When All You Have Is A Hammer...

Dissatisfaction with estate agents is a national pastime in this country but school administrator Sally Millo has better reason than most to be unhappy with them.

"I've got spinal muscular atrophy type III affecting my nerves and muscles. I walk badly indoors and need a wheelchair outside, and perhaps sometimes inside too," she says. Her current home in Salisbury has been extensively modified over the past 18 years but the difficulty she has is finding a property with appropriate features in Norfolk, where she and her husband Jon wish to live.

And the reason she has problems is because she requires specialist knowledge not required by about 98% of an estate agent’s customers.

Suitable homes undoubtedly exist there, as they do everywhere, but few mainstream estate agents' websites and property portals allow 'searches' to be made on disability features. Instead, searches must be on the numbers of beds or rooms, without giving vital details about wheelchair space, stair-lifts or other features.

"When I telephone agents asking for details about a property, they generally don't have any idea what I require," she says.
"I'm happy to modify a property by fitting ramps at exterior doorways, a walk-in shower and wider doorways but I need to know other elements," explains Sally.

And if you have a special need to know arcane information and you are ‘denied’ it by the private sector because no-one else needs it, well, that’s against your ‘uman rights, isn’t it?

I can see the activists and lobby groups gearing up as I type.

So why is it that the needs of Britain's 8.4 million registered disabled – that's one in 14 of the population – appear to be almost ignored by most estate agents?

Whoa, hold on there! Not all of those people require anything like the type of specialist modification required by wheelchair users like Sally Millo.

And you have to assume the ‘Independent’ knows that, but prefers to let their readers draw an erroneous conclusion….

Conrad Hodgkinson has run the Accessible Property Register on www.accessible-property.org.uk for some 10 years. He began by appealing to developers and estate agents to sign up to publicise adapted properties, and his site currently attracts up to 20,000 visits by would-be purchasers every month. They can see a current list of 500 modified homes – but this is not down to agents or builders.

"Only around 20 estate agents have ever registered with us and most have only posted one or two properties. Only one agent has added an accessible property section to their own website. We have given up waiting for estate agents to provide the information, so we go out and get it," he says.

Wait, what…? So, there is a specialist site for these needs after all?

No. There’s at least two:

Mike Reid runs his own mainstream estate agency in Eastbourne and a specialist online service called Mobility Friendly Homes (www.mobilityfriendlyhomes.co.uk ).

Hmmm, so, what’s the problem? A niche exists in the market, and some companies find it profitable to cater to it.

Isn’t that how things are supposed to work?

"In Birmingham we found a local authority fuming that it had just adapted a property only to find that one a few doors away was available which would have suited the occupier perfectly. But there was no information in the sales details. Otherwise, it would have saved the local authority about £25,000," he says.

Well, I suppose we can’t expect councils to be psychic now (even if they sometimes expect it of us). There’s no law (yet) forcing the seller to declare these adaptations, so it’s just a fact of life.

But the progressives never sleep:

There are some improvements on the horizon, however. Globrix, is the first of the 'big' sales websites to allow searches for access features, although this usually depends on the properties' estate agents specifying those features in the first place.

Meanwhile building regulations are changing to insist that by 2013 new homes must be built to 'lifetime standard', appropriate for older and disabled residents. Many private developers are unhappy and a spokesman for the Home Builders' Federation has said: "A turning circle for a wheelchair may be desirable for some but it may lead to redundant space at extra cost."

So, in order to accommodate the specialist needs of the minority, the majority must put up with expensive and wasteful inclusions? Wait until the Greens hear this – I’m sure the extra space and heating costs won’t make these houses eco-friendly!

An exasperated Conrad Atkinson of the Accessible Property Register puts it this way: "Agents still fear that promoting access will put people off, and of course they are right. Who wants to live in a house once owned by a disabled or older person? We might catch it... "

Oh, get over yourself! This is almost as good as the ‘racism in Cravendale adverts’ picked up by LfaT and NNW.

No-one believes they may ‘catch’ disability – they just don’t want to put off prospective buyers or viewers by listing the disadvantages for anyone (the majority) who doesn’t require these modifications.

Just as they won’t include search terms for ‘stonking great gasometer in view’ or ‘noisy pub next door’.

