Coming home to roost...

Apparently, a recent report from Germany's Bundesbank questions the legality of the EU bail-outs. [Emphasis mine.]

Germany's Bundesbank has issued a blistering critique of EU bail-out policies, warning that the eurozone is drifting towards a debt union without "democratic legitimacy" or treaty backing.

"The latest agreements mean that far-reaching extra risks will be shifted to those countries providing help and to their taxpayers, and entail a large step towards a pooling of risks from particular EMU states with unsound public finances," said the bank's August report. It said an EU summit deal in late July threatens the principle that elected parliaments should control budgets. The Bundesbank said the scheme leaves creditor states with escalating "risks and burdens" yet no means of enforcing fiscal discipline to make this workable.

No shit. Those Germans really are fiscal geniuses after all.

Still, at least Dan Hannan can say "I told you so".

More to the point, the whole scheme is against the rules. The only reason that Germany and the other net contributor states agreed to the single currency in the first place was that a clause was written into the treaties prohibiting EU-backed loans to indebted governments. The treaties are now being rewritten to remove that clause. In the mean time, though, no one in Brussels is trying to pretend that the bailout is legal.

As for Germany's political and banking institutions, well...

You made your bed—it's a bit late to stop telling lies in it.

UPDATE: England Expects has discovered the EU Commission's infallible solution to the financial crisis!

In the face of a constant rolling crisis in the Eurozone finally the European Commission has been moved to act.

European Commission proposes to make 2013 the "European Year of Citizens"

As Mrs Reding, the Commissioner puts it,

It will be a good opportunity to remind people what the European Union can do for every one of us.

We are saved!

Not.

Something worth rioting about?

I was going to point out some of the fucking stupid sentences that have handed down to "rioters", but I see that the wife has done the job more than adequately.

I’m not sure I need to make this comment, but: what kind of justice is this when two people of previous good character receive lengthy custodial sentences for making remarks on Facebook, but a third person who has a long, long history of criminal behaviour is given a suspended sentence for being caught with stolen goods?
...

It is outrageous that remarks on Facebook merit a longer, harsher jail sentence than some rapes and murders, let alone theft and looting.

But what is really outrageous is that making remarks on Facebook can be criminalised at all. Perhaps Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan can band together with Paul Chambers and his supporters to help stamp out this fascist British tendency toward criminalisation of speech.

And it seems that NickM has noticed the discrepancies too.

For the rule of law to prevail, justice has to be seen to be done—else the entire system is brought into disrepute. And today it has been.

Apart from anything else, why are we jailing rioters—surely these crimes are precisely the reason that Community Orders were introduced? In the case of these rioters, what could be more fitting than for a judge to say, "you made a fucking mess of this neighbourhood, so you are going to spend 300 hours cleaning it up"?

But that's not going to happen. Why?

Because the government has apparently told judges to ignore the usual sentencing guidelines and jail all dissidents rioters.

London courts have allegedly been emailed by HM Courts and Tribunals Service, telling them to ignore normal guidelines, which might have recommended non-custodial sentences for riot-related cases.

‘Our directive for anyone involved in the rioting is a custodial sentence,’ he said.

So, let me get this straight: judges are free to hand down derisory sentences to repeat offenders, but should jail those of previously good character who happen to have severely embarrassed the government...?

Why doesn't the Coalition just open up some forced labour Community Service gulags sumer camps in some god-awful bracing part of the country—the Shetlands, perhaps—and just send all the rioters there for a nice bit of overwork, starvation and death holiday? After all, it would go down well with the Tory faithful...

Although...

A bunch of ill-behaved, doomed, psychotic little shits trapped on an island, equipped only with their wits and viciousness for survival...?

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Leaping the wrong way

Well, it seems that Ryan Giggs has finally been named as the footballer who gained an injunction to hide an alleged affair with Imogen Thomas (who was apparently on Big Brother)— a somewhat inevitable outcome after all of the media hype even if, as EUReferendum points out, there are far more important matters (and far more important injunctions) that our MSM might turn its jaundiced eye towards.

The MSM have been vocal in their outrage against super injunctions, although immensely coy in protecting their own wallets—preferring instead to rely on the distributed voices of the Twitterati and blogosphere to do the dirty work on their behalf.

As such, the dead tree press have been assiduous in reporting the turds of "wisdom" falling from the lips of our Masters in the Commons and the Lords, all of whom seem to have agreed the same form of words with which to condemn such legal instruments. Indeed, many in government have been extremely keen to witter on about how...

... laws should be made by the legislature, and not by the judges.

Well, yes: and, as I have long argued, MPs would serve this country better by concentrating on making good law—after all, no one else in this country can—rather than spending most of their time being over-paid, over-active wet nurses to their constituents.

Now, obviously, there are two ways in which such a law could go. The first is that enunciated by Matthew Sinclair on Twitter...

People keep saying we need new law to clarify #superinjunction issue, if it is modelled on 1st amendment, I'm game.

Indeed. Contrary to what many people in this country think—even though the vast numbers of special interest "hate" laws that have been passed in the last few years should have made it pretty fucking obvious—we have no right to free speech enshrined in our legal system.

This is partly, of course, because we tend not to make laws which specifically allow certain things, because our legal system is based on the idea that you can do anything that is not specifically banned. And we don't have a specific ban on free speech, only bans on certain types of speech—which means that we have no right to free speech.

Nevertheless, it would be nice to have the right to free speech enshrined in law. Do you think it will happen?

Nope. That would be to leap in entirely the right way—towards more liberty, more freedom.

Instead, the sack of shit known as Ken Clarke has opined—since it is axiomatic that we should not have privacy laws made by judges—that what we need is not to remove all curbs on free speech. No, any curbs on free speech should be made by our legislature.

Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, has indicated that a new privacy law will be introduced after warning that the public is not entitled to “know about the sex lives of footballers”.

Maybe. But then, I don't think that footballers have the right to curb free speech in order to hide the sordid details of their sex lives. As Lord Tebbit observes...

Soon after I entered the House of Commons I was approached by someone suggesting that I should take a particular course of action which I thought was somewhat inappropriate for a Member of The House. I asked the advice of Sir Harry Legge-Bourke, the Member for the Isle of Ely, Chairman of the 1922, an ex-Guardsman of distinction and as straight as a ramrod.

“Entirely a matter for you, dear boy,” he told me. “I wouldn’t dream of giving you any advice about that. But if you would not like to read in the Daily Mail tomorrow that you had done it… then don’t do it.”

It is not a bad test. Of course many of us may fail it at some time. But what is really shameful is to do something discreditable, then to purchase an injunction by pretending it was a private family matter, when it was not.

The old economic saw of "revealed preferences" determines that you can divine what people really think by observing what they do, not what they say.

Bearing that in mind, it is a measure of the true liberal intentions of the members of this Coalition that—when faced with an opportunity either to increase liberty or constrain it—they have decided to embrace the illiberal.

No matter who wins the election, the authoritarian fucking politicians always get in, eh?

EDIT: I have edited some of the first sentence to be couched in slightly more careful—as in legally compliant—terms, e.g. adding "alleged", etc.

Banking on the government

Don't. But that's not what this is about: it's about the fact that MPs are intending to give Bob Diamond, boss of Barclays bank, a bit of a hard time.

Britain's best-paid banking boss, the Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond, will face intense pressure from MPs to waive his multimillion-pound bonus this week in recognition of the austere economic conditions and public intolerance of outsized City pay cheques.

An appearance by Diamond in front of the Treasury select committee on Tuesday is set to become a key clash between Westminster and the City as the coalition's efforts to tame bankers' pay falter.

