Silvio Berlusconi is going to resign as Italian Premier on Wednesday…

…only he isn’t really as he promising to form a new government straight away on a ‘different platform’ - translation: he’s found someone else to cut a deal with.

After a relatively quiet period, it looks like we’re back to the Italian politics we know and love of old…

Oh god, this is getting sooooooo boring…

Hemming’s back again trying to blame the DTI for Rover’s collapse by citing this article from Ezilon - nope, I’ve not heard of before them either.

As usual, John’s highly selective in his choice of quotes, making great play on:

‘MG Rover, the only remaining British-owned volume car maker, will be forced to call in the receivers by the end of this week unless an emergency 100m loan is made available from the Government.’

… but neglecting to note the following, far more illuminating, statement:

‘Sources close to the Chinese company indicated last night the chances of reaching agreement appeared to be worsening. They said that the acute financial difficulties at MG Rover, which they had been made fully aware of only in the last two weeks, had raised concerns about the company’s future stability.’

John might have a rather more in the way of credibility if he’d also have noted that, much closer to home, the Birmingham Evening Mail are reporting that Rover knocked back a £100 million deal with Virgin only a few weeks before it went bust or that thanks to £40 million from the Rover Task Force - which doesn’t include him - 1100 ’supply chain’ jobs are now safe.

Perhaps voters in Yardley would like to consider carefully just why it is that their Liberal Democrat Candidate, John Hemming, seems to be only one out there other than the few half-baked losers from Socialist Worker behind the Respec’ candidate in Hodge Hill, to try to blame the Government for the failings of Rover’s management and of the Phoenix Four?

Is there some sort of millionaire businessmen’s code at work here, rather like the three musketeers - ‘One for all… And all for me!’ (© Tim Curry)

I wrote a short piece on this, yesterday, covering the Lib Dems proposals for dealing with minor offenders - Community Justice Panels. But having dug a little deeper into the subject I think its one worth returning to in a little more detail.

First thing to note is that there’s already a pilot Community Justice Panel in operation, which is being funded by the Home Office, Government Office for the South West, the local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership and Western Power (?) and is based in Chard, Somerset - ironically an old stamping ground of mine from 20 years ago and fairly solid Lib Dem territory. Chard is the Yeovil constituency which was, previously, that of former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown.

The Home Office’s general description of the Chard pilot appears, broadly speaking, to suggest that its powers and functions are along the general lines of those included in ASBOs (as below) and with an emphasis on ‘behaviour modification’

The Panel, similar to a Youth Offending Panel for delivering Referral Orders in youth justice, is made up of volunteers from the local community. It tackles low-level anti-social behaviour by using local agencies and victims to draw up agreed changes to the offender’s behaviour. The agreement can take the form of an Acceptable Behaviour Contract. In many cases, conventional criminal justice procedures can be used should the agreements not be adhered to. There are plans to develop the panel as a way of delivering restorative Conditional Cautions.

What we’re talking about here is a kind of ‘last chance saloon’ for minor offenders which involves nothing more than a bit of genuine contrition and an specific agreement to change their ways which, if broken, puts them back into the clutches of the criminal justice system to deal with any questions of punishment which might reasonably arise - a point reiterated by this, taken from a briefing paper submitted to a scrutiny panel of Tory-controlled Worthing Borough Council this month begins:

Community Justice Panels are potentially an effective way of modifying behaviour. The Panels are normally made up of victims and volunteers from the local community. Offenders who are arrested for minor crimes like graffiti, vandalism or being drunk and disorderly are given a choice – go to court in the normal way and face a criminal record or go before a Panel of local people. At the Panel meetings the offender is expected to explain and apologise for his/her actions and agree to a programme of work or reparation to make amends for the damage he or she has done. Where the offence has affected individual victims rather than the community as a whole, the offender is expected to compensate them.

Note again the emphasis the offender agreeing to undertake work or reparation.

All of which is a long way from what the Lib Dems are proposing in their manisfesto (p9) which claims that:

“Through Community Justice Panels, local people will have more say in the punishment offenders carry out in the community - for example by making them clean off graffiti or repair damage to victim’s property”

Now as I indicated in yesterday, life gets much more difficult when the Lib Dems start making manifesto commitments which imply that Criminal Justice Panels might have the legal authority to compel minor offenders to undertake community service.

Article 4 of ECHR prohibits ’slavery or forced labour’ except in certain specific contexts, the most notable and relevant of which is within the bounds of the criminal justice system. Community punishments - what used to be called ‘Community Service Orders’ - are imposed by the courts are, therefore, entirely legal and consistent with human rights law as laid down in ECHR and incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998.

