Today I read of members of the "notorious Johnson family", whose criminal exploits were so well known that the BBC took it upon itself to make a documentary about them. Such is the deterrent of law in this country that one of the members of the family felt he was able to say, on camera, that not only had he done "an awful lot of robbing" but that ""I would like to make it clear to the people out there, to the police and the rich people . . . if I feel the need when I have got to rob a stately home, I will do so. I will rob it and hope I don't get caught."
Clearly the police must have beamed and smiled when they heard this piece of intelligence - this programme was made in 2005, and it is only now that family members are bang to rights, serving terms of up to eleven years as guests of Her Majesty. So that's eleven years for what the judge described as "one of the most serious examples of conspiracy to burgle ever to come before the court, considering the amounts involved. Little of the property has been recovered and is no doubt well hidden in the countryside or passed on for disposal."
All the members of the gang had form; there is the minor detail of seventy million pounds' worth of goods still missing ; it has taken the collective talents of five police forces to bring these criminals to book, and the most any of them is likely to spend in prison is five and a half years, parole being what it is. In fact, I suspect some idiotic member of the government will probably go so far as to say that because it was "only" burglary, what with the crowding in our prisons, perhaps these sentences are a little onerous.
There are other reports in the papers of criminals continuing to run their criminal empires from behind bars, so no doubt that Johnson family will have made contingency plans so that the rest of their family can continue to live in the style to which they have become accustomed.
It seems there really is no justice. The insurance companies, who presumably have to pay out on these sorts of thefts, must wonder why we bother having a police force, and the police themselves admit that since these felons were apprehended, the number of crimes on their patch has fallen significantly, but that it is highly unlikely that any more of the stolen goods will be recovered.
So what price honesty these days? Do you think that knowing you have seventy million stashed away somewhere would soften the blow of being banged up for five and a half years? It's hardly what you might call draconion sentencing. What I don't understand is why these people will be allowed out at all: they are clearly unrepentant and will return to their bad ways as soon as they are able. If Britain is a safer place with them removed from the streets, it would seem to me obvious that to release them is to ask for trouble.
In the meantime, any young people wringing their hands over an uncertain future have only to look and learn. If you are a little less ambitious - if, say, you set yourself the task of stealing merely a million, you might well get away with it. And the penalties? Well, for a first offence, you'll probably only get community service, so just take care, that's all. It seems the law is on your side.
I live in fairly near the centre of town, on quite a busy road, thus the most exciting thing I ever see in my garden is normally a squirrel. Today, though, I have just seen a large bird of prey taking off with a bird in its claws. From the evidence left behind I think the unfortunate victim must have been a pigeon.
I was standing at the back door waiting for the kettle to boil, and idly glanced out into the garden. Immediately outside the back door is the washing line, but I could see something unusually large standing on one side of the lawn, sheltered by an overhanging tree. It was big - so much so that I had to look again to see whether one of the children had put something out there as a joke. When I opened the back door, it took off, with its prey dangling beneath it. All that is now left is a flurry of feathers in the grass, which, had I not seen the perpetrator of this act, I would have blamed on our two cats, which are notorious hunters, and not above bringing their spoils into the house.
Now, of course, I want to know what sort of bird it was. My impression was of a large brown bird - it had its back to me. It wasn't pretty enough to be a red kite - looking at pictures on Google images, it looked most like a Harris hawk, which seems a little unlikely. Perhaps the ornithologists here can help.
I am, alas, not surprised to read that Gordon Brown is not only attending the Olympics himself (why, one wonders, when he is hardly what you might term a sportsman, by any interpretation of the term) but is also taking along twenty hangers-on. Apparently, a Downing Street spokesman was found who was able to say, with no discernable trace of irony, that "the Prime Minister's staff had "worked hard to ensure that the appropriate number of staff accompany him"
Appropriate for what? Obviously, the Prime Minister needs a couple of flunkies to carry bags and answer ‘phone calls, but I hadn't realised that he was now in the Prince Charles league of needing people to put his toothpaste on his toothbrush for him - I can think of no other convincing explanation for such an entourage.
Perhaps he does not wish to be seen to be outdone by the 437 members of the BBC, who will also be sent at our expense - this may be thirty-three more than went to Athens, but what's thirty three between friends, when we are stumping up three million for them to be able to go?
The excuse, it seems, is the fact that we will be hosting the games in 2012 - so in addition to the obscene sums of money that the taxpayer will be expected to find for what is to go on at home, we are also stumping up "£240,000 bill for 39 Metropolitan Police staff to go on a fact-finding tour in Beijing, while Dorset Police will send four people to find out how to police the 2012 sailing event and Greenwich council, which will help host the gymnastics in 2012 in the O2 Arena, is sending six officials at a cost of £14,000."
