Riot jail sentences in crown courts up to three times longer than average
September 5, 2011 No Comment
Typical sentence for theft or handling stolen goods in riots is 13.6 months, compared with 4.1 months for same offence last year Rioters sentenced in crown courts have received jail terms that are much more severe than usual, replicating the punitive response by magistrates, the Guardian can reveal. An exclusive analysis of crown court cases against those convicted of involvement in last month’s riots shows some sentences are nearly three times the average jail terms handed down for the same offences. The data, part of a Guardian database covering more than 70% of the defendants processed through English courts for offences linked to the disorder, indicates that crown court judges have been even more willing to treat involvement in the riots as an aggravating factor than their counterparts in magistrates courts. The database of 1,100 riot-related defendants will form part of a landmark study announced on Monday into the causes and consequences of the riots . The Guardian and the London School of Economics have launched Reading the Riots , for which researchers will interview hundreds of people involved in the disturbances in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Gloucester. The first empirical study into the widespread rioting and looting is supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Foundations . As well as surveys of those who took part in the disorder, the research will include interviews with residents, police and the judiciary, and an advanced analysis of more than 2.5m riot-related Twitter messages. The project is based on a groundbreaking survey conducted in the aftermath of the Detroit riots in 1967 by the Detroit Free Press newspaper and Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. The professor who led the Detroit study, Phil Meyer, is advising the research into the disturbances in England. LSE’s involvement will be led by Professor Tim Newburn, head of the university’s social policy department. A month after the disturbances began in Tottenham, north London, the Guardian can also reveal: • More than 90% of the cases being sentenced at crown court are resulting in jail terms, compared with an average rate for custodial sentences of 46%. Data previously released by the Ministry of Justice revealed that 44.6% of rioters sentenced at magistrate courts were sent to prison, almost four times the typical custody rate of 12.3%. • A YouGov poll has found Britons have become more fearful since the rioting took place. The survey, which was commissioned by Nottingham University and compares attitudes before and after the riots, found people felt that their safety and wider society were under threat. Those polled were also more likely to express prejudiced views against minority groups, although they did not blame them for the disorder. • An investigation into the Tottenham riots , which sparked copycat rioting across England, has found local police were alerted to rising tensions long before a protest over the killing of Mark Duggan by police descended into a riot. An email warning from a senior community adviser to police was sent to the borough commander 24 hours before the protest took place. She went on holiday the following day. The average crown court sentence for individuals engaging in theft or handling stolen goods so far is 13.6 months, about three times the average 4.1-month sentence handed down in 2010 – equivalent to a sentence 231% longer than the 2010 average. Magistrates courts have been delivering sentences about 25% longer than average, according to the Guardian data. The difference reflects the greater sentencing powers of crown courts, and potentially also the severity of riot-related cases transferred to the higher courts. The most severe sentences relating to the riots were handed to Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw , both from Chester, who received four years for inciting riots in their home towns of Warrington and Northwich on Facebook. None of the messages posted by either individual led to a riot. Blackshaw is appealing against his sentence. The next most severe penalty was handed to 18-year-old Amed Pelle, given a 33-month prison term, also for posting Facebook messages. This was equal to the sentence passed on Dwaine Spence, who led a gang of 30 to 40 youths on a rampage through Wolverhampton town centre and hurled a 3ft plank of wood at a police car. Other cases contained in the crown court data include Anderson Fernandes, 22, sentenced to 16 months for stealing ice cream, and 19-year-old Fabrice Bembo-Leta, who turned himself in to police after identifying