Last night MP John Mann, a Labour member of the committee, said he and others would call on Diamond to forgo any bonus for 2010, when he was head of Barclays' investment banking arm.

"He will be asked not to take any bonus at all," said Mann. "We will want to know exactly how much these executives are getting in bonuses and other payments and why. There will be some tough questions."

So, here's what I think: MPs should shut the fuck up.

No, really.

Timmy deal with this whole affair in a rather more nuanced fashion, naturally, but the gist of the argument is this: Barclays was one of the few banks that did not go bankrupt in the crash; where they needed to shore up their capital, they found private investors willing to give them the loans. The simple fact is that Barclays took no taxpayer bail-out and, as such, it is none of our business—nor the government's—how the bank runs its business.

So, what the fuck do MPs think that they are doing in attempting to force the head of a private business to forego some of his renumeration? I mean, how fucking arrogant can you get?

In the meantime, the banks that the government does own are languishing in the realm of shit share prices and no dividends—perhaps our oh-so-wise MPs might turn their attention to the fact that those banks still aren't delivering any return for taxpayers, rather than sticking their fat, alcohol-bloated noses into affairs that simply don't concern them.

So, my suggestion to Bob Diamond is that he tells the Treasury select committee to go fuck itself.

Simples.

Innocent? What's that, then?

Via JuliaM (who has been doing a superb job of highlighting police fucknuttery), it seems that the police have decided to reverse the burden of proof all by themselves.

People caught with “legal highs” like mephedrone face being arrested and having their homes searched.

Senior officers say the chemicals will be treated as illegal until tests show otherwise as they try to protect young people from using dangerous drugs which have not been banned.

Oh, what a surprise—it's the police using the old "won't somebody think of the chiiiiiiiiildren" defence.

Look, you fuckers: your job is to uphold the law—that is, the actual law not what you think the law should be.

I don't care whether you're doing it for the fucking kids or not: you treat the substance as legal until you have proved that it is illegal—just as someone is innocent until proven guilty. Do you see?

In Brighton and Hove officers are working with the NHS and city council to teach children about mephedrone as part of drugs education in schools and encourage young people with a problem to seek help.

Yes, fine: I don't really have a problem with this. It can be argued that, if government has any kind of role in this aspect of people's lives, it could—and possibly should—be as an adviser. I have no real problem with local government agencies delivering advice on what are, after all, occasionally dangerous substances to young—and often tragically ignorant—people.

I do have a problem with the police treating people like criminals before they are actually proved to be so. The police are quite clearly overstepping the bounds of their power here: they do not have the authority to make law on the fly—yet—and they should be reigned in quite severely.

After all, a country in which the police make up the law, and then act as judge and jury is rather the definition of a police state, isn't it? And I think that most of us would agree that police states are, generally, not particularly desirable...

Reporting the CRU to the Information Commissioner

Further to the excellent and intriguing work the Devil and others have been doing digging through the leaked/hacked CRU emails, Kitchen readers may be interested to know that the TPA are reporting Prof Phil Jones and colleagues to the Information Commissioner for what appears to be a deliberate attempt to breach the Freedom of Information Act. Our full post on the importance of defending FoI, and how it applies to this case is here.

If anyone is found to have deliberately destroyed information after an FoI request was made, the law states that they may be subject to a criminal conviction and a fine of up to £5,000.

The police show their true colours

Via Freedom and Whisky, it seems that the head of Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)—which, for some reason, is allowed to use the police.uk domain name despite being a private company—is in a bit of a tizzy about Conservative plans to elect police chiefs.

Sir Hugh, the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said that chief constables would resist any moves to introduce ''political influence'' into the police service.

Look, you stupid fuck, you are already under political influence: your budgets are controlled by central government, the law that you uphold is made by central government, the way in which you uphold that law is set by central government and the targets that you have to hit are made up by central government.

Perhaps you can tell me, Hugh, what part of central government is not political?

All that the Tories are proposing—and it's a proposal that LPUK also endorses—is that the political element is brought to a rather more local level. The idea that a politician who represents a leafy Surrey suburb does not get to tell a gritty Northern police service in some god-awful estate in Burnley how to do their job.

Through the election of a local commissioner, it is the people of Burnley who tell the police force what is important to them. In other words, these people might say that police actually doing some policing is rather more important to them than the police spending hours in Equality Training.

Now I can see why lazy cunts like you, Sir Hugh, wouldn't like that—you'd have to shift your fat arse from behind your desk for a few days a week—but I think that the people who you are supposed to serve might actually get the police service that they want—not a police service operating according to the priorities imposed by politicians in central government.

Sir Hugh suggested that some chief officers would resign rather than accept the Conservative plans.

"I would not be surprised to see chief officers not want to be part of a system where they can be told how to deliver policing," he said.

And there we have it: the police see themselves as being above the people that they are supposed to serve—much like the politicos.

Fuck off, Hugh Orde: fuck off and die.

Some more good news

In amongst all of the fun that is the destruction of the CRU's credibility, there have been some other frabjous stories this week—even so, how could I not have covered the fact that Harpy Harperson is to be prosecuted for her little prang?

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman is to be prosecuted over a minor car accident near her south London constituency in July.

She faces prosecution for allegedly driving without due care and attention and driving while using a mobile phone.

The Crown Prosecution Service has said there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to prosecute.

A spokeswoman for Ms Harman said she "strongly refutes the allegations and will deny the charges".

Of course she is—absolutely innocent. Still, Harpy was kind enough to tell all of the witnesses who she was.

Iain Dale speculates whether Harridan Harperson would have to resign if convicted; the real highlight of his post is this featured Tweet from BevaniteEllie.

@iaindale no @harrietharman will not resign over a driving incident,she has work 2 do 2 achieve equality in this country.Sorry 2 disappoint

This is just priceless! And in the same week that BevaiteEllie successfully campaigned for a video to be used as a Labour political party broadcast—a video full of factual inaccuracies and utter cant that has been neatly ripped apart by Sara Bedford and eviscerated by Tory Bear.

It rally has been an excellent week...

MPs are thieving cunts

As Guido highlights, a good number of the expenses that MPs claimed were not actually "within the rules".

Sir Thomas Legg has outlined his approach to expenses in a note to MPs which is now in the public domain [PDF]. Legg confirms that payment of the second homes allowance under the Green Book rules was subject to “fundamental principles of propriety”:

The fundamental principles required MPs personally to ensure that their use of the ACA was: (a) necessary for the performance of their parliamentary duties; (b) not extravagant or luxurious; (c) in accordance with the Nolan principles of selflessness, accountability, honesty and leadership; (d) strictly in accordance with the rules governing the allowance; (e) above reproach; (f) took account of the need to obtain value for money; and (g) avoided any appearance of benefit, or a subsidy from public funds, or diversion of public money for the benefit of a political organisation. These principles together amount to a general requirement of propriety.

Quite a high bar for our porcine political class.

Absolutely. It is worth remembering—as we consider the colossal amounts of cash that MPs have stolen from us in "expenses"—that we have only seen the claims for one year.

The vast, vast majority of these bastards have been in the House for nearly five years. That's five years of fleecing the taxpayer, five years of rampant theft.

An awful lot more of these venal fucks have been in the House of Commons—living high on the hog using our money—for much longer. Just how many hundreds of thousands of pounds have they stolen from us?

Even were they being asked to repay the money, this would not be enough: those who have broken the rules must be prosecuted for fraud.

