current affairs, freedom of speech, thoughts

Human Rights and MPs' Expenses

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Bystander, over at The Magistrate’s Blog, has posted the list of our human rights, as promulgated in the European Convention on Human Rights and enacted in the UK via the Human Rights Act 1998. This list is:

  • the right to life
  • freedom from torture and degrading treatment
  • freedom from slavery and forced labour
  • the right to liberty
  • the right to a fair trial
  • the right not to be punished for something that wasn’t a crime when you did it
  • the right to respect for private and family life
  • freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom to express your beliefs
  • freedom of expression
  • freedom of assembly and association
  • the right to marry and to start a family
  • the right not to be discriminated against in respect of these rights and freedoms
  • the right to peaceful enjoyment of your property
  • the right to an education
  • the right to participate in free elections
  • the right not to be subjected to the death penalty

Nothing there which one can reasonably object to, of course. Although all these rights (with the exception of torture) are not absolutes and can be overridden by the authorities, eg. in order to arrest a suspect.

The one which stood out to me reading this was

the right not to be punished for something that wasn’t a crime when you did it

I am not a lawyer but this seems to me to negate the whole of the MPs’ expenses fiasco. What MP’s have done was (mostly) not forbidden when they did it. That doesn’t say the rules, and therefore what was done, were right, only that the rules allowed what was done. It is only now that what the MPs did is being made forbidden, retrospectively. That seems contrary to the above right.

Is that alone not grounds for a judicial review? And what is anyone therefore complaining at the MPs for?

Remember that anything not explicitly forbidden by the rules (or legal precedent) is permitted. And if something is permitted, someone will (quite legally) take advantage of it, even if that was not your intent when making the rules.

You can try arguing, as the Daily Mail no doubt will, that the MPs “should have known better”. But really this doesn’t hold water. Why should MPs be any more (or less) moral than the rest of us? They were taking advantage of the rules in good faith (even if perhaps somewhat cynically) in the quite reasonable belief that they would (could) not be changed retrospectively. We all do exactly the same every day of our lives. For example: the law allows me today to drive at 50mph along the A40; in doing so I have a reasonable expectation that I will not be prosecuted for my action today, after the limit is lowered to 40mph tomorrow.

Yes, by all means campaign for the rules on MPs’ expenses, or indeed anything else, to be changed. But don’t vilify someone for adhering to those rules just because you (retrospectively) decide you don’t like them. At worst this violates that great institution “natural justice” and at best it is contrary to our legally enshrined human rights. Perhaps the tabloid press should be prosecuted under the Human Rights Act 1998?

PS. Note that I am not saying whether I agree or disagree with the rules on MPs’ expenses. My personal opinion is of no importance here as I am making a purely logical point about my understanding of our legally enshrined human rights.

current affairs, memes, personal, photography

Mini Sports Meme


Mini Sports Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is about sport.

1. Your favourite sport. Cricket — really good club cricket; I’ve given up on professional cricket: not only has it been dumbed down the idiots running the game seem totally inept
2. Your least favourite sport. Darts; the only place it belongs, if anywhere, is in the pub
3. A sport you use to play as a kid. Cricket was my first love, followed by hockey
4. A sport you like to watch. Rugby; I hated playing rugby at school, but always enjoyed watching it
5. The most stupid sport. Netball; how stupid is a game where you have to stop when someone is holding the ball?
6. A sport you wish you could play. Squash, although I’d settle for almost anything now my knees have given up; I used to play a lot of squash as a student, not that I was ever any good!

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. Village Cricket, 2. 127/365: Dart board, 3. The Fever named Cricket!, 4. Mini Rugby Tournament Cooke Rugby Club – 4th April 2009, 5. neilhodgins_volley_netball-18, 6. squash

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

current affairs

Selling the Family Silver

So our pathetic government is planning to sell off even more of the family silver. Well they would; they’re desperate for more money and anything they can do to make the state of our finances look healthier before a General Election. The proposals, which will actually raise at best a drop in the ocean national debt, include the sale of:

Eurotunnel. Yeah, great idea. Let the French, Spanish, Libyans or Saudis buy it. So we have no control at all of who can enter the country. We need more (illegal) immigrants.

Student Loan Book. Another great idea! Let’s package up all this bad debt and sell it off to someone else. Hold on … isn’t this where we came in??

And when should we sell these assets? Oh let’s choose to do it at the bottom for the market!