himself from a published photo, and who was sentenced to 32 months in prison for burglary. The shortest prison sentence issued so far to a riot-related offender in crown courts went to Steven Frear, 20, who received six weeks for possession of an offensive weapon. The average sentence for the cases so far is 14.7 months. Many of the most serious cases, including charges of murder and attempted murder, are unlikely to be heard in court for several months. Only two of the 72 completed crown court cases to date resulted in non-custodial sentences. UK riots Crime UK criminal justice Sentencing Paul Lewis James Ball Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Krugman’s Delusion: The Past Year Proves Cutting Spending Doesn’t Create Jobs
September 5, 2011 No Comment
Exactly what country does New York Times columnist Paul Krugman actually reside in? Before you answer, consider the following sentence from his article Monday: Although you'd never know it listening to the ranters, the past year has actually been a pretty good test of the theory that slashing government spending actually creates jobs. For the past year to be a good test of this theory, there would have needed to be a slash to government spending, right? Was this the case? Hardly. In fiscal 2010, total federal outlays were $3.72 trillion. In fiscal 2011 which ends September 30, we're projected to spend $3.83 trillion. That's a $111 billion increase. Yet this Nobel laureate in economics thinks government spending was slashed. In reality, since the last time such outlays declined year over year was 1965, we should really be testing Krugman, Obama, and the Democrats' theory that dramatic increases in government spending creates jobs. Democrats have been radically increasing outlays since they took over Congress in 2007. During this time, as spending rose by 41 percent, the economy lost roughly seven million jobs sending unemployment skyrocketing from 4.4 percent to 9.1 percent. If Krugman wasn't delusional, the above referenced sentence from his Monday column would read, “Although you'd never know it listening to the ranters like Barack Obama, the Democrats, Robert Reich, and me , the past four years have actually been a fabulous test of the theory that exploding government spending actually creates jobs. Isn't that really the only conclusion that one could draw given what's happened since this recent Keynesian experiment began in 2007? Of course, it's unfair to expect this Nobel laureate in economics to make such an obvious determination. He thinks a $111 billion increase in spending is a slash.
Continue reading …Comedian at Palin Event: ‘Special Needs’ Liberals Aren’t Lovable Like Trig
September 5, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Sarah Palin is usually quick to attack those who make jokes about her children, but Mama Grizzly was strangely silent Saturday when a conservative comedian said that liberals were “special needs children” like her son Trig, who has Down Syndrome. “The left should love Sarah Palin,” comedian Eric Golub, who also blogs at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood , noted at the tea party-affiliated “Restoring America” rally in Indianola, Iowa. “She has a beautiful, adorable special needs child… For that reason alone, the left should worship Sarah Palin and adopt her as one of their own. Because the leftist haters are an entire political ideology of special needs children.” “And unlike Trig, they are not very lovable,” he added. “All you hear from them is gimme, gimme, I need, I want, I deserve, I’m entitled. No, you don’t. When you’re four years old it’s mildly adorable. When you’re 64 like Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton or the Pelosi-raptor, it is intolerable.” He continued: “On the subject of four-year-olds, my friend and his wife recently adopted a baby boy… and I affectionately refer to this child as ‘the boy.’ And the more I look at ‘the boy,’ the more he reminds me of the president.” In her speech following Golub, Palin broke with her tradition of lashing out at comments about her children and ignored the comedian’s jokes. Last year , after the Fox television show Family Guy presented a mentally character whose mother was the former Governor of Alaska, Palin wrote on Facebook that the episode felt like a “kick in the gut.” Her daughter Bristol added: “Shouldn’t we be willing to say that some things just are not funny? Are there any limits to what some people will do or say in regards to my little brother or others in the special needs community?” Palin also called for then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to be fired after he suggested that some liberals were “retarded.”