So patronise the businesses that do cater to your specialist needs, and everyone’s happy. Aren’t they?

Misplaced Empathy

A notorious child sex murderer has had his minimum jail sentence cut by two years after using his time behind bars to become one of the world’s few translators of music into Braille.

Whew! Thank god he didn’t take up ministering to injured frogs, or he’d probably be out by now!

Yesterday the Court of Appeal agreed to reduce his 30-year tariff for the sadistic murders of two teenage schoolgirls because of his “exceptional progress” in jail.

You know, it’s not like he’s got anything else to do, is it? What if he’d become World Sodoku Champ instead? Would they have added time on?

The mother of one of the murdered children said she believed Pitchfork had been manipulating the system by doing charity work just to get his sentence cut for good behaviour.

Well, yeah. But she’s not a judge, so what does she know…?

The three judges said they had read statements which “made us acutely aware of the continuing lifelong grief of the families of the two victims of murder. Their suffering is heartrending.”

But they said: “He has sought to address the reasons behind the commission of these offences. He has achieved a high standard of education, to degree level. In 20 years in custody he has never been placed on report.

Well, that should be the default setting, shouldn’t it?

Good behaviour = no further punishment.

Bad behaviour = extra time inside.

Kath Eastwood, whose daughter Lynda Mann was raped and murdered by Pitchfork, said she was angry he could be freed early. “He has got to do something with his time and he has decided to do this,” she told The Times. ”He is playing people. He obviously thinks he has won two years.”

Well, he has.

Isn’t our justice system wonderful…?

I Hate To Say ‘I Told You So….’

Well, actually, that’s not true. I love it:

Police forces are to stop monitoring hunts in a change of policy that sounds the death knell for the hunting ban, The Times has learnt.

New guidance from the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) states that gathering evidence of illegal hunting is difficult, that the ban is hard to enforce and that chief constables have more pressing priorities.

All things that were pointed out ad nauseam before this grossly flawed bill was ever put before the Commons.

And all things that were glossed over or ignored by a Labour government eager to throw its supporters some red meat and stamp its unrepresentative authority on the social fabric of the country.

In future, forces should rely on anti-hunt activists to produce information, it says. But they should also be “very cautious” of such groups and recognise that hunting is an “emotionally charged” subject.

Quite. Pity that attitude doesn’t extend to other single-minded activists too….

And you know you’ve lost the battle, and the war, when even the authoritarian’s authoritarian throws in the towel:

Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable of North Wales and the Acpo spokesman on rural affairs, said: “Hunting is definitely not a policing priority. It is not illegal to wear a red coat and ride a horse in a public place.”

It’s not something that most people would even consider ought to be on the police radar at all.

But the single-issue activists are, predictably, throwing an almighty strop:

A spokesman for the League Against Cruel Sport said: “We fought for 80 years for the hunting ban and, while we accept it is not a high priority for police, a ban was the will of Parliament and is the will of the people and we are going to press for more prosecution cases to be brought.”

Heh. Press away, boys.

The simple fact of the matter is that it never was the ‘will of the people’. And everyone knows it. It was the will of a bunch of corrupt, thieving crooks who have now been found out, and are about to reap the whirlwind.

And no-one’s paying any attention to their pet projects and favoured groups anymore…

You What...?!?

The first thing you are asked to say when you are going in front of a selection meeting to be adopted as a parliamentary candidate is that you are going to live in the constituency. Since you are also going to spend 60 per cent of your time in London, this means you are going to have to have two homes.

Fine. Let’s build you all one in the middle of London, or buy out a hotel. It’d be cheaper.

Most people cannot afford two homes. I could never have afforded two homes. We do not want to go back to the situation in the middle of the last century when the only people who could afford to be MPs were the very wealthy, on our side, and the trade-union sponsored on the other side, so it is right that the public pays for an MP to have a second home, and for the necessary upkeep.

Well, that’s a bit of a dilemma, isn’t it?

Go back to the situation whereby a few massively-unrepresentative folks lorded it over the people who elected them while rewarding their favoured interests, or…

Ummm…

I’ll have to get back to you on that, Anne. I’m having trouble seeing any difference at the moment.