I want to see those smug smiles wiped off their faces as the handcuffs go on; I want to watch the sense of entitlement dissolve from their stance as they are led away from the dock; and I want to see their arrogance repeatedly and painfully fucked out of them by a huge, mass-murderering bugger—possibly nick-named "Bubba"—who has the word "retribution" tattooed on the back of his neck.

It's the only language these cunts understand.

Jacqui Smith: lying, thieving shitbag

Jacqui Smith: officially a lying thieving shit.

Jacqui Smith has been found to have defrauded the taxpayer, lied about her housing arrangements and been utterly dishonest.

Jacqui Smith faces political ruin as a result of the damning verdict that a Commons watchdog passed on her expenses claims and because police support officers contradicted her account of her movements.

The former Home Secretary offered a grudging apology to the Commons yesterday after the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards ruled that she was wrong to nominate her West Midlands property, where her family lives, as her second home.

Ms Smith said that the report vindicated her claim that she spent substantial amounts of time in a house in London owned by her sister, which she designated as her main home.

But John Lyon revealed that police guarding the property questioned the veracity of the former Home Secretary’s evidence, with their records showing that the number of nights she had spent in London was at odds with Ms Smith’s account. He says that last year the police figures suggested that Ms Smith spent 37 more nights in Redditch than she had in London; her estimates based on her diary suggested that the difference was nine nights. Figures for the previous year suggest that she had spent 12 more nights in Redditch than in London.

Her punishment is truly traumatic.

Former home secretary Jacqui Smith has apologised in the House of Commons for breaching expenses rules.

She designated her sister's house in London, which she shares, as her "main home" and then claimed second home allowances on her Redditch family home.

A standards inquiry found that she "wrongly" designated her home but had followed officials' advice at the time.

Ms Smith said she accepted the findings and apologised to the Commons and to her constituents.

She will not have to repay any money as the standards committee ruled that "no further action" be taken.

That's right: she had to apologise to the House of Commons. Fuck me: what a punishment that is.

Because, let's face it, the only thing that those shysters will condemn her for is getting caught—after all, the Right Honourable Members have been stealing from us for years.

As, effectively, has Jacqui Smith.

The Sunlight Centre for Open Politics do not intend to let the matter rest there—they have written to darling Jacqui...

Dear Ms. Smith,

Today the Committee on Standards and Privileges ruled against you for your use of the accommodation allowance between 2004 and 2009. Both the Commissioner for Standards and the Committee have concluded that you were in breach of the rules: "Jacqui Smith has been found to be in breach of the House of Commons rules governing the use of the accommodation allowance from 2004 to 2009. She wrongfully classified her main family home in Redditch as her second home, and was therefore able to claim around £20,000 a year towards its running costs."

Up to 2007, it could perhaps be argued that your wrongful designation of your Redditch house as secondary was inadvertent - although most common sense indicators suggested that Redditch was your main home, you were still technically spending more nights in London overall. While we think that parliamentarians have a clear duty to make sure they are within the rules governing personal use of public money, we accept that mistakes happen.

After 2007, however, you started to spend more time in Redditch, in the location where your children attend school, where you are registered to vote and where you pay a mortgage. As the Committee states: "From that point on there was little room for doubt, but it should have been sufficiently clear to Ms Smith even before then that she was probably an exception to the rule."

Out of the £106,738 wrongfully claimed over the 2004-2009 period, the £42,130 paid to you since 2007 was, without doubt, inappropriately used for the maintenance of your family home. As a result of this breach, the Committee has asked you to apologise to the House.

Public opinion on this issue is strongly of the view that saying sorry is not enough. We ask you to pay back to the public purse the £42,130 wrongfully claimed and we feel obliged to inform you that, if you fail so to do, we will not let the matter rest here.

Jacqui Smith is a fucking fraud, and a cunt to boot.

Prosecute the fucker.

Unintended but foreseeable consequences

The wife has just kindly pointed out that whilst Jackart's position may be technically correct, there is another aspect to all of this. Or, rather, a couple.

The first is that—no matter what the rules say—MPs should have known when it was morally wrong to claim expenses, they should have known that it was morally wrong to flip their designated homes.

"Ah," I hear you cry. "You might have made that moral judgement, but those are your morals, o Devil, and not theirs. And we thought that you disagreed with forcing your personal morals onto others."

And you would be completely right: I do disagree with forcing my morals onto others. But these cunts don't; their entire political lives are spent forcing us to live by their personal mores—one could argue that this is a bit of tit for tat.

I would also argue that someone who breaks the most fundamental of the rules that I believe in—that you shall not steal^*—should have no moral authority over me.

The second point is somewhat less abstract and it is quite simply this: that much of the money that was spent—even when it was within the rules—would not have been spent were it not claimed on expenses.

Would Gordon Brown really have spent £10,716.60 of his own money on cleaning? Would Nick Clegg really have spent £910 on roses if he were not claiming the money on expenses?

I seriously doubt it.

And this is the reason, claims Sir Thomas Legg, that he is imposing these "retrospective rules".

Sir Thomas's letters have been accompanied by a note in which he explained his decision.

He told MPs that there had effectively already been a limit on the amount that could be claimed for mortgage interest, because the total additional cost allowance budget prevented an annual claim of more than about £24,000 last year.

Household goods, he said, were also subject to limits. The so-called "John Lewis list", which was kept secret from MPs, told Commons officials that they could allow, for example, up to £750 for a television and £10,000 for a new kitchen.

However, Sir Thomas said that he could find nothing in the existing rules setting out the maximum allowable for other large expenses, including cleaning and gardening. Therefore, he believed that limits must be imposed retrospectively.

"Some limits must be regarded as having been in place to prevent disproportionate and unnecessary expenditure from the public purse," he said.

In other words, where no limits were set, MPs have basically bought goods and services, the prices of which were far in excess of what they would have paid out of their own pockets—simply because they were able to get the poor bloody taxpayer to stump up the cash.

Sir Thomas Legg has determined that this is absolutely wrong, and has penalised the thieving fuckers accordingly. Good.

I seriously hope that these bastards are made to pay back every penny. And I hope that many of them leave office with their spirits broken, their reputations in tatters and their bank accounts empty.

Because, frankly, I was promised suicides and, disappointingly, there hasn't been a single one yet...

^* To steal life is murder; to steal freedom is to enslave; and to steal property is theft.

They just don't get it, do they?

The blogosphere has, predictably, been up in arms about the fact that MPs are being asked to repay expenses after Sir Thomas Legg audited their expenses and sent begging demands to the honourable members.

For what it's worth, I do think that Jackart's position is technically correct.

At the moment the Tax Man cannot retrospectively charge you for taxes that you paid correctly last year. (I know the appalling misuse of the 'Proceeds of Crime' act by the HM R&C; can bankrupt you for a £400 VAT tax error, but that's a different matter). Nor can an employer claw back wages if you turn out to be rubbish at your job.

That is, a Government cannot come in and say "it's appalling that income over £100,000 isn't and wasn't taxed at 50%". There are a lot of people—a lot—who think that high salaries without high marginal tax rates are "unfair". Immagine if the revenue could say that not only were they taking the new, higher rate taxes on your future income, they were applying it retrospectively to the previous couple of year's income too, on the basis of "fairness", were delivering a bill to you for money you'd already spent on the mortgage and the Kids' school fees?

For that is what is happening to MPs. The rules they "obeyed" were grossly flawed and they have been changed. That is not in question. If you're pissed off with your MP (mine's squeaky clean, I'm pleased to say) then there's an election coming and you can stuff envelopes for his opponents, effectively firing the bastard. But just as the Tax man cannot go after income you earned in the previous year after you've been taxed on it, MPs should not be forced to pay money already received if it was within the rules as they existed at the time.

