Coming Attractions….

So, what does the Queen’s Speech suggest we’ll have (should Labour manage to cling to power and force the bills through Parliament) for 2009/10?

For a start, we’ll have sexual and racial preferences in the name of ‘equality’:

Companies will be free to discriminate in favour of women and black job candidates under proposed ‘equality’ laws.
The move allows employers to give preferential treatment as long as applicants are equally qualified.

And if businesses still don’t take action, they will be ‘gently encouraged’ through the use of ‘diversity quotas’, of course…

Ministers insist that businesses will not be compelled to favour the woman or the black candidate, but the law will be changed to ensure they cannot be sued for turning down a white man.

‘Heads we win, tails you lose, white male scum’…

The CBI, Trades Union Congress and the Equality and Human Rights Commission support positive action.

But the Equality Bill, which brings together nine major laws and 100 other regulations, will inevitably lead to charges that women are more equal then men.

Of course it will. But it’s desired by those in power, and those who will profit from continued employment in monitoring, assuring and publicising these policies, so they are quite convinced they will weather that storm.

Miss Harman, whose earnest feminism has earned her the nickname Harriet Harperson, said yesterday that the economic downturn would not hold back the ‘tough’ new measures, claiming ‘fairness doesn’t cost anything’.

It doesn’t. But what she’s proposing is only ‘fairness’ in the most grotesque sense of the word.

And we’ll have justice-system approved vigilante ‘justice’:

Battered women who kill abusive partners in cold blood because they fear more violence will escape a murder conviction.

Instead their crime - even if premeditated - will be reduced to manslaughter, sparing them a mandatory life sentence.

Commit premeditated murder – and get a reduced sentence. All you need to do is possess the right set of genital equipment. Nice, eh?

Under the Coroners and Justice Bill, victims of domestic violence will be able to claim they were provoked into killing by their tormentors after enduring months or years of abuse.

But the shake-up of the homicide laws would scrap the ‘partial defence’ of provocation where a husband claims he killed in a fit of sexual jealousy after discovering his wife was having an affair.

Because women can’t control their emotions, and men can…? I can’t see this lasting past the first legal challenge from a gay couple, even if our neutered parliamentary process allows it through in the first place.

The new partial defence clause for ‘killers in fear’ could also be used by those who strike out after bitter disputes with neighbours, or victims of a serious crime who are taunted at a later date by the attacker.

No doubt the first example is meant to ensure that people like this chap can skip any kind of punishment in the future. A reward for choosing the right victim again…

But the latter example? For the love of God, whatever happened to ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me’? Is this the society that NuLab want to build? Where you can stab to death the person who calls you names and get a reduced sentence…?

Also, we can expect more bad laws that won’t do a thing to actually prevent anything because they can’t legislate for human nature/new technology:

Justice Minister Jack Straw is determined to outlaw websites which encourage suicide following their links to a string of young deaths.

Websites inside the UK, probably. Those in other legal jurisdictions? Nothing he can do about them…

Under the 1961 Suicide Act it is illegal to urge someone to take his own life, but no website operator has been prosecuted under the laws.

Because the law is so old, it has been mistakenly assumed that a person can be prosecuted only for encouraging someone to commit suicide in a face-to-face meeting.

The Bill will make it clear that the ban on assisting suicide does apply on line.

Why do you need a Bill to do this, if it is already a crime? Surely guidance to the prosecutors would suffice?

And (of course!) we’ll have more stealth taxes:

Millions of businesses will be hit with a new tax in the next 18 months.

Firms with a rateable value of more than £50,000 will be forced to pay business rate supplements.

The tax will be levied by all local authorities, excluding district councils, which will use the money to promote ‘economic development in the area’.

Or more likely, to squander on quangos and useless, unwanted installations and artwork.

Still, nothing better to help the economy than more stealth taxes on small businesses!

Is it me, or are these proposals an indication that Brown has finally lost control, and the lunatics are in charge, and simply doing as much as they can now to wreck what’s left of the apparatus of government before the Conservatives take over?