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Panic wrote:yeah,
we could do with some exectutions here in the UK... might set a turn in the downward spiral that Crime is taking here.
People seem to think they can do what the want and get away with it. those feth wits that tried to blow up the airport in scotland and club in London. They are actually claiming they are not guilty dispite the evidence against them... hoping to get a small number of years and go about their lives again a bit down the line... they should at least man up to it instead of being the worms that they are.

I'm not taking about executing someone who gets in a fight with dude in bar and ends up killing him, although that's no comfort to the dead mans family, the killer never set out to kill someone... i'm taking about premeditating Bad in the head murders... there is no way they should live. I can't think of one reason that they should be pardoned.
.

What ? As crime is going down-- which it is-- we should bring back the death penalty. And..... this will suddenly make people plead guilty as.. they want to die ? I know they wanted to martyr themselves but I don't think this would quite be how they would want to do that.

I agree they are cowards though.

And indeed, even if it was brought back in you couldn't justify it for manslaughter at all.

yeah
those two didn't try to martyr themselves they fled the scene on rickshaws!
I discribed a situation of manslaughter and said i don't think that dude deserves the Death Penality.

As for crime going down! don't make me laugh, I saw a mugging two weeks ago outside my house and the police didn't even show up! good way to keep them stats clean!
Anyone seen the Wire? cooking stats is a way of life now for police forces.
When you look deeper you'll see that serious crime, like gun crime is up- because they can't hide those numbers.

PaniC...

Panic wrote:
As for crime going down! don't make me laugh, I saw a mugging two weeks ago outside my house and the police didn't even show up! good ..

Good grief !

How many times have you NOT seen a mugging ? Police attendence is also not needed for a crime to be recorded, it merely has to be reported. i assume you did the right thing and either helped out or phoned/reported the act ?

official figures show it's falling.

Now I'll grant you these figures might well change as economic factors apply their dirty touch.

I was agreeing with your manslaughter definition.

[quote=reds8n official figures show it's falling.

I don't deny there will be massaging of the figures in some way but i think it ludicrous to claim there's some monstrous conspiracy to hide the terrible truth.

And I do speak to the pOlice regularly, I deal with them a lot. Main thing tehy always say is don't take note of anecdotal hearsay.

You'll note as well that there are considerably more criminal offences now than there were 10+ years ago, as Labour have really gone overboard with lawmaking.

Your post contradicts itself, though you may not intially see why.

Monstrous conspiracy? please do not mistake my reasoned critique for some conspiracy theory nutjob rant. See for yourself. Look up Peter Knowles, the BBC boss who told reporters to 'go easy' on Labour, one above the surface report on the iceberg of evidence on how tailored the press now is. This has been going on for years. scandals are for tories and lib dems, I remember when the Mandleson sex scandal was in the press and the BBC director told BBC news that it was not news and was not to be broadcast. If a tory is caught with his pants down, now that can stay in the press.
Another example, why was William Hague the 'quiet man of politics' because he had nothing to say, or because what he said was blocked.

"Anecdotal hearsay", not a fair comment. Look and analyse and see for yourself. There is a consistent long term pattern, from which you can determine trends, that then follow on in future events. Much of the governemnt behaviour on some issues is not only noticed it can be predicted. If its anecdotal it relies on predicting anecdotes you then subsequently find time after time.

As for where you are contradicting yourself. Your last sentence says it all. New Labour has gone overboard on lawmaking, and also overboard on spin. Yet crime has risen. Gun laws have got much stricter in particular, yet gun crime has risen. Actually there is a connection.

Most new Labour laws were brought about as part of a dogma of looking tough, and in doing so punishing the wtong people. Dunblane was the catalyst for gun crime laws, yet the errors of Dunblane were policing errors. The gun clubs old the police Hamilton should not have access to guns. Yet gun clubs took the blame.

By stamping on the gun clubs the government stamped on the one counter to gun culture. Poeple with an interest in handguns went to a gun club, the first thing that would happen was that any 'gun culture' was removed from them before they wre allowed anywhere near a gun. Now this counterbalance is gone, the steet is where you go to larn about guns.