So now, of course, we are forced to give MPs the benefit of the doubt.

No, your humble Devil might be a terrible old cynic, but I cannot help thinking that that was the entire point of this measure. They have quite deliberately told Sir Thomas Legge to go beyond the remit of his report and, again, quite deliberately to apply the rules retrospectively.

In this way, all of the actual cases of disgusting fraud get obscured, obfuscated and buried beneath the deluge of claims and counter-claim. The report is then declared a waste of time, and our wastrel MPs opine that to hold another would be a waste of taxpayers' money—and we cannot possibly allow that in these straitened times.

The results, of course, are that the public can never be sure quite who is guilty of fraud and theft and who is not (bar the few who have obviously been thrown to the wolves); the majority of MPs have to repay precisely bugger-all; and there is no fall-out for the honourable members, apart from the tedium of having to mutter a few meaningless platitudes about how they are shocked at all this troughing and that they are sorry for any "honest mistakes" that they may have made.

But we cannot let this pass: we really can't—for the reasons that The Appalling Strangeness articulates.

Yes, I know I am a zealous ranter when it comes to the issues of MPs' expenses fraud, but they did rinse the public purse for all it was worth under the guise of being public servants. Frankly, they deserve as much abuse as we can throw at them. The thieving fucks. Particularly when they are quick to get out the world's smallest violin and start manically playing it for a bit of completely undeserved sympathy:

One unnamed MP told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "An accountant will always find errors in the expenses claims especially on claims of such magnitude over a long period but the only ones publicised are the over-claims, no-one ever mentioned the under-claims."

No. No-one does mention the under-claims. Because the point of expenses isn't that you have to spend them - rather, there is an allowance there if you need it. And given MPs work directly for the public purse, and are supposed to represent the British people, you might have thought they'd be less keen to spend, spend, spend. When your expenses are paid by an already grossly over-stretched taxpayer, frugality becomes a virtue.

"The need to please the press and get back in their good books has produced a total over-reaction and it has been very badly handled. We were treated despicably today when we were waiting for our letters, we felt as though the sword of Damocles was hanging over us."

I don't give the first fuck whether MPs get back in the good books of the press - they should want to get back into the good books of the people they have so badly betrayed. And expecting MPs to pay money back to the public purse isn't an over-reaction; it is actually quite a moderate response. I'd like to see everyone of them who abused the system sacked and facing prosecution, and the worst offenders locked up. And that isn't an over-reaction either; it is what would happen to anyone who got involved in this sort of swindle but didn't have the good fortune to be employed as an MP.

I really couldn't have put it better myself. It is that first quote that so absolutely enrages me—so here it is again.

One unnamed MP told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "An accountant will always find errors in the expenses claims especially on claims of such magnitude over a long period but the only ones publicised are the over-claims, no-one ever mentioned the under-claims."

I really don't think that this cunt has got the point of expenses, has he? Look, you terrible little bastard, let me explain the concept of expenses to you.

Expenses are just that: they are a recompense of the monies expended in the direct pursuit of your work duties. If you spend £2.50 on a train ticket to your constituency, then you can claim £2.50—not fucking £50! Do you see?

If the rules say that you can claim up to £10,000 on communicating with your constitutents, that does not mean that you have to spend the entirety of that £10,000, you feckless fuck. If you only spent £10.40 then you only claim £10.40; but if you spent £12,468 then you can still only claim £10,000. Do you fucking get it yet?

The idea that you should get some kind of prize—or even any fucking credit—for not spending the absolute maximum (or, in many cases, way over the maximum) is absolutely fucking laughable.

It is this kind of fucking arrogance and quite blatant sense of entitlement that makes your humble Devil want to abandon his principles and hang the lot of you whether the rules have been retrospectively applied or not.

Don't you understand? It. Is. Not. Your. Money. It is our money.

Every few pounds that you spend is an hour of a someone's life spent working rather than playing.

Every few pounds that you spend represents yet another hour that someone must toil in order to put food in his mouth, or to afford a roof over his head, or to buy an unsubsidised drink.

Every few pounds that you spend is another waste of money, another punch in the face for an ordinary person, another fruitless period of someone's life passed.

So don't think that you will be able to bury your misdemeanours in a mire of confusion; don't think that you can obscure your crimes in a slurry of retrospective excuses.

You have been revealed as thieves and liars, charlatans and harlots, bullshitters and conmen. Our time will come, and then you had better be ready to defend yourselves with something rather more concrete than limp excuses and whining rhetoric.

Trafigura, Carter-Ruck and the Streisand Effect

UPDATE: The situation has now been resolved and the Guardian ungagged. Read to the bottom of the post for further details.

Author's note: I am not the Devil's Kitchen. Cross-posted from Mr Eugenides.

Looks like Carter-Ruck solicitors should be in the PR business, because neither I nor, I'll wager, you, had ever heard of Trafigura until they allegedly slapped an injunction on the Guardian prohibiting them from - get this - reporting proceedings in Parliament in which Trafigura's name had, apparently, been mentioned.

Well, get comfy, guys, because you're big time now; everyone who's anyone (as well as those of us who aren't) are busily writing about you, and directing baffled readers to articles like this one, in the Independent. In no particular order, you're now famous to the readers of, inter alia, Iain Dale, Guido, Dizzy, Next Left, Unity, Chicken Yoghurt, Harry's Place and Timmy, who between them can't be a kick in the arse off having a higher daily readership than the paper you've tried to gag. (This outbreak of blogospheric solidarity, to put it into context, is akin to the Russians and the Germans taking a time-out from slaughtering each other to erect a big sign in downtown Stalingrad telling everyone that Cary Grant was a poof.) Add Alex Massie at the Spectator and Nick Cohen and Joshua Rozenberg at Standpoint magazine, and this is quickly becoming an online clusterfuck of epic proportions.

One day these highly-remunerated libel lawyers are going to wake up and realise that they aren't being paid in guineas any more and that, thanks to this thing called the Interwebs, they can't shut down freedom of speech the way they used to in the old days. On the contrary; as Barbara Streisand found to her cost, 99% of people don't give a shit about 99% of stuff, right up the moment when you start waving your arms up and down telling them to stop reading about it.

If I were you, I'd ask Carter-Ruck to itemise the bill.

UPDATE: The Guardian have now been ungagged after a tsunami of online publicity, and after having requested (though before receiving) an urgent hearing to discuss the gag order.

Yes

It seems that the Irish have voted "yes" to the Lisbon Treaty—at the second time of asking. Lucky them, for we British have had precisely no chances to vote on this at all.

As you will know, your humble Devil is not in favour of the Lisbon Treaty; I am, like Timmy, a EU-nihilist—I believe that the EU should not exist. Given that it does exist, however, I do not believe that Britain should be part of the EU.

I have written very many articles about the subject, but probably the most comprehensive was that which I wrote (some years ago) for citizen journalist site, Wanabehuman.

Essentially, I believe that the EU and Britain are incompatible—not simply economically, but legally. That I believe that economies are better when more flexible and with fewer regulations should surprise no one: that I believe that the EU is the antithesis of this should also come as no surprise.

However, it is in the area of law that I really object to the EU. I think that our Common Law and the Roman legal system are fundamentally incompatible, and it is our system that is being subsumed.

Truly, this would not bother me too much, were I not convinced that the Common Law—wherein, broadly speaking, everything is legal unless specifically prohibited—creates a freer people.

The Roman system—whereby everything is prohibited unless specifically allowed—is fundamentally more disctatorial, for reasons that should be obvious.

Quite apart from fundamentally changing the nature of the relationship between the citizen and the state, there are practical problems too—one of which Timmy highlights.

