With all due respect to both Tom and Neil, the whole ‘Flip Flop’ thing with Cameron is starting to tire already and its only been a couple of days - best not overdo it…

..but if you really want to stick the knife in Cameron then look no further than the ‘old master’, Alistair Campbell;

My basic line of attack had been that Cameron is not really Tony Blair’s natural successor, but mine, good at presentation, not up to leading a great country. What an irony that a Party that spent the last decade raging at the evils of spin doctors like me is now led by one.

David Cameron, the natural successor to Alistair Campbell???

Ouch!

You know, if Cameron were to put his belt round his ankles then I reckon Campbell would still find a way to hit him below it… I like it!!!

In fact all we’re short of now is a Tory to serve as the ‘New Mandelson’ and we should be well on the way to a fourth term… as long as we promise to the abolish the Home Office as well.

Clarke unveils plan to jail fewer criminals

Charles Clarke today unveiled plans for more convicted criminals to serve their sentences in the community.

The Home Secretary was today launching the National Offender Management Scheme (Noms), a five-year strategy which will promote community penalties over imprisonment as punishment for non-violent crime.

The most eye-catching proposal is to force offenders to wear matching T-shirts - reportedly emblazoned with the words “Community Payback” - while carrying out unpaid labour, such as unpaid litter-picking and graffiti clearance.

It’s still a fucking half-arsed idea, mind you.

I wonder how long it’ll be before someone gets the bright idea of knocking up a cartoon of Mohammed in one of these dumb ass T-shirts - second thought, forget I ever said that.

Israel ‘may rue Saddam overthrow’

The head of Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet, has said his country may come to regret the overthrow of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Above almost all other nations, Israel, by virtue of its history, can hardly have helped but develop a better understanding of realpoltik and the harsh necessities of life in an unstable region than near enough any other nation - which is why I find comments like these - all from Yuval Diskin, the head of Shin Bet, not only unsurprising but possessed of greater honesty than any number of commentaries from the Pro-war left these last couple of years.

When asked about the growing destabilisation of Iraq, Mr Diskin said Israel might come to rue its decision to support the US-led invasion in 2003.

“When you dismantle a system in which there is a despot who controls his people by force, you have chaos,” he said.

“I’m not sure we won’t miss Saddam.”

And…

The security chief was also asked to compare the treatment of Jews and non-Jews by Israel’s security and judicial establishments.

“I do not see equality in the way the system handles them when they are guilty of the same type of offence,” he said.

“If I had arrested a terrorist from Nablus and Eden Nathan Zaada [an Israeli army deserter who shot dead four Israeli Arabs on a bus in August], they wouldn’t have received similar treatment in interrogation or court.”

You see he gets it… but then he deals with the real thing day-in, day-out.

Just a quick note to the Canadian who arrived at this blog at 4:25 via a search on Google Canada.

I think this is the story you’re looking for…

Missing baby feared dead

A SIX-month old baby boy is feared dead after vanishing from his home in Smethwick.

Troy Simpson was put to bed at 9.15 on Monday night by his mum but was not there when his gran went to wake him at 6am yesterday morning.

Two men and two women from Smethwick, including members of the child’s family, have been arrested.

Supt Andy Bebbington, of Smethwick police, said: “I fervently hope that Troy is alive but I have to accept the possibility that he may be dead.

And sadly, it now appears that everyone’s worst fears have been realised…

Tests on baby body found in drain

A post-mortem examination is to be carried out on a child’s body found on waste ground in the West Midlands.

Police had been searching for Troy Simpson who went missing overnight on Monday from his Smethwick home. The body has not been formally identified.

Wasteland off Church Road, yards from his family home, was cordoned off on Wednesday by police and the area treated as a crime scene.

Police have been granted an extra 36 hours to question three people.

Magistrates granted the extension, on Thursday, to question the two women and a man. Time to question another man runs out later in the day.