This takes the bloody chocolate-covered biscuit though:

When you are spending most of your time in London, you have to pay for someone to cut the grass. Who else was going to cut my grass? The cat? The cat did not even live in my second home.

Oh, poor you! Your job takes you away from your garden. So, naturally, the taxpayer must pay for your lawn to be kept under control. It’s only reasonable…

Look, lots of people have jobs that take them away from home – the costs of these kinds of small annoyances are naturally met out of their salary. After all, no-one forced them to do the job in the first place, did they?

I have called for a dissolution of Parliament, but there is a genuine worry that if people become disillusioned with all the main parties because of this, they will turn to the extremists.

Yup. And I’m betting that’s exactly what will happen. Perhaps you should have borne the cost of mowing your own lawn after all?
Nah, that’s crazy talk!

But I must say having people from the journalist profession passing judgement on anyone's expenses is a bit like having Satan heading a commission on sin.

Oh, ho ho ho.

The big difference being, of course, that they aren’t claiming their salary and expenses from the taxpayer, are they? And I’m not forced to buy a newspaper or watch a news show. I am forced (via taxes) to pay for you and the rest of your trough-swilling cronies.

H/t: davidncl in the comments at Obo's.

Learning Support Assistant Needs Some Learning Support...

...or an almighty whack round the head with a large 2x4 of dense-grain wood:

A learning support assistant broke down in court as she told a jury how she watched a head teacher intimately examine a four-year-old female pupil.

Note that word - 'watched'.

Ms Stone said in the days after the incident she tried to contact Pembrokeshire council but it said there was no record of her call.

Note those words - 'in the days after'.

Not 'immediately after'. Or 'instantly, while maintaining a firm grip on the scumbag's throat balls with my non-dialling hand'.

She said Mr Thorley took the child's trousers off before beginning the examination.

"I nearly said I'm not happy with what you're doing. If that had happened now I would have done that," she said.

She said at the end of the examination the child asked her: "Miss Amelia, have I been naughty?"

"I felt crushed, this has gone against everything I stood by," she added.

I'm sorry...? You didn't know this was suspect behaviour then, but you do now?

Just what is it you 'stand for', then, other than abject stupidity and unthinking obedience?

Ms Stone said that in the days after the incident she had tried to contact Pembrokeshire council to talk about a child protection issue.

She said she spoke to someone "who didn't know what they were talking about."

She said she left her name and number, but not the name of the school. No-one, she said, called her back.

Jesus wept! Did it not occur to you to go to the police? To the child's parents?

A few days later Ms Stone told the jury she was called into Mr Thorley's office.

She said he told her that it was his role as head teacher to decide whether to refer children and families to social services and that the examination had been in response to that.

She described the meeting as "very intimidating."

I wonder how 'intimidating' he'd have been if you showed up to that meeting with two burly cops in tow? Not much, I'd suspect.

But then again, who knows, if this alleged incident is anything to go by:

Swansea Crown Court heard that married David Thorley, 57, of Carmarthen, once pulled down the trousers and underwear of a young girl in a meeting at which police officers and social workers were present.

It is claimed that the girl had been sitting on his lap during the meeting to discuss her future and he undressed her to show bruises allegedly inflicted at home.

The mind boggles...

Eight Pointless Things

Been tagged by Obo, so here are three pointless things for your delectation:

1. I'm so anally retentive, I alphabetised all my DVDs, and put the films with numbers in the title (2010, 300...) at the start. In numerical order.

2. I'll drink any vile alcoholic concoction on sale, even Baileys and Babycham. But not Campari.

3. My first ever car, straight after passing my test (first time! Hah!) was a Jaguar saloon. The insurance companies loved me.

4. I bought three packs of plants in Tescos a month ago - chillis, peppers, and tomatoes. The tomatoes all died within a week..

5. I'm having sea bass for dinner tonight.

6. I'm currently reading the latest Jim Butcher 'Dresden' novel.

7. I really, really need to clean out my fish tank this weekend.

8. I've currently got 14 browser windows open.

In return, I tag Vetnurse, Macheath and Patently.

"You crazy fools!"

Watching a tight T-shirt-wearing, cocksure man wearing a gaudy gold chain round his neck strutting down the street is often worth a phone-call to the fashion police.