Talk about the blind leading the inept! They just do not get it do they?

amusements, memes, photography

Fictional Meme


Fictional Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme allows our imaginations to run wild by providing an imaginary/fictional name for each of::

1. Pub. The Beaver & Dyke
2. Fictional character. Willie P Gentleigh
3. Steam engine. General Puffin A Long
4. Passenger liner (or battleship). SS Lieutenant
5. Place. Rutting-in-the-Wold
6. Company. Kidney, Scrotum & Codd, Debt Collectors
7. Restaurant. The Twist of Lemming
8. Cosmetics range. Poof
9. Railway station. Muddefield Parkway
10. Army camp. Camp Tutu
11. Model of car. Nissan Hutt
12. Pet animal. My late friend Victor always wanted to call one of his cats after the Georgian artist: Pirosmanashvili

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. Beaver Lodge, 2. Hold my world gently, 3. Puffing Billy, Emerald Lake, Victoria, 4. SS Great Britain, 5. Ashridge – the Rut 2, 6. debt collectors, 7. Garden Critter Yellow Mouse, 8. the poof tree, 9. Manifest on mud flats, 10. Pride 2009 (42 of 82), 11. shed on wheels, 12. Niko Pirosmani

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

medical, personal, science

Niffiness

Some while ago Hails, over at Coffee Helps, was mulling over smells. Nice smells. Nasty smells. And it set me thinking about the same. So here are some of my favourite and most detested smells; ten of each.

Nasty Niffs

  1. Sewers. As you’ll gather from this list I don’t have a “strong” stomach; I’d never have been able to work in the emergency services or medicine.
  2. Vomit
  3. Pernod; especially Pernod and blackcurrant. Disgusting!
  4. Stagnant water
  5. Unwashed people
  6. Rubbish bins
  7. Rotting meat and maggots
  8. Tobacco smoke
  9. Wet, humid buses; which I think is related to …
  10. New cars; that petrol, plastic and leather smell just makes me feel (travel) sick and “heavey”. Actually petrol on it’s own isn’t too wonderful either.

Nice Niffs

  1. Fresh coffee
  2. Grapefruit; especially grapefruit aromatherapy oil
  3. Christmas spices; that wonderful mix of cinnamon, clove, orange, pine etc.
  4. Church incense
  5. Wood smoke
  6. Fresh baking bread
  7. Lilies
  8. The sea
  9. Lavender
  10. Jasmine

It isn’t really surprising that most people have a fairly common set of abhorred smells as this is a biological design to make us avoid things which are potentially dangerous to health (eg. rotten meat) by making us view them as disgusting. But I’m always surprised at the things which people less commonly dislike — such as Hails’s dislike of lilies, or mine of Pernod. Similarly there are smells which it seems many people love; and here I’m thinking of baking bread (often used by supermarkets as an attractant) and coffee. Again why are some smells so commonly liked; I can see no obvious foundation in biology? What is it that makes us like or dislike something with no obvious basis in biology?

Smell is a surprisingly powerful sense, despite human olfaction being incredibly poor compared with most animals. So, yes, there are smells which bring back specific, pleasurable or not, memories and these will clearly influence our choices. But why the rest of them? As far as I know I have no experiential reason to like jasmine, lilies or wood smoke; nor to dislike Pernod. So why?

And why do some of use have “stronger” stomachs than others? Surely a “strong” stomach should be an evolutionary disadvantage?

What are your most loved and hated smells? And do you know why?

books, current affairs, pleasures

Apologia Americana

1 Comment

First of all apologies for the non-existence of postings for most of the last 3-4 weeks. Yes, you guessed we’ve been away and have struggled with the quantity of the work fore-log and post-log.

Almost 3 weeks in Washington, DC – partly at the 5th Biennial Anthony Powell Conference – was certainly different. I liked Washington; I didn’t expect to. Apart from a couple of areas of high-rise office blocks it is a small and fairly human-scale city: most of the official buildings of the US government are 100+ years old, so usually only 4 or so (substantial) floors and built of light coloured stone. The public monuments are, as befits America, monumental. The streets are wide, often tree-lined, light and airy with an almost continental feel. The White House is a lot smaller than I expected and, err, white; you can stand at the railings in full view of, and not many yards from, the building and protest – unlike in paranoid London. Georgetown is full of very pretty late 18th century houses (a bit like the best parts of Chiswick, Kew or Richmond), but it is expensive!

The food was excellent, especially recommended are Papa Razzi and Mr Smith’s. The beer was cold. The weather was hot – we didn’t have a day under 75F – and humid but mostly dry. American service was not everything it is cracked up to be: the 50% of the time it was good it was excellent; when it wasn’t the customer care was equally as bad as anything you’ll find in Britain. And contrary to expectations, and warnings, the airport staff (immigration, security and customs) were polite and friendly – although immigration on the way in through Dulles Airport did take 90 minutes even at a quiet time, thanks to too few checkpoints open and a plane-load of Far Eastern tourists with large complex family structures in front of us in the queue. The taxis were friendly, efficient and much cheaper than in the UK; the metered cabs were 40% cheaper than I pay for a minicab in outer London, which makes them half the cost of London black cabs.

We even got taken to Colonial Williamsburg (thanks Alden!) which is rather delightful: interesting and a lot less Disney-esque than I expected; it isn’t cheap though, but then it is a theme park of sorts. It was a bit too hot and humid for comfort though – but a good excuse for some extra traditional cider! But why does an historic attraction like Colonial Williamsburg need not one, but two, 18-hole golf courses? It beats me!

All in all a good time was had. The flights were fun, out over the spectacular fjords of Labrador and back over night. Photos to follow on Flickr when I get some time to sort out the decent from the dross.