However, Community Justice Panel are not, themselves, courts or competent legal authorities and, therefore, under a combination of Articles 4 & 5 of ECHR, cannot impose on minor offenders the kinds of punishments - cleaning graffiti, repairing damage, etc - cited by the Lib Dems in their manifesto. They can ask them to carry out such work, and if the offender agrees, incorporate it into their ‘acceptable behaviour contract’ but even then they CJPs would still not have the authority to take any action if the offender breaches their agreement - only a court of law can do that.

Community Justice Panels cannot make or compel anyone to do anything, as the Home Office’s own overview of ‘restorative justice’ - which includes Community Justic Panels - concedes as follows:

Restorative Justice practices rely in large part upon voluntary cooperation… If one party is not willing to participate, the range of options is reduced. If neither party is willing, there is no option but to let formal justice take its usual course. There is therefore no prospect of justice being wholly restorative and of formal justice being wholly replaced. Traditional justice forms will remain to deal with cases where Restorative Justice is inapplicable because of the circumstances, or fails through lack of cooperation or through failure to come to a mutually acceptable resolution.

In terms of the statement in the Lib Dems manifesto, then, we are left with two possible options - either we take the Lib Dems at their word, in which their proposals to allow Community Justice Panels to compel minor offenders into undertaking forced labour is a flagrant breach of ECHR, or we take the view that they are deliberately misrepresenting the capabilities of Criminal Justice Panels and their reference to them ‘making’ offenders do thing things like clean of graffiti is what another former Liberal, Winston Churchill, would have described as a ‘terminological inexactitude’.

Are there any Lib Dems out their who’re prepared to clarify this point, or will I need to wait for Channel 4’s Fact Check to pick up on it?

No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred of the Tory party. So far as I am concerned, they are lower than vermin.

Aneurin Bevan

Says it all, doesn’t it…

Mark West has cancer. Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma to be exact - not a pleasant prospect for anyone to face but, with the right treatment at the right time (ASAP) survivable.

Up until last week, Mark worked for Rover and had a company health plan. This meant that when he first began to feel ill, he as able to use a private hospital to have the test done which diagnosed his illness and, since the diagnosis, that same health plan has paid for a series of biopsies, tests and consultations, all of which we done by a private hospital.

Last Friday, while most of his colleague were worrying about the future of their jobs, Mark had other things on his mind - another consultation with his specialist who told him that he needed just one more test and then they could start with the chemotherapy which he needs to treat his illness.

When he got home, however, he found a letter waiting for him from Rover’s administrators - sorry, Mr West, but the company health plan has gone bust as well and will no longer be covering your treatment. Talk about a kick in the teeth…

However, Mark’s no quitter. He’s due his redundancy like the rest of his colleagues who lost their jobs last Friday, so maybe he could use that to continue with his treatment? He was turned down.

Never mind, if Rover’s cover has stopped, why not just take out his own private cover?

Sure, said BUPA. But there’s a problem… we don’t cover pre-existing conditions so it won’t cover any more tests or treatment relating to your cancer.

You’ll have to go to the NHS for that.

…

Of all the achievements of all the governments over the years, there is none finer nor more precious than the NHS and the provision of free, universal healthcare to people based on need and not their ability to pay.

Mark West’s story is just more proof of something that Labour supporters have always known.

After yesterday’s ‘too many points to answer’ response from John Hemming, I’ll keep strictly to one point for today, although this is the third time of asking so far.

John: Are the Birmingham Lib Dems following party orders and ‘farming’ applications for postal votes from its supporters at the same time that you are challenging the postal voting regualtion which allow that to happen in the High Court?

Seems not everyone’s a fan of the British blogosphere’s favorite current meme - the ‘improved’ Tory election poster…

Rob Wilson - didn’t he used to present Football Focus? No? No matter… - Tory candidate for Reading East (pictured above) doesn’t find the public’s current delight in amending Tory election posters to be quite so amusing as the rest of us.

Apart from all the usual posturing that Tories always come out with when their big election slogan backfires spectacularly:

blah, blah, blah… criminal damage… blah, blah, blah… shouldn’t be allowed… blah, blah, blah… pass the KY jelly old boy… ah that’s better… now put your back into it…

…comes the hilarious revelation that the poster campaign across the UK has cost a huge amount of money and been paid for by party activists “many of whom had very little cash to spareâ€? - yeah, right.

Anyway, you can read the full foaming at the mouth in all its glory here and respect goes to Tim Ireland for the spot on his ‘Anne Milton: Nurse, Mother, Dipstick.’ blog…

and finally…