8) I BELIEVE THE PUNISHMENT SHOULD FIT THE CRIME.
Wrong: Such a cursory statement, lifted straight from a Gilbert and Sullivan musical, to try and cover such a diverse problem merely proves Mr Howard’s unsuitability when it comes to making valued, in-depth judgements about far bigger issues. Here is a man (I use the word "man" in its loosest possible sense) who patches together his policy on crime and criminality with a quote from an operetta! Like the majority of his speeches of late, they are just “cut and paste” efforts......you know, cross out “dog” and insert “goldfish”; it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t turn up to the next Common’s debate in a sea-captain’s uniform, sword under arm telling everyone that he really should be the next Prime Minister as he’s “the very model of a modern major-general.”
Now, you may think that it’s OK to have a Prime Minister who quotes from turn of the century musical pieces in order to formulate policy; maybe you'd feel better if we had a leader who’s well versed in the plebian arts, can whistle snatches from most G&S operettas and all of Lloyd-Webber's "Cats" gig and who has an aesthetic goal based on the word "punishment" for the betterment of our society being in charge.........with ‘their finger on the button’; Coward once spelt out a truism when he wrote, “Strange how potent cheap music is”.
OK, let’s forget for a moment that the line quoted in the opening of this discussion is actually from a musical (I use the word "musical" in its loosest possible sense here too) let's try not to, destroy too many dreams by stating……IT’S NOT REAL LIFE; let’s disregard both those points for a moment.....but how would you feel if that person did something as childish as make musicals his muse for policy formulation AND then STILL mis-read the message in the song? I say, be worried; be very, very worried. You want proof…..OK, read on.
In a reprise of earlier idiocy, Howard used a line from West Side Story, "I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived" in one of his speeches to show how youth blamed everyone else but themselves for their wrongdoing and the state of the nation...........ring any bells anyone? When Howard quoted those lines I thought, “Never has someone so seemingly intelligent misinterpreted a musical’s central message so badly ". “I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived" has nothing to do with youth’s get-out clause, it’s a statement of fact; listen, Mr Howard, and I’ll try and break it down for you.
It’s a line that firstly states the inherent difficulties surrounding youth when they are rudderless, penniless, unemployed and undervalued. In a society that is framed by a winner-loser nice guys finish last mentality, that has a government who holds cheating and lying, stealing and denying as the way to get ahead in life and leaders and role models who class success as the amount of jewellery you wear and the number of times you eat out in a week. The lives of juveniles who have no hope of getting out of their circumstances are constantly held up to ridicule by the 3g society we live in………Get on, Get honour, Get honest. “I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived" is a statement that asks for help, understanding and support, a wake-up call to those who have the power to create a better society for the individual and the nation to do so…..meaningfully; to re-use your other quote from that same speech but change the emphasis, "Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease". It’s a social disease because the germs for infection are in the bloodstream of our society after it was injected with Thatcher’s “fuck ‘em all” doctrine. It’s now a society where the individual sees only itself as important and at the expense of the majority; that it really is alright to sell arms in order for brutes to dominate the foolish masses and butcher children; s’got to be, after all, Thatcher's son makes a good living out of it and look where it's got her and him.
Society, by its role models, its ideologies and its doctrines give young people the scaffold upon which to base their behaviour and their level of care; if we furnish them with the right role models we get a good payback. As it is we furnished them with the roles and role models of Mr Howard Esq. and the last Tory government; is it any wonder we’ve got the problems we have now?
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Friday, March 25, 2005
Michael Howard - 11 Reasons Not to Vote for Him - Reason 7
7) THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS WANT TO SCRAP AUTOMATIC LIFE SENTENCES FOR; MURDER. I DON’T.
Wrong: Mr Howard shows a complete lack of understanding of crime and culpability with this statement. By using such big-stick statements, he shows the shallowness of his approach but the true depth of his policies; and his political history is all the more scary than his present-day ignorance. In his maiden speech to the House, Howard told the assembled masses how he’d have no problem with the re-introduction of the death penalty. We’ve watched as the real reasons and causes for the majority of high-profile murder cases during the Tory reign (namely the lack of funds, bad management, break up of communities, loss of employment, poor housing, poor services, dog-eat-dog Tory doctrines, poor health services, means testing, poor teaching support, an imbecile for a Home secretary and a group of self-serving politicos who were shagging and cheating their way through political life and so had little time and no right to teach by example) saw them shifting the blame away from the part their own policies played in these terrible cases onto young offenders, lone parents, social workers, prison governors and others. Never any admittance that they just might have had a hand in these events; it was as if they were divorced from the happenings........Howard’s full-time strategy throughout his time in politics actually; and his unnerving ideas about how to treat our fellow human beings goes deeper…….and younger.
The vast majority of his pronouncments about schooling are negative. He talks about expulsion, corporal punishment, discipline and physical degradation, nothing about support or more specialist teachers to help those many strugglers in the classroom. He once said, “How does it help parents instil discipline if they are told that they cannot smack their children? Why can't teachers discipline disruptive pupils any more?” The man's ignorance and imbecility knows no bounds. So far off the pace is he that he seems not to know that survey after survey has proved that violence just begets violence………but then, this is the man who really thinks that “Prison Works”.
With the doctrines he spouts forth he gives us a problem for every solution, and that’s what he wants to do……Divide and Rule, remember? Every now and then he seems to realise that he’s overstepped the mark and tries to show his compassionate side, and yet trips himself up time after time, like with his bleatings about the Iraq war....."If I'd known then what I know now......" The words "horse", "stable-door" and "bolted" come to mind; that was his "compassionate side" showing itself, then getting buried pretty rapidly when he supported the continuation of the death penalty for the armed forces; that’ll make everyone serving in Iraq sleep soundly in their beds tonight, won’t it?
Wrong: Mr Howard shows a complete lack of understanding of crime and culpability with this statement. By using such big-stick statements, he shows the shallowness of his approach but the true depth of his policies; and his political history is all the more scary than his present-day ignorance. In his maiden speech to the House, Howard told the assembled masses how he’d have no problem with the re-introduction of the death penalty. We’ve watched as the real reasons and causes for the majority of high-profile murder cases during the Tory reign (namely the lack of funds, bad management, break up of communities, loss of employment, poor housing, poor services, dog-eat-dog Tory doctrines, poor health services, means testing, poor teaching support, an imbecile for a Home secretary and a group of self-serving politicos who were shagging and cheating their way through political life and so had little time and no right to teach by example) saw them shifting the blame away from the part their own policies played in these terrible cases onto young offenders, lone parents, social workers, prison governors and others. Never any admittance that they just might have had a hand in these events; it was as if they were divorced from the happenings........Howard’s full-time strategy throughout his time in politics actually; and his unnerving ideas about how to treat our fellow human beings goes deeper…….and younger.
The vast majority of his pronouncments about schooling are negative. He talks about expulsion, corporal punishment, discipline and physical degradation, nothing about support or more specialist teachers to help those many strugglers in the classroom. He once said, “How does it help parents instil discipline if they are told that they cannot smack their children? Why can't teachers discipline disruptive pupils any more?” The man's ignorance and imbecility knows no bounds. So far off the pace is he that he seems not to know that survey after survey has proved that violence just begets violence………but then, this is the man who really thinks that “Prison Works”.