But you’ll forgive me, as someone who lives in Smethwick and a mere matter of a few minutes walk from the scene of this tragic event, if I fucking well take exception to ignorant cunts like you searching for things like this:

smethwick england satanic activities

Now fuck off and don’t come back!

Clarke calls for Tory terror help

Home Secretary Charles Clarke has warned the Tories they are “weakening” the fight against terror by opposing the government’s proposed laws.

He urged MPs to back ministers’ plans to introduce an offence of “glorifying” terror in a vote next week.

Mr Clarke said the authorities had lacked the “confidence” to prosecute radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri until the government had tightened up laws.

Conservatives had to help further “strengthen” legislation, he added.

Abu Hamza, 47, from London, was jailed on Tuesday for seven years for inciting murder and racial hatred.

Prosecutors said there had been insufficient evidence to charge him before 2004.

And which laws, exactly, did the government tighten up in order to create the ‘confidence’ in the authorities that was necessary to allow them to prosecute Abu Hamza.

Hamza was prosecuted, first and foremost, on nine counts that he ’solicited others at public meetings to murder Jews and other non-Muslims.’ - offences which relate to the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861.

So credit for those laws goes to the Prime Minister of the day - Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston and his Home Secretary who, depending on precisely when this Act was introduced in Parliament and received Royal Assent, would have been either Sir George Cornewall Lewis or Sir George Grey.

Hamza was also prosecuted on four lesser charges of ‘using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with the intention of stirring up racial hatred’ under the Public Order Act of 1986.

Inciting racial hatred was first specifically criminialised in 1965 by the government of Harold Wilson, although the present law, which was used in this case, dates to the period in which Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, her Home Secretary at the time being Douglas Hurd.

That leaves just a single charge - of ‘possessiing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’ - relating to the discovery of copies of the ‘Encyclopaedia of the Afghani Jihad’ which actually falls under legislation passed by the present government, the Terrorism Act 2000.

However, the majority of, and certainly the most serious charges brought against Hamza relate to sermons give during the period from 1997 to 2000, before the Terrorism Act was on the statue books.

So, again, I must ask Safety - just which laws, exactly, did the government tighten up in order to enable Hamza to be prosecuted?

I should also point out that, according to the Crown Prosecution Service, the received two files on Hamza prior to 2004, when he was finally arrested, and on both occasions decided that ‘there was clearly insufficient evidence for a prosecution’.

It seems the CPS doesn’t think that the government supposedly ‘tightening’ the law made any difference to the strength of the case they had put in front of them, because their view is that they had insufficient evidence to prosecute.

Sorry Safety, doesn’t look to me like the Tories are ‘weakening the fight against terror’ by opposing the introduction of an offence of ‘glorifying terrorism’ - loks rather more like you’re lying in order to make political capital out of the Hamza case ahead of next week’s vote.

And that makes you, Tony and your former colleague David Blunkett - wno’s pedalling the same line in his column in the Scum - a neat little triumverate of lying tosspots.

Now of all the regular bloggers over Harry’s Place, David T is usual one of the saner voices, but it rather looks this morning like Gene’s put something in his tea as he offers this staggering insight into the row over the Mohammed Cartoons:

The lesson of this affair KEN LIVINGSTONE is that if you’re really interested in representing your Muslim constituents well KEN LIVINGSTONE is not to spend all your time cultivating reactionary religious figures and building up far right theocratic political outfits like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Because, KEN LIVINGSTONE, it isn’t a strategy which will work. It will make you look like a panderer to religious reaction, both among Muslims and non Muslims in the United Kingdom who - not being stupid - can spot a politician on the make from miles off.

No, David.

The lesson of this affair is that we could do without yet another bunch of twats jumping on the bandwagon to push their own personal agenda.

Let me get this straight…

We currently have before Parliament, a new bill - the Legislative and Regulatory Refrom Bill - which will allow Ministers to ‘amend, repeal or replace legislation in any way that an Act of Parliament may do’ by Ministerial Order - without the time and trouble of taking a bill through Parliament.