As gun crimes rises the governemt is looking at more scapegoats. De-activated firearms being a favourite one, militaria traders and re-enactors. The BBC made two very unfair programs condemning all three. One hatchet job called 'Weekend Nazis' claimed that the main arms fair Beltring was full of Nazi sympathisers (read reenactors). Even if we ignore the hard fact that almost all of those who put on a German uniform for reenactment purposes are not in tune with the Nazi ideology the program in order to mask the true nature of Beltring ignored the fact that allied reenactors outnumber Axis by 20:1. The BBC even had to do a lot of very deliberate editing to ignore the sea of allies and allied military vhicles to make Beltring appear like a Nazi sympathiser event.
One year later they tried a repeat with a women 'journalist' who got close to reenactors before whipping out a microphone and asking very loaded questions without warning.

Another attack came in the form of a scare regarding how easy it was to rearm a de-activated weapon. What the program failed to mention was that the firearm used was a pre 1991 deactivation that was not cleared as deactivated as part of post 1991 guidelines.

Meanwhile police harrass, there is no word I could use otherwise, owners of deactuivated guns who own them responsibly, owners of historical pieces and traders etc etc. One trader I knew of was 'visited' by counter terrorist officers because he had a musket, despite the fact that he was legally certificated and registered and the gun was not in any way used or stored irresponsibly.

Meanwhile the police cannot get their act together about rising gun crime and rising gun imports. The Government is in a flap about reactivated deactivated firearms and how best to further penalise legal owners when criminals are not interested in trying this, even if they knew how. You can buy a Russian import for £50.

Its all about being seen to be tough on crime, not actually doing what is needed to stop it. There are of course other catalysts with their roots in the gevernment, The chronic rise of PC culture has all but abolished discipline in the classroom, and often in the home under the heading of 'equal rights ' or 'respect culture'. Both of these actually fuel the spiral of youth crime by removing sources of stability that do not coincide with the current doctrines.

It is double whammy of dogma to form policy and censorship to cover up to the people the glaring logical errors of the dogmas and their consequences. Of course this methodology goes a lot further than just crime, but in just about every aspect of the is current government.

Firstly you're misquoting what he was alleged to have said. He made no reference to party at all, merely the government. And this story has been denied by all concerned. And do you really think people like John Humphries or Paxman would listen and follow things like that.

What Mandelson sex scandal are you referring to ? Him being gay ? How is that a news story. Bet Ron Davies wishes he received this same benevolence. Not that he would have deserved it though I suppose.


You keep saying crime has risen like some Daily Mail columnist but again are unable to offer any proof of this. All you are presenting is anecdotal reportage dressed up as serious analysis.

William Hague must have failed severely as the "Quiet man of politics" was generally used to refer to his successor Iain Duncan Smith, and seeing as he was loathed by and disposed of by his own party I suspect any lack of coverage was perhaps more due to lack of coverage. Hague never really lacked publicity or exposure and hasn't since either.
Bit like Boris Johnson.

Nice try though.

I agree that much of the legislation brought in after the terrible tragedies of Dunblane and Hungerford was/is ill thought out and somewhat kneejerk. I find it ridiculous that the Olympic shooting team can't practise here legally.

reds8n wrote: Firstly you're misquoting what he was alleged to have said. He made no reference to party at all, merely the government. And this story has been denied by all concerned. And do you really think people like John Humphries or Paxman would listen and follow things like that.

Chronic bias is very evident at the BBC is hard to proove, but in the way as itsd is hard to proove the individual 'Mr Bigs' being involved in narcotics smuggling. You have to look at the broad patterns over time.
Take for example ths shift in the BBC news balance before and after the 1997 election.
'
A BBC news article in about '95-'96 would follow a topic of: Ask Opposition opinion, ask Government opinion, ask Opposition opinion as final word. Draw conclusion. Something along the lines of 'the government cant get out of this.'

Article on BBC news about '98-'99: Ask Government opinion, ask third party opinion not completely opposed to government, no airtime to Opposition. Draw conclusion along the lines of 'how will the government get out of this'.

The goalposts shift slightly, sublty different but very different in effect.

reds8n wrote:
What Mandelson sex scandal are you referring to ? Him being gay ? How is that a news story. Bet Ron Davies wishes he received this same benevolence. Not that he would have deserved it though I suppose.

Similar, but more to the specifics of the 'indiscretions'. And while I would agree that they arenot particularly scandalous, the principle is a story is considered newsworthy or not dependant on who it is not what they were doing. Similar stories on other party's members run for weeks.

reds8n wrote:
You keep saying crime has risen like some Daily Mail columnist but again are unable to offer any proof of this. All you are presenting is anecdotal reportage dressed up as serious analysis.