With the doctrines he spouts forth he gives us a problem for every solution, and that’s what he wants to do……Divide and Rule, remember? Every now and then he seems to realise that he’s overstepped the mark and tries to show his compassionate side, and yet trips himself up time after time, like with his bleatings about the Iraq war....."If I'd known then what I know now......" The words "horse", "stable-door" and "bolted" come to mind; that was his "compassionate side" showing itself, then getting buried pretty rapidly when he supported the continuation of the death penalty for the armed forces; that’ll make everyone serving in Iraq sleep soundly in their beds tonight, won’t it?
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Political History: The Making of the First Democracy. Chapter 8
The “Top-Man” mode of approach to alleviate any attack of the munchies had been gleaned from a recent encounter with a large group of Plan’s Lions, that had been spotted disporting themselves some safe distance away, whilst our humanoid group were out hunting……again. Luckily, or so it seemed at the time, the group of lions had been in clear view, almost as if they didn’t mind being seen, and some three-hundred yards distant from the now emboldened hunters. Even those as sportingly challenged as our ancestors could run to safety if an attack was launched from that distance, and the single tree the hunters had gathered under gave them an ideal position from which to tease their permanent enemies; here was a chance for pay-back, albeit from a distance of three-hundred yards; it was sweet at any distance. So began trunk-call babbling as the gang sent the stone-age equivalent of “Yahhhhh, Booo, Bollocks to you, you fat lion-pig!” echoing across the plains………… Eventually one of the group of lions stood up, stretching and yawning, and the hunter’s attention was locked onto him in case a fast exit was called for……………
Some heard it, some even saw it, some definitely felt it as, from the uppermost branches of the tree the men were gathered under, the six-hundred-and-fifty-pound male Plain’s Lion plummeted into the assembled, pre-occupied thicket of humanoid stupidity flailing its clawful way through four of the assembled yobs before it hit the ground. It only remained for the other decoy Plain’s Lions to get up, stretch, yawn, then amble across the three hundred yards distance that separated them from their newly laid dinner table for them to enjoy an impromptu al fresco meal, all of them grinning like Cheshire’s at the fast-lane departure of those once so brave and the pit-lane remainder of these now so dead.
There was one good thing to come out of this debacle, however, for the surprise of the attack was not lost on the escaping group, and had they have been capable of having a collective thought, they’d’ve realised their stupidity in being caught out like that; but when you’re this stupid it’s difficult to think you’re stupid. Nevertheless the level of shock had made its mark on them; claw-mark in fact, on three fleeing rumps and an escaping chest. It was the entire grunt around the rudimentary fire of that night’s gathering, the element of “surprise”. Here was a potent weapon that could help in the never-ending search for a full belly, could turn the tide of failure and make something else out of it, there being no word for success then as showbiz agents and the English language was sadly lacking; however, what the opposite to failure was occurred a few days later.
Out one day, the group had been gathering berries as they struggled to find enough to eat and berries were less of a struggle than a large antelope would be, when they surprised a very irate female wild pig and her brood as she was sheltering under a particularly thick bramble. As one, the group of berry-collecting humanoids scattered leaving all to fend for themselves. Our leader of the pack, who was standing at that moment under a tall hawthorn, clambered up it in three deft movements; he quickly fell to earth with a scream as his hand found a particularly vicious and uncompromising thorn. With twelve feet between him and solid ground it could have ended badly, but fortunately his fall was broken by the convenient placing of a fourteen-week-old piglet underneath him just as it was scampering off after the rest of the family. It didn’t take long, three weeks in fact, before the correlation between the death of the piglet (and the succulent meal it made) and the surprise attack by the Plain’s Lion that dropped from the tree hit them! They had done the same thing, ambushed the enemy (lunch) from a lofty position; “surprised” it in fact.
This opened everyone’s eyes to possibilities beyond previous thinking. Our leader took the credit, and for that also that neat little blonde he’d had his eye on for a week or more, and as he departed behind his rock with her, he grunted that he’d deliberately dropped on the piglet, meant it all along in fact, that the Plain’s Lion attack had set him thinking and he’d been waiting for the opportunity to try the tactic out. He returned to the impressed group after forty-six seconds of frenzied love-making and, when it was suggested by the group that the same “dropping-from-height” tactic be undertaken on tomorrow’s bear-hunt, our leader was sharp enough to offer the signal honour of overhead tackler to his deputy, the next in line for chiefdom should anything happen to him; (over someone else’s dead body it would). Our leader’s grunting made sense, at least to them, as he described how important it was for everyone to try the tactic so that complete role-reversal became an available option to the group; and you can imagine the intricacies of the grunt in order to explain that little lot.
Not wanting to seem un-deserving of leadership (after all it’d worked on the pig) the next in line agreed. So, the following day our present leader, at a single stroke (well, four actually, the bear’s aim was off that day) rid himself of any immediate challenge and invented the ‘Double Whammy’. Those who remained, after that day, the day that would be forever known as “the bear-hunt day that claimed six lives”, had to sort out a pecking order amongst themselves before they could get organised enough to mount any fresh challenge for leadership; now, back to our other pig.
Some heard it, some even saw it, some definitely felt it as, from the uppermost branches of the tree the men were gathered under, the six-hundred-and-fifty-pound male Plain’s Lion plummeted into the assembled, pre-occupied thicket of humanoid stupidity flailing its clawful way through four of the assembled yobs before it hit the ground. It only remained for the other decoy Plain’s Lions to get up, stretch, yawn, then amble across the three hundred yards distance that separated them from their newly laid dinner table for them to enjoy an impromptu al fresco meal, all of them grinning like Cheshire’s at the fast-lane departure of those once so brave and the pit-lane remainder of these now so dead.
There was one good thing to come out of this debacle, however, for the surprise of the attack was not lost on the escaping group, and had they have been capable of having a collective thought, they’d’ve realised their stupidity in being caught out like that; but when you’re this stupid it’s difficult to think you’re stupid. Nevertheless the level of shock had made its mark on them; claw-mark in fact, on three fleeing rumps and an escaping chest. It was the entire grunt around the rudimentary fire of that night’s gathering, the element of “surprise”. Here was a potent weapon that could help in the never-ending search for a full belly, could turn the tide of failure and make something else out of it, there being no word for success then as showbiz agents and the English language was sadly lacking; however, what the opposite to failure was occurred a few days later.
Out one day, the group had been gathering berries as they struggled to find enough to eat and berries were less of a struggle than a large antelope would be, when they surprised a very irate female wild pig and her brood as she was sheltering under a particularly thick bramble. As one, the group of berry-collecting humanoids scattered leaving all to fend for themselves. Our leader of the pack, who was standing at that moment under a tall hawthorn, clambered up it in three deft movements; he quickly fell to earth with a scream as his hand found a particularly vicious and uncompromising thorn. With twelve feet between him and solid ground it could have ended badly, but fortunately his fall was broken by the convenient placing of a fourteen-week-old piglet underneath him just as it was scampering off after the rest of the family. It didn’t take long, three weeks in fact, before the correlation between the death of the piglet (and the succulent meal it made) and the surprise attack by the Plain’s Lion that dropped from the tree hit them! They had done the same thing, ambushed the enemy (lunch) from a lofty position; “surprised” it in fact.