No time to look into this in detail tonight but one clause did catch my eye -

6. Criminal penalties

(1) Provision under section 2(1) may not create a new offence that is punishable, or increase the penalty for an existing offence so that it is punishable—

(a) on indictment, with imprisonment for a term exceeding two years; or

(b) on summary conviction, with—

(i) imprisonment for a term exceeding the normal maximum term;

or

(ii) a fine exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

(2)In subsection (1)(b)(i), “the normal maximum term� means—

(a) in relation to England and Wales—

(i) in the case of a summary offence, 51 weeks; and

(ii) in the case of an offence triable either way, twelve months; and

(b) in relation to Scotland or Northern Ireland, six months.

(3) In the case of an offence which, if committed by an adult, is triable either on indictment or summarily and is not an offence triable on indictment only by virtue of Part 5 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (c. 33), or

(b) section 292(6) and (7) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (c. 46), the reference in subsection (1)(b)(ii) to a fine exceeding level 5 on the standard scale is to be construed as a reference to the statutory maximum.

(4) If an order under section 1 containing provision under section 2(1) creating an offence, or altering the penalty for an offence, is made before the date on which section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44) comes into force, the order must provide that, in relation to a summary offence committed before that date, any reference to a term of imprisonment of 51 weeks is to be read as a reference to six months.

(5) If an order under section 1 containing provision under section 2(1) creating an offence, or altering the penalty for an offence, is made before the date on which section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 comes into force, the order must provide that, in relation to an offence triable either way committed before that date, any reference to a term of imprisonment of twelve months is to be read as a reference to six months.

(6) Subsection (1) does not apply to provision which merely restates legislation; to the extent that it implements recommendations of any one or more of the United Kingdom Law Commissions.

All of which seems to suggest that Ministers will be able to create new minor criminal offences with sentences of up to two years more or less at will, if I’m reading this correctly.

Just when you thought things could not get any fucking worse, bullshit like this turns up on the statute books - if this passes, then we really have got to find some way not just to change governments every now and then but get rid of the whole fucking lot of them.

So-called ‘enabling bills’, which do nothing but confer more and more powers on Ministers, are bad enough but this shit takes the absolute fucking biscuit.

UPDATE - Oh well, looks like its not just Parliamentary scrutiny of legislation that’s on its way out.

Can things possibly get any worse?

UPDATE - Giving this a second brief look, this bill also includes provisions for implementing ‘non-controversial’ EC directives by Ministerial order as well, which should go down a treat with the Eurosceptic/Euronihilists out there.

Well that don’t that put the icing on the fucking cake. Yes, our fearless Danish defen-duhs of free speech are back with their latest wizard wheeze.

Remember this is newspaper that set itself up as a shining beacon of free expression by commissioning the ‘Mohammed Cartoons’ only to show up as complete bunch of fucking hypocrites when word got around that a couple of years earlier it had passed on publishing a few piss-takes of Jesus.

In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten.

Zieler received an email back from the paper’s Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, which said: “I don’t think Jyllands-Posten’s readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them.”

But never fear, our intrepid band of free-dumb loving Danes are fighting back in style - and what could possibly be more stylish than a bit of egregious Jew-baiting:

Flemming Rose, the culture editor of Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, said today he was trying to get in touch with the Iranian paper, Hamshari, which plans to run an international competition seeking cartoons about the Holocaust.

“My newspaper is trying to establish a contact with the Iranian newspaper, and we would run the cartoons the same day as they publish them,” Mr Rose told CNN.

The Danish editor was also defiantly unapologetic about the original publication of 12 cartoons - one of which featured the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb - in his paper five months ago.

Mr Rose said he did not regret publishing the pictures.

“I think it is like asking a rape victim if she regrets wearing a short skirt at a discotheque [on] Friday night,” he said.