Continue reading …
• Services PMI slumps to 51.1 for August • Fall worse than after Lehman collapse • Pound falls to six-week low on news • Eurozone data shows raised recession risk Britain’s services sector has suffered its sharpest slowdown since the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001, fuelling concerns that the dominant part of the UK economy is faltering . Growth across the UK services sector slumped in August, according to a monthly survey of purchasing managers conducted by Markit and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply. The seasonally adjusted index, which measures activity across the sector, fell to 51.1 in August from 55.4 in July. This is the second-biggest fall on record – worse than in the weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It disappointed economists who had expected a reading of 54 points, rather than a result closer to the 50-point mark that separates expansion from contraction. David Noble, chief executive of CIPS, described the drop in the services purchasing managers’ index as “eye-watering”. It sent the pound falling to a six-week low of $1.6103 against the dollar. Markit said that the general economic uncertainty is hurting the UK services sector, leaving many companies struggling to generate new business. Some firms also reported that the riots that struck parts of the UK last month had also hit trading. “Allied with soft manufacturing data and a slowdown in construction growth, the overall picture provided by the latest PMI surveys is one of a stuttering UK private sector,” said Markit’s senior economist, Paul Smith. “Job losses were again reported as firms remain reluctant to replace leavers or are forced to cut positions in response to excess capacity,” Smith added. Markit/CIPS also found that business confidence in the UK services sector was the lowest for a year. The survey found that worries over the impact of government spending cuts were also “depressing sentiment”. Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said the services data “really rings the growth alarm bells”. He said: “The very sharp slowdown in activity in the services sector in August indicated by the purchasing managers’ survey is a particularly significant blow to the economy given the sector’s dominant role. Even allowing for any impact from the riots and a correction after a surprise spike up in services activity in July, this is a hugely disappointing survey. The only crumb of comfort is that it shows services activity is still expanding.” A separate survey of the eurozone economy published on Monday showed that the risks of Europe slumping back into recession this year have increased. Growth in economic activity across the eurozone fell to its lowest rate in almost two years, according to Markit. The research group reported that the combined eurozone services and manufacturing PMI fell to 50.7 in August, with business optimism falling significantly in Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Chris Williamson of Markit said that austerity measures and fears over the future of the eurozone are eating into economic demand, and could push the region towards a double-dip recession. “The PMI suggests that economic growth in the third quarter of 2011 is unlikely to improve on the 0.2% seen in the three months to June, and a contraction in the final quarter looks a distinct possibility unless business and consumer confidence improve noticeably in coming months,” Williamson warned. The Chinese services sector is also suffering, according to HSBC’s monthly PMI survey. It showed that China’s services companies grew at their lowest rate since the survey began in November 2005 , at 50.6 in August from 53.5 in July. Services sector Economic growth (GDP) Recession Economics Euro Europe Global recession Global economy Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Tomas Alfredson’s marvellously chill adaptation of John Le Carré’s cold war thriller features a delicate performance from Gary Oldman along with a first-rate supporting cast A thunderstorm rolled into Venice overnight, flash-bulbing the sky and lancing the boil of heat that has enveloped the city these past six days. One could have sworn that the temperature dropped still further, to practically Baltic levels, during the morning screening of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a marvellously chill and acrid cold war thriller from Swedish director Tomas Alfredson. Right here, right now, it’s the film to beat at this year’s festival. Nimbly navigating the labyrinthine source novel by John Le Carré, Alfredson eases us through a run-down 70s London, all the way to a municipal MI6 bunker, out by the train yards. This, it transpires, is “the Circus”, a warren of narrow corridors and smoke-filled offices, patrolled by jumpy, ulcerous men with loose flesh and thinning hair, peering into the shadows in search of a spy. There’s a mole at the top of the Circus, a “deep-penetration agent” leaking secrets to the Soviets. Control (John Hurt) has narrowed the hunt to five likely suspects. Now all that remains is for diffident George Smiley (Gary Oldman), working off the books and under the radar, to steal in and identify the culprit. Oldman gives a deliciously delicate, shaded performance, flitting in and out of the wings like some darting grey lizard. We have the sense that Smiley has seen too much and done too much, and that a lifetime’s experience has bled him of colour. His eyes are tired, his collar too tight, his necktie a noose. Yet still he keeps coming, quietly infiltrating a first-rate supporting cast that