This opened everyone’s eyes to possibilities beyond previous thinking. Our leader took the credit, and for that also that neat little blonde he’d had his eye on for a week or more, and as he departed behind his rock with her, he grunted that he’d deliberately dropped on the piglet, meant it all along in fact, that the Plain’s Lion attack had set him thinking and he’d been waiting for the opportunity to try the tactic out. He returned to the impressed group after forty-six seconds of frenzied love-making and, when it was suggested by the group that the same “dropping-from-height” tactic be undertaken on tomorrow’s bear-hunt, our leader was sharp enough to offer the signal honour of overhead tackler to his deputy, the next in line for chiefdom should anything happen to him; (over someone else’s dead body it would). Our leader’s grunting made sense, at least to them, as he described how important it was for everyone to try the tactic so that complete role-reversal became an available option to the group; and you can imagine the intricacies of the grunt in order to explain that little lot.
Not wanting to seem un-deserving of leadership (after all it’d worked on the pig) the next in line agreed. So, the following day our present leader, at a single stroke (well, four actually, the bear’s aim was off that day) rid himself of any immediate challenge and invented the ‘Double Whammy’. Those who remained, after that day, the day that would be forever known as “the bear-hunt day that claimed six lives”, had to sort out a pecking order amongst themselves before they could get organised enough to mount any fresh challenge for leadership; now, back to our other pig.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Political History: The Making of the First Democracy. Chapter 7
The importance of timing rvealed itself a couple of weeks later when a particularly succulent but young and stupid wild boar had dodged the flashing clubs of our intrepid and ever-hungry crew. Pausing only to collect the arm of one of the hunters that ventured too close (young and stupid he may have been, but this boar still had tusks and a scything action that would make Crocodile Dundee look like a pen-knife-wielding-twig-whittler) the squealing pig had scuttled through the bush, all the while chomping on the well muscled and unexpected lunch-nee-limb, and darted into a large cave at the base of a sheer cliff that had, up until the cave was found, threatened to become it’s last stand.
Our gang of still-intrepid but now very cautious pursuers had, as a man, skidded to a halt about thirty feet from the mouth of the cave. Not only were they not now a full complement in the skull-crushing-limb department (limb-nee-lunch, remember) but here they were, at the place where their prospective luncheon and missing limb had disappeared, a dark cave…… whatever the reasoning, it was very sensible to tread softly just around here. Yes, it was true, these sorts of places could act as shelters when the extremes of weather that bounced around the world at this time threatened to gather you up and flush you over the nearest cliff. They could, however, also harbour one of the many and varied carnivore’s that stalked, prowled and ambushed the landscape and who had the capability to rapidly turn a bad-weather refuge into the Stone Age equivalent of a fast-food outlet.
Unseen to the now flummoxed hunting party, our wild pig became a positively incandescent pig (albeit very fleetingly) when he scuttled along the cave-floor in certainty of a clean escape from the butcher’s-of-the-bog outside only to run into the welcoming yet terrible final embrace of a cave-bear.
This cave bear, whose stature and wrestling ability would have put Mongoush to shame, had spent some time sorting out this particular retreat. He’d made it his own, far away from the hub-bub of what passed for modern life. Here he could spend hours just relaxing, filing and sharpening his talons on an eighty-foot redwood he’d uprooted and dragged in one rainy day, making himself ready for his next blistering attack on anything that came within sprinting distance. This was one son-of-a-bitch cave bear that even gang’s of Plain’s Lions moved over for, that mastodon’s passed their next bowel movement most rapidly for. Anything with half a brain, which certainly included the majority of the human population on earth at the time, knew for absolute certainty that the swagger of an approaching cave bear meant trouble; trouble spelt A.R.M.A.G.E.D.D.O.N.; couldn’t have been more obvious even if he’d’ve carried a flag with “Imminent Death Squad” written on it and wore a white “T” shirt with “DON’T FUCK WITH ME-NOT NOW-NOT EVER!” printed on it. This was one mean bastard of a cave bear.
Snoozing gently in his cave, this bear could hardly believe his luck as he heard then viewed the startled boar’s gallop, unfinished arm all a-flop, into oblivion; the bear just lay there obscured by a rock until the hapless beast was almost past him then sent the boar to that great-pig-sty-in–the-sky with a single, brutal slash of a paw that silenced all protest, instantly, and who’s power and accuracy would’ve put a Hymac back-actor to shame.
Meanwhile, outside the cave, the puzzled group of cheap-suited huntsmen decided to gather round the mouth of the cave and make themselves ready for an ambuscade. Just how the group was divided was sorted out after much discussion……and three well-aimed blows by our leader that split the group and three ears in two. The now chastened group took up guard at various points around the mouth of the cave to await developments. It seemed obvious the wild boar would have to come out at some time in the very near future, if not to forage then driven out by its own stench. If they lay quiet and still for long enough they could gain a meal with little effort for the element of surprise was now on their side, and a wild boar would be no match for their concerted attack, particularly one laid out with such cunning as this one was………and included the New Labour Saving Tactic; “Top-Man”.
Our gang of still-intrepid but now very cautious pursuers had, as a man, skidded to a halt about thirty feet from the mouth of the cave. Not only were they not now a full complement in the skull-crushing-limb department (limb-nee-lunch, remember) but here they were, at the place where their prospective luncheon and missing limb had disappeared, a dark cave…… whatever the reasoning, it was very sensible to tread softly just around here. Yes, it was true, these sorts of places could act as shelters when the extremes of weather that bounced around the world at this time threatened to gather you up and flush you over the nearest cliff. They could, however, also harbour one of the many and varied carnivore’s that stalked, prowled and ambushed the landscape and who had the capability to rapidly turn a bad-weather refuge into the Stone Age equivalent of a fast-food outlet.
Unseen to the now flummoxed hunting party, our wild pig became a positively incandescent pig (albeit very fleetingly) when he scuttled along the cave-floor in certainty of a clean escape from the butcher’s-of-the-bog outside only to run into the welcoming yet terrible final embrace of a cave-bear.
This cave bear, whose stature and wrestling ability would have put Mongoush to shame, had spent some time sorting out this particular retreat. He’d made it his own, far away from the hub-bub of what passed for modern life. Here he could spend hours just relaxing, filing and sharpening his talons on an eighty-foot redwood he’d uprooted and dragged in one rainy day, making himself ready for his next blistering attack on anything that came within sprinting distance. This was one son-of-a-bitch cave bear that even gang’s of Plain’s Lions moved over for, that mastodon’s passed their next bowel movement most rapidly for. Anything with half a brain, which certainly included the majority of the human population on earth at the time, knew for absolute certainty that the swagger of an approaching cave bear meant trouble; trouble spelt A.R.M.A.G.E.D.D.O.N.; couldn’t have been more obvious even if he’d’ve carried a flag with “Imminent Death Squad” written on it and wore a white “T” shirt with “DON’T FUCK WITH ME-NOT NOW-NOT EVER!” printed on it. This was one mean bastard of a cave bear.