“If you’re wearing a short skirt that does not necessarily mean you invite everybody to have sex with you. If you make a cartoon, make fun of religion, make fun of religious figures, that does not imply that you humiliate or denigrate or marginalise a religion.”

I do like the rape analogy by the way - nice one guys. All we’re short of now is a good old bout of queer-bashing and a couple spastic jokes and we’ve got the full set.

Just so we’re in no doubt here, the cartoons that Flemming Rose is so keen to publish are going to be ’satirising’ things like this…

And this…

And, of course, let’s not forget this one either…

Hell, Flemming, why stop at whatever shitbox cartoons the Iranians manage to turn out?

Why not make that day’s edition a holocaust special? Just think of all the fun things you could to show just exactly what kind of defen-duh of free speech you are?

You could start a new five-part serialisation of the Protocols of the Elder’s of Zion?

Or how about a DVD giveaway? They’re always popular with the punters and I’m sure your readers would just lurve a copy of ‘Nuremburg - The Rally Years’.

There’s plenty of great jokes you could be publishing t6o go with it - what about the classic ‘What were Hitler’s last words? Fucking hell Eva, have you seen the size of this gas bill?’

All you’re missing now is a few of those ever popular word games. How about ’see how many words you can make from the letters of the word ZYKLON B?’ or a super sudoko with a letter grid made up of A, U, S, C, H, W, I, T and - you guessed it - Z.

Oh, and musn’t forget the big name interview - I understand David Irving’s not up to much at the moment.

I guess you’re thinking that maybe I don’t think that the half-arsed results of the Iranian cartoon competition should be published in Europe at all…

…and you’d be completely wrong.

Of course, I want the Jyllands-Posten to publish the fucking things, just to see whether the massed ranks of the 101st Fighting Keyboards are going to be in quite such a rush to leap to the defence of free speech when its the holocaust that’s having the piss taken out of it and not Islam.

Or maybe this is going to the be the point when some of those who’ve jumping on the bandwagon get around to remembering that racist caricatures are nothing new here in Europe, thia is something where we have just a bit of history… a history that looks like this:

And this…

And I think you’ll all enjoy this one…

The caption on this last image reads ‘One eats the other and the Jew devours them all…’ and pushed the idea that Jews orchestrated World War II in order to destroy Nazi Germany.

I dare say that there will be one or two bloggers who will publish this next set of cartoons if they are published by Jyllands-Posten, but if they do I doubt very much they’ll accompanied by the kind of paeons to free expression we’ve seen this last couple of week. No, what we’ll see instead will be just the right kind of moral hand-wringing to go with the occasion - ‘well, yeah, of course I support free speech but I really don’t approve of the these cartoons and I’ve only posted one here to show you just how awful they are…’

Actually I was lying a while back. Much as I would take great pleasure in cataloguing the hypocrisies that would come flooding through the blogosphere were these ‘holocaust cartoons’ published, I really would not like to see them published at all.

You see, not only am I sick of all the macho posturing over this issue - on both sides - but as I’ve said all along while I may have the right to free speech and the right to use that offend, but on things like publishing cartoons of Mohammed when I know full well it causes unecessary and avoidable offence - not just to those who’ve been petrol-bombing embassies and carry placards demand the excution of those insult Islam but to many more ordinary, peaceful, law-abiding and basically decent Muslims across the world, not a few of which live in my own local community - and on things such as a holocaust, which is certainly not something to poke fun at, I can also make a moral and ethical choice not to cause offence and that’s the choice I’ve taken throughout.

As for Flemming Rose and his pretensions of being a defender of free speech all I can say that there are some people for which even the word ‘Cunt’ is not strong enough.

Hat-tip to Al-Hack at Pickled Politics, where I find that Jyllands-Posten’s Editor-in-Chief has now squashed any thought of the newspaper publishing the Iranian holocaust cartoons, which is the right decision, of course.