includes Mark Strong, Kathy Burke and Colin Firth. Away in Istanbul, Tom Hardy raises the roof as Ricki Tarr, the tale’s bullish rogue element, while Benedict Cumberbatch is mesmerising as the well-groomed gentleman conspirator coming slowly apart at the seams. If Alfredson’s film has a problem, it is only that a quirk in the casting blows the whistle too soon. You don’t need to be George Smiley to grow suspicious of the big-name actor with too much time on his hands. Does this matter? Possibly not, because Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is finally more about the journey than the destination; more fascinated with the detail than the denouement. The Circus, after all, is precisely that: an outmoded sideshow of clowns, strong-men and acrobats, founded on dodgy principles and banging the drum for a war that may not be a real war anyway. Who cares who is responsible? All these men are guilty of something; all of them drinking from the same dirty water fountain. Tinker, Tailor … treads a shifting, dangerous world where 70s London looks a lot like 70s Moscow and where Santa Claus wears a Lenin mask. It invites us to look from our spy to their spy and treat those two impostors just the same. Rating: 4/5 Venice film festival Venice film festival 2011 Thriller Drama John Le Carré Film adaptations Thrillers Fiction Festivals Xan Brooks guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Lib Dem leader says schools will be acceptable only if they reduce social segregation rather than entrenching inequality of opportunity The government’s new free schools must be open to all children and not just a “privileged few”, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, has said. In a speech delivered as the first wave of the new-style schools prepared to open for the academic year, Clegg said they would be acceptable only if they reduce social segregation rather than entrenching inequalities of opportunity. He called on the education secretary, Michael Gove, to ensure that the second wave of the free schools, to be announced within the next few weeks, are in poorer neighbourhoods or areas with a shortage of school places. In an attempt to reassure Liberal Democrat sceptics that the policy will improve social mobility, Clegg insisted that he would never allow independent schools within the state sector to be run for profit . The free schools policy is seen as a distinctly Tory strand of the coalition agreement, with Lib Dem activists voting against it at their party conference last year amid concerns that it is socially divisive. Clegg acknowledged that the programme – in which groups of parents, charities or any other organisation can bid to open schools where existing provision is poor – is “controversial” and carries “risks”. But he continued: “I am confident we have mitigated those risks to make sure this is now a policy which will promote higher standards, better integration and fairer chances, especially for children from the most deprived backgrounds. “Let me be clear what I want to see from free schools. I want them to be available to the whole community, open to all children and not just the privileged few. I want them to be part of a school system that releases opportunity, rather than entrenching it. “They must not be the preserve of the privileged few – creaming off the best pupils while leaving the rest to fend for themselves, causing problems for and draining resources from other nearby schools. So let me give you my assurance. I would never tolerate that.” He said the coalition had “made it clear that our over-riding social policy objective is improving social mobility … making sure what counts in our society are ability and drive, not privilege and good connections”. “Free schools will only be acceptable so long as they promote those goals,” he added. “That’s why I am pleased that half of the first wave will be in deprived areas, and the vast majority in areas where they desperately need school places. “Michael Gove will be making decisions on the second wave over the coming weeks. I want to see all of them in poorer neighbourhoods, or in areas crying out for more school places.” Rejecting suggestions that private companies could run free schools for profit, the Lib Dem leader said: “To anyone who is worried that, by expanding the mix of providers in our education system, we are inching towards inserting the profit motive into our school system – again, let me reassure you: yes to greater diversity, yes to more choice for parents, but no to running schools for profit, not in our state-funded education sector.” Gove, who has championed the flagship schools policy, said on Sunday only that the free school system did not need profit “at the moment”. “Nick Clegg and I are completely agreed on this. The Conservative election manifesto said that we didn’t need to have profit at the moment. Nick doesn’t believe that we need to have profit at the moment, and we don’t,” the Tory education secretary told BBC 1′s Andrew Marr Show . Asked about the future, he added: “Well we’re in a coalition now, and we’re working to ensure that we get more free schools.” The first 24 free schools are scheduled to open within the next month. The Department for Education (DfE) said 15 were oversubscribed for their first year. Half are in the 30% most deprived communities, according to DfE analysis. Clegg said free schools will be allowed to prioritise disadvantaged youngsters in the admissions process, incentivised to do so by the extra funding they will bring in with the pupil premium. “The more of them the school takes, the more money it gets. That’s a simple but crucial financial incentive,” he said. “No-one has reformed the admissions code like this for years. In future, free schools must use this power to do all they can to make sure that they have the same proportion of free school meals pupils as the local average at least.” Free schools Schools Michael Gove Nick Clegg School admissions guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen 10.47am: I’ve now got the full text of Nick Clegg’s speech and I’ll summarise it shortly. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that the weekend reports about what Clegg was going to say – focusing on claims that Clegg stopped Michael Gove allowing free schools to make a profit – prompted some strong rebuttal from free school supporters. Here’s Toby Young on his Telegraph blog. Perhaps [Clegg's] going to claim he thwarted Gove’s plans to allow for-profit education providers to operate free schools during this Government’s term of office. But that would be a hostage to fortune because it looks likely that at least one of the free schools that will open in 2012 will be operated by a commercial provider. This is allowed under the present rules, provided the school in question is owned by a charitable trust. (From 2007-10, a comprehensive in Enfield was managed by EdisonLearning, a commercial education provider.) Or is he going to say he’s “wrecked” Gove’s plans to allow for-profit providers to operate and own free schools? Perhaps, but that, too, would be misleading since Gove has never had any plans to allow that. The Conservative leadership concluded long ago that to allow for-profit companies to set up, own and operate taxpayer-funded schools in the Coalition’s first term would be a step too far. When Gove and others are tackled about this by Right-wing Tory backbenchers, they sometimes say they would have gone further if it hadn’t been for those pesky Lib Dems, but that’s just a politically convenient excuse. The Conservatives wouldn’t have taken this step even if they’d won an outright majority. And here’s Fraser Nelson at Coffee House. The Lib Dem contribution to free schools is to introduce a “pupil premium” so kids from disadvantaged areas are worth more to teach. David Laws championed this, in particular. It means that profit-seeking schools – the type that exist in Sweden – would have a huge incentive to expand in the areas of Britain that most need them. Indeed, on Coffee House on Friday we ran an interview with a Swedish state secretary explaining how profit-seeking schools are the most socially just because they are programmed to go wherever demand is highest. If Clegg vetoes profit-seeking schools, then he will torpedo his own vision of free schools flourishing in high-deprivation areas. No one will be claiming the incentives his party so thoughtfully laid out. Clegg is blowing a potentially revolutionary Lib Dem policy out of the water, because he thinks he can dress it up as a Tory policy. 10.27am: Last week the Daily Telegraph launched Hands Off Our Land, a campaign against the government’s plans to change the planning rules. It doesn’t seem to be going too well. The secret of a good newspaper campaign is to pick a fight that you will win. But today, as my colleague Hélène Mulholland reports, George Osborne and Eric Pickles have written an article in the Financial Times (subscription) saying they are determined not to back down. “We say that sticking with the old, failed planning system puts at risk young people’s future prosperity and quality of life,” they write. “No one should underestimate our determination to win this battle.” Even more embarrassingly for the paper, Charles Moore, the former Daily Telegraph editor, has also come out in favour of the government’s plans. He wrote a column to that effect in the paper on Saturday. Moore – or “Comrade Charles”, as some people are calling him since he wrote his “why the left may be right” piece a few weeks ago – is always worth reading, but Saturday’s column was particularly good. Here’s an extract. In 1733, someone built Flatford Mill in Suffolk. About 80 years later, John Constable, whose father owned it, used it as the inspiration for the great paintings which, more than any other, encapsulate our view of rural England. I bet the mill would not have got past the planners if such things had existed in 1733. I bet the National Trust would have accused this “industrial unit” of being “out of keeping” with the rural scene. Someone would have slapped a noise abatement order on the hay wain as it creaked and splashed through the ford. The landscape we love, then, developed out of the normal human need to make a living. I cannot believe that its interest is best served by making future livelihoods almost impossible. The men who put up those rustic dwellings did so in the hope that their children would be able to live and work there. If they had been told, as they are today, that it was an anti-social act to build more houses to accommodate them, they would scarcely have understood what was being said. 10.22am: Nick Clegg is delivering his education speech now. I’ll post a summary once I’ve had a chance to read the full text. 9.42am: The best story around today is, of course, the revelation that Tony Blair has, almost literally, joined the Murdoch family. He is godfather to Rupert Murdoch’s nine-year-old daughter, Grace. As my colleague Dan Sabbagh reports, Blair “was present at the star-studded baptism of the child on the banks of the Jordan, at the spot where Jesus is said to have undergone the same ceremony”. (Does that put Blair in the role of God? Or was Murdoch himself standing in for the Almighty in this scenario?) Whatever, the revelation does suggest that perhaps Blair wasn’t being 100% honest when he addressed Labour’s parliamentary committee on March 25 1998. Chris Mullin writes about the meeting in A Walk-On Part, the latest volume of his diaries. Murdoch came up because the Financial Times had run a story saying that Blair had intervened on his behalf with the Italian prime minister. This is what Blair told the committee. My relationship with Murdoch is no different from that with any other newspaper proprietor. I love them all equally. Blair also said: “I have never discussed media policy with Murdoch.” (By the way, the Mullin diaries are good. I’ve posted a mini review here, on the Guardian Books website.) 