After years of difficulties with Dizaei, he was finally ‘nailed and jailed’ yesterday for abusing his police powers. Described by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson as a ‘criminal in uniform’ The Sun comforts us all be reporting the words of Mark Leech, the editor of prisoner’s magazine Converse, “”Dizaei has finally been nailed and jailed. His sentence is destined to be slow, long and dangerous.”
The Sun reports: ” During Iranian-born Dizaei’s 24-year police career – 12 of them at the Met – he had wriggled out of one damning allegation after another. For 13 months Scotland Yard even secretly assigned more than 100 officers to investigate fears he was taking backhanders for visas, visiting call girls and abusing drugs. Last night a senior officer said of him ending up in jail: “The champagne is out but it’s a bittersweet feeling because of the disgrace he has brought on the service.”
Just what Australia needs…another bloody law firm?
These are not my words, but the view of an Australian friend of mine who is a lawyer in Australia. Whether Australia needs another law firm or not, they have one. “Allen & Overy today announces the launch of our Australian practice with the appointment of 17 new partners, 14 based in Sydney and three in Perth, significantly bolstering our capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. Commenting, Allen & Overy senior partner David Morley said: “Our decision to launch in Australia underlines the increasing importance of Australia in the global and Asia-Pacific economies. We see significant opportunities for high-end, cross-border M&A and finance work in the private and public sectors, particularly in the energy, mining and natural resources sectors.”
Fresh from pronouncing on parliamentary privilege (a rather pointless exercise – see below) David Cameron has come up with a ripper of an idea to harness the involvement of the ravening horde. His new plan is to give power back to the people. 100,000 signatures on a petition will guarantee a debate in parliament. Get a million signatures on the petition and MPs will have to vote on the legislation you put forward. Govern from your back bedroom! This sounds like a good idea – but it could rebound on him. I would imagine there are at at least 100,000 mischief makers out there on twitter, blogging, active in local politics or just pissed up on a Friday night who would like nothing better than to see MPs debating their ’causes’.
The Independent reports: “Campaigners who want to reintroduce hanging, oppose higher taxes for motorists, pull out of the EU, or any of the other causes overlooked by politicians have been promised by David Cameron that they can have their day in Parliament. Under a Conservative government, 100,000 signatures on a petition will be enough to guarantee a debate in the House of Commons. A million signatures will give the organisers the right to put legislation in front of the Commons which MPs will have to vote on.”
As the Independent notes: “This opens the near-certain prospect that if the Tories win the election, MPs will have to debate a Bill on whether to pull out of the EU. Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, said: “We welcome this proposal, and if he stands by this, and a million signatures is what is required, we’ll get the financial backing to organise a petition – no trouble.”
Another good idea from the Laurel & Hardy Policy Institute? I do enjoy the ‘law of unintended consequences’. Cameron refused to have a referendum on Europe – back tracking on earlier policy statements. Now he comes up with a stunt to get people involved in governing our country through petitions. I suspect that UKIP will have absolutely no difficulty in getting a million signatures, framing legislation to take Britain out of Europe and then finding mischief makers on the Tory back bench to support the legislation.
Yesterday David Cameron, looking extremely concerned and grave, put forward proposals to ensure that no MP would be able to hide behind parliamentary privilege for criminal acts. Constitutional lawyers of my acquaintance tell me that he need not have bothered – the law is fairly straightforward, they say. Cameron seems to read different law books from the rest of us. His last ‘policy pronouncement’ on ‘self-defence’ was almost high comedy.
Matthew Taylor of the MTPT has an interesting and well drafted analysis of parliamentary privilege. If you don’t already know the law on this and have a passing interest in seeing what our law actually is or may be – then Matthew Taylor’s piece is worth a read. It won’t, of course, be of any interest or appeal to the horde of ‘party whore’ bloggers and twitterers who toe the party line – of whatever party – no matter how absurd their stance may be. ‘Denialism’ in modern politics is endemic. Fortunately, there are some excellent political bloggers who are critical and objective about the party they support! Guido Fawkes and his blogroll is a good place to start if you get into reading political bloggers in the coming months! You could also try some of the bloggers on my Netvibes page – but I do have to update it.
I’m practically teetotal myself, Charon, but I’m tempted to take some ‘medicinal Rioja’ after reading your latest contributions. You’re on finer form than ever!
Good morning Geoffrey… I’ve no idea what they are smoking down at the Laurel & Hardy Policy Institute!
It gets more bizarre by the day… Labour just as bad!
Well, it’s obvious, innit? Go INDEPENDENT!
[…] 9 02 2010 Charon QC has some interesting thoughts on David Cameron’s plan to force the House of Commons to debate […]
‘labour just as bad’
really? normally i’m tempted to agree but this constant stream of idiotic proposals from the next pm convinces me that the conservatives are either utterly clueless about the law and its workings or utterly unconcerned about the damage they are knowingly doing by coming up with such irresponsible stupidity. remember, what we need to compare them with is the stuff blair put out at the end of opposition rather than the current end of regime tainted by failure and the realisation that people in power are less cuddly than in opposition. i think that even allowing for the much-heralded (and lambasted) effect of efficient spin, the ‘policies’ (are they even that?) coming from the tories are looking disastrous and directionless. it even makes me consider we could if only the labour party would stand up and get real avoid the calamity of these empty-headed frothers in power.
won’t happen tho as murdoch has thrown his weight decisively behind dave. of perhaps just decisively against gordon. the attacks on the bbc are key. murdoch is desperate to have the licence fee abolished as it makes competing far easier. did you know that the sky target for average consumer spend is £90 per month. without the bbc they could just do that.
The problem is that 100,000 is very reasonable for an actual cause that people care about — if you get 100,000 people to sign a petition to save a hospital you’ve done awfully well — but also a piddling amount for a reasonably organised internet prank. icanhazcheezburger.com gets far more than 100,000 hits every day, but I don’t want Parliament debating if they should put Ceiling Cat in the national anthem (come to think of it, do I actually want that because it’d be tragically hilarious?).
They also can’t really refuse to debate a 100,000+ signature petition just because they’re read it and it’s blatantly a facile joke because that shows they’re “out of touch with the electorate” and “just don’t get it”.
I’ve dusted off my politics blog for some extended thoughts on David Cameron’s latest wheezes.
Cameron’s various proposals give the impression of having been brainstormed on a whiteboard that morning (“let’s imagineer the narrative” and all that), but add them together and he does seem intent on reducing parliament’s status even more than Thatcher and Blair achieved: reducing its size, reducing (sorry, “clarifying”) its privileges, distracting it with petitions…
Quote – “The Sun comforts us all by reporting the words of Mark Leech, the editor of prisoner’s magazine Converse, “”Dizaei has finally been nailed and jailed. His sentence is destined to be slow, long and dangerous.”
Am I alone in finding such a statement very worrying.
Obiter J – I found the statement astonishing…. but this is what a lot of people want to hear.
What nonsense – you should know better than to follow the media.
ah! a cryptoheckle…
“Slow, long and dangerous” is in many respects just a statement of fact. But it does have a slightly gloating air to it: like what he actually meant was “slow, long and dangerous… or your money back!”
“His new plan is to give power back to the people.”
Not before bloody time!
You only need to look at the situation in California to see the problems with citizen initiated legislation (specifically the proposition that capped property taxes, resulting in massive shortfalls in the state budget).