The Casey for the defence
Further to this, I thought I’d attempt to make my own contribution to Anti-Social Behaviour Czar Louise Casey’s webchat this afternoon. I thought keeping it civil was the best approach:
Louise, nobody would deny that something must be done about anti-social behaviour. But I am concerned about the increase in summary powers that, it is proposed, will be given to the police. If an innocent person is wrongly punished under these summary powers, surely this will foster a feeling of resentment rather than respect for authority? Also, a person on low income (innocent or not) may find themselves in real difficulties, particularly if they have family, if forced to pay a spot penalty. Do we not risk making the poor poorer and more desperate?
If other people have a go as well, we could offer a special prize - a rosey glow of self-satisfaction at having struck a blow for webocracy, participated in a shiny new future and accepted that the respect agenda is not driven forward by gimmicks, perhaps - to anyone actually getting their question answered.
A holiday in the Seychelles for anybody getting a straight, satisfactory answer.
UPDATE: Well, we knew it was going to be a big pile of vetted astroturf but this bad? (The transcript is still up for any other self-harmers out there.) You know things are going to be pretty abject when the woman who’s supposed to be conducting a webchat about respect turns up a full 20 minutes late.
Kudos to the number of Daily Mail readers who conquered their fear of the modern age in order to submit questions to an interweb chat though. And hearty congratulations to our boy Backword Dave Weeden who actually had a question answered (of a fashion). Salut!
Posted on January 17th, 2006 at 11:22 am
| See also • Webchats: the new sliced bread • Clarke shoos • New Labour: A Home Fit For Heroes |
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John Prescot in Drag?
Send me my holiday voucher NOW.
I was as surprised as anyone that she took my question. As you can probably tell, it was a reaction to what I read as slightly sinister bullshit, and I her reply didn’t much alter that feeling. “More thought about the community” seems to be a licence for petty tyrants, the sort of people I always picture as Warden Hodges in “Dad’s Army”. My experience has showed me that good intentions tend to waste energy and time on long-winded meetings, and philosophically I fall somewhere between Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” and Candide’s resolve to cultivate his garden. I’m surprised at how much Thatcher’s “There is no such thing as society” has stuck with me. Anyway, individuals are *real* and I’m doubtful about *the community.*
So it seems my quest to get Blair & Co nicked will come to nought after all. However, over the coming months i’ll be doing my best to have these questions answered:
Mr Blair,
how do you expect anyone to take the proposal that it is imperative to punish the guilty even at the expense of the innocent, in your “Respect Action Plan”, seriously when your Government presided over the introduction of the Criminal Justice (Terrorism & Conspiracy) Act 1998 which specifiacally provides that persons acting on behalf of the Crown cannot be held criminally liable for Conspiracy under the provisions of this Act whilst removing prior provision under the 1977 Criminal Law Act?
Isn’t it utter hypocrisy to suggest that we must accept that agents of the Crown or members of HM Govt. might get away with heinous offences whilst at the same time we must not accept that a person might get away with vandalism?
In fact Mr Blair, isn’t it the case that, were it not for subsection 14 of section 5 of this Act, you yourself would be guilty of a Criminal Conspiracy to Torture?
Details
The transcript currently up there reads:
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error ‘80004005′
[DBMSSOCN]General network error. Check your network documentation.
/no10_webchat/Connections/dbconn.asp, line 4
BWAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAHAAAAAA!!!
Alex, I’ve got the HTML of the whole thing if you want it.