But I would go much further about how and why bribery takes hold and the most important thing we ought to be doing at home to make sure that it doesn’t. It’s about the amount and detail of regulation.

There was a day when there was little detailed law in the UK. Little detailed regulation of the everyday that is. What law there was was either criminal law which (with some grating errors, like the criminalisation of consenting adult buggery and such) almost all supported or Common Law which again almost all supported. Other countries were not so lucky: they had the imposition from the centre of detailed laws, rules and regulation about what you could or could not do in matters of daily life. Perhaps my favourite example is the one that until after WWII you had to have the permission of Paris for a club which had any more than 25 Frenchmen in it. Yes, for anything, sports, debates, cookery, anything. We in England had been free of such since the 1650-1700 timescale.

So there was no point in bribery here in the everyday while in other societies it was not possible to do anything without it.

Yes, I’ve lived and worked in a society where bribery is commonplace and yes, I’ve done my fair share of it. From $100 to get a falsely accused driver out of a police cell through a few hundred to smooth over an expired visa all the way to handing over wedges of cash in “commissions to agents”. That’s just the way certain places are (although I would note that all such were entirely legal under UK law when I was partaking of such activities).

What worries me about the UK, a country in which I’ve never even considered paying a douceur for anything, not even an “advance tip” to book a restaurant table, is that now we’re moving to that more Continental system of law, where everything is regulated, from what light bulbs you can use to how you can sort your rubbish, is that we’re creating the same breeding ground for corruption.

Not something I consider an advance in our civilization, let alone our freedom and liberty.

Having our society run by the clipboard wielders will inevitably lead to our bribing the clipboard wielders to leave us alone.

Quite. And the EU is a perfect representation of the endemic corruption inherent within that system: even the pro-EU Nosemonkey would pause to argue with me on that point.

There are many, many good arguments to be used against the EU. Scores of them, in fact. In places it’s massively inefficient. In places there are strong indications of what seems like systemic corruption. Some of the policies it has introduced have been hugely harmful to both people and the planet.

There are more than a few areas where the EU is not only systematically corrupt, but where it is determined to remain corrupt. Take the report into MEP expenses that was not allowed to be viewed by anyone, for instance, or the unprecedented measures to block of Marta Andreasen MEP.

Unless you've been living in a box or only read the mainstream media, Marta Andreasen used to be the chief accountant of the European Commission but because it was as bent as a nine bobo note decided that she should say something about it. And so that ghastly fool Kinnock decided to sack her for 'failure to show loyalty and respect'.

Now she's a UKIP MEP in the South East Region - not that you'd know that from the newspapers because only Ambrose Evans-Prichard in the Telegraph bothered to mention the importance of it - the EU are shitting their lacy bloomers. Andreasen has been appointed to the Budgetary control committee of the European Parliament where Monday they were voting for the Chairman and Vice Chairman.

Mrs Andreasen was blocked by Christian Democrat and Socialist MEPs from becoming vice-chairman of the European Parliament's budgetary committee on Monday.

The centre-Right European People's Party and the Socialists broke parliamentary convention on the allocation of committee posts by demanding a vote by secret ballot to block Mrs Andreasen, who was elected as a Ukip MEP for South East England last month.

I don't quite know how to go overboard with expressing the seriousness of this. I know that for many people the centre of politics is still Westminster and the EU is just some silly distraction. But it's a distraction which costs far more money than we can afford, takes away our civil liberties, ensures people in the developing world are kept in poverty and tramples over democracy as well as damaging our businesses and jeaoprdising our jobs.

They don't even try to pretend. A group of socialist MEPs realised that someone who actually knew the level of fraud and corruption in the EU was about to be appointed to a senior position (she was unopposed) and so took a decision to block her by secret ballot. They are so underhand and wicked that they don't even have courage in their convictions to be honest about how much they hate people trying to speak the truth.

So, that's the EU: corrupt.

And trying to impose a system of Roman Law, a system under which life becomes more expensive and more corrupt: how could it be otherwise when the people mandating what is allowed are expensive, corrupt politicos?

We are already seeing a gradual—and not so gradual—move towards the Roman system of law, and it worries me a lot. The economy will continue to grow under the EU—maybe not as fast as it could do, but there is an argument to be had there.

But if the economy is slowed we lose only some money: with the transformation of our legal system, we lose something far more valuable—our liberty.

Unfortunately, I fear that—for far too many of our fellow countrymen—liberty is less important than having the requisite pieces of silver.

UPDATE: a scholarly commenter takes me to task over the accuracy of my nomenclature.

One small point: the issue you identify between the legal systems of the UK and the EU is not fundamentally about the difference between the Common and Roman (or Civilian, as it is known to lawyers) systems.

Fundamentally, the great difference between Common and Civilian Law is merely in the fact that the entirety of private law is codified in the Civilian tradition (being based on the Code of Justinian) while the Common Law tradition places infinitely more emphasis on law as established by cases and precedent.

The point you make about the Continental system, whereby everything is illegal unless specifically made legal by statute, is not a component of the Roman system but of the Napoleonic system.

The enemy of Common Law is not the Civil Law but the Code Napoleon. And Napoleon was, of course, the first person to use the phrase "United States of Europe".

Quite right, of course: thank you for that. It's not the first time that I have made that mistake...

... and quite another for them.... #2

I'll bet Harriet didn't expect to see these gentlemen again quite so soon...

Is Harriet Harman one of the most repulsive people in the world? I mean, one can survey the various turds, shits, pigs, arseholes, backstabbers, shysters, spivs and charlatans in our Parliament and say, with simple honesty, that she is one of the very worst people in that den of thieves, whores and fuckwits. And given that, I think that one can say with confidence that Harriet Harman is, indeed, one of the most unpleasant human beings on the planet.

And so it is with undisguised glee that I report, seen at Guido's place, that darling Harriet has been a naughty girl.

Harriet Harman is being investigated by police after allegedly leaving the scene of an accident in which she drove into a parked car while talking on her mobile phone.

Ms Harman, Labour's deputy leader, is said to have stopped briefly after the crash, but witnesses say she drove off without leaving her insurance or registration details—an offence carrying a possible six-month jail term.

When a witness approached her car, the MP is said to have wound down her window and said simply: 'I'm Harriet Harman—you know where you can get hold of me.'

According to police sources, Ms Harman is being investigated for driving without due care and attention, driving while illegally using a mobile phone and failing to stop after an accident, the most serious of the three offences.

Like Baroness Scotland, Harriet Harman is also a lawyer by profession and has held senior legal positions in the government.

It was her government that introduced the ban on driving with a mobile phone.

It was her government that tightened up the law on careless driving—a measure that was, ironically, driven through by Baroness Scotland—who had a conviction for careless driving—whilst she was at the Home Office.

Under the 1988 Road Traffic Act, any driver involved in a collision with another vehicle is required by law to stop and give their name and address, as well as details of the vehicle's owner and the vehicle's registration.

Any driver who does not give their details at the time must then report the accident to the police.

A senior police source said: 'Ms Harman was due to be questioned by officers last week but because of the Labour Party conference, it is believed they have delayed speaking with her until later this week.

'The police were contacted by concerned members of the public who had witnessed the accident and the behaviour of Ms Harman who they said drove off without leaving her details.

'She is now being investigated for driving away from an accident because it appears that she did not comply with the law which requires her to leave her name and address or her insurance details with the owner of the damaged vehicle.

'If prosecuted and convicted for failing to stop after accident she could face up to six months' imprisonment - it is highly unlikely that a prison sentence would follow...

