COULD THIS BE PART OF THE ANSWER

A police initiative in North Lanarkshire has cut serious violent crime by 20% by identifying and tackling problem families and working with agencies to help find work for young people in trouble using a mix of persuasion and compulsion..

Statistics from the police division show there have been 90 fewer victims of serious assault in the past year – with estimated savings of £2 million for the police and NHS: dramatic results by anyone’s standards.

Like everywhere else there are a small number of people responsible for most of the crime. By concentrating on them, the results have been astounding:

Youth disorder reduced by 43% in the last two years;

serious assaults reduced by 20% last year and down a further 14% so far this financial year;

overall violence cut by 22%, including murder and attempted murder.

Having been identified as been on the verge of crime, the kids are taken on Outward Bound weekends after initially working with the police for a few months, They get to know the police and the police get to know them and barriers are broken down. Following from that the kids may go into training or employment, through contacts with other agencies.

Some kids come from families with maybe three generations of worklessness. They are people who are alienated from normal society and breaking  that mould requires proactive work.

It seems that the police almost act like surrogate parents, role models which the kids have never had. And it may seem like it’s hardly the cops’ jobs, but whatever anyone says, if it works, it works. It costs £40,000 to keep a person in prison for a year; and when they come out, they are virtually unemployable. This is vastly cheaper, and kids without prison records are much easier to get into work.

I hope Kenny MacAskill will look very carefully at this scheme and its cost effectiveness with a view to suggesting spreading it over a wider area, and then maybe over all of Scotland.  

A saving of that size over the entire country would make a huge difference financially, but think how much safer the streets would be.

Let’s also hope that the police can work too with Shona Robison, the sports minister, with a view to getting one of the hub sports facilities that come as part of the Commonwealth games. Although I’m no sportsman myself, I’m convinced that in sport lies the answer to many of our youths’ problems.

CHARITABLE MOVES BY TWO TOP LEGAL FIGURES IN EDINBURGH

The Sunday Post carries a story which shows three people in rather a good light.

The first of these is Paul McBride QC, who as a member of the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB), working a few days a month for them, is entitled to a salary of £9,000 + expenses for each of the next four years.

He has decided to do the work pro bono and, as such, has given up in the region of £40,000. The work of SLAB is to administer civil and criminal aid payments in Scotland.

Mr McBride, who is one of Scotland’s top QCs, said that he thought that, with the level of constraint in the country at present, it was appropriate for those who could afford to, to set an example. He had been highly critical of Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release the Lockerbie bomber last year, and his re-appointment to the board, a post in the gift of the Scottish government, had come as a surprise to many in the legal profession not least himself.

Mr McBride said that he had appreciated the “non-partisan” gesture by Mr MacAskill, and had decided that he would donate his salary and expenses to charity. He said that it was unfortunate that so many people thought that people in public service were there for the money, rather than to provide a service and he wanted to help reverse that view. He was following in the footsteps of his colleague, the chief executive of SLAB, Lindsay Montgomery, who donated £20,000 of bonuses to charity.

So credit is due to both these men. It’s fair to say that they both receive very generous salaries and payments and Mr McBride has certainly earned a good deal of money over the past years, but nonetheless, their gestures are examples to others who are rich enough not to need their entire salaries... and frankly will make people who are paid vast amounts and do not need the money, but keep it all the same, look rather greedy.

Credit too, is due to Kenny MacAskill. Whatever you think of his politics, or indeed his decision to release Al Megrahi, it would be easy for him to favour only those who agree with him when it comes to public appointments. And he didn’t.

It’s a real change to discuss good news. But it’s a nice one.

ANY QUESTIONS: WHAT A TRAVESTY

Yesterday Radio 4’s “Any Questions” came from the Harvest Field Centre in Sutton Coldfield, a leafy suburb of Birmingham.

Eddie Mair’s guests on the panel were Baroness Ruth Deech, Chairman of the Bar Standards Board, Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, author and historian Alex von Tunzelmann and Maajid Nawaz, founder of the Quilliam Foundation.

It was brought to our attention by Cynical Highlander that 36 minutes into the programme there was a discussion about the release of Al Megrahi. I found some of the comments quite literally incredible.

The Noble Deech said:

"If Scotland wants to be independent, OK be my guest, go ahead do what you want and please take back with you all the Scottish politicians, there are so many of them you know, starting with Blair, (sic) Brown and Campbell (sic). Take them all back and off you go and go off on your own because actually we are all subsidizing them, I think, by way of benefits and all sorts of reasons and if they want to show how independent they are, then OK thank you and goodbye."

Nice delivery by the way Your Baronessness!!

But she wasn’t the only one who insulted us.

Douglas Murray’s (Eton and Oxford) remit as being a director of social cohesion clearly doesn’t run to any kind of cross border friendships because he certainly cares very little for us or our politicians. What a load of hatred spewed from this guy.

This is what he said: “There is not very much to do if you are the Scottish Justice Secretary in a devolved Scottish Assembly (sic). You can at least read the one important bit of news that’s come across your desk in the last five years (sic). The problem that I think, (sic) the most galling thing about this whole thing is this pretend, horrible, charade building in Edinburgh called the Scottish Parliament and the horrible charade politicians who inhabit it and who occasionally crawl out of the darkness and explain something to the rest of us, as if we’ve never thought of moral questions before. I mean Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond these horrible grandstanding, Mickey Mouse politicians have been parading around talking about the unique compassion of the Scottish people. We are uniquely compassionate no one else feels compassion like me. I’m feeling so compassionate at the moment I can hardly bare it.”

What a tosser.

OK. If you do not believe the Scottish government, if you think that Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond were so incredibly stupid that they let a supposed mass murderer out of prison, knowing that he would live for another 10 years, then doubtless you will be very angry with them.

But Alex Salmond is a wily character. Even his worst enemies would give him that. He knew that this would be raked over not just by Scottish politicians but by the politicians of the most powerful country in the world. With respect to any Labour, Tory or Liberal leaders in parliament most of them have been walked all over by Salmond. The international stage was going to be a very different kettle of fish. Questions would be asked by some of the most powerful people in the world.

Salmond knew that. He knew he would be questioned by, Obama, Clinton and members of the Senate and House of Representatives... He knew the eyes of the world would be on him... and the decision he, or Kenny, made.

I simply don’t believe that he made it for any other reasons than the ones that he gave. He’s just not that gullible

Mickey Mouse panellists on the BBC playing for a laugh and quite clearly being carried along once they knew they had the English audience on side should be ashamed of themselves. The programme in question is a respected vehicle for intelligent political discussion. If panellists are looking for a cheap laugh, the ‘Now Show’ or the ‘News Quiz’ is the correct place to look for paying employment.

But the clear hatred of Scots, and Scots politicians (all of them) and of the Scottish parliament was made more than clear by the warm reception that these people's rants got from the Sutton Coalfield audience.

They may be the best advertisement for Scottish Independence possible. The SNP could begin to afford this kind of publicity.

Tape it Alex, and use it in the campaign!


Pics: Deech, MacAskill and Murray.

IF YOU CAN'T SHOW RESPECT FOR SCOTLAND, DON'T EXPECT ANY FROM SCOTLAND

Before I say anything else let me make it clear that, if it is proved beyond doubt that there was collusion between the Scottish government or Kenny MacAskill, and the foul Libyan regime of the slimy chancer Qaddafi, the odious London Labour regime of Gordon Brown and his seedy lord chancellor Straw man, or the greedy, grasping, money-grabbing, BP management, then I shall tear up my SNP membership card and vote for another nationalist party.

That said, I find it hard to believe that Kenny or Alex wouldn’t be wily enough to realize that the release of the supposed Lockerbie bomber was likely to cause so much of a stir in places where it mattered, ie Washington DC, that they would have to be mentally deranged to have got involved with anything even vaguely dodgy in its respect.

Embarking on this exercise I would imagine that, had I been Kenny, I would have been aware that my every move would be scrutinized, first in Scotland by the opposition parties, then by the London politicians, not to mention by every new programme, broadsheet newspaper, and finally by the government of the USA. This, if nothing else would have encouraged me to go, not just by the book, but by every single letter of the book.

At this moment I am so angry with David Cameron that I doubt if I shall sleep tonight.

I have watched and listened with growing incredulity at the news reports of Senators wanting to summon (yes, summon, if you please) Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to appear before them, of the criticisms and demands of the USA for inquiries into how the Scottish government conducts its lawful business, of criticism from Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama, and finally of the banal utterances of David Cameron preparing for his first official visit to the Whitehouse, but whilst in England.

But what drove me over the edge was Cameron criticizing the workings of the Scottish government whilst he was in the United States. Doubtless this was done in an effort to worm his way closer into the affections of Mr Obama (and thereby sticking it to Gordon Brown, whom the president clearly disliked passionately).

Speaking at the White House, Cameron said: “It was a bad decision, it shouldn’t have been made. This was the biggest mass murderer in British history.”

There used to be a rule in politics, based on decency.

You do not criticise things at home when you are abroad. The reason for the rule was, of course, that those whom you were criticising, being thousands of miles away, would not be given an opportunity to tell their side of the story. Clearly Dave, in his desire for a pat on the head from his boss saw fit to ignore that old fashioned courtesy.

Cameron has clearly shown so shortly after announcing a respect agenda for Scotland, that he has none. We didn’t vote for him... and we are unlikely to do so in the future, so he doesn’t give a stuff about us.

So... don’t be too surprised Mr Cameron, if we don’t have much in the way of respect for you.

And just a wee word about the American senators who face re-election in a few months, and the president, who wants desperately not to lose too many seats in the Senate... You guys think of yourself as the most Christian country in the world. So, you will doubtless be aware that the Christian part of the Bible instructs individuals, in the Lord’s Prayer, to “forgive those who trespass against us” and Christians are warned in Romans 12:19 to “... avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

More or less what Kenny said actually? Just something to think about.

