It’s been a great day for those very special BBC non debates, cunningly disguised as debates. Did you catch this simpering debate on Home Secretary Theresa May’s plan to overhaul the way police tackle antisocial behaviour?
Community activist (ahem, DV) Lesley Pulman says anti-social behaviour has “got a lot worse” over the past decade but that Asbos were a “godsend”. “They empowered us to take ownership of our community,” she told the Today programme. She says the new measures will not make a difference because people “are too fearful to come forward”.
So, well done Labour for the ASBOS – and one in the eye for the evil May, right?
Then we have Simon Edens, ACPO “leader” on anti-social behaviour, who says that Asbos in some cases did not work as the bureaucracy “got in the way”. His drivel is spectacular, and I just love the way he refuses to talk about a Police FORCE. You can tell why ACPO chose him
So, caught between ACPO and Thank God for Asbos. Hope no criminals were listening, they would be inspired….
Absolutely ludicrous bit of nonsense.
The lady from New Moston surely comes form Ken Livingstones supporting cast.
She was “empowered…know what am mean chuck?”.
Always a delight to have Sarah Montagues preppy tones up against the smelly socks and shellsuits brigade…what two nations?
The ASBO is a byword for effete ineffectiveness-always was-so to have them trumpeted as any kind of deterrent was pitiful.
“Community activist” eh….do tell us more!
And yet the big elephant in the BBC van was “the fact that no-one dare tell on these young`uns for fear of retaliation”…she mentioned something ca,lled “hearsay evidence”…that could be taken to the judge if a witness lived in fear of “grassing up” these young `uns.
And the policeman…Sarah…all took this as fair enough…if you`ve GOT to mither the cops, then maybe you deserve the grief that follows.
We have a nation where the law is guaranteed to let the accused get you nobbled one way or another…and yet the Asbo is “too draconian”.
Only at the BBC with Sarah as well as a Gatso supremo of tomorrow!
Anybody got Tommy Robinsons “rent a mob” details?…we may well be needing them if the likes of May, Monty and ACPO muppets are allowed to keep hollowing out any pretence of a rule of law as they do.
Call me old-fashioned but if somebody is breaking the law, they should be arrested, prosecuted and (if found guilty) punished. ASBOs and the new CRIMBOs (or whatever they’re called) are civil orders applied criminally. This implies that either the offence(s) for which they’re applied are not crimes or the evidence is not sufficient to achieve a conviction. In other words, Labour introduced (and the Conservatives are “improving”) a system by which scrotes are subject to control orders because the normal administration and processes of the criminal law have failed.
Now, I’m pretty well convinced that most of the scrotes subject to ASBOs deserve all they get but the safeguards in the application of the criminal law are there for a reason: it’s not for the scrotes alone (although they benefit) it’s for you and me (who are innocent of every offence except, perhaps, failing to pay the BBC licence tax). Accordingly, either the anti-social scrotes are breaking the law and should be subject to the punishment the law provides. Or they’re not. The very existence of ASBOs points to massive failures of law enforcement, and social cohesion and control. ASBOs Mark 2 are a sign that these deficiencies still exist or may even be getting worse.
This is a serious concern for civil liberty. Unfortunately since ASBOs are not usually applied against terrorist enablers, bogus asylum seekers or followers of medieval superstitions, the usual bleeding hearts – including the BBC – are not interested. Or rather the BBC is interested but only insofar as it can make mischief for the government. God forbid Today should broadcast an impartial debate of the issues behind the use of ASBOs.
Another day, another holler.
It seems the government is also not immune to a morbid fear of the 24/7 space being filled, blissfully, with what I would call ‘golden silence’.
The BBC seems to prefer the rain variety.