*BREAKING NEWS* Home Office Announces Outsourcing Deal

I am glad that most news broadcasters have stopped calling him "doctor" john reid. He's not a blooming doctor so why should he be called one. The hysteria he is currently whipping about about paedophiles is a sick PR exercise after all the bad PR the Home Office has been getting to make it look like he is "taking charge" of something at last. He's sick - he needs a doctor.

I hate the ugly pig but sorry he IS a doctor, he has completed 3 degrees (supposedly) - PhD - pity he seems to apply little of what he has learned. Medical doctors do ONE, their titles are honorary, even tho they give themselves unbelievable airs. Having done a BSc(Hons) myself, ahem, in Italy I would be called Dottore.

He's a coward and a bully and needs sacking, based on this evidence. I've just had to turn ITV News off before I kicked the telly in - no balance, no examination of issues in any depth, just kneejerk paedomania populism. That the news agenda is set by extreme right wingers like Murdoch and then slavishly followed by everyone else makes me despair. It's also a source of regret that I have to regard the relatives of victims of serious crime as stupid people who should shut up until they get a clue - 'I could have throttled the judge' indeed. Being a victim of crime doesn't make your opinions on criminal justice as valuable as gold ingots any more than being run over makes you an expert on safe car design or being in a plane crash qualifies you for a top job at Boeing.

The previous comment that we're moving towards just giving the relatives a name, address and some assault weapons is far too near the truth to be funny.

I don't know about the relatives of victims of serious crime being 'stupid people who should shut up until they get a clue'; possibly 'people who are too close to the problem to make a considered judgment' might be nearer the mark.

The best comment on this sort of thing I heard was from some American politician who was asked, in connection with his opposition to the death penalty, 'How would you feel if your wife and children were murdered?' He replied, 'I'd want to beat the murderers' brains out with a baseball bat, of course. And I hope someone would have the sense to stop me.'

It really is starting to get beyond a joke. How anyone thinks that naming paedophiles will solve anything, how making sure that they aren't placed near schools when there's no evidence that any children have been abducted or abused as a result will change anything, and why idiots like Vera Baird who clearly don't know what they're talking about (the judge followed the "formula" exactly, despite what she said) are allowed to take to the airwaves to in the first place would be beyond even the mind of Einstein.

For more details on John Reid's thesis -

Warrior aristocrats in crisis: the political effects of the transition from the slave trade to palm oil commerce in the nineteenth century Kingdom of Dahomey.

Check out this post from Iain Dale.

"possibly 'people who are too close to the problem to make a considered judgment' might be nearer the mark."

I thought about that suggestion, but wouldn't it exclude people who genuinely go out and research about what has happened to them, become expert and come up with original and worthwhile ideas? Just as being a victim doesn't automatically make you a saint whose every word is a drop of pure gold doesn't mean you should never be listened to - you should be listened to if you're worth listening to (I quite often hear about victims of crime who'd prefer a criminal justice system based around stopping people reoffending, for instance, but they don't get as much exposure, of course).

Talk about 'throttling the judge' and '[Sweeney is] a dead man walking' tends to prejudice me, unfortunately. I'm just an angry man with a keyboard, however.

About Vera and the formula, how did she ever practice successfully at the Bar with that kind of mind? Disagreeing with your boss publicly when he happens to be right should be a career-limiting move, but this is New Labour of course, so who knows? Next Home Secretary, probably. Thinking about it, if she's in the DCA she must have heard about the judges' wrestling with the CJA 2003, surely? If not, what the hell are we paying her for?

Anyway, I'm reading a couple of links from the The Yorkshire Ranter, who has an excellent, intellectual post up about what happened to evidence-based policy, touching on how to govern. Read it now and nourish your mind.

Victims of police crime don't get listened too much, though.

I was once offered the "baseball bat" option, without immediately realising it. Back in 1994 my son was killedby a Khmer Rouge gang in Cambodia. Eventually one them was caught (despite the best efforts of the Cambodian Army)and, just before he was tried, I met the trial judge. He asked me what I wanted to happen to the guy and my reply was that he should be dealt with according to Cambodian law - it doesn't include capital punishment. Afterwards the TV crew with me said, "You know he was asking you if you wanted him killed?" I was horrified because (a) I am against the death penalty and (b) I couldn't have on my conscience the damage to his wife and children if that happened.

Incidentally, in that whole story is a monumental saga of FO incompetence and Met arrogance, but I won't get started on that!