Snoozing gently in his cave, this bear could hardly believe his luck as he heard then viewed the startled boar’s gallop, unfinished arm all a-flop, into oblivion; the bear just lay there obscured by a rock until the hapless beast was almost past him then sent the boar to that great-pig-sty-in–the-sky with a single, brutal slash of a paw that silenced all protest, instantly, and who’s power and accuracy would’ve put a Hymac back-actor to shame.
Meanwhile, outside the cave, the puzzled group of cheap-suited huntsmen decided to gather round the mouth of the cave and make themselves ready for an ambuscade. Just how the group was divided was sorted out after much discussion……and three well-aimed blows by our leader that split the group and three ears in two. The now chastened group took up guard at various points around the mouth of the cave to await developments. It seemed obvious the wild boar would have to come out at some time in the very near future, if not to forage then driven out by its own stench. If they lay quiet and still for long enough they could gain a meal with little effort for the element of surprise was now on their side, and a wild boar would be no match for their concerted attack, particularly one laid out with such cunning as this one was………and included the New Labour Saving Tactic; “Top-Man”.
Michael Howard - 11 Reasons Not to Vote for Him - Reason 6
6) SOME PEOPLE THINK PUNISHMENT IS A DIRTY WORD. MR BLAIR SAYS SHOPLIFTERS SHOULD GET OFF WITH A FINE - THE SAME PENALTY YOU GET FOR PARKING ON A YELLOW LINE. I DON’T.
Wrong – And seriously alarming: By trivialising the issue, scoring political points, Howard weakens the case for anyone, particularly himself from actually doing something socially responsible to help people who may just be in difficulties. What does he suggest we give a convicted shoplifter who has a mental instability; six months, a year, life? (At least that way they’ll not do it again according to point 4). Nowhere and in no statement he has made does Howard suggest finding out why? Why? Because that costs too much money and takes up too much time to get a result that will get him elected again. At the Co-operation to Reduce Recidivism Workshop in Helsinki it was reported, by the UK delegation, that reconviction rates of prisoners on release in the UK have remained consistently and unacceptably high for many years and the present situation labelled as a phenomenon known as the "revolving prison door". The likelihood concerning rates of crime was reported as follows:
Care as child 13 times more likely to commit crime
School exclusion 20 times more likely
Unemployed 12 times more likely
(Keep those figures in mind as you read down this file; they prove interesting, particularly in 1994.)
I quote; "The situation is even worse in the case of short-term (sentence of less than 12 months) prisoners." (Those people who were convicted for shoplifting for the first time that Howard seems to want to lock up.) "This group represents the largest proportion of prison admissions annually, and has the highest rates of adult reconviction. They also have amongst the highest levels of social exclusion and need. Their relatively short period in prison means they have received little input on offending behaviour or resettlement whilst in prison. In addition, if over 21 they are not subject to probation supervision on release. There is a real risk that prison might make factors associated with re-offending worse. Many return to prison during the same or following years."
Now, the case in point for Howard's "get tough" campaign that will probably figure in the press in the near future will be the welcoming back to the Tory fold of the serial criminal, Lord Archer, a man seemingly unable to tell truth from fiction. He will be treated sympathetically if he decided to ask to rejoin the party, to get his old job back, just like all those other criminals that Howard has such plans for when they get out after a stretch.
Prison Works? A report stated that, “While prison removes from circulation certain categories of violent offender, and addresses justified popular demands for the punishment of heinous crimes, in most cases it provides a publicly funded higher education in offending. The experience of the last five years, prisons crowded to bursting point, alongside a rise in violence and social dislocation offer evidence that radical alternatives to prison are urgently needed. We are alarmed in particular by the high proportion imprisoned for non-violent and often trivial offences, such as non-payment of fines, and we reject unequivocally the return of prison-ships and the shackling of women prisoners giving birth.” The figures speak for themselves:
75% of prisoners were unemployed before they went inside
46% had drink problems
35% had drug problems
33% had been in care
28% had chronic housing problems
15% had mental disorders
10% had tried to commit suicide
(1994 figures) Those ones I mentioned above
And these were the figures known by Howard when he was Home Secretary, yet he still continued to preach the vengeance theory of social reform, bless his little cotton socks.
So, where do you think Howard figures in all of this? Well, if you forget everything else in the previous 5 points below and the other 6 to come, remember ONE THING. Howard and the government he supported and served in laid out the foundation stones for this present-day outcome on the bedrock of criminality in our society when they destroyed communities and their livelihoods, when they overcrowded prisons, cut educational time, and preached the bang ’em up and punishment mantras, all the while trying to coerce the public into believing that prison works. All it did was alienate of whole section of our community as Howard, through lack of intellect, lack of interest and gross ineptitude swept the problem under the carpet; we’re reaping the benefit of those doctrines now. Then, through successive years of Tory government, Thatcher, Howard and their divisive policies cemented those foundation stones together to build the edifice we gaze upon today......the edifice that Howard seems to think we believe he had no part in building.
Wrong – And seriously alarming: By trivialising the issue, scoring political points, Howard weakens the case for anyone, particularly himself from actually doing something socially responsible to help people who may just be in difficulties. What does he suggest we give a convicted shoplifter who has a mental instability; six months, a year, life? (At least that way they’ll not do it again according to point 4). Nowhere and in no statement he has made does Howard suggest finding out why? Why? Because that costs too much money and takes up too much time to get a result that will get him elected again. At the Co-operation to Reduce Recidivism Workshop in Helsinki it was reported, by the UK delegation, that reconviction rates of prisoners on release in the UK have remained consistently and unacceptably high for many years and the present situation labelled as a phenomenon known as the "revolving prison door". The likelihood concerning rates of crime was reported as follows:
Care as child 13 times more likely to commit crime
School exclusion 20 times more likely
Unemployed 12 times more likely
(Keep those figures in mind as you read down this file; they prove interesting, particularly in 1994.)
I quote; "The situation is even worse in the case of short-term (sentence of less than 12 months) prisoners." (Those people who were convicted for shoplifting for the first time that Howard seems to want to lock up.) "This group represents the largest proportion of prison admissions annually, and has the highest rates of adult reconviction. They also have amongst the highest levels of social exclusion and need. Their relatively short period in prison means they have received little input on offending behaviour or resettlement whilst in prison. In addition, if over 21 they are not subject to probation supervision on release. There is a real risk that prison might make factors associated with re-offending worse. Many return to prison during the same or following years."
Now, the case in point for Howard's "get tough" campaign that will probably figure in the press in the near future will be the welcoming back to the Tory fold of the serial criminal, Lord Archer, a man seemingly unable to tell truth from fiction. He will be treated sympathetically if he decided to ask to rejoin the party, to get his old job back, just like all those other criminals that Howard has such plans for when they get out after a stretch.
Prison Works? A report stated that, “While prison removes from circulation certain categories of violent offender, and addresses justified popular demands for the punishment of heinous crimes, in most cases it provides a publicly funded higher education in offending. The experience of the last five years, prisons crowded to bursting point, alongside a rise in violence and social dislocation offer evidence that radical alternatives to prison are urgently needed. We are alarmed in particular by the high proportion imprisoned for non-violent and often trivial offences, such as non-payment of fines, and we reject unequivocally the return of prison-ships and the shackling of women prisoners giving birth.” The figures speak for themselves:
75% of prisoners were unemployed before they went inside
46% had drink problems
35% had drug problems
33% had been in care
28% had chronic housing problems
15% had mental disorders
10% had tried to commit suicide
(1994 figures) Those ones I mentioned above
And these were the figures known by Howard when he was Home Secretary, yet he still continued to preach the vengeance theory of social reform, bless his little cotton socks.
