Saturdays serenade

I spoke yesterday about the Galloway clown. What follows is extracted from a blog run by an Iraqi. I think it is important as it gives a Muslim view on the way Galloway perverted the selection of a member of parliament.

A victory for Saddam

There is one disgraceful aspect of the British election which really stands out - it's the victory of the despicable George Galloway in the London seat of Bethnal Green & Bow. Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party for his very vocal opposition to removing Saddam from power, subsequently started a new political party Respect, moved from his native Scotland, and ran against Oona King, half-African-American, half-Jewish Labour member and a strong supporter of the liberation of Iraq.
Galloway chose his seat well - it has 40 per cent (some reports put it at 50 per cent) Muslim population - Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi, majority of them fiercely opposed to war. Neither Galloway nor his supporters, however, seem to see anything wrong, hypocritical or self-contradictory in using the democratic process to punish those who made democracy possible in Iraq. And in the end the poll in Bethnal Green & Bow did bear a passing resemblance to the Iraqi election:

Yesterday the constituency saw its largest police presence ever on polling day, with hundreds of officers on the street and some forced to drive rental cars. Every polling station had at least one officer outside it as compared to three stations on previous elections, and dozens of police patrolled Brick Lane at the heart of the constituency's Bangladeshi community. Respect's lead there, at the centre of the city's curryland, was said to be seven to one.

Galloway declared his victory as a victory for Iraq. Actually, the victory for Iraq already occurred on January 30, when millions of Iraqis, braving the guns and the bombs of thugs who fight for the man Galloway would still have ruling over Iraq, went out and overwhelmingly voted against terror and for a new and democratic Iraq. Ironically, Iraqi people risking death from suicide bombers and mortars have managed a larger turnout than voters of Bethnal Green, only 51.7% of whom voted yesterday.

This is something from a magistrate and shows the pressure they are under – due to legislation passed as a knee jerk reaction.

As a magistrate I have no political opinions. As a citizen I do.
I am committed to playing my small part in improving the criminal justice system, so here is my non-party-political wishlist for the next few years:-
Above all: give us a break from legislation. There has been an avalanche of reforms in the organisation of the courts and in the law. Such a vast edifice as the legal system needs to be reformed gradually, allowing time for changes to be tested and considered before moving on to the next new idea. Senior legal professionals whom I meet on a regular basis are more or less unanimous that much recent law was passed too quickly after inadequate debate, and that time is needed for reflection and amendment where necessary.
The administration of the courts has been in continuous change for most of the last decade. A breathing space is now needed to allow the new arrangements to settle down. Now that all court staff are civil servants the judiciary needs to defend its independence from the tick-the-box mentality of the administrators. Give us time to do that.
The Crown Prosecution Service is led by good people but they are let down every day by stupid administrative errors. Only last week I was asked to issue a witness summons in a domestic violence case. The witness first indicated that she was reluctant to come to court last January, but the CPS only asked for the summons in the first week of May for a trial due to start in the second week of May. There is now almost no chance that the trial will go ahead, which will cause great expense and inconvenience, and there is no justice in that. Get the basic admin. right, and soon.
Save money if you must, but make sure that probation and drug treatment services are properly funded. In the long run that will save a fortune, and reduce the tide of misery that washes through our courts every day.
Finally, trust the courts. The tabloids will never be satisfied but there are at least four years before the next election. Don't legislate every time that the Daily Mail gets into a panic; judges magistrates and staff in the system are citizens who have real lives too, and they will be better employed fine tuning the law than in struggling to understand some half-cocked reform.

These bits from someone else’s opinions are lazy. I really should be posting my own opinion but they put the point across much better than I could so I think this is justified – just occasionally. I/we (me and the dog) have been busy little bees today. I went up to the big garden centre and spent ages just browsing about in the bedding plants area. One of the reasons we liked this flat is that it has no garden – I had had enough of the pressure to keep up with everyone when we lived in Kent. Mowing, weeding, tying-in, watering, mowing, planting dada dada. I like to see plants and there were quite a few varieties today that were new to me. Then I got lost in the pet shop amongst the tropical fish. They have marine fish as well and there were some strange and wonderful things there. Grow your own prawns anyone? I missed the hamsters, rats and other four-legged things and then started dreaming about having a bird. That had to stop – I can just imagine old pointy-nose if she saw a bird in the room. Garden furniture fit for parties at Buck House. BBQ large enough for a whole posse of cowboys. I was going to annoy the butterflies but the dog was gasping for a run so we had to move on. We ran across to the coast where swimming and hunting took the puff out of her sails. Coming back via the picnic area meant more swimming and running so peace might come tonight as she snores away on the sofa. The garden centre has a new deli section and I stocked up there so dinner should be veeery niceee.