Homeowners would be handed a licence to kill burglars by a Tory government.We don't, as a rule, want to kill burglars. The real scandal of the Hussein case wasn't that he was given a prison sentence. It was that he found himself in that situation in the first place.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling raised the election stakes on crime by promising law-abiding citizens extra rights to defend themselves.
If the Tories win the election, he said, they would tear up the law which lets householders use only 'reasonable force' to defend their families against intruders.
It was the fact that Salem had racked up 54 convictions over the course of his career - and career it was - and was still free to burgle, steal and brag about being untouchable. And untouchable, it seems, is exactly what he was...
DumbJon points to another recent case of reaching the wrong conclusions for the right reasons. The problem is not the law. The problem is the people who are sworn to uphold that law, and yet find excuses and reasons to bend over backwards to be lenient to the people who break that law.
And who then profess disgust and shock at the perfectly-understandable reaction of the people who pay their wages to the Hussein case. And the pefectly-understandable contempt of those who see through a poorly-thought-out attempt to cherry-pick the quote to fit your own personal prejudices..
Rather than attempt to tear up laws and rewrite new ones (Ahem! Dangerous Dogs Act? Dunblane Gun Laws?), when they get in, the Tories should take a good, hard look at the people who are interpreting those laws.
Changing them, not the law iteslf, is the answer.
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Grayling was interviewed on the BBC's Today programme this morning by a very aggressive Justin Webb (aggressive from the liberal left, of course). Grayling failed miserably to make his point. It soon became obvious that this policy statement was a kneejerk response to the Hussein case.
The Conservatives may ape Labour's policies but their spinning abilities are shite in comparison with the real masters. He didn't even mention the killer fact concerning the discrepancy in the sentences handed down to Hussein the respectable householder and Salem, the career criminal. Here was an open goal to score against what British "justice" has been reduced to by a generation of lefty f*ckwits (including those in the Conservative Party). Once again the Conservatives miss the goal: actually - as is becoming a habit with the Cameroons - they missed the ball entirely.
Kneejerk reactions, or just plain JERKS in Government are not restricted to Britain.
Here a couple of probably deserving teenagers got shot in a school. What did the Government suggest?
ban paintball!? WTF???
Rather than attempt to tear up laws and rewrite new ones (Ahem! Dangerous Dogs Act? Dunblane Gun Laws?), when they get in, the Tories should take a good, hard look at the people who are interpreting those laws.
The people who interpret and misinterpret (often willfully, I suspect) the law may be a problem but rewriting it in such a way as to avoid misinterpretation would avoid it. Of course, the legal profession might object because almost certainly you wouldn't need lawyers to try to understand the law anymore.
"Here was an open goal to score against what British "justice" has been reduced to by a generation of lefty f*ckwits (including those in the Conservative Party). Once again the Conservatives miss the goal: actually - as is becoming a habit with the Cameroons - they missed the ball entirely."
I'm not sure they are even playing the same game...
"Here a couple of probably deserving teenagers got shot in a school. What did the Government suggest?
ban paintball!?"
Yup, and we always think we have a monopoly on idiots in government...
"...but rewriting it in such a way as to avoid misinterpretation would avoid it."
Could you, though? I'm not sure it's possible to write something in such a way that it cannot be misinterpreted by someone bound and determined to do so.
Those 54 convictions will be something of a joke. I once knew a serial burglar ( son of a neighbour ) and followed his criminal career with some bemusement.
Once it was over ( after a second stretch inside) I asked him for all his fifty or so convictions how many times was he wrongly aquitted, not prosecuted, not charged or just got away with ? He estimated about ten times the number of crimes to convictions.
(Some of the convictions were wrong too; admissions made to the Police for crimes he did not commit in return for beer & fags in the station, it would not affect his sentence but helped made the Police look good).
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