So, where do you think Howard figures in all of this? Well, if you forget everything else in the previous 5 points below and the other 6 to come, remember ONE THING. Howard and the government he supported and served in laid out the foundation stones for this present-day outcome on the bedrock of criminality in our society when they destroyed communities and their livelihoods, when they overcrowded prisons, cut educational time, and preached the bang ’em up and punishment mantras, all the while trying to coerce the public into believing that prison works. All it did was alienate of whole section of our community as Howard, through lack of intellect, lack of interest and gross ineptitude swept the problem under the carpet; we’re reaping the benefit of those doctrines now. Then, through successive years of Tory government, Thatcher, Howard and their divisive policies cemented those foundation stones together to build the edifice we gaze upon today......the edifice that Howard seems to think we believe he had no part in building.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Michael Howard - 11 Reasons Not to Vote for Him - Reason 5
5) ITS COMMON SENSE. IT’S HOW I WILL CUT CRIME.
Wrong – Fatuous and condescending: If it’s common-sense, then how come 50% of all prisoners released re-offend within 2 years and 36% commit crimes serious enough to be returned to prison? That’s “Prison Working” for you. Amongst our youth the fugure's are even grimmer. 70% of those in the 18-20 year old bracket were convicted of another crime within two years, 47% of them actually back in prison on another sentence. Now, I’ve been doing some maths……….That means, if every year let’s say 5,000 new people are sent to prison on top of the present overcrowded circumstances (there are 8,000 more prisoners being held in jails that the present number of prisons available can hold) and 2,500 are released from prison. Out of those 2,500 released prisoners around 450 of them are returned to prison the following year along with the 5,000 that are sent to prison, for more and more facile crimes that Howard wants to see us punished for (see below) that means the prison population is growing by 5,450 every year and, like compound interest, it’ll grow exponentially until we’re all in prison! Best get building now, Mr Howard.
As with the vast majority of politicians, Howard disregards all evidence that goes against his “grand plan”. When the then Director General of Prisons, Narey, said, "I've never seen my job as being about just locking people up. It's self-evident in terms of value for money that if we can get people off drugs, on to offending behaviour programmes and into education, then we're going to reduce crime." how did Howard respond? He gave us the socially irresponsible phrase, “We shall no longer judge the success of our system of justice by a fall in our prison population." (!) Surely a person in his position, supposedly with access to the best brains in the business could see the stupidity held in such a statement. The trick is to have a low prison population and a low crime rate, but that takes work, not knee-jerk, snip-snap media bursts of rhetoric and with his eye on the next years of power, Howard hasn’t got time for working at it. He wants the snappy answer, the headliner, the frightener; no depth, no colour, no betterment. Watch him over the next few weeks as he leaps from band-wagon to band-wagon; like a child in charge of the TV remote each new phase catching his attention for a flash statement and then on to the next………my friends, get really concerned when a politician tells you that what he’s doing to you he’s doing to you for your own good……and Howard will come up with allsorts of guff in order to win your vote. You want to know how he’ll cut crime?
1) Howard will hark back to his “American Experience” as he did in the 90’s and beyond when he spouted, “In short we need zero tolerance policing”, and we can see how well things are working out there in the good ol' U.S., can’t we? He applauded Giuliani for his stance in New York and stated the need for us, in the U.K. to “……demonstrate that there is a line people cannot cross”. So where do they go, Mr Howard, those that do cross “that line” through the reasons stated in point 1 above? Under your regime, not in our backyard, that’s for certain; best keep these ravening hordes he keeps warning us about in the ghettos maybe? Howard’s certainly not prepared to furnish these people with anything so as they can better themselves….. apart from a prison cell that is.
2) He’ll repeat that nugget, “In many ways the police, our courts and the prison service are simply picking up the pieces of other people's failures”. Notice how he skilfully shifts the blame onto everybody else but himself and politicians like him .....other people, not government, just other people’s failures. (see the background to his treatment of Derek Lewis). He tells us, “Many people now believe that they are no longer wholly responsible for their actions”, and this coming from the shape-shifter of politics. Here’s a guy who uses Gilbert and Sullivan quotes to stick a crime and punishment bill together and has so badly misunderstand the meaning behind West-Side Story (stick with me, these howlers will follow later) telling us, “Like them” (THEM?) “I have had enough of the culture of political correctness - which is designed to blur the distinction between right and wrong”. No it’s not, you imbecile, it’s there to sharpen it, to protect the abused, the slandered, the under-valued, the minority from people like you who have a “one-size-fits-all” mentality.
3) He’ll tell us “My approach was simple” (he’s not wrong there) “to give the police the powers they needed to catch criminals; to give the courts the powers they needed to convict criminals; and to give our prisons the space to take persistent, serious and dangerous offenders out of circulation altogether.” And he failed in all three. Under his guidance police numbers fell, the prisons were overcrowded and he’s released at least one dangerous drug dealer (see later episodes……it’s a goody).
4) He’ll repeatedly and unashamedly fail to listen to those with real knowledge on the subject, like Lord Corbett, Chairman, All-Party Parliamentary Penal Affairs Group who said, “The prison system is failing the public, prisoners and those who work in prisons.” He'll disregard all attempts to tell him in plain English where the problems lie, like Lord Woolf did.
a) “The Woolf Report identified overcrowding as one of the most damaging features of prison life. The recommendation that a 'cap' on prison overcrowding should be introduced to prohibit any prison from holding more prisoners than its certified normal accommodation was rejected by the government on publication of the Woolf Report.”
Nb. Today, half of all prisons remain overcrowded, and of the 24 prisons built or re-opened since the Strangeways riot, 15 (62.5 per cent) are overcrowded.
b) The Woolf Report recommended that particular attention should be given to the problems experienced in remand prisons. Although the government said that new legislation would be introduced to establish a domestic legislative basis for the treatment of unconvicted prisoners, no progress has been made towards this objective. Remand prisons, such as Strangeways, continue to bear the brunt of severe overcrowding and decrepit conditions. Between April 1999 and February 2000 the average number of prisoners held two to a single cell remained consistently high in remand prisons. For example, there were 758 prisoners held two to a single cell in Birmingham, 337 in Brixton, 471 in Cardiff, 367 in Exeter, 613 in Leeds, 420 in Liverpool, 387 in Strangeways, 319 in Pentonville, 519 in Preston and 432 in Wandsworth.
The Woolf Report recommended that community prisons should be developed to ensure, amongst other things, that prisoners serve their sentences as close to their homes as possible. Today, the average distance male prisoners are kept from their homes is 50 miles and seven per cent are kept at least 150 miles from their homes.
c) The Woolf Report recommended that the amount of time prisoners spend occupied in purposeful activity should be increased. Yet, the average number of hours per week spent by prisoners on purposeful activity has increased by less than one hour since 1990.
