Theresa May urges calm on gun law reform

The revelation that Derrick Bird held licences for both his weapons has given fresh impetus to campaigners urging further reform of Britain’s gun laws.

As voices on both sides of the debate called for action, Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday warned against any “knee-jerk” demands, while Home Secretary Theresa May insisted that ministers would wait until all the facts are in. No doubt that means that they will wait to see the way the wind is blowing before making any decision.

It was in the wake of Hungerford and Dunblane, the last great tragedies in Britain’s firearms history, that current laws were introduced.

The events of 1987, when unemployed gun fanatic Michael Robert Ryan killed 16 people in the Berkshire town of Hungerford, prompted laws banning semi-automatic rifles and restricting access to some shotguns. Ryan, like Bird, held licences for all the weapons he used.

Dunblane renewed pressure on government to crack down on guns, and legislation brought in by the Conservatives in 1996 prohibited all handguns except .22 calibre single-shot weapons. An amendment by Labour the next year widened this to cover all pistols.

Now, however, campaigners and politicians alike recognise that any further bans on guns could impinge on their use in sport; already the Olympic shooting team has been forced overseas to practice unhindered. Right so every ten years or so we have a load of unnecessary deaths perpetrated by people who held their weapons legally in the name of sport? In that case shooting ought not to be a sport and if it is it is one that we don’t need to take part in.

Shadow Home Secretary Alan Johnson said yesterday that the key question was whether or not someone was in a fit mental state to have a weapon, but campaigners disagree about how this could ever be determined. Clearly the last three people who engaged in a gun toting rampage were not in their right minds but they still had guns legally. The answer surely is to say no more guns for any reason at all.

The former head of Scotland Yard, Ian Blair, said the Government should consider asking relatives, neighbours and workmates whether people are fit to hold a gun licence. Well thanks for that Ian what a gem! Isn’t it odd that ever since Mrs Thatcher decided that keeping insane people in asylums was too expensive the number of them killing has rocketed. Mental health services are always one of the first to be cut when the Dunkirk spirit kicks in so I guess that is why Ian wants friends and family to shoulder the responsibility.

However, Graham Showell, a campaigner who runs the Britain Needs Guns website, said: “You can’t legislate against insanity.” He believes that “if just one other person there had been armed, [Bird] would have been stopped earlier”. What a nutter! It’s the lets all have guns argument is it? Then I can shoot you if I think you have a gun? Great!

Though background surveys are carried out when a person applies for a permit – often GPs will be asked by police whether they have any concerns – there is no safeguard against the person later developing a condition that makes them unsuitable for gun ownership.

May, told the Commons that debate was “right and proper”, but that “it would be wrong to react before we know the full facts”. I wouldn’t have thought that it would take too much brains to figure out that a guy flipped his lid and murdered 12 people with guns he held legally. No doubt May does not want to reduce peoples freedoms in the name of small government or perhaps she is just personally small in the intelligence department.


Of course the 6 billion cuts needed for “New Politics”® to get its Dunkirk spirit off the ground will hit mental health hard. After all Theresa and the Tories probably think that all people suffering from depression (like Mr Bird?)are malingerers, but when they legally hold guns they are dangerous as well. What facts does she need to wait on to find that out?

Promise of no Scottish cuts this year means they are only deffered after all (just like Wales)

Chancellor George Osborne promised in an election pledge that Scotland would not face a budget cut this year because spending commitments were already set. That was part and parcel of the supposed respect agenda.

However, it has now been announced that as part of the £6 billion cuts announced by Osborne, Scotland’s share amounting to £332 millions was only in actual fact being deferred.

It is claimed that implied in the original pledge, was that any reduction not implemented this year would be borne next year. But it wasn’t exactly made clear was it?

Why not just say you can defer your cuts this year under a Tory Government but there will be double next year? Not that difficult is it? But then maybe the Scots would not have voted for the Tories in their ludicrous aspiration to gain twelve seats in Scotland. That proved no more than illusionary. And so now the wheels can start to fall off the respect agenda before it is even out of the garage.

