The death of an Angolan deportee raises questions about government use of private sector security firms.
The death this week of Jimmy Mubenga, who died while being deported to Angola, has thrown the spotlight on to the private security company that was employed to carry out his deportation. G4S, a FTSE 100-listed company that has operations in over 100 countries and is contracted by the British government to run prisons and carry out deportations on behalf of the Home Office.
Over at ... read more
Report shows that women are being shunted into a system designed for simpler asylum claims.
A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), published today, documents how female asylum seekers are being shunted into a fast-track system that does not accommodate the complexity of their cases.
I wrote an article for the New Statesman in October about the problems faced by women seeking asylum. Often they are fleeing persecution by their families or communities, which can be harder to prove than straightforward political pressure. There is ... read more
A new survey yields depressing results, as most female respondents say that victims are partly to blame.
The results of a survey published today suggest that more than half (54 per cent) of women think that rape victims are sometimes to blame for the crime.
Of these women, 71 per cent thought that the victim should accept responsibility if she got into the same bed as her attacker, compared to 57 per cent of men. Nearly a fifth (19 per cent) of women said the victim should ... read more
A weak defence against claims that the Tories manipulated violent crime figures.
The Tory shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, went on the Today programme this morning to deny that the Conservatives have been using misleading statistics on violent crime.
The dispute is over a claim, made by Tory Central Office, that violent crime in "broken Britain" has risen by 70 per cent in the past decade. But the statistics used to reach this conclusion are not directly comparable, due to a big ... read more
Today's IPCC decision will do nothing to tackle the endemic refusal to take rape seriously
In March 2009, Assistant Police Commissioner John Yates said that we had reached a "Lawrence moment" for rape investigations. Speaking in the wake of the convictions of two separate serial rapists -- Kirk Reid and John Worboys, who, despite being police suspects, were left free to attack more than 150 women between them -- Yates said:
We need to reinvent our response as we did in relation to homicide after ... read more
The diplomatic storm over Tzipi Livni continues
William Hague, Harriet Harman and Bob Marshall-Andrews discuss the Tzipi Livni question at PMQs yesterday.
On Tuesday, I blogged about the diplomatic row triggered by a British court issuing an arrest warrant for the former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni. It rages on.
At PMQs yesterday (watch the video above), Bob Marshall-Andrews asked Harriet Harman whether she would support the power of the courts to issue proceedings against anyone where there ... read more
Man acquitted of Jill Dando's murder awarded "substantial" payout
Barry George, the man acquitted of killing Jill Dando, has been awarded "substantial" damages and an apology from the publisher of the Sun and the News of the World.
George, who has a personality disorder, spent eight years in jail for the shooting of the BBC TV presenter before being acquitted at a retrial last year. He gave an interview because, his lawyer said: "He knew there would be a ... read more
The transfer of 70 detainees to Illinois simply passes on the problem
So, what are we to make of the Obama administration's decision to transfer about 70 of the remaining 250 or so Guantanamo detainees to the US mainland?
The White House yesterday released a memorandum directing the federal government to purchase the prison, in order to "facilitate the closure" of detention facilities at the Guantanamo Bay naval base by securing the transfer of roughly 70 inmates (according to Senator Dick Durbin, ... read more
Reports of British arrest warrant for former Israeli minister could have serious implications
Britain's legal system has had a tough rap in recent weeks. As if the furore about draconian libel laws wasn't enough, a diplomatic storm appears to be brewing over reports that a British court issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, for war crimes in Israel's offensive against Gaza last year.
The Guardian reported yesterday that Westminster Magistrates' Court issued the warrant at the ... read more
what is so irritating is the arrogant presumption that people soft-headed enough to subscribe to superstitious twaddle are somehow morally superior because they share an ill-defined delusion which...
From p stanton, 15 February 01:34
Sure, "Sir Michael". Let's honestly invent and negotiate our laws, rather than pretend they came from some magic man in the sky we don't really quite believe in. That's part of the point of RDF's...
From G Wilson, 15 February 00:37
calm down beef, you know that this dynamic will go on forever and a day.
From gmac, 15 February 00:35
Can the UK achieve it’s commitment to carbon reduction targets by 2020?
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