5) Howard will continue to ignore research and common sense that states prison overcrowding - which occurs because courts send more people to prison for longer - squeezes out education and training and impedes efforts to offer a route to a more useful life and that, until there is a costed strategy to ensure those agencies concerned with housing, social care, training and education work together effectively with prisoners, the expensive failure of the "revolving door" for the majority will continue."
6) Howard’s arrogance will override knowledgeable statements from statesmen like the Rt. Hon Douglas Hurd, "The Strangeways riot and the Woolf Report woke the public up to the formidable problems of our prisons - for a year or two. Ten years on we must wake up the public again. If we neglect the conditions in which 65,000 of our fellow citizens are held, then we are preparing the way for future crime and more victims." And from the then Chief Inspector of Prisons, Sir Stephen Tumim who said: "It seems a great pity than following the favourable reception given by the government and the media to the Woolf Report, and in particular the White Paper which followed it, so little has been done by way of implementation. The systems of contracts, of accredited standards, of greater co-operation between different parts of the Criminal Justice System, of control of overcrowding, better links with the community and families, have all been praised by each Home Secretary, but never really acted upon.”
Jeeezzzeeee.....................what you see is what you'll get. Think it can't get any worse? Read on, my friend.
Wrong – Fatuous and condescending: If it’s common-sense, then how come 50% of all prisoners released re-offend within 2 years and 36% commit crimes serious enough to be returned to prison? That’s “Prison Working” for you. Amongst our youth the fugure's are even grimmer. 70% of those in the 18-20 year old bracket were convicted of another crime within two years, 47% of them actually back in prison on another sentence. Now, I’ve been doing some maths……….That means, if every year let’s say 5,000 new people are sent to prison on top of the present overcrowded circumstances (there are 8,000 more prisoners being held in jails that the present number of prisons available can hold) and 2,500 are released from prison. Out of those 2,500 released prisoners around 450 of them are returned to prison the following year along with the 5,000 that are sent to prison, for more and more facile crimes that Howard wants to see us punished for (see below) that means the prison population is growing by 5,450 every year and, like compound interest, it’ll grow exponentially until we’re all in prison! Best get building now, Mr Howard.
As with the vast majority of politicians, Howard disregards all evidence that goes against his “grand plan”. When the then Director General of Prisons, Narey, said, "I've never seen my job as being about just locking people up. It's self-evident in terms of value for money that if we can get people off drugs, on to offending behaviour programmes and into education, then we're going to reduce crime." how did Howard respond? He gave us the socially irresponsible phrase, “We shall no longer judge the success of our system of justice by a fall in our prison population." (!) Surely a person in his position, supposedly with access to the best brains in the business could see the stupidity held in such a statement. The trick is to have a low prison population and a low crime rate, but that takes work, not knee-jerk, snip-snap media bursts of rhetoric and with his eye on the next years of power, Howard hasn’t got time for working at it. He wants the snappy answer, the headliner, the frightener; no depth, no colour, no betterment. Watch him over the next few weeks as he leaps from band-wagon to band-wagon; like a child in charge of the TV remote each new phase catching his attention for a flash statement and then on to the next………my friends, get really concerned when a politician tells you that what he’s doing to you he’s doing to you for your own good……and Howard will come up with allsorts of guff in order to win your vote. You want to know how he’ll cut crime?
1) Howard will hark back to his “American Experience” as he did in the 90’s and beyond when he spouted, “In short we need zero tolerance policing”, and we can see how well things are working out there in the good ol' U.S., can’t we? He applauded Giuliani for his stance in New York and stated the need for us, in the U.K. to “……demonstrate that there is a line people cannot cross”. So where do they go, Mr Howard, those that do cross “that line” through the reasons stated in point 1 above? Under your regime, not in our backyard, that’s for certain; best keep these ravening hordes he keeps warning us about in the ghettos maybe? Howard’s certainly not prepared to furnish these people with anything so as they can better themselves….. apart from a prison cell that is.
2) He’ll repeat that nugget, “In many ways the police, our courts and the prison service are simply picking up the pieces of other people's failures”. Notice how he skilfully shifts the blame onto everybody else but himself and politicians like him .....other people, not government, just other people’s failures. (see the background to his treatment of Derek Lewis). He tells us, “Many people now believe that they are no longer wholly responsible for their actions”, and this coming from the shape-shifter of politics. Here’s a guy who uses Gilbert and Sullivan quotes to stick a crime and punishment bill together and has so badly misunderstand the meaning behind West-Side Story (stick with me, these howlers will follow later) telling us, “Like them” (THEM?) “I have had enough of the culture of political correctness - which is designed to blur the distinction between right and wrong”. No it’s not, you imbecile, it’s there to sharpen it, to protect the abused, the slandered, the under-valued, the minority from people like you who have a “one-size-fits-all” mentality.
3) He’ll tell us “My approach was simple” (he’s not wrong there) “to give the police the powers they needed to catch criminals; to give the courts the powers they needed to convict criminals; and to give our prisons the space to take persistent, serious and dangerous offenders out of circulation altogether.” And he failed in all three. Under his guidance police numbers fell, the prisons were overcrowded and he’s released at least one dangerous drug dealer (see later episodes……it’s a goody).
4) He’ll repeatedly and unashamedly fail to listen to those with real knowledge on the subject, like Lord Corbett, Chairman, All-Party Parliamentary Penal Affairs Group who said, “The prison system is failing the public, prisoners and those who work in prisons.” He'll disregard all attempts to tell him in plain English where the problems lie, like Lord Woolf did.
a) “The Woolf Report identified overcrowding as one of the most damaging features of prison life. The recommendation that a 'cap' on prison overcrowding should be introduced to prohibit any prison from holding more prisoners than its certified normal accommodation was rejected by the government on publication of the Woolf Report.”
Nb. Today, half of all prisons remain overcrowded, and of the 24 prisons built or re-opened since the Strangeways riot, 15 (62.5 per cent) are overcrowded.
b) The Woolf Report recommended that particular attention should be given to the problems experienced in remand prisons. Although the government said that new legislation would be introduced to establish a domestic legislative basis for the treatment of unconvicted prisoners, no progress has been made towards this objective. Remand prisons, such as Strangeways, continue to bear the brunt of severe overcrowding and decrepit conditions. Between April 1999 and February 2000 the average number of prisoners held two to a single cell remained consistently high in remand prisons. For example, there were 758 prisoners held two to a single cell in Birmingham, 337 in Brixton, 471 in Cardiff, 367 in Exeter, 613 in Leeds, 420 in Liverpool, 387 in Strangeways, 319 in Pentonville, 519 in Preston and 432 in Wandsworth.
The Woolf Report recommended that community prisons should be developed to ensure, amongst other things, that prisoners serve their sentences as close to their homes as possible. Today, the average distance male prisoners are kept from their homes is 50 miles and seven per cent are kept at least 150 miles from their homes.
c) The Woolf Report recommended that the amount of time prisoners spend occupied in purposeful activity should be increased. Yet, the average number of hours per week spent by prisoners on purposeful activity has increased by less than one hour since 1990.