It is now being spun that SNP’s Finance Secretary John Swinney has the choice of whether or not to implementing the cuts now or defer them till next year. It seems that John suspected all along that respect was not what was on the agenda and has in fact wisely allowed for the cuts next year.

Swinney believes he is trying to prevent a worse economic decline than is faced elsewhere in the UK.

The position adopted prior to the election by both the Labour and the Lib Dems was of course something very similar. That was naturally before Nick Clegg’s financial epiphany concerning the terrible state of Greece and the Euro, that he was unaware of 2 weeks ago. And that have caused him to do a volte face and swallow Conservative doctrine in one huge gulp and then regurgitate it as "New Politics"®.

But with no serious upturn in the world economy in sight, there is no escaping the fact that cuts not made this year will have to be made next.

So why doesn’t John want to face the pain right now? Could it be that he thinks the SNP won’t be in government next year and bad news can be blamed on the incomers? That is a bit disingenuous is it not, after all John might very well be in power next year. And if he is not it will be Labour and their policy if I remember correctly was to defer the cuts as well. (As was the Lib Dems.)

Is Osborne really sticking by a promise that spending cuts would not apply to Scotland because it had already set its budget. That promise would only have a value of about eight months anyway because early next year the Scottish Government will have to set its budget for 2011-12.

Yes he did make it clear that there would be no cuts this year. But he did not make it clear that there would be twice the cuts next year, or if he did I didn’t hear it.

Good old respect!

Guilty! Brown will leave us a legacy 20 years of hardship

I saw this over on Denverthen’s site pinched it because, whilst it’s all true, there’s more to the decisions we make than this.

We know that as things stand, even with the massive boost that the Liberal Democrats got from Nick Clegg’s appearances on the “I’m a political leader; Get me out of here” show, either the Tories or Labour will form the next government.... on Friday, perhaps with official or unofficial support from minority parties.

Labour has left the finances in a worse state than any time since the 1920s’ 30s’ crash and the great depression, and we’ve all been fooling ourselves to date about how it ‘hasn’t really hit us’ and ‘it’s not been that bad’.

Well, I suspect that it’s about to, and we are all going to learn just how nasty life can be without all the things we have got used to, regardless of who wins.

It is easy to forget with what massive enthusiasm after 18 years of Thatcher and then Major the country greeted to downfall of the Tories, and in particular of some of their major players, just as we will all over again on Friday.

The economy is in such a mess that even the Tories won't be able to fix it; at least not under Dave, who seems to have a a bit of a heart and some conscience, not to mention a bunch of no hopers around him.

Some people say ‘bring back Maggie’. If fixing the economy is the name of the game then we need someone who will care as little about the old and the sick as Ste. Margaret did, but who will, with her steely determination, carry on regardless cutting things in the way that the Greeks will have to, and that the Irish and the Icelanders have had to.

VAT to 25%, cuts in pensions and benefits including Incapacity Benefits, no new claimants for any form of DLA; massive cuts and salary reduction in the Civil Service and slicing of the final salary pension fund, the only one not affected by Brown’s butchery; 10% reductions in salaries for police, doctors, teachers too. .... no further investment in roads and rail (forget Crossrail London), and the closing ceremony for England’s Olympics will be old Cliff croaking “Congratualtions”.

Otherwise, after all the sneering that people have done at Greece and the Euro zone, we will have to call in the IMF too, and then who’ll be laughing.

Retirement homes will have to scale back, people will have to take their old and their sick into their own homes and look after them instead of the state doing it for them; women/men will have to stay at home and look after their kids unless they can afford to pay for childcare (gone the days of the lassie in Tesco earning £6 an hour and paying £10 an hour for child care).

What else can we do?

Reduce the fantastic number of politicians, particularly in the massively overpopulated old people’s home part, and the Commons down to 300 and double their constituency size so that they won’t have time to take on half a dozen outside jobs.

And a referendum on Europe. We should come out, as that would undoubtedly be the result. Everyone hates it. (It has foreigners in it you see!) That would save the massive subsidies we pay to keep it afloat. Without England it would probably crash and burn.

Then they could get rid of Scotland too, because they keep it afloat too. What a wonderful place London is, and with Scotland and the rest of Europe to support, no wonder it’s in such a mess!