9.28am: My colleague Polly Curtis has launched a new blog today. It’s called Reality Check, and she’s going to be using crowdsourcing to help her investigate policy issues. Today she’s looking at whether free schools will take funding away from other schools. 9.12am: Murdo Fraser (left), the deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives, is formally launching his campaign for the leadership today. In an interview on BBC Radio Scotland, he has been talking about his plan to scrap the Scottish Conservative party and replace it with a new centre-right outfit. According to the Press Association, he said that the new party would not just adopt distinct policies on devolved issues. My proposal is more radical than that. Take fishing policy for example, which is a reserved matter [ie, a matter for Westminster, not Edinburgh]. I think the Common Fisheries Policy has been a disaster for the Scottish fishing industry. It used to be the policy of the UK Conservative party to pull out of the Common Fisheries Policy. I think many people in Scotland would welcome that. Sadly, that is no longer the position of the UK Conservative party. I think if we were successful in creating a new progressive centre-right party, that’s exactly the sort of cause we should be championing and fighting our corner in Westminster on that basis. Fraser also suggested that, although his party would normally support the Conservatives in the House of Commons, its MPs could vote against their English colleagues on some issues. “As in all situations where you have a coalition, you have a negotiation then based on your numbers,” he said. 9.03am: David Cameron is definitely making a statement in the Commons on Libya, I’m told. I presume he’ll be asked about the evidence suggesting that MI6 ran a “rendition” operation with Gaddafi’s security services. 8.52am: We’re going to be hearing a lot about police cuts over the conference season. Labour are making a signature issue and Ed Miliband has promised to force a Commons votes on the government’s plans to cut police numbers by 16,000. So ministers will welcome a report from the Policy Exchange thinktank, Cost of the Cops (pdf) saying that “total employment is not a useful measure of police performance and that the effective deployment of the officers that a force has available is the most important factor”. Blair Gibbs, one of the authors, was on the Today programme earlier. According to PoliticsHome, this is what he said. There has been for two decades at least a political obsession, a numbers game that basically says that the only effective measure of police performance is how many cops are on the payroll. No other public service really works like that: it’s all about how you deploy the officers you have, not how many you employ, and for that reason, it’s really important now that people in the police service and in government do start arguing the case for more effective, more visible policing that doesn’t have to be about hiring more officers. 8.36am: For the record, here are the lastest YouGov GB polling figures, from yesterday’s Sunday Times. After the phone hacking affair erupted, the Labour lead over the Conservatives grew (as you can see from the YouGov tracker figures [pdf], presumably because Ed Miliband was seen to handle it quite well. At the end of July and the beginning of August the Labour lead reached 9 points on several days. But since then it has shrunk. In the latest poll it is only 1 point (as it was on one day last week). Here are the figures from yesterday. Labour: 39% (up 9 points since the general election) Conservatives: 38% (up 1) Lib Dems: 10% (down 14) Labour lead: 1 point Government approval: -22 8.26am: Now, where were we? The economy stalling, the coalition parties squabbling, Ed Miliband doing okay, but not brilliantly, and surprise revelations coming out Rupert Murdoch’s relations with our political masters. The August riots changed things a bit – as David Cameron explained in an article in the Mail on Sunday yesterday – but in many ways the outlook is much the same as it was when I was last blogging daily before the start of the summer recess in July. Hope you all had a good holiday. Welcome back. The Commons is sitting again today. And we’ve got a couple of Lib Dem events coming up. Here’s a full list. 9.30am: Brian Paddick , the newly-elected Lib Dem candidate for London mayor in 2012, gives a press conference with Simon Hughes , the party’s deputy leader. 10.20am: Nick Clegg , the deputy prime minister, gives a speech on education. As Jeevan Vasagar and Allegra Stratton report in today’s paper , he is going to open up a new front in his disagreements with the education secretary, Michael Gove, criticising the recent decision by the Tories to heap responsibility for children’s development on to teachers. 