5) Howard will continue to ignore research and common sense that states prison overcrowding - which occurs because courts send more people to prison for longer - squeezes out education and training and impedes efforts to offer a route to a more useful life and that, until there is a costed strategy to ensure those agencies concerned with housing, social care, training and education work together effectively with prisoners, the expensive failure of the "revolving door" for the majority will continue."
6) Howard’s arrogance will override knowledgeable statements from statesmen like the Rt. Hon Douglas Hurd, "The Strangeways riot and the Woolf Report woke the public up to the formidable problems of our prisons - for a year or two. Ten years on we must wake up the public again. If we neglect the conditions in which 65,000 of our fellow citizens are held, then we are preparing the way for future crime and more victims." And from the then Chief Inspector of Prisons, Sir Stephen Tumim who said: "It seems a great pity than following the favourable reception given by the government and the media to the Woolf Report, and in particular the White Paper which followed it, so little has been done by way of implementation. The systems of contracts, of accredited standards, of greater co-operation between different parts of the Criminal Justice System, of control of overcrowding, better links with the community and families, have all been praised by each Home Secretary, but never really acted upon.”
Jeeezzzeeee.....................what you see is what you'll get. Think it can't get any worse? Read on, my friend.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Political History: The Making of the First Democracy. Chapter 6
So, the previous chapter has hopefully taught us something; namely that although any publicity is considered good publicity, that which happens after you’re dead is as much use as celluloid cat in hell.
Times moved on, huts were the new caves, mud was the new rock, language was the new grunt and a sheep still looked inviting when it quivered its tail and you weren't hungry; some things were, after all, universal, as was the need to eat, certainly once a day but in honesty as often and as excessively as was possible. In a time before circumcision probably the secondmost biggest drawback for any leader, who wanted to keep his bird, his meat and his life for longer than a week that is, was having to be involved in the bi-daily hunting activity of the tribe. I mean, here was an occupation that was fraught with danger, of the dying kind. What our semi-consolidated-in-his-position-leader needed was a strategy to allow him to stay out of the death scrum that was his equivalent of our trip to Tesco's until the hunt was brought to a satisfactory conclusion by others, regardless of casualties, but this reticence must still allow our leader a large share of the kill; not easy given the appetites, tempers and table manners of the usual killing-crew.
You didn’t need to be a genius (a phenomenon impossible to latch onto in these days of single-syllable education and diplodocus-to-squeeze-a-grape diplomacy anyhow) to work out this was where the fault lay in an otherwise pretty safe job. I mean, there was no money so no need for a chancellor to muddy the waters of authority; there was no health service so no worries about waiting lists and crabby customers moaning that, because the surgeon had removed the wrong leg and you’d have to go back in to have the correct one off, it wasn’t sufficient recompense for you to be told the patient in the next bed wanted to buy your slippers; no railways so no disgruntled passengers bitching about.........well, well everything really, no trains, dirty stations, not enough carriages, too costly, take your pick. No, the early, pre-Stone Age leader had it pretty cushy all-in-all. The only dickey moments in an otherwise trouble-free existence were these interminable, bloody, hunting forays.
Most of the youngsters enjoyed them, of course, even looked forward to them, daft buggers so there was always a core group of willing sacrifices, but the hunt needed all hands on deck to become succesful, and some of those hands had to be skillful, knowledgeable and not just used for masturbation techniques. To these older members of the tribe, and the life-of-pig-sty-luxury that was our leader in particular, the hunt was nothing more than a daily throw of Lucifer’s dice.
Today of course, being a leader means being surrounded by plush carpetry and warmth, enough ‘canapés and champers’ to sink then refloat the QE2, a willing bevy of large-breasted maidens on permananet call-out and the certainty of large wedges of cash landing in your lap at the end of an evening spent dressed in a D.J. All the preceding helps soften the blow of any enterprise built on luck and the all pervading stench of livestock. However, at this point in history, and apart from the willing bevy of large-breasted maidens and the all pervading stench of livestock that had nothing to do with bluffing your way through life, the ambience of the surroundings left a lot to be desired in these far off days when D.J. stood for Dingo-skin Jerkin and a large wedge stood………? No trays of delicately prepared nibbles in this particular casino of life; no sir. This whole precarious existence was held together by a diet that had to be wrestled to the ground immediately after grace, so a large chunk of the available “fun-factor” was removed from a pastime that already had an enjoyment factor of zero; add all this to the fact that the odds of you returning home to enjoy the spoils of the chase were well stacked against you and you have the perfect recipe for a miserable day out. If the flailing feet, slashing claws, gnashing teeth or scything horns housed in and on the fight-you-to-the-death victim didn’t get you, then the anticipation-edged, dribble-fuelled, sheer bad aim of your hunting companions probably would; it’s not hard to see why so much thought was given over to how to avoid this pre-historic, daily scratch-card by those new to power.
It was whilst out walking one day (not too far from the village in case a Plain’s Lion was about and peckish, you understand) and deep in thought (or as deep in thought as a life which revolved around the space between lower rib-cage and knees would allow) that our new leader saw a way forward on this issue; there, before him was a tree. Not that he hadn’t seen a tree before, I mean, he sctarched his arse up against one every day, just before defacating at its base and then peeing up it, but this one intrigued him, or at least in these days of limited descriptive vocabulary, made him look at it harder. As he stared, a large cloud passed over the face of the sun causing the tree’s leaves to curl slightly as the bright glare dimmed somewhat. For over half-an-hour he stood watching, which is a very long time in days when the average life expectancy was 30 years and bloody. Then the clouds cleared momentarily and the leaves stretched again, folding out gently, facing the brilliant orb once more. A further larger and darker cloud passed over the sun and once again our leader was rooted to the spot as the leaves once more folded into a shy curtsey in deference to the sun’s disappearance............and the awareness hit him like a bolt of lightening! In fact it was a bolt of lightening. So absorbed had this idiot been in this metrologoical occurrence that he’d failed to see it was a thunder cloud full of electronic malice that cast the second shadow. Luckily our gallant leader's teeth stopped the massive charge from earthing so he was able to carry this knowledge, and his molars, back with him to camp.
Once he’d scampered home and had time to sort through his emotions and damaged canines, he began to piece things together and the revelations came slowly and with difficulty, like a Virgin Express into Bristol Parkway. Those leaves had been like the tribe.......his tribe...... locked on to the shining beacon of......of strength and certainty of the sun which in his tribe's case shone on them in the shape of him...............their leader. But, when that warm glow of strength and health threatened to leave them they curled..........withered in their inadequacy of his strength and purpose. These leaves, like the men in the tribe, were the life-blood of the tree.........which represented the group. They helped make it grow..........kept it strong..........gave it purpose, but all of this ability was instinctively recognised by the tree.........by the tribe...... and its leaves to be dependant on the sun.......on him.......and the sun convinced the tree of this every time it was covered by cloud......and the tribe needed to know this was the way it worked without him..........! ‘Course, our illustrious leader didn’t think quite like this. I mean, how could a man with a brow that was reminiscent of a 1984, formula one Maclaren rear-spoiler work out such complex ideologies? No, he’d just watched the leaves curl, figured they looked like a hand gripping onto a cock and worked out that he needed to convince the tribe that, without him, they’d be nothing but a bunch of wankers. But the question remained the same; how to feed and fornicate well but get off jankers when the hunt was next called and not lose face and position.