No shit, Sherlock. A prison sentence for someone as august as Harridan Harperson? Never. The prison sanction is only there to be used on the little people.

... but the fact that this kind of punishment is in place for this offence shows the seriousness with which the courts take it.'

The police source says that officers from Dulwich attended the scene and spoke to a number of witnesses.

A report was then passed to the London Traffic Unit's division in Sidcup, which is responsible for processing motoring offences in Ms Harman's area.

The police source added: 'After the police have interviewed Ms Harman, a case file will be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and a decision made on whether to prosecute.

What do you want to bet that the decision will be not to prosecute and that this will never come near a court...?

'If prosecuted, she would be summonsed to appear in court.

'When questioned by the police Ms Harman will not necessarily be arrested but instead she will have to sign a police document in which she must state that she is telling the truth.

'In common terms it is the traffic equivalent of being questioned under caution for a criminal matter.'

Careless driving is punishable by a fine of up to £2,500 and between three and nine penalty points. Courts may consider disqualification in some cases. Drivers caught using a mobile phone receive an automatic three points and a fixed £60 fine.

Your humble Devil is pretty sure that it won't happen—I have no faith in the incorruptibility of the police, the courts or the CPS—but wouldn't it be wonderful to see this disgusting bitch being metaphorically fucked up the arse in court?

Mind you, she would probably whinge about how the judge was a misogynist and start trying to enact yet more inequality laws left, right and centre.

Mind you, this repulsive horse-faced cow does have some previous...

In 2003, Ms Harman was fined £400 and banned from driving for a week after being convicted of driving at 99mph on a motorway.

In April 2007 she was also issued with a £60 fixed-penalty notice and three penalty points for driving at 50mph in a 40mph zone on the A14 in Suffolk.

She paid the fine several months late, narrowly avoiding appearing at Ipswich magistrates' court.

And her excuse for this late payment...?

A Labour Party source said at the time: 'She made an innocent mistake. She forgot to pay on time because she was spending all her time on the deputy leadership contest touring the country.'

Ah, it's basically the old "I'm far too important to worry about such things. Paying fines on time is for the proles."

Of all the people on this rather super planet of ours, Harriet Harman is one of those that I most loathe. Seriously, if I could cast her as any character in any film, she would be Carter Burke in Aliens.

And I hope that the legal process "nails her right to the wall for this ... Right to the wall"...

It's one law for us... #1

Baroness Scotland: fucked.

The Lady Scotland affair rumbles on, with the noble Baroness having dodged paying tax on her housekeeper's wages.

A Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered that Britain’s most senior lawyer flouted a series of basic regulations.

We can reveal that she failed to deduct income tax from Loloahi Tapui’s wages for the first ten weeks of employment. And Ms Tapui claims the Peer did not give her payslips or a formal employment contract.

The Baroness first faced calls to resign after it was disclosed that she had employed Ms Tapui, 27, without correctly checking her immigration status. She avoided the sack but was fined £5,000 by the UK Border Agency.

Now our inquiries have prompted fresh questions about her judgment.

Baroness Scotland wrote Ms Tapui’s weekly pay cheques to the housekeeper’s husband, solicitor Alexander Zivancevic, from her Coutts bank account.

Ms Tapui asked her to do this, saying she did not have a bank account, which should have made the Peer suspicious of her employee’s immigration status.

Ms Tapui also claims she was never given a written contract or wage slips, contravening the Employment Rights Act 1996.

She adds that the Peer only clarified her tax position after the MPs’ expenses scandal broke in May.

Let me make it quite clear—again—why these breaches are significant (because, let's face it, your humble Devil does not think that cheating the taxman is of any moral significance): first, it is because Lady Scotland is the government's top legal adviser and, second, because she has helped to draft and push through many of these laws.

These laws have been used to harass and punish many ordinary, hard-working men and women of this country.

And because our law-makers must—must—live under the same laws that they make for us. We already know that they have given themselves exemptions from some laws—this is absolutely beyond the pale but, alas, entirely legal.

So, where they have broken laws that do apply to them, as well as us, they must be hounded and harried with exactly the same fervour as we would be.

This is not purely out of spite (although, I'll grant you, there' s most definitely some) but because, if the laws are bad, then these bastards might be moved to change them and thus benefit us all.

That is the general argument.

In the case of Lady Scotland in particular, her inability to abide by the law—presumably, we assume, out of ignorance—throw serious doubt on her ability to do the job of Attorney-General.

And the news of two high-profile cases of government illegality—in the share capital case and in the video rating system—provide further evidence of her unfitness for the job.

Baroness Scotland has got to go—for reasons that are both ideological and practical.

Baroness Scotland: teller of tall tales

And so the Baroness Scotland saga rumbles on—not least because spiteful bloggers like myself, finding it incredibly amusing to see this loathsome hypocrite banged to rights, just won't let it die. Or, at least, not until I have seen her actually die, and her head stuck on a fucking pole outside the Tower of London.

Anyway, you'll remember that the Baroness issued a statement saying that she had seen her illegal employee's passport. In fact, the quote was precisely this: [Emphasis mine.]

"I was shown all relevant documents—a P45, National Insurance details, a marriage certificate, a letter from the Home Office, references and a passport—by Ms Tapui during her job interviews."

Indeed, the Baroness has reiterated her position. [Emphasis mine.]

Lady Scotland restated her position, saying: "For the record, as I have said previously, I was shown all relevant documents—a P45, National Insurance details, a marriage certificate, a letter from the Home Office, references, and a passport—by Ms Tapui during her job interviews. I have nothing further to add."

Now, Baroness Scotland was fined £5,000 because she did not take copies of these documents as the law—a law that she herself helped to conceive, draft and vote through Parliament—stated that she should.

As such, neither the UK Border Agency nor the general public have any proof whatsoever that Baroness Scotland did, indeed, check these documents.

Never mind, our monocular cunt of a Prime Minister believed that no further action should be taken against Baroness Scotland—who is, lest we forget, the Attorney General and thus the government's chief law adviser—because she had seen these documents.

But because she had not knowingly employed an illegal worker and had checked documents Mr Brown believed "no further action" was necessary.

Of course, in common with both the UKBA and the British people, the Gobblin' King had absolutely no proof of this whatsoever because there is none.

Which means, of course, that if someone popped up and said that the Baroness had not, in fact, checked Loloahi Tapui's documents—and, specifically, her passport—then there might be a few repercussions.

Oh look! Someone has actually done that—in fact, Loloahi Tapui herself!

The former housekeeper to Attorney General Baroness Scotland has claimed the peer never asked to see her passport before giving her a job.

Speaking exclusively to the Mail on Sunday, Loloahi Tapui, an illegal immigrant from Tonga, claimed she was given work after a 10-minute interview.

Baroness Scotland—fined last week for failing to take copies of Ms Tapui's documents - insists she saw a passport.
...

In [the interview], the 27-year-old insists a passport—reported to contain a forged and out-of-date visa—found in her West London home during a raid by UK Border Agency officials is the only one she possesses.

She says she has been in Britain illegally for five years, since her student visa ran out, and is prepared to take a lie-detector test to prove she is telling the truth.

"I do not understand why [Baroness Scotland] said that she saw my passport because I know I'm illegal," she tells the Mail on Sunday.

"Why [would] I provide my passport because I know [that if I did] I would not get employed by her."

Good question. As such, one can conclude, I think, that "one of the few Black women in public life" has been slightly... ah... economical with the truth.

In other words, she's a stinking fucking liar. And a crook, to boot.

The ball's back in your court, Gordon, you fucknuts.