Proof is often crushed, it is interesting even the Daily Mail cannot say all it wants to. Some of the scandals they latch onto they do for a day and then cease. Since when would a newspaper opposed to a party onkly want to sink teeth into a story or one day. This pattern is not rare, embarassing stories get pulled. People cannot write about what has been censored, but the volume of censorship remains a public fact, censorship has blossomed under this government, by a VERY large percentage.

It is also interesting how you raise the name Daily Mail as if it is synonymous with for want of a better word scaremongering. The real imblance is that since The Sun went Labour in IIRC 1995 there is no actual base tabloid against the government. Papers like the Sun and The Mirror don't bother too much with any fairness just some lowbrow hard hitting mass directed opinions. Daily Mail and Daily Express being middle teir papers between the mass tabloids and the broadsheets, both of which are roundly opposed to the government.
Thus they get singled out for finger pointing of hysteria and scaremongering, as if the pro-Government papers were any better.

The 'defection' of the Sun newspaper, is probably the single largest cause of the rise of Blair. ohn Majors governemnt had actually in hindisght done a good job with the economy but had lost the propoganda campaign. the revolution that was/is New Labour rose after the death of John Smith and was borne upon a mas spin campaign which revolved around imbalanced gutter tabloid access and a very slanted state media. This enabled a coup unseen elsewhere in modern political history.
Namely a complete U-turn in core economic policy from socialism to a right wing economic model while at the same time avoiding the effects of being lableed as having U-turned and simultaneously disenfranchinsing the opposed party as having no economic policy!
Still most people are yet to realise that it has happened.

There is more to say on this , much more, but that is for another time.

reds8n wrote:
William Hague must have failed severely as the "Quiet man of politics" was generally used to refer to his successor Iain Duncan Smith, and seeing as he was loathed by and disposed of by his own party I suspect any lack of coverage was perhaps more due to lack of coverage. Hague never really lacked publicity or exposure and hasn't since either.
Bit like Boris Johnson.
Nice try though.

The quote actually refered to both over time.

It is also interesting how you raise the name Daily Mail as if it is synonymous with for want of a better word scaremongering.

That's because it is.

So chronic bias is hard to prove... so we'll just assume it's there then anyway. Great argument.

A BBC news article in about '95-'96 would follow a topic of: Ask Opposition opinion, ask Government opinion, ask Opposition opinion as final word. Draw conclusion. Something along the lines of 'the government cant get out of this.'

Article on BBC news about '98-'99: Ask Government opinion, ask third party opinion not completely opposed to government, no airtime to Opposition. Draw conclusion along the lines of 'how will the government get out of this'.

..Oh, it's anecdotal evidence time again I see.

Some stories have indeed ran for weeks, Stephen Milligan is still mocked now. As is Ron Davies. Boris Johnson isn't/aren't.

The quote actually refered to both over time.

If you say so, I can't any reference to him being called this at all.

If the BBC is chronically politically biased, why is it so hard to prove? Surely there would be tons of evidence?

And why would both the pre-1997 Tory government and the post-1997 Labour government keep badgering the BBC and accusing it of political bias.

And why would university studies of BBC reporting show a slight pro-government bias?

reds8n wrote:So chronic bias is hard to prove... so we'll just assume it's there then anyway. Great argument.

Indeed politics is not a hard science, clinical proof is harsd tom come by in politics it normally works on analysing trends. Why is it wrong to do when ctiscising the government.

..Oh, it's anecdotal evidence time again I see.

What are you after scientific proof? Sorry but that is just it nit-picking, neither the courts nor the governments, any government could work if this was the level of proof needed to make a validated politricalm comment. It is a matter of fair observation. Ask the police you speak to when they 'profile' what are they after? A lot of the time it is the same evidence, you are saying is insufficient for me to use. It is nevertheless evidence.

Media bias is actually not hard to document and demonstrate numerically. You can count the number of articles on given topics, groups, and people, and record whether they are generally favorable or unfavorable, among other measures.

You can also do comparison surveys of different viewers'/readers'/consumers' opinions on particular political topics, and on their command of facts on those topics.

People do actually study the media, and news reporting. This kind of stuff is done all the time.

Orlanth, writing as a neutral and uninvolved third party, I’m kind of surprised to not see any actual studies or numbers referenced by you.

Holy cow, this thread DID manage to get even worse the second time! Amazing!