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Listed below are comments made by UKIntel between Friday, 8th August 2008 and Monday, 11th August 2008.

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Why hoax? 01:03am on 11 Aug 2008 Ref Comment 5.

Whilst I concur with his overall assessment of Climate Change, Global Warming, this is not however the most expensive hoax of all time.

It is in fact the most expensive fraud of all time.

Climate Change is a long standing science. Global Warming is as the name suggests a prolonged warming period and is a term within that science. Global Cooling (get used to that term, in the next 50 year climatic cycle you will hear it a lot) is a period of, not unsurprisingly, global cooling. These terms and processes have existed long before the notion that man's activities may or may not be accelerating to some degree entirely natural processes (theoretically possible) - or driving these processes in a direction that they would not otherwise be going (most improbable).

"Man made Global warming as perpertrated by the IPCC. So badly wrong that they have now renamed it Climate Change".

This is unfair. These terms are pre-existing scientific terms hijacked by the 'green' industry. For certain however they are a band wagon jumped on by scientists all over the globe to secure funding for research departments so that they can draw salaries.
Celebrating the knife 00:18am on 11 Aug 2008 Ref Comment 37.

Here here. I agree comprehensively. Well done for your responsible parenting approach instilled at an early age by your parents.

I also will buy my child an (appropriate) pocket knife as I subscribe to the same mindset as you. Fortunately however my children will be also able to carry it in the street as by the time they are old enough for me to give it to them, we will be living in New Zealand as I have given up with the insanity of the UK and am emigrating.

Your child however will probably be arrested if (s)he ventures outside the front door and you will be awarded a parenting order.

Sad but true and ultimately the point this blog is making.
Citizen and the state 00:06am on 11 Aug 2008 Ref Comment 25:

"The British people have no bill of rights. (I know, the Magna Carta but it is a bit outdated.)"

Yep. Unfortunately however all those fundamental rights laid down in law have been eroded by every piece of legislation passed since, not least by messers Blair and Brown over the last 11 years.

Take for instance (relating to the very good related blog on the celebration of the knife and knife crime) the fundamental right in the UK - as laid down in Magna Carta - the right to carry weapons in self defence.

I will say that again for anyone who may have missed the significance of this. You have the fundamental right enshrined in UK law, to carry any weapon not prohibited in law for use in self defence (if you happen to be a Protestant). In the modern context this means that according to Magna Carta you can carry a Pistol, baton, stun gun incapacitating spray etc. in self defence.

Except of course you can't.

Unfortunately these weapons and indeed any other item, bunch of keys, hair spray, metal comb etc. have all been made illegal in law if they are being carried for self defence.

Brilliant.

In fact you can only now legitimately defend yourselves with your bare hands unless you can demonstrate that the hair spray which you sprayed into the mugger's eyes, or the metal comb which you raked across his face, happened to be in your pocket and came to hand when you were assaulted, and was not carried for the purpose of fending off muggers.

Frankly all of this makes the two US bumper stickers spring to mind "Gun control is not about guns; it's about control" and "An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject".

In any case - the relationship between citizen and state - The US constitution effectively permits the right to bear arms as part of a militia to specifically to oppose an authoritarian government. In our current situation... Amen to that.
Bridging the generation gap 11:40pm on 10 Aug 2008 Ref Comment 10.

"As much as i hate to say this, near where I live there are many young mums (16-20) who just don't seem to care about their kids and let their kids run around until all hours. Until we work out why they had kids in the first place then these problems might not be solves long term".

Pretty much agree.

In answer to "Until we work out why they had kids in the first place", that is easy:

Couldn't keep her legs together....

Knew that if she was a single parent she would automatically be given a council flat ahead of everyone else....

Knew that she would have everything given to her by the state without ever having to work for it...

It was all society wot dun it to 'er innit?

Bring back the workhouse and halve my income tax.
Hidden advertising 11:27pm on 10 Aug 2008 Really.... Who? What?

Chris Brown's - Who? Forever - What? Grammy-winning rapper Jay-Z - Who?

I must be living on a completely different planet if this is relevant or of interest to anyone.

Perhaps I should try coming up to planet London more often so as to be able to start to comprehend why on earth anyone would give a tuppney ha'penny about this or a chewing gum.
The war on drugs 11:02pm on 10 Aug 2008 China appears to be flavour of the moment in the press.