P.S. For those few of you who haven't seen it yet (though I alluded to it in my question for the Lords), Baroness Scotland has previous in terms of being a filthy hypocrite.

[Lady Scotland] was responsible for announcing tougher sentences for careless motorists who kill when she was a Home Office minister.

Lady Scotland confessed to the driving offence in an interview with this newspaper conducted in April 1991, when she was made the first black woman in Britain to be made a QC.

Asked if she had ever broken the law, the then Patricia Scotland “confessed to a careless driving conviction—she had been coming into a major road in London when a taxi hit her”.

A taxi hit her... And yet she was the one given the conviction for careless driving. Hmmmm.

Could it be that Lady Scotland is, once again, being a bit disingenuous? Could she be telling a bit of a Passport porky-pie? Who can tell?

But let's just say that if you believe her, Baroness Scotland also has a really lovely bridge that she'd like to sell you...

P.P.S. It seems that Gordon is utterly desperate not to loose Lady Scotland's special services (whatever they may be, exactly)—so much so that he was willing to do a colossal u-turn on ministers' expenses.

BARONESS SCOTLAND was saved from facing questions about her expenses last week by a swift government U-turn that at a stroke changed its policy on allowances.

The Sunday Times revealed last week that Scotland had received £170,000 from an allowance intended for ministers in the House of Lords who live outside London. This was despite the fact that the baroness has owned a family home in the capital for 15 years and tells the Lords it is her main address.

Before our article, the Cabinet Office could not have been more clear that Scotland should have received the allowance only if her main home was outside the capital.

However, less than 24 hours after the article was published, Baroness Royall, the leader of the Lords, sanctioned a statement by the Cabinet Office which overturned all its previous advice. It said the allowance was available to all lords who serve as ministers, regardless of where they live.

This, of course, means that other ministers can start claiming loads more of our lovely lolly in order to shore up their disgustingly depraved lifestyles. Thanks a fucking bunch, Gordo.

Yeah, sure: why not give lots more money away, Gordo? After all, it's only money. It's fucking magic money that falls from the fucking sky, ain't it, Gordon? It's definitely not the product of other people's hard work, is it, you one-eyed freak?

Of course, in Gordoland, it isn't actually our money—it is the state's money and the goverment can spend as much of that cash as it likes on as many pointless and wasteful projects as it likes. And what we are allowed to keep we should be fucking grateful for.

And the state still lets us keep nearly half of what we earn, so we should be ever so fucking grateful.

Now remember, fellow proles, to doff your fucking cap as the minister drives by...

UPDATE: and now it seems that Lady Scotland is in trouble with the Bar Standards Board.

The latest revelations come as her professional body was urged to launch a highly embarrassing investigation into her conduct.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that the Bar Standards Board has received a number of complaints about the beleaguered Cabinet minister, who was fined £5,000 for employing an illegal immigrant.
...

The Bar Standards Board does not normally investigate complaints about a lawyer's private life, but its own guidelines acknowledge that such an inquiry may be launched in "exceptional circumstances".

A spokeswoman for the board declined to comment about Lady Scotland's case and refused to disclose how many complaints had been received.

Senior legal sources have told this newspaper that the Bar Standards Board would have no alternative but to carry out an inquiry into whether the QC breached the barristers' code of conduct and brought the legal profession into disrepute.

The board was created just three years ago as part of the Bar's attempt to retain its self-regulating role, and failing to act could leave the organisation open to criticism, said lawyers.

"I have no doubt that the Bar Standards Board will deal with this properly and take appropriate action," said one QC.

Members of the disciplinary panel may now have to consider whether Lady Scotland's activities have been "dishonest or otherwise discreditable to a barrister".

The board has the power to disbar a lawyer who is found to have committed a serious breach of the code. Even if a lesser punishment is imposed – such as a fine, suspension or reprimand – it could be fatal to Lady Scotland's political career.

Any inquiry is likely to focus on whether the legal profession has been tarnished by Lady Scotland's breach of immigration laws and the imposition of a £5,000 fine, but Lady Scotland could face even more difficult questions if her version of events differs from the account given by Ms Tapui.

David Davies, the Conservative MP for Monmouth, was among those who asked the Bar Standards Board to examine the case.

Mr Davies said: "If Gordon Brown cannot bring himself to discipline her then the Bar Standards Board should look into whether she has breached her professional code.

"I would have thought that Lady Scotland has obviously brought discredit on to barristers through all this."

Strange though the concept may seem, I think that Baroness Scotland has made people think even less of lawyers than they already do. Further, our lunatic Cyclopean PM's refusal to sack her suggests that the legal profession is rather too close to our government for comfort.

It's all gone a bit Pete Tongan for "one of the few Black women in public life"...

Baroness Scotland: breaking the law is like "overpaying the congestion charge"

Oh, look! Via Guido (who also reports that the ugly baggage has been reported to the Bar Standards Board), Baroness Scotland is on the TV!

"... that I got caught." [Alright, I made that bit up. Convenient break in the video though, eh?]

I'll bet that the Attorney General is sorry after being found guilty of breaking a law that she brought in—she has been fined £5,000 (half of the possible maximum).

Attorney General Baroness Scotland has been fined £5,000 after being found to have employed a housekeeper who was not legally allowed to work in the UK.

The UK Border Agency said she took steps to check Tongan Loloahi Tapui's right to work but had not kept a copy of documents, as required by law.

Opposition parties say her position is "untenable" but No 10 said it was an "inadvertent" mistake.

She apologised for the "technical breach" and said she accepted the fine.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up. This is not a fucking "technical breach": this was—and I'll say it again—a breaking of the law that you introduced. It was a hideous, spiteful law that should never have seen the light of day and not only did you help bring it in, but you have also—somehow—weaseled your way into being the government's chief adviser on legal matters.

At the very least, you are an incompetent fuckwit who is not fit to hold such an important job, my dear Baroness; at worst, you are a lying, hypocritical, law-breaking shithole.

Given her position, Baroness Scotland should have been fined the full £10,000; since she cannot possibly have been ignorant of a law that she introduced, one can conclude that she deliberately flaunted it and with deception aforethought.

In a statement, Downing Street said: "The UK Border Agency is satisfied she did not knowingly employ an illegal worker. She examined documents of her status. She paid tax and National Insurance on her earnings. She employed her new cleaner in good faith.

"But regrettably she did not retain copies of the documents proving the right to work she was given. As a result she is paying an administrative penalty."

It added that breaches of the law were taken "seriously" and the PM had consulted the cabinet secretary about whether the ministerial code had been breached.

But because she had not knowingly employed an illegal worker and had checked documents Mr Brown believed "no further action" was necessary.

So, the only proof that she saw these documents is... Oh, wait: there is none. Nada. Nowt. Nothing.

Never mind, I am sure that the Devon farmer I posted about a while back—who was given an on-the-spot fine of £10,000 per worker—will be treated equally leniently, eh? No further action need be taken, I imagine...?

Still, thrilled as I am to see Baroness Scotland fined—though not, it appears, humbled—I believe that one of the best posts about this comes from Jackart. [Emphasis mine.]

She wanted to work, and indeed pay tax. Which makes Loloahi Tapui a more valuable citizen than 15% of the native-born population who sit on their fat arses watching Jeremy Kyle and reading the Sun (those who can actually read), and who don't get their doors kicked in by uniformed thugs in the pay of the state, which instead subsidises their idleness through a complex smorgasbord of 51 different benefits which ensure that no-one born in the UK has to work if they don't want to, and indeed get punished with marginal withdrawal rates of 90% should they even try.

Borders are an affront to human dignity, as is the welfare state.

