Crime

The four members are before a magistrate, attempting to clear their names. I’m not sure if it’s more preposterous than it is shaming to claim that conventions protecting free speech apply to false accounting. If only Enron’s lawyers had been as ingenious. In addition to Morley et al’s abuse of parliamentary privilege, Alan and Ann Keen have been fined £1,500 today, which, as Paul Waugh notes, is lenient compared to the Parliamentary Privileges and Standards Committee’s damning verdict. Expect to hear more on that decision as public anger over expenses remains unabated. Some time ago, I thought the expenses scandal would only be resolved by the catharsis of a General

It was like a volcano going off. At PMQs today Cameron was calmly dissecting the prime minister’s underfunding of the Afghan war when he quoted two former defence chiefs who’d called Brown ‘disingenuous’ and ‘a dissembler’. Then someone shouted, ‘they’re Tories!’ Cameron lost control. Instantly, completely. His temper just went. White in the face, he leaned his flexed torso across the dispatch box, hammering at it so hard that it nearly disintegrated. ‘Is that it?’ he yelled. ‘Is that what this tribalist and divisive government thinks of those who serve this country!?’ Rippling with anger he demanded that the PM dissociate himself from his backbenchers’ smears. Brown stood up, in

Yeah, I know: 4,500 words of Brown’s rhetoric is too much for most CoffeeHousers to bear.  So I thought I’d read his “speech on crime and anti-social behaviour” on your behalf, and highlight three things which jumped out at me.  Here goes: 1. Taking on the Tories over DNA retention. Paul Waugh has already blogged on what may turn out to be the most significant passage of Brown’s speech – at least so far as the cut ‘n’ thrust of the election campaign is concerned.  In it, Brown highlights the case of Jeremiah Sheridan, who raped a woman some 19 years ago, but was caught last year thanks to DNA

The spin machines are gearing up as we amble towards an election, and strategists’ latest hobby-horse is self-defence. Following the sentencing of Munir Hussain, Alan Johnson admitted feeling “uncomfortable” about Judge Reddihough’s decision. Never one to miss the bus, Chris Grayling went further and faster, suggesting that householders should be immune from prosecution unless they had responded in a “grossly disproportionate” fashion.   It’s rather unfair, but deliciously cutting, of cartoonists to portray Grayling as a plump second hand car salesman posing as James Bond, but Grayling deserves criticism because “grossly disproportionate” is as ill-defined as the “reasonable force” that current legislation describes. Conservative proposals would still leave decisions entirely

It’s all a bit of a puzzle. How will David Cameron incentivise marriage? In an interview with the Mail, Cameron dismisses IDS’s transferable tax allowance scheme. “It would be wrong to say that they are Conservative Party proposals.”                      Considering the scheme will cost £4.9bn, the pro-cuts Tories can ill-afford an incentive that would benefit the middle class in the immediate term. Cameron and Osborne are searching for a cheaper way to honour the pledge. Pete and Fraser debated whether marriage should and could be financially incentivised. On balance I side with Pete, marriage should not be financially incentivised. I’ve nothing to add to Pete’s analysis except that I