The Criminal Labour Government

Baroness Warsi actually saying something worth hearing:

I'm a lawyer. I can tell you that if an individual had run up debts so irresponsibly they would face legal consequences ...

By running up colossal debts on the nation's credit card, debts so huge that we have been borrowing one pound for every four we spend and increasing our national debt by £3bn a week, what Labour did to British people is frankly criminal.

Baroness Warsi back-tracking on the one thing she's ever managed to say that is actually worth hearing:

I think it was a manner of speech that I was using ... Labour's conduct has been pretty appalling, but frankly I have to say that, as far as I'm aware, it has not been criminal.

Hmmm. I'm prepared to be a little bit more categorical and clear in my thoughts of the Labour party in power: I have to say that I believe the conduct of Labour in its thirteen years in power was criminal. The amount of debt that they've run up leaves them open to the charge of criminal negligence, but it is about more than just the debt. Labour in power consistently tried to pervert the course of justice repeatedly by denying or undermining inquiries into attacks on this country, the death of government employees and the murder by the police of an innocent man on the tube. But above all, Labour dragged us into an illegal war. Thousands of people have died because of what the Labour government did. Quite literally, the Labour party has blood on its hands.

You were right the first time, Warsi. The Labour government from 1997 to 2010 was criminal.

Huckabee, DuMond and Clemmons

Far be it for me to take considerable relish in the misfortunes of another Christian fundamentalist candidate in the USA, but it appears that Mike Huckabee is having some problems based on some decisions he made back when he was governor of Arkansas. Namely the decision to give clemency to a violent criminal. Who went on, it appears, to murder four police officers:

A man with an extensive criminal past -- whose 95-year prison sentence was commuted in Arkansas nearly a decade ago by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee-- was being sought Sunday as a "person of interest" in a deadly ambush on four police officers who were gunned down inside a coffee shop.

And, rather like this alleged cop killer, Huckabee has previous:

Huckabee did not pardon Dumond. But he did everything he could, including telling parole board members who owed their jobs to Huck in a secret meeting to parole him. He advocated Dumond's cause publicly, wrote a letter expressing his wish for Dumond's freedom and spurned Dumond's rape victim until a public outcry forced him to meet her and let the parole board do his dirty work for him.

And who is Dumond? Well, he was Wayne DuMond - a man convicted of statutory rape who was paroled after aggressive lobbying from Huckabee. DuMond went on to rape and kill one Carol Sue Shields. And he was also suspected in the murder of one Sara Andrasek. It appears as if Huckabee's decisions when it came to prisoner rehabilitation have cost six people their lives. Such a revelation is hardly going to play that well with the fire and brimstone brigade who are Huckabee's support base.

Of course, justice is administered by humans, and as a result is far from perfect. And if you believe that criminals can be rehabilitated then you have accept that at some point they will be released back into the community. And at that point, some will take the second chance they have been offered, whilst others will abuse that chance and steal, hurt, rape and kill. You can question Huckabee's judgement for sure, but the reality is that this sort of thing could have happened to any governor in the US - and pretty much any politician who influences or makes decisions about who stays in prison and who does not. So I almost feel a little sorry for Huckabee.

Except he is part of the party who sank Michael Dukakis's 1988 bid for the Presidency by relentlessly highlighting a similar circumstance, where a prisoner on a Dukakis created prisoner furlough programme committed several heinous crimes. The Republicans had no issue with relentlessly using Horton to bash Dukakis, so there is no reason for Huckabee to expect anyone else both within the Republican party and across American politics not to exactly the same to him. Is it fair? Possibly not. However, it is reality.

Whether it should or not, I think this will sink Huckabee's ambitions to be President. And since he is a grinning fundamentalist idiot who shouldn't be allowed to visit the White House, let alone reside there, this can only be a good thing.

Yahoo! News shows us that the war on knife crime is going well:

An adult caught in possession of a knife has been fined just £1.

A whole English pound? Wow. That must have had the stabby so and so quaking in his boots. Still, at least Chris Huhne - possibly the least likable of all Liberal Democrats - is on hand to sound a bit shrill:

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne accused the Government of "posturing" on knife crime penalties while an anti-crime charity described the punishments as a "slap in the face".

Ironically, the anti-crime charity* has got the right idea: a slap in the face would actually be a more credible punishment than a £1 fine.

*Presumably they are keen to disassociate themselves from all those pro-crime charities.