But one force is taking the idea a step further and encouraging people to shop Mr T-wannabes to Crimestoppers in a novel - some might say barmy - plan to bring down the crime rate*.

In the latest example of innovative policing in Britain, the Gloucestershire force is encouraging members of the public to report people wearing too much 'bling' during the recession.

/facepalm

They are also urging people to shop anyone who drives flash cars or buys expensive items without the apparent means to afford them during the credit crunch.

What a fantastic scheme for nosy parkers, jealous neighbours and crusading busybodies everywhere!

Surely, this must have been inspired by the success of that other awful ‘initiative’, the ‘OMG! Are ur neighbours terrorists!?’ poster campaign so mercilessly lampooned all over the web.

I mean, that has been a success. Hasn’t it…?

The campaign, run with Crimestoppers, was launched by the force today under the title 'Too Much Bling? Give Us a Ring' with the aim of cracking down on those who live a lavish lifestyle on the profits of crime.

I’m guessing that doesn’t include MPs….?

Gloucestershire's Chief constable Dr Timothy Brain (Ed: How inappropriately named…) said: 'In the current time of financial uncertainty, those who live a lavish lifestyle with no discernable, legitimate income become even more apparent.'

And if it turns out they do, indeed, possess legitimate income not obvious to the informant, well, no harm, no foul, right? If you’ve got nothing to hide, why should you have anything to fear from a police investigation, after all?

Oh. Right. That whole ‘innocent until proven guilty’ thing.

Well, that’s just so last decade. Suspicion and paranoia is where it’s at in the Noughties, baby!

…Tory MP and former Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe expressed disbelief at the move.

She said: 'Is this a joke? If the police spent half as much time tackling crime and getting out on the beat as they do coming out with this ridiculous stuff, we'd all be better off. ’

Hard to argue with that…

* - just a small quibble here with the Mail’s terminology, but if this does indeed result in more detectable offences isn’t the crime rate going to rise, not fall…?

Justice Should Be Neither A Marathon, Nor A Sprint…

Well, here’s a pretty appalling case of following the letter of the law, while missing the whole point of the law by a country mile:

A man jailed for life after being convicted of poisoning and raping a vulnerable woman has been freed - because his trial was too long.

Appeal Court judges ruled its six-month length had made it very difficult for the jury trying Kevin O'Dowd to 'keep its eye on the ball'.

That’s a hell of a big assumption there….

'Each member of the court is regrettably driven to the conclusion that the verdicts of the jury are not safe and therefore cannot stand,' said Mr Justice Beatson yesterday.

'For a trial involving just one defendant and the relatively simple issues that the jury had to decide to have lasted for this length of time, with the consequent vast cost to the public, is not only disproportionate but a serious blot on the administration of justice.

'Many of the delays could be justified individually, but viewed collectively, it is entirely unacceptable for the case to have taken anything like this length of time.'

So, because the trial has passed a checkpoint for ‘length of time’ (who decides this? Is there a sliding scale for differing types of trials? A chart? A table?), a purely static target having nothing to do with the quality of the trial, it is thrown out.

And, because the Crown has opted not to proceed with a retrial, the defendant goes free.

So, let’s see who is responsible for this ‘unacceptable delay’, shall we?

The trial, which lasted 42 days, was interrupted by Christmas, New Year and Easter holidays - but Mr Justice Beatson said that was the tip of the iceberg.

There were concerns over O'Dowd's health - he needed 'frequent short breaks' for medication and had to be admitted to hospital during his cross-examination. Further delay was caused by his decision to sack and replace his barrister in the midst of the trial.

O'Dowd's instruction that no point was to be conceded also meant that 'the Crown was required to prove matters which, in many trials, would have been uncontentious or admitted'.

The most serious delay in the trial was caused by the need for an in-depth investigation of three allegations of rape O'Dowd had faced 22 and 17 years earlier and which were introduced by the Crown as evidence of his bad character.

In other words, almost all of the ‘delays’ in this trail were created either by the defendant himself or by the legal system grossly overcompensating in order to hold itself up as scrupulously fair to the defendant. And as a result, he goes free and the judges get to congratulate themselves once again on how humane and fair our justice system is.

Who has been forgotten in all this? Oh, yeah. The victim. Anyone remember her?

You have to wonder just who the justice system is run for anymore, don’t you?