Quite: that last line is succinctly put, and quite correct. But then, governments have never really been worried about human dignity—especially not the current crop. After all, would someone who possessed dignity go around pilfering petty cash from the taxpayer...?

Speaking of which, my dear Baroness... About that £170,000 that you stole...

UPDATE: I love this piece of logic from The Nameless Libertarian...

So, she broke a law that she helped to draft. And she has been fined for it. Yet, according to Gordon Brown, she doesn't have to resign. It really does beg the question of what the fuck someone has to in order to have to resign in the world of Gordon Brown. Unless, of course, the law she broke doesn't need to be adhered to. In which case is this law strictly speaking necessary? And if not, then surely the person who helped to bring it onto the statute books should resign?

Can't say fairer than that, eh?

Now, really... About that £170,000...

Red sky at night, cyclists' delight

A little while ago, I let off some steam about the dangerous driving of many motorcyclists in the London area, and alluded to the assumed guilt of car drivers.

The only thing that worries me is that car owners are almost always blamed and that they feel in some way guilty for causing accidents.

I have always felt—given how the war on motorists has been progressing—that, sooner or later, the law would be changed to ensure that motorists would be assumed to be automatically responsible for all accidents.

Now, via an appalled Iain Dale, it seems that it is being proposed that motor vehicle drivers would, indeed, be assumed responsible for any accidents.

MINISTERS are considering making motorists legally responsible for accidents involving cyclists or pedestrians, even if they are not at fault.

Government advisers are pushing for changes in the civil law that will make the most powerful vehicle involved in a collision automatically liable for insurance and compensation purposes.

What the fuck? So, if some idiot runs out in front of me and I am—despite travelling at or below the speed limit—I should be held legally responsible when I hit them? Or when a cyclist whizzes gayly through a red light into a stream of traffic, I should be responsible?

Fuck. Off.

Look, leaving aside any partisan affiliations here, drivers are sometimes careless. But so are cyclists and pedestrians—especially since they often do not obey traffic signals or even behave rationally around roads. In short, everyone does stupid things and sometimes those little stupidities end tragically.

In assigning blame, we have systems like... well... courts, and juries and judges. These oh-so-archaeic institutions, as well as others like them, look at all of the facts and, from the evidence, work out who—if anyone—should be to blame. That is because we have tended to base our legal system on a presumption of innocence (and where we have not, e.g. libel laws, we are able to se just how perverting the assumption of guilt is).

The move, intended to encourage greater take-up of environmentally friendly modes of transport, is likely to anger some drivers, many of whom already perceive themselves to be the victims of moneyspinning speed cameras and overzealous traffic wardens.

And some will think, "wait a fucking minute? Why the fuck should I be held guilty when it wasn't my fucking fault? Isn't there something wrong here?"

Many will argue that it is the risky behaviour of some cyclists—particularly those who jump red lights and ride the wrong way along one-way streets—that is to blame for a significant number of crashes.

Quite. And, combining an "it'll never happen to me" attitude with knowing that they will not be held responsible, cyclists will do these things more and more.

In short, this law will have unintended but entirely foreseeable consequences. And the only people who will get fucked over are the eeeeeevil motorists.

So that's alright then.

However, policy-makers believe radical action is required to get people out of cars and onto bicycles or to walk more. Only 1%-2% of journeys are at present made by bike.

You mean that the prime motivation for this this shit isn't even to reduce the number of crashes—but to get people out of their cars? Just how fucking warped in the head are these cunts?

Perhaps these shit-stick bastards would like to cycle my 27 mile each way commute for me? No? Thought not.

What kind of mad, twisted, evil, monomaniacal little cunt would suggest such a gross distortion of our entire legal principles? Oh, look—it's a fake fucking charity...

Phillip Darnton, chief executive of Cycling England, an agency funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) to promote cycling, said four key policy changes were needed. “I would like to see the legal onus placed on motorists when there are accidents; speed limits reduced to 20mph on suburban and residential roads; cycling taught to all schoolchildren; and cycling provision included in major planning applications,” said Darnton.

Yes, that's right: it's the government handing our hard-earned money over to an "an independent, expert body" so that this absolutely-not-independent-in-any-way organisation can lobby the government for more curbs on our freedom. These bastards make me fucking sick.

Such proposals will be seen by some as part of a battle for control of Britain’s roads between motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.

One would have thought—since only one of those groups actually pays for the fucking roads—that the battle should be pretty one-sided, eh? Apparently not.

Still, I wonder if there are any other authoritarian authority figures with a vested interest in such a measure?

Last month Harry Wilmers, 25, a mental health support worker, was killed when his bicycle was hit by a lorry in Manchester. Wilmers was the boyfriend of Rebecca Stephenson, the daughter of Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan police commissioner.

Well, that's it: motorists are fucked then.

Even were I not a driver (by necessity), I would be fucking disgusted by this proposal—it should be struck down and the fuckers who proposed it punched repeatedly in the face. But instead it will be made law.

Fucking hellski.

On the spot fines: putting the Border Agency on the spot

Via The Englishman, I see that a farmer is facing a massive fine for employing illegal workers.

A farm owner from Devon who is facing a fine of up to £120,000 for employing illegal workers says he had taken precautions to check their credentials.

Twelve workers were arrested by Border Agency officials after a raid on 1 July at Merrifield Farm in Crediton.
...

Farm owner Peter Coleman may now face a fine of up to £10,000 for every illegal worker.

He told BBC News: "We do our best to comply with regulations.

"We have a very good database of all employees and we have a list of passports and proof of identity.

"But the biggest problem for employers is to prove the identity of the person.

"We are not experts in forgery."

If he did check and copy their credentials, then I am sure—after spending fucking thousands of pounds on lawyers in order to prove his innocence—that Mr Coleman will be able to avoid the fine.

Or, rather, to be able to reclaim the money that he will be forced to pay, having been allegedly handed an on-the-spot fine.

Mr Coleman was handed an on-the-spot penalty notice by immigration officials that could mean a fine of up to £10,000 for each illegal worker.
...

A spokesman for the UK Border Agency said: "Mr Coleman was issued with a fixed penalty notice following the raid.

"That civil action is still pending.

"To avoid being fined, Mr Coleman must prove to the UK Border Agency that he has carried out the correct checks before giving the workers jobs."

Um... I'm sorry? You fucking what? Mr Coleman was issued with a fixed penalty notice?

So, what you are saying is that far from the state having to prove Mr Coleman's guilt, Mr Coleman has to prove his innocence? Seriously, what the fuck?

But, leaving that aside, can we assume that Baroness Scotland has been handed a £10,000 fixed penalty notice? She hasn't?

Well, fuck me!—ain't that a surprise?

P.S. It's worth noting why Mr Coleman was forced to hire immigrant workers.

He said he had problems finding British people to work on the farm which processes chickens and ducks.

He said: "We approached the Job Centre.

"We offered employment to 58 out of the 59 people that applied, 55 of which were British.

"Four were unsuitable and asked to leave and five are still with us.

"The other 46 found the job not to their liking and left or did not turn up in the first place."

It is not the job of the British taxpayer to subsidise the lifestyles of those who choose not to work. We should find those British people who did not turn up to work and stop all of their benefits—it is the only way that these lazy cunts will learn.

If we remove the benefits of those who will not work, then they will have to work. This will reduce the amount of work available for immigrants, and thus reduce the number of immigrants coming here (and, yes, I know that this won't be an instantaneous effect).

For crying out loud, it's really not very difficult.

UPDATE: as the wife pointed out last night, it's a strange country that punishes those who are the victims of fraud...