The second flash of lightening and accompanying crack of thunder cowed him in the corner of his urine-soaked abode as he was reminded of the elemental payback of forgetfulness, but it also cleared the way for his second flash of insight namely, in order to avoid any further field dentistry, send someone else out to look at the bloody tree, or, in the case at hand, send someone else out on the hunt in his place!......... But who……and by what excuse? A valuable lesson in timing was forthcoming here as our leader realised he could do with another artist of flint and stick like at the lsat hunt. Should’ve saved him, but then, his demise had had an element of timing in it; surely there was another lesson in timing to be gleaned here?
Times moved on, huts were the new caves, mud was the new rock, language was the new grunt and a sheep still looked inviting when it quivered its tail and you weren't hungry; some things were, after all, universal, as was the need to eat, certainly once a day but in honesty as often and as excessively as was possible. In a time before circumcision probably the secondmost biggest drawback for any leader, who wanted to keep his bird, his meat and his life for longer than a week that is, was having to be involved in the bi-daily hunting activity of the tribe. I mean, here was an occupation that was fraught with danger, of the dying kind. What our semi-consolidated-in-his-position-leader needed was a strategy to allow him to stay out of the death scrum that was his equivalent of our trip to Tesco's until the hunt was brought to a satisfactory conclusion by others, regardless of casualties, but this reticence must still allow our leader a large share of the kill; not easy given the appetites, tempers and table manners of the usual killing-crew.
You didn’t need to be a genius (a phenomenon impossible to latch onto in these days of single-syllable education and diplodocus-to-squeeze-a-grape diplomacy anyhow) to work out this was where the fault lay in an otherwise pretty safe job. I mean, there was no money so no need for a chancellor to muddy the waters of authority; there was no health service so no worries about waiting lists and crabby customers moaning that, because the surgeon had removed the wrong leg and you’d have to go back in to have the correct one off, it wasn’t sufficient recompense for you to be told the patient in the next bed wanted to buy your slippers; no railways so no disgruntled passengers bitching about.........well, well everything really, no trains, dirty stations, not enough carriages, too costly, take your pick. No, the early, pre-Stone Age leader had it pretty cushy all-in-all. The only dickey moments in an otherwise trouble-free existence were these interminable, bloody, hunting forays.
Most of the youngsters enjoyed them, of course, even looked forward to them, daft buggers so there was always a core group of willing sacrifices, but the hunt needed all hands on deck to become succesful, and some of those hands had to be skillful, knowledgeable and not just used for masturbation techniques. To these older members of the tribe, and the life-of-pig-sty-luxury that was our leader in particular, the hunt was nothing more than a daily throw of Lucifer’s dice.
Today of course, being a leader means being surrounded by plush carpetry and warmth, enough ‘canapés and champers’ to sink then refloat the QE2, a willing bevy of large-breasted maidens on permananet call-out and the certainty of large wedges of cash landing in your lap at the end of an evening spent dressed in a D.J. All the preceding helps soften the blow of any enterprise built on luck and the all pervading stench of livestock. However, at this point in history, and apart from the willing bevy of large-breasted maidens and the all pervading stench of livestock that had nothing to do with bluffing your way through life, the ambience of the surroundings left a lot to be desired in these far off days when D.J. stood for Dingo-skin Jerkin and a large wedge stood………? No trays of delicately prepared nibbles in this particular casino of life; no sir. This whole precarious existence was held together by a diet that had to be wrestled to the ground immediately after grace, so a large chunk of the available “fun-factor” was removed from a pastime that already had an enjoyment factor of zero; add all this to the fact that the odds of you returning home to enjoy the spoils of the chase were well stacked against you and you have the perfect recipe for a miserable day out. If the flailing feet, slashing claws, gnashing teeth or scything horns housed in and on the fight-you-to-the-death victim didn’t get you, then the anticipation-edged, dribble-fuelled, sheer bad aim of your hunting companions probably would; it’s not hard to see why so much thought was given over to how to avoid this pre-historic, daily scratch-card by those new to power.
It was whilst out walking one day (not too far from the village in case a Plain’s Lion was about and peckish, you understand) and deep in thought (or as deep in thought as a life which revolved around the space between lower rib-cage and knees would allow) that our new leader saw a way forward on this issue; there, before him was a tree. Not that he hadn’t seen a tree before, I mean, he sctarched his arse up against one every day, just before defacating at its base and then peeing up it, but this one intrigued him, or at least in these days of limited descriptive vocabulary, made him look at it harder. As he stared, a large cloud passed over the face of the sun causing the tree’s leaves to curl slightly as the bright glare dimmed somewhat. For over half-an-hour he stood watching, which is a very long time in days when the average life expectancy was 30 years and bloody. Then the clouds cleared momentarily and the leaves stretched again, folding out gently, facing the brilliant orb once more. A further larger and darker cloud passed over the sun and once again our leader was rooted to the spot as the leaves once more folded into a shy curtsey in deference to the sun’s disappearance............and the awareness hit him like a bolt of lightening! In fact it was a bolt of lightening. So absorbed had this idiot been in this metrologoical occurrence that he’d failed to see it was a thunder cloud full of electronic malice that cast the second shadow. Luckily our gallant leader's teeth stopped the massive charge from earthing so he was able to carry this knowledge, and his molars, back with him to camp.
Once he’d scampered home and had time to sort through his emotions and damaged canines, he began to piece things together and the revelations came slowly and with difficulty, like a Virgin Express into Bristol Parkway. Those leaves had been like the tribe.......his tribe...... locked on to the shining beacon of......of strength and certainty of the sun which in his tribe's case shone on them in the shape of him...............their leader. But, when that warm glow of strength and health threatened to leave them they curled..........withered in their inadequacy of his strength and purpose. These leaves, like the men in the tribe, were the life-blood of the tree.........which represented the group. They helped make it grow..........kept it strong..........gave it purpose, but all of this ability was instinctively recognised by the tree.........by the tribe...... and its leaves to be dependant on the sun.......on him.......and the sun convinced the tree of this every time it was covered by cloud......and the tribe needed to know this was the way it worked without him..........! ‘Course, our illustrious leader didn’t think quite like this. I mean, how could a man with a brow that was reminiscent of a 1984, formula one Maclaren rear-spoiler work out such complex ideologies? No, he’d just watched the leaves curl, figured they looked like a hand gripping onto a cock and worked out that he needed to convince the tribe that, without him, they’d be nothing but a bunch of wankers. But the question remained the same; how to feed and fornicate well but get off jankers when the hunt was next called and not lose face and position.
The second flash of lightening and accompanying crack of thunder cowed him in the corner of his urine-soaked abode as he was reminded of the elemental payback of forgetfulness, but it also cleared the way for his second flash of insight namely, in order to avoid any further field dentistry, send someone else out to look at the bloody tree, or, in the case at hand, send someone else out on the hunt in his place!......... But who……and by what excuse? A valuable lesson in timing was forthcoming here as our leader realised he could do with another artist of flint and stick like at the lsat hunt. Should’ve saved him, but then, his demise had had an element of timing in it; surely there was another lesson in timing to be gleaned here?
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