New Labour’s House Of Cards Collapses

Interesting article in ‘The Times’ on the efforts to combat the BNP in Barnsley (also mentioned by ‘Ranting Stan’ in his post here) and in particular, about the reasons for the swing to the party:

...Labour was struggling to counter the BNP’s advance well before the recession struck.

This is a former coalmining community where 15,000 men were employed in 16 pits as recently as the 1980s, and whose economy and raison d’être collapsed when the last of those pits was closed in the early 1990s.

Those mines have now vanished beneath shopping centres, industrial estates or country parks, and the handsome stone building that houses Mr Scargill’s once-mighty National Union of Mineworkers is occupied by little besides ghosts.

Thankfully, this article is refreshingly free of the ‘this is all the fault of Thatcher!’ subtext that you might expect from that description.

But many of Barnsley’s 220,000 inhabitants remain wedded to “old Labour”, and feel betrayed by a “new Labour” Government that has — they believe — forgotten its working-class roots and ceased fighting for the underdog as its members milk the public purse.

The problem is deeper than that – they haven’t ‘ceased fighting for the underdog’ at all. They’ve simply chosen new underdogs to fight for – minorities of every other race and creed and gender and sexuality.

This isn’t a picture of Labour as depressed husband sinking into despair and refusing to communicate with the wife or do its share of the washing up – this is a picture of Labour as philandering cad ditching the faithful wife for a spending spree with a succession of newer, younger, more exotic mistresses:

The town’s deprivation is obvious in the downmarket shops — though it does have a wonderful market — and ubiquitous groups of unemployed youths loitering on street corners. There is little industry left. The council and hospital are the biggest employers. Outside the public sector, employment is mostly in minimum-wage retail or service jobs. A quarter of the workforce is economically inactive and on some form of benefits, and the town has one of the highest rates of obesity — 10 per cent — in England.

And I’d venture to suggest that Barnsley isn’t unique in the North, or even in the UK as a whole.

This is a snapshot of a lot of large urban conurbations, and is going to get more and more familiar around the country as the recession takes hold. It’s the sign of an society feeding on itself – what ‘work’ there is comes increasingly from the State in all its many guises, and as the pool of productive industry from the private sector shrinks, it becomes increasingly unsustainable.

There are signs that the tipping point has already been reached in Barnsley:

The council’s £300 million plan to demolish and rebuild a quarter of the town centre, part of its ambitious regeneration programme, has been put on hold. A small mountain of rubble in the town centre marks the spot where Barnsley College was recently demolished, but the Learning and Skills Council — a government agency — can no longer afford the £42 million it promised for a new campus.

As the famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin (though disputed) goes “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”

Indeed it will, but it can only work as long as there is money to be had from the productive sector; in a recession, it can’t work for long.

Barnsley’s Labour-run council has made strenuous efforts to revive the town’s fortunes in recent years. It has built a new £22 million transport hub and a digital centre for start-up businesses, converted the old Civic Hall into an arts centre, persuaded the University of Huddersfield to open a satellite campus in the town and will soon start rebuilding all its 14 secondary schools in the biggest programme of its kind in Britain.

It is offering under-18s free transport and free swimming, and has frozen the council tax for the elderly. “It’s a way of saying we’ve not forgotten you, no matter what the BNP says,” Steve Houghton, the council leader, tells The Times. But such measures seem to count for little when set against the savagery of the slump and the Government’s bungling.

Notice what gets built under the title of ‘regeneration’ – none of it is productive, wealth-creation industry – it is all (with the possible exception of the ‘transport hub’ unless that is heavily subsidised) public sector or diversion schemes for the unemployed.

And when the money runs out, well, what then?

Robert Cockroft, editor of the Barnsley Chronicle, believes mainstream politicians must start engaging, not ostracising, the BNP. “We get letters from Labour councillors calling them names, but these days that’s not sufficient. They have to engage in the arguments,” he says.

They can’t, Mr Cockcroft.

Because they know what the answers are, and they can’t bring themselves to offer them, because they will then invalidate almost all of their previous positions and upset their favoured pets, who will respond by withdrawing their votes. . .

Unfortunate Juxtaposition...

From this morning's 'Mail':
Better maintain radio silence, lads....