This is, of course, just the beginning of four year's forking out for two weeks that most of us wish were not taking place. If nothing else can persuade us that it is high time for the Olympics to be located in perpetuity in Athens, with the rest of the world paying a subscription - an entrance fee, if you like - to take part, surely the amounts of money bandied about in such cavalier fashion by our supposedly prudent Prime Minister and his entourage should persuade us that the time has come when such shockingly profligate sums of money can no longer be afforded for something that is entirely frivolous.
While the rest of us are tightening our belts and wondering how we will afford to shop at our supermarket of choice, the Prime Minister is justifying an entourage of twenty - so that's twenty of his henchman who will not be doing any work back home; will be ignoring the credit crunch, the repossessions and the prospect that ever more of our pensioners will be freezing to death this winter.
It would, perhaps, be uncharitable to hope that they will all come home with some sort of smog-related disease, or strange Eastern affliction, but I can think of nothing else that will bring them up short to face for themselves the filthy hospitals that the rest of us are compelled to attend. I should think the seven million pounds that we are spending to send politicians, civil servants and BBC staff to China could have been better spent on our failing NHS - for that sort of money, quite a few hospitals could have paid for the pest controllers that have had to be called in fifty times over the past two years. So when you see Brown with his rictus grin at the closing ceremony, just consider how much it has cost all of us to send him there. For my money, it really isn't worth it.
Sabina -
Perhaps it's the latest incarnation of Agness Clamdigger. (I'm afraid I find it hard to take seriously one who cannot even press the shift key before writing "I", who, in comments insists on putting "ive" instead of "I've" in an implausible attempt to come across as a horny handed son of toil, and yet whose writing is singularly free of spelling mistakes!)
Huw -
Well, I am in Suffolk, and the only proposal for us is two unitary councils - we in the southern half are to be joined up with Felixstowe and called (wait for it) North Haven. This fix will be led by Ipswich Borough Council (so more power, perks etc to their elbow) and what really irks me is that they are able to argue, with a straight face, that this will at once improve efficiency and also "give the community its own say". Apparently the name comes from the fact that we are "the northern part of the Haven Gateway sub-region" - I did not know this until I looked it up on the web, and I think it would be a fair bet that if you were to stand in the centre of Ipswich and ask people what they knew of the Haven Gateway sub-region, they wouldn't have a clue.
Mr Hemmett -
That you can say this with apparent seriousness in the week that Alexander Solzhenitsyn died, is truly astonishing - so much so that I begin to wonder whether you can actually be in earnest. I don't suppose you read the Economist - its leading article this week addresses the question of who now dares speak the truth to power, and contains the line, "many of Russia's intellectuals have connived in Valdimir Putin's project to neuter democracy and put a puppet-show in its place." Do you really admire such two-dimensional government, Mr Hemmett, and would you, in fact, hope to see such a form of government imposed here? I have two words to say to you, and they are Anna Politkovskaya. Any real man of "leadership and drive" would be able to put up with the exposures of investigative journalism.
City Chick -
If you have a sprung slatted base, then you will be able to have a pocket-sprung mattress, which, like Ferret, I would wholeheartedly recommend. My best piece of advice is to go to a showroom and lie on a few mattresses to see what you like - it is, after all, a personal matter - and then buy your bed accordingly.
razputin -
What I am saying is that getting caught is no longer a deterrent, as the penalties and the crime seem to bear no relationship to each other. If you can steal millions and stash away your ill-gotten gains with impunity, then the criminal fraternity will laugh at the honest majority who not only suffer at their hands, but also fork out to keep them in playstations and choice of dinners in our drug-ridden prisons. The fact that criminals are able to run their rackets out of prison tells me everything I need to know about the element of punishment and reform involved, if those banged up do not even pause to draw breath before carrying on their illegal operations.
cropper -
If what we do with our criminals is to imprison them, and there are not enough places, then build a few more prisons.
I still think there's a lot to be said for exile....
elle-
"It is estimated that half the population of Britain will be watching the Olympics on their Television sets."
Well, I shall be in the other half.
Good morning, Owen -
This is a subject about which I feel passionately - I read the account in the Times yesterday www.timesonline.co.uk/tol...
in which some of Ken Smith's more illiterate proposals were put forward. The idea that a university lecturer could in all seriousness make such a suggestion shows the depths to which any sort of academic endeavour in this country has sunk - but then, criminology? And Bucks New University? I quote from the first page of their own website: "Bucks New University previously Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College is an excellent choice for your University Education." Clearly such old-fashioned notions as punctuation have yet to filter through to this august institution.
Perhaps it's the latest incarnation of Agness Clamdigger. (I'm afraid I find it hard to take seriously one who cannot even press the shift key before writing "I", who, in comments insists on putting "ive" instead of "I've" in an implausible attempt to come across as a horny handed son of toil, and yet whose writing is singularly free of spelling mistakes!)