China's drug's epidemic was solved almost overnight the simple expedient of rounding up all the drugs dealers, from the top level traffickers down to the local dealer on the street corner, kneeling them down... and putting a bullet in the back of their heads. The cost of the bullet (pence) was charged to the family of the deceased.

The vast majority of the above comments consist of already comprehensively discredited liberal mush which ignores both the abject failure of current 'liberal' policy and the sheer scale of human misery inflicted by the drugs trade from field to street corner. You can say what you want about 'China's (poor) Human Rights Record' however the 'liberal hand wringing' approach however has not, cannot, and will not get us anywhere. The 'Decriminalising drugs' approach will be disastrous. No matter how much money the state throws at 'combatting' the problem by diktats, 'programs', 'education', 'policing' etc. etc., the problem given human nature, almost unlimited profits to those involved in the trade and no effective sanctions is here to stay and will only get worse.

In fact the Chinese solution is demonstrably close on 100% effective, costs nothing to administer, has no ongoing costs and requires no new places in prison to be provided for.

In my opinion we will ultimately adopt this solution. The question is, how many otherwise innocent lives will be ruined, and how many billions of pounds pointlessly spent, and how much associated crime committed along the chain between Columbia and Clapham, Lash Kagar and Luton before this reality comes home? Understand that the last time you were mugged, your home broken into, your car broken into, or your credit card cloned, the chances are that you were being preyed upon to fund some part of the drugs chain. Ask yourself whether the current approach is acceptable.
Celebrating the knife 10:25pm on 10 Aug 2008 Ref Comment # 33 and #28. Soupy - it seems that you haven't recognized what is tongue-in-cheek, nor actually read what I wrote. Further in some cases you are completely correct about what SHOULD happen according to UK law, but sadly uninformed about what is actually happening

Yes, you are correct, my little parody picking up from Comment # 10 is not legally correct. In theory if you are attacked and use reasonable force (as I wrote) to defend yourself from an aggressor, you should never in law be held to have acted unreasonably.

Unfortunately for your argument there have been innumerable instances reported in recent years where entirely innocent people have been arrested, detained, interrogated, DNA tested (and their records retained despite subsequently having not been charged), and put through months of misery before having all charges dropped. You might - and probably would say - that this demonstrates that the system works perfectly, however the reality is that all these case do is discourage the vast law abiding majority from taking a stand against the disruptive feckless minority. This has lead directly to the downwards spiral in law and order that we currently see with 'antisocial behaviour' or downright 'petty' criminality being tolerated. As I clearly stated, it is the perception, not necessarily the (legal) reality.

Further I hate it when people wheel out the 'Tony Martin' case. He shot an unarmed fleeing man in the back outside his home (albeit on his land) with an unlicensed shotgun and legally got everything he deserved. He was undoubtably guilty of the crime he was convicted of, although in fairness (in my view) the mitigation was so strong that he should never have been imprisoned. Nevertheless this is not a representative case. Far better the recent case in the news of the teacher who discharged a 'firearm' in the street and was arrested, charged and convicted of a firearms offense. That the 'firearm' was a BB pellet gun which you would knock tin cans over with in the garden without making much more than a dent, that she had made numerous complaints to the police about the harassment she and her family had been subjected to by the gang in question, and that she had called the police for help minutes before the incident and been told that no officers were available to help, is apparently irrelevant. Infact police only bothered attending when she snapped and informed the 999 operator that she had a 'gun' (which in reality she didn't) and was going to sort the gang out herself. At that point there were plenty of police to attend the 'crime'. You really couldn't make this up.

