Downing Street Says » Law and order

Asked about the Prime Minister’s concerns with respect to Law and Order given the spate of recent well publicised violent crime, the PMOS said that, as we had said many times, we had to keep the actual level of crime in perspective. It was going down. That did not diminish the concern towards individual outrages as we had seen and they will be investigated fully. The Prime Minister had put anti-social behaviour right at the centre of his agenda. That would continue to be the case and he would be addressing that later this week with an emphasis on the Government’s respect agenda. He would not preview that now.

Asked of the Prime Minister had full confidence in Charles Clarke the PMOS said yes. The Prime Minister believed that the position of Home Secretary was one of the most difficult jobs in Government. The issue of terrorism was particularly difficult and the Home Secretary had the Prime Minister’s full support. It seemed to him that that a lot of the recent press coverage of the Home Secretary and terrorism was sourced in an article written by Anthony Seldon on Sunday. He didn’t do this often, but he wanted to make it clear that that article was plain wrong. Asked if anyone had been ordered not to talk to Anthony Seldon, the PMOS said that he wasn’t aware that anyone had been talking to Anthony Seldon, so there was no need to order anyone not to talk to him. Quite the reverse, in that people had been asked to speak to Mr. Seldon but had refused.

Asked if the Prime Minister would express similar support for Sir Ian Blair, the PMOS said that clearly the Prime Minister had recognised the very difficult role the Met. performed. The public were fully aware of how hard the Met. and its Commissioner were working. No one was complacent about the threat posed and the Prime Minister fully supported the Met. and Sir Ian Blair in their efforts.

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"The issue of terrorism was particularly difficult…"

At last, something I can agree with the PMOS on. It must have been EXTREMELY difficult to keep the lid on the governments involvement in 7/7. Just ask Jean Charles De Menezes. Oh, you can’t – they killed him.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 31 Aug 2005 on 6:14 pm | Link
"Asked if the Prime Minister would express similar support for Sir Ian Blair, the PMOS said that clearly the Prime Minister had recognised the very difficult role the Met. performed."

So difficult, in fact, that they need assistance from SAS assassins…
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 31 Aug 2005 on 6:17 pm | Link
" The public were fully aware of how hard the Met. and its Commissioner were working…"

…to cover up his and their parts in the cover-up of the 7/7 bombings and the outrageously brutal murder of Jean Charles de Menezes…
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 31 Aug 2005 on 6:18 pm | Link
"No one was complacent about the threat posed…"

…by our own Government…
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 31 Aug 2005 on 6:19 pm | Link
"and the Prime Minister fully supported the Met. and Sir Ian Blair in their efforts…"

…to keep the public cowed with fear in order to push through their racist and totalitarian "anti-terra" legislation.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 31 Aug 2005 on 6:21 pm | Link
If Seldon’s article is wrong, where is it wrong?

Blair is well aware of the libel laws and could quite easily get a public retraction or mount a case. He’s chosen to stay silent.

The PMOS also feels that it’s acceptable to ‘order’ people not to communicate. Such actions always indicate a lack of confidence in one’s position and, in this case, that lack of confidence is entirely justified.

The PMOS says that ‘people’ (Some? How many?) had been asked to speak and had refused, that he (the PMOS) is unaware of any who had talked to Seldon. But the PMOS does not say that no-one has talked to Seldon.

Seldon is not going to be so stupid as to publish an article which is groundless. Even Gilligan made some effort to establish facts and sources.

As to ‘reported crime’ statistics, well we’ve been here before countless times. How accurate are they and do they genuinely reflect most people’s experience?
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 1 Sep 2005 on 1:19 pm | Link
Sorry, just an afterthought.

No doubt the public is well aware that the Met and its Commissioner are working very hard. The question is, what are they working on, apart from ‘plausible’ explanations for their most amazing cock-ups, deceits etc in recent history?

The Prime Minister ‘supports’ their ‘efforts’, but this does not sound like a ringing endorsement of the man and his men to me.
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 1 Sep 2005 on 1:28 pm | Link
The PMOS and Tony Babes must be the ONLY two people in the Country who even SAY they believe crime is going down – oh and maybe Clarke too, as he HAS to stay onside.
To change crime statistics now requires a change of heart in the home, school and judiciary – and that isn’t going to happen yet awhile so crime will keep going up – and especially violent crime including gun related crime.
Labour has had it wrong from the start in this area and it keeps getting worse – when will they admit what is actually going on as opposed to what they hope MIGHT be happening?
Comment by roger — 1 Sep 2005 on 1:34 pm | Link
"Those who talk about the peoples of our day being given up to robbery and similar vices will find that they are all due to the fact that those who ruled them behaved in like manner."
— Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses, III (29)
Comment by JK5 — 1 Sep 2005 on 2:42 pm | Link
Lets look at the equation – partly the thoughts of someone I spoke to recently.

Government enacts loads of new Laws
Government withdraw most of Legal Aid
Judiciary do their job
Prisons get overloaded
Government can’t understand why the prisons are full
PM tells us crime is decreasing

Silly question but how can crime decrease if you enact new laws?
either the laws are futile or you convict more people

If crime is decreasing why do we need new laws?

When will it be a crime for the PM to Lie?
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 1 Sep 2005 on 6:45 pm | Link
….the PM to lie?
How about Gordie and the rest of the boys. How many have resigned for doing just that?
And how about Gordie, so fond of boasting at each budget how he has "control" of spending, will be hard put to get even the Treasury guys to work a miracle on our growth rate % this time.
Comment by roger — 6 Sep 2005 on 4:28 pm | Link
Crime is lowest in egalitarian societies. Under Blair, the gulf between richest and poorest has widened, and Blair has declared that he is "relaxed" about this retreat from egalitarianism. In other words, Blair is pursuing policies which are most likely to increase crime, not to diminish it. Why do we need to emulate the US, one of the most inegalitarian and consequently violent and crime-ridden societies on earth, rather than for example Sweden?
Comment by Michael McCarthy — 6 Sep 2005 on 7:05 pm | Link

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» Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Law and order

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