2.30pm: Eric Pickles , the communities secretary, takes questions in the Commons. 3.30pm: David Cameron is expected to make a statement in the Commons about Libya. As usual, I’ll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I’ll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm, and an afternoon one after 4pm. House of Commons Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Policy Exchange says move would reassure public, but police organisation dismisses idea as dangerous and impractical Police officers should wear their uniforms to and from work to help reassure the public, a leading right-of-centre thinktank has said. Policy Exchange, which has links with leading Conservatives, suggested the move would be the equivalent of having 12,000 officers on the streets. But the idea could put police officers and their families in danger and would be impractical, said the Police Federation , which represents rank-and-file officers in England and Wales. It said the thinktank’s idea did not take into consideration the risks to officers as they left their homes. In a report , Policy Exchange thinktank suggested millions of pounds could be saved if more civilian staff did back-office work currently performed by more expensively trained officers. Blair Gibbs, head of crime and justice at Policy Exchange, told the BBC’s Today programme at least £500m had been spent since 2006 in extra employment costs for 7,000 police officers who were not currently in policing roles. “It is vital that forces look at the use of officers and make sure they are deployed properly,” he said. “There remains a clear gap between additional police resources and the service delivered. As far as the public are concerned, the unprecedented expansion in officer numbers since 2001 may as well never have happened.” Peter Fahy, head of workforce development at the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said paying civilians to do more work was politically sensitive because it would mean fewer officers. “It is crucially important the police officers are used in roles which require their expertise, powers and experience,” he said. “That said, this doesn’t just apply to the frontline, there are many office-based jobs where police officers are required, including handling intelligence, delivering training, or processing offenders through the criminal justice system.” The idea of officers wearing their uniforms on the way to work was “a bit of a red herring”, he said. “Most officers travel to work now in cars, I’m not sure how many of the public would see it. If you’re an officer and you’re trying to deal with an incident, even on a bus or a tube [when] you’re on your way to work and you don’t have your radio and protective equipment, then that is an issue. Our officers already make huge numbers of off-duty arrests. There is an obligation on every police officer, on duty or off duty, to intervene if they see something.” The Policy Exchange report, Cost of the Cops: Manpower and deployment in policing, said police forces in England and Wales wasted almost £150m a year because one in 20 officers did roles that could be performed by civilians. The report found that since 2000, funding for the police in England and Wales had risen by 25% in real terms. In 2010, the average household paid £614 per year for policing, up from £395 in 2001. It suggested forces should consider single patrols, rather than officers working in pairs. Police Thinktanks Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
• Rebel commander demands UK apology over rendition • Talks fail on the surrender of besieged Gaddafi town • Red Cross chief visits Syria amid continuing crackdown 9.21am: Libya’s new civilian leaders are concerned that military commanders like Abdul Hakim Belhaj, a former leader of a dissident Islamist group who is planning to sue the British government over his rendition, are getting too big for their boots. The Washington Post reports that moves to rein in his influence by bringing the military commanders under one committee headed by the deputy prime minister Ali Tarhouni. Mohammed Benrasali, a senior official in the Libya Stabilization Committee and a member of the Misrata city council, said the move was largely designed to rein in Belhadj, whose past as a fighter in Afghanistan was seen as something of a public relations problem for a government seeking substantial Western backing. “Mr. Belhaj is getting too big for his shoes,” Benrasali said. “We needed someone to rein him in.” 9.08am: Disputed allegations about Iran’s links with al-Qaida have resurfaced in Libyan documents discovered by the Daily Telegraph . Iran has repeatedly denied official involvement with al-Qaida . The Telegraph said the Libyan documents don’t challenge the Iranian government, but do suggest that al-Qaida operatives had more freedom of movement there than previously thought. 