Please also have a look at:

http://darklochnagar.blogspot.com/2010/07/message-from-scotland-to-usa-fuck-off.html (strong language warning, but a brilliant post.)

and


http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2010/07/david-milibands-severe-case-of-false.html (The best Scottish politics blog ever...)

and


http://nomoradiaspora.blogspot.com/2010/07/bile-is-rising.html

English Tories adopt SNP policy

Kenneth Clarke the English Justice Secretary will set himself on a collision course with traditional Conservatives today by raising the prospect of thousands fewer criminals being sent to jail. Reports the Times.

In his first major speech since returning to government, the Justice Secretary will say that short-term sentences are ineffectual warehousing at best and often turn petty crooks into serious offenders.

“Many a man has gone into prison without a drug problem and come out drug-dependent,” Mr Clarke will say at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies in King’s College London. His speech will be a devastating criticism of the “prison works” policy first proclaimed by Michael Howard, then the Home Secretary, in 1993. The speech has caused nervousness in No 10, which is concerned that it marks a dramatic shift in recent Tory party policy on law and order. David Cameron was special adviser to Mr Howard when he first advocated the policy.

The Ministry of Justice is seeking to find huge savings in its £9.6 billion annual budget. Mr Clarke will argue that Britain cannot afford to build more jails and should use the economic crisis to reform the criminal justice system.

Here is that usual lack of coherence between what goes on in England and what goes on in Scotland. No doubt the above mantra will sound familiar as it is something that the SNP’s Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacKaskill has been advocating for years. In Scotland the Tories jumped up and down at the very thought of not locking up minor malfeasants, as I think did the Lib Dems the current monkey to the Tory organ grinder in England. Do the Tories north and south bother to confer? Or don’t they care that they lack any semblance of coherence? No wonder a north/south divorce is on the cards. I’m sure that the Tory policy north was as a result of Tory attitudes south and now the south change tack without bothering to concern themselves with the north.

To be fair of course it seems that English Tories are not likely to be all that happy at the thought of drug addicts and the mentally ill being free to walk the streets of Tonbridge Wells. All the more so in light of Theresa May’s telling them all yesterday that 25% savings will have to be made in policing.

So is this a case of social democracy winning through? Are the Lib Dems finally going to act as a brake on the worst excesses of Toryism, at last? No sadly not they are just going to keep cranking that organ handle despite their support collapsing round them. The real crux of the matter is that keeping people in jail is expensive, and Clarke is right, putting people in prison for trivial offences creates a whole bunch of hardened recidivists and balloons minor social problems into major aspects of the broke Britain. Oh and of course once free these people become the unemployable underclass (or the lazy and idle depending on how you look at it) that spend the rest of their lives extorting dole out of the outraged of Royal Lemington Spa.

I have said that in order to make these people do something they don’t want to do (i.e. work where available) you will need a massive stick, no amount of carrots will do the job. But that is a subject for another post.

Go to jail; do not pass Go; collect your passport and go straight to Gambia

John Brown was convicted of murder at the High Court in Glasgow in 1976. He served time and, like most lifers, was released on parole. When he reoffended his parole was revoked and he was sent back to jail. Just weeks away from his second release, 6 months ago, and whilst on a routine “home visit” from Castle Huntly Prison (right), he escaped, causing considerable embarrassment to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and provoking calls for his resignation.

Now Brown has been found hanged in the small West African republic of The Gambia, a destination popular with Scottish holidaymakers.

So questions are being asked about how an inmate in one of our prisons could possibly manage to pick up his passport and flee the country. A spokesman for the Borders Agency, that much vaunted organisation supported so valiantly only the other day by Mr Woolas, when he allowed its management to award themselves bonuses of around £10,000 a piece for what he called “dangerous work” said: “If you are a prisoner, you are allowed to have a passport. When you become a prisoner, there is nothing that says ‘your ID’ has to be taken away. The only way that a passport would be stopped would be if that was asked for by the courts. And, if you are allowed to hold a passport as a prisoner, you are allowed to apply for a passport from prison.”

I’m not against the principle of home visits for prisoners close to their release date. It’s a sensible way for a long-term prisoner to re-integrate into life on the outside; a life that may well have changed immeasurably in the time that he or she has been locked away. But I have to disagree with the Border Agency spokesman when he says that the passport should not be taken away. A passport is not “your identity”. It’s a means of fleeing the country. Erm, you’d have thought that a Borders Agency manager might have grasped the significance of that.

I think that the Scottish Prison authorities might want to reflect before they let other prisoners out on licence or for home visits of any kind that it would be a good idea to confiscate passports. Surely with the electronic equipment available to them by now the Borders Agency could ensure that a prisoner's passport be confiscated electronically, if not for the entirety of their sentence, at least as soon as they are on licence and before they go missing.

If they don’t have a system for doing that, perhaps they should contribute that £300,000 that they took in bonuses for doing a wonderful job, and put that towards the installation costs.

A wonderful job my Woolas!