I particularly like the statement "Please do not believe this, nor tell others it's true. The law is always on the law abiding citizens side - and that will never change. In most of the cases where this does not appear to be the case - the 'law abiding citizen', was not in fact law abiding at all". Actually the above case of the teacher with the BB pistol is a case in point of how fatuous your view is. As a law abiding person (person A in my sketch) the law was quite clearly not able to act for her, through a campaign of sustained abuse by a gang of thugs (person B in my sketch), and did absolutely nothing to help her or her family. The law only acted when she, as an easy target took matters into her own hands. She came of worst. Now you in your statement would say that she was not 'a law abiding citizen' because she went off of her property onto the pavement and discharged a pellet into the ground by the feet of her aggressors. Legally this is true, she committed a crime, but actually only supports my argument that the law is a complete ass which does not support the fundamentally law abiding and where conflict occurs cannot differentiate between a gang member with a MAC10 and a teacher with a BB gun. When pC turned up he should have told her not to be so stupid and arrested the gang members for a breach of the peace before searching them for weapons and drugs. What actually happened was legally correct, morally indefensible and turns justice on its head. There are plenty more example of this. The arrest of two individuals for 'kidnapping' who recently made a perfectly legitimate citizens arrest springs to mind.

The point of my original posting which you entirely missed, is that the legal reality which you correctly state is entirely irrelevant so long as the perception persists that the law is not on the side of the law abiding. I stated:

"It is this fear of the state by the law abiding which is causing antisocial behaviour in all its forms to spiral because quite simply, the law abiding do not feel able to take action or intervene in any way lest they end up in the cells. Untill this dire situation (or the perception of this situation) is clearly reversed, crime and general disorder will only get worse".

This is entirely accurate no matter what the law theoretically states.

You also state that:

"You have to remember that person A would have to be found guilty by jury - and as jury members HAVE to be law abiding (no crims allowed I'm afraid) - the chances of conviction are near 0. If person A states that they were in fear of their live (even if their life was not threatened) - there is no case for B".

Without going off topic into an opinionated debate into the quality of juries, I would simply point out that most law abiding people would now simply accept a police caution (constituting a criminal record) whether or not they have actually done anything wrong, to avoid risking embarking down the legal route of a trial, with the spurious outcomes which might be generated, or more to the point, the time, stress and expense required to prove that they are innocent. (Yes I do know the difference between presumption of innocence and proving that you are innocent and for the most part the presumption of innocence does not appear to be be the starting point for the CPS when dealing with the law abiding).

As an aside, even if no charges are forthcoming, what moral right do the police have to retain the DNA of an entirely innocent person?
Celebrating the knife 10:25am on 08 Aug 2008 Comment #10 is spot on, however I would go one further as the situation is now in reality much more skewed in favour of the irresponsable person B.

The responsible person A is going about his legal business in the street and is unarmed.

A is approached by the irresponsable person B who is armed and intent on relieving A of his wallet containing his hard-earned cash. This is required to feed B's drug habit. Person B pulls a knife.

Unfortunately for person B, A takes exception to B's criminal behaviour and is morally obliged to decline the invitation to hand over his wallet. Being a fairly well built chap A defends himself using reasonable force and person B suffers hurt feelings and a cracked nail as he is forceably separated from the contents of his cuttlery draw.

PC Plod (person pC) arives on scene and decides for some reason that 'a dispute' (you can b***dy say tha again) has occured between person A and person B, whose 'rights' are now for some inexplicable reason equal even though person B is clearlt a knife wielding thug well known to the Police, and person A is just trying to get home from work.

A is fingerprinted, DNA tested, and charged with assault. Whilst A is held overnight in the cells, B is released without charge because "it is soceity wot dun it to 'im innit?" and is therefore free to knock over A's house during the small hours to rearm himself from the cuttlery draw and steal A's property to fund his drug habit.

The law abiding person A now has a criminal record and looses his job, his house and his wife.

Well done pC, UK law and British common sense.
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Whilst this situation is mercifully rare, it has occurred in the past and although laughable when expressed like this, it is unfortunately now a genuine concern for the law abiding.

The fact that it is rare is because most people in this situation would actually just hand over their wallet, loose £10 in cash, cancel their cards and not bother to report it (because no-one will be caught anyway and it is not worth the effort having the conversation with the administrator on the front desk of the police station, even if you can find one that is actually open) rather than risk taking a stand, or indeed help anyone else finding themselves in this position.

It is this fear of the state by the law abiding which is causing antisocial behaviour in all its forms to spiral because quite simply, the law abiding do not feel able to take action or intervene in any way lest they end up in the cells. Untill this dire situation (or the perception of this situation) is clearly reversed, crime and general disorder will only get worse.

Repealling the fatuous Human Rights Act, a European construct with no place in UK law, would be a fantastic start.

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