure is barely noticed save that the sun comes out as soon as he is gone.

So much for Gordon Brown. This is also, of course, the plot of Peter Grimes, and it is a happy chance which took me to see Peter Grimes whilst Gordon Brown was sulking in Southwold, a few miles along the coast from the Borough (Aldborough) where Grimes is set.

Welsh van man fag trap

A self-employed van driver in Wales has been fined for smoking in his own van. What is it about the local authority mindset, why is it even worse in Wales, and do the local police have nothing better to do?

In my post Smoking Snoopers of 25 February 2007, I commented on the fact that the government had handed £29.5 million to local authorities to help them enforce the smoking ban. It coincided with the news that the police no longer bothered – as a matter of policy – to attend at the scene of a burglary. I did not know it at the time, but the sum so allocated was exactly twice the amount which the Treasury (Gordon Brown Prop.) had shaved off the budget for flood relief.

My focus was on the sort of people who would become smoking snoopers, getting their thrills from lurking to catch people enjoying themselves. They would include, I said:

The sludge which collects at the bottom of every local authority pond who get moved from department to department because they are really unemployable even in that undemanding environment, but who cannot be dismissed through political correctness or union strength.

Imagine being all that and Welsh with it!

Brown the waster tells us not to waste

Hypocrisy is New Labour’s prime characteristic, and Gordon “Heathcliff” Brown’s injunction to us all not to waste anything is a fine example of Labour – and specifically Brownite – hypocrisy

We are, apparently, throwing away £1bn of food each year. That is indeed something to be corrected, with implications well beyond the £420 per family which a Whitehall study has alleged. It deprives others, it generates waste and it inflates the profits of the supermarkets. It is nothing, however, to what Gordon Brown has wasted.

Labour lies about rats in rubbish

One of the least appealing aspects of the Blair-Brown administrations – in a very long list of unappealing things – is the institutional dishonesty which these two men and their advisers have brought to government. The dishonesty comes with added hypocrisy since both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, in their different ways, have expressly laid claim to a religious and moral basis to their lives.

This dishonesty is not just morally wrong. One is left gaping sometimes at the political stupidity of lying about subjects on which you are bound to be found out sooner or later, particularly things which, however important, are not matters on which governments fall. Governments are entitled to make some mistakes, to experiment, to assess the consequences, and to accept they got it wrong. What loses the votes is the persistent feeling that we are being lied to daily on every subject.

Blears smears Oxford estate

A few days ago, Hazel Blears’ spokesman said that she supported “whatever the Prime Minister said”. Who would say that now?

Not everything which pours from Hazel Blears’ mouth is nonsense, and her observation in a recent speech that “brutal, ugly buildings and estates contribute to crime, antisocial behaviour and social exclusion” is quite correct. She made two mistakes.

One is that New Labour has been responsible for plenty of brutal, ugly building, much of it on grass, including former school playing fields. The opposition which it faces to its house-building programme derives largely from the certainty that most of the result will be hideous, as well as badly planned and divorced from the infrastructure which would make the houses work.

Got nothing to say? Send for Harman

There was not much Labour could say as the extent of the overnight debacle in the local elections became clear. If there is not much to say, Harriet Harman is just the person you need to say it, and the mere fact that it was Harman who was sent out to speak on the Today programme this morning was evidence enough that Labour was lost for words.

She was eloquent and fluent as streams of nothing poured from her mouth. John Humprys was gentle with her in a way he would not have been with, say, Geoff Hoon or Hazel Blears or any of the others from the substitutes bench who might have been sent out on New Labour’s behalf. It would be like kicking a dandelion.

Decency all round as Boris wins London

Both Boris Johnson and, unlikely as it seems, Ken Livingstone, grew somewhat in stature in what was said after Johnson’s win tonight. The sheer unpleasantness of Gordon Brown, which has infected British politics for longer than he has been Prime Minister, makes magnaminity in victory and graciousness in defeat seem rather precious and rare.