8.34am: Welcome to Middle East Live. There are two key things to watch today: the continuing fallout from the discovery of documents detailing UK and US collaboration with the Gaddafi regime in the rendition of terrorism suspects; and the rebel’s next move on the besieged town of Bani Walid after the apparent failure of peace talks with Gaddafi loyalists. Here are the main developments in more detail: Libya • Abdul Hakim Belhaj, commander of the anti-Gaddafi militia, is considering suing the British government after documents emerged appearing to show UK involvement in his rendition and subsequent torture. Speaking to the Guardian he said: “I wasn’t allowed a bath for three years and I didn’t see the sun for one year. They hung me from the wall and kept me in an isolation cell. I was regularly tortured … This will not stop the new Libya having orderly relations with the United States and Britain. But it did not need to happen.” • British intelligence agencies mounted their own “rendition” operation in collaboration with Gaddafi’s security services, the newly discovered Tripoli papers suggest. A secret CIA document found among the haul shows that the British and Libyans worked together to arrange for a terrorism suspect to be removed from Hong Kong to Tripoli – along with his wife and children – despite the risk that they would be tortured. The wording of the document suggests the CIA was not involved in the planning of the rendition operation. • David Cameron is expected to make a statement in the Commons about Libya at around 3.30pm. Andrew Sparrow will be reporting on the political fallout on the rendition allegations on our Politics live blog. • Rebels are poised for an assault on Bani Walid after the failure of talks aimed at securing the surrender of Gaddafi loyalists. Abusif Ghnyah, a rebel spokesman who comes from Bani Walid, said 120 people gathered in the town last week and agreed a negotiated surrender, only for the meeting to be disrupted by Gaddafi loyalists. • Rebel leaders in the nearby town of Tahouna said loyalist convoys had been seen leaving Bani Walid after residents raised rebels flags. Rebels were planning to send forays into town to test the mood of the people. • China offered to sell the Gaddafi government large stockpiles of weapons and ammunition in apparent violation of United Nations sanctions. Documents obtained by Canada’s the Globe and Mail show that state-controlled Chinese arms manufacturers were prepared to sell weapons and ammunition worth at least $200-million to Gaddafi in late July. Syria • The head of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, is to to meet Bashar al-Assad as activists report another 14 deaths in the latest crackdown against anti government protests. The government said nine people were killed by “armed gangs”. • Government forces have launched a massive manhunt for Adnan Muhammad al-Bakkour, the attorney general of Hama, who defected to the opposition last week, residents and activists told the LA Times. Bakkour appeared in videos last week in which he said he had resigned because of a massive government campaign of killing and torture in Hama. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest CIA rendition MI6 US foreign policy Middle East al-Qaida Syria Bashar Al-Assad Israel Bahrain Algeria Nato Iran Egypt Hosni Mubarak Matthew Weaver guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
• FTSE 100 opens more than 100 points lower • Banks and miners see big falls, RBS down 7.4% • Lagarde calls for recapitalisation of Europe’s banks • Weak US jobs data still worrying traders Fears of a new global recession sent stock markets falling sharply across Europe and Asia on Monday morning, after International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde warned that the world economy is on the brink of a new crisis. In London, the FTSE 100 fell 101.33 points at the start of trading to 5190, down 1.9%. Germany’s Dax fell 2.3%, and France’s CAC index dropped 2.5%. There was also a rush to dump shares in Asia, where Japan’s Nikkei closed 1.86% lower at 8,784.46 points and South Korea’s Seoul Composite index slid by 4.39%. This latest selloff came after Lagarde said the risk of a new financial crisis had grown in recent weeks. “We see that there has been, particularly over the summer, a clear crisis of confidence that has seriously aggravated the situation,” she told Germany’s Spiegel . “Measures need to be taken to ensure that this vicious circle is broken.” Lagarde warned that Europe’s banks needed to be recapitalised, to give them protection from losses on their reserves of sovereign debt. The former French finance minister also argued that Europe needs to implement closer fiscal union and speed up its economic growth – which has almost ground to a halt. “The sovereign debt issue weighs on the confidence that market players have in European banks,” Lagarde said. Financial stocks and miners led the fallers in London. Royal Bank of Scotland slid 7.4% to 22.2p, Barclays fell 5.5% at 155p, and Antofagasta and Kazakhmys both fell by 4%. The UK banks were buffeted by uncertainty over whether they will be forced to ringfence their retail and investment banking operations . The rush from equities into “safe-haven” government bonds pushed the interest rate on German Bunds to just 1.935%. Concerns over the weak US jobs market also dogged investors, following the shock news late last week that no new jobs were created in America last month . Chris Weston, institutional trader at IG Markets, said Friday’s disappointing non-farm payroll numbers continued to cast a shadow. “That US non-farm payroll reading certainly left traders with little to celebrate on Friday, pushing markets on both sides of the Atlantic sharply lower as a result. This has certainly set the pace for Asian markets too and with Wall Street closed today for Labor Day, it seems unlikely that there will be much appetite to start taking on any risk just yet,” said Weston. “Even those who thought a dire jobs report would pave the way for another round of cheap money in the form of QE3 seem to be cooling on the idea – or at least any hope that it’ll provide the same shot-in-the-arm response for equity markets.” Stock markets Financial crisis Global recession Banking Christine Lagarde IMF Global economy European banks Europe Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …