Rise in prison numbers unsustainable, says justice secretary, who blames media for creating image that prison life is easy The rate of jail sentencing is “financially unsustainable”, the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, has said, delivering a defiant riposte to critics within his own party and the tabloid press who have suggested that his plans to overhaul the penal system are soft on crime. Clarke last year unveiled a green paper on sentencing as part of government plans to cut the £4bn prison and probation budget by 20% over four years, promising to end a Victorian-style “bang ‘em up” culture and reduce high reoffending rates by tackling the root causes. But after facing sustained criticism, he used an interview with The Times to dismiss characterisation of him as a minister who is “soft on crime.” He is preparing to publish a bill next month which will include proposals to allow for large sentence discounts in return for early guilty pleas and diverting the mentally ill away from jail. The goal is a 3,000 cut in the record 85,000 jail population in England and Wales in four years. “[The rise in prison numbers is] financially unsustainable. That is not my principal motivation but it is pointless and very bad value for taxpayers’ money,” Clarke said. He blamed the media and lobby groups for helping to create a public perception that prison life was easy, adding: “Prisons are not hotels, they are not comfortable, they are overcrowded, they are noisy. Anyone who visits a prison soon realises the prevailing atmosphere is one of stupefying boredom on the part of inmates. “It is just very, very bad value for taxpayers’ money to keep banging them up and warehousing them in overcrowded prisons where most of them get toughened up.” He said that too many prisoners sit idly in their cells when they could be doing something more productive with their time. “I would like to see prisons where there is a working environment, where people get into the habits of the rest of the population.” Private firms would be encouraged to operate in jails and help endow inmates with skills that would make them employable when they entered into free society again. “The firms are cautious about advertising it because the newspapers write them up as ‘employing jailbirds’,” he said. However, Clarke did pledge to make community punishments tougher by insisting offenders do unpaid work for eight hours a day. “I want them to be more punitive, effective and organised. Unpaid work should require offenders to work at a proper pace in a disciplined manner rather than youths just hanging around doing odd bits tidying up derelict sites,” he added. Kenneth Clarke UK criminal justice Prisons and probation Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …I love running this video. Like many of the newly elected Republican Tea Party Governors, polls are not their friends and Rick Scott of Florida has voters very upset and now would choose Alex Sink over him if they had the chance. Only three months removed from Governor Rick Scott’s (R) inauguration, a majority of Florida voters now say the state is headed in the wrong direction and that, if they could do it all over again, they wouldn’t have elected Scott in the first place, according to a new Suffolk University poll. In the poll, 54% of voters said the state was headed in the wrong direction, compared to 30% who said it was going the right way. Further, just under half (49%) of all voters said they disapproved of Scott’s job performance, versus only 28% who said they approved. Scott’s approval rating is so bad that the poll found him losing a hypothetical do-over election to Democrat Alex Sink by a ten-point margin, 41% to 31%. Previous polls have also found Scott’s job approval deep underwater, including a Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month that pegged his approval to disapproval split at 35% to 48%. A March PPP poll showed Scott with an even worse 32%-55% split, and found him losing a do-over election — by a 20-point margin. It’s too bad that when voters got angry they turned to phony’s like Rick Scott. The Democrats didn’t help themselves at the time, but after Republicans destroyed our economy, electing alleged criminals is not the answer either.
Continue reading …I love running this video. Like many of the newly elected Republican Tea Party Governors, polls are not their friends and Rick Scott of Florida has voters very upset and now would choose Alex Sink over him if they had the chance. Only three months removed from Governor Rick Scott’s (R) inauguration, a majority of Florida voters now say the state is headed in the wrong direction and that, if they could do it all over again, they wouldn’t have elected Scott in the first place, according to a new Suffolk University poll. In the poll, 54% of voters said the state was headed in the wrong direction, compared to 30% who said it was going the right way. Further, just under half (49%) of all voters said they disapproved of Scott’s job performance, versus only 28% who said they approved. Scott’s approval rating is so bad that the poll found him losing a hypothetical do-over election to Democrat Alex Sink by a ten-point margin, 41% to 31%. Previous polls have also found Scott’s job approval deep underwater, including a Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month that pegged his approval to disapproval split at 35% to 48%. A March PPP poll showed Scott with an even worse 32%-55% split, and found him losing a do-over election — by a 20-point margin. It’s too bad that when voters got angry they turned to phony’s like Rick Scott. The Democrats didn’t help themselves at the time, but after Republicans destroyed our economy, electing alleged criminals is not the answer either.
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Crowds spill on to the pavement for the first sale of ‘distressed property’ in Ireland The Irish property bubble burst in such spectacular fashion that it will cost Irish taxpayers for years to come. But an IMF bailout and swingeing austerity measures do not appear to have dented the Irish enthusiasm for a property deal. The crowds spilled on to the pavement at Ireland’s first ever auction of “distressed property” today as an estimated 1,200 would-be buyers flocked to the swish Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin in search of a bargain. But with 84 keenly priced lots, ranging from a three-bed semi priced as low as €22,500 (£20,000) to a four-bed mews house in Dublin’s most salubrious district going for €600,000, it was probably always going to be busy. Quick-thinking auctioneers despatched a man with a microphone to the steps of the hotel to relay bids from the pavement back into the ballroom, where would-be investors, solicitors, estate agents and young couples looking for their first home gathered for an event estate agent Majella Rippington from Corporate Lettings described as “historic”. The police, however, were not impressed and the auction was briefly suspended to allow the Garda to disperse the crowd outside. It was merely a brief hitch. Nothing could have halted the most keenly awaited auction since the recession began. Inside, the atmosphere was bristling with excitement as the hammer came down on the first lot – a 500 sq ft studio apartment in the centre of Temple Bar, Dublin’s equivalent of Soho, a touristy district best known for boozy stag and hen parties. There were at least a dozen bidders, including a man who claimed to live upstairs from the flat and said it would have fetched €350,000 at the peak. Today it had a reserve price of €80,000, but was swiftly sold for €127,000 to businessman Douglas Taylor, who wanted it for his student daughter. “It’s a charming apartment, needs lots of work – but nothing that can’t be put straight,” said Taylor, who has several businesses, including cleaning, security and recruitment. “I nearly missed out – I left my ID in the car and then, because of the crowds, couldn’t get back in again. I was lucky.” Taylor is not a novice in the property business: he owns three properties in Ireland – all in negative equity – and four in London, which are not. “I think this will help establish the floor and get the market going again,” he said. And the auction found the floor for Ballsbridge – Dublin’s most sought-after residential district. The biggest shock of was the four-bed mews house that did not attract a single bid at the guide price of €600,000. There were gasps as the hammer came down at just €550,000. “I’m feeling a bit of elation and nervousness,” said the successful bidder, who gave his name only as Patrick. “I thought it would go for in excess of €700,000.” He is a returning émigré and plans to live in the house himself. The purchase will send shivers down the spines of his new neighbours. In 2006 a similar mews house sold for €2.5m while in 2007 another sold for €1.5m – a sign of how far and fast property prices have tumbled in Dublin in the last four years. While Ballsbridge might now be on its uppers, other parts of Dublin generated brisk trade, particular city centre apartments. Michaela Masojada from London was thrilled when the hammer came down on her €345,000 bid for a three-bed penthouse in Bride Street, just minutes from her lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons on St Stephen’s Green. Her bid valued the property at 50% more than the reserve price of €230,000. “I’m so happy. I screamed at the auction. You’d never get a place like this in London,” she said. Portlaoise, an unprepossessing midlands town about an hour away from Dublin, also generated some surprises. Best known for its high-security prison – home to IRA prisoners in the 1970s and 1980s – it became a commuter belt town in the boom as spiralling prices in Dublin pushed out young families. Two apartments with guide prices of €35,000 sold for €61,000 and €62,000 – putting them among the star performers of the day. “I’m glad it’s done a little bit better than expected. Anything that moves this depressed market is a good thing,” said Rippington, who says the market has been paralysed by the fear that prices would fall further. UK auctioneers Allsop, which spent a year putting the auction together with local partner Space, were thrilled with the result and are planning a second auction in the summer with hundreds more properties. After six hours Allsop auctioneer Gary Murphy realised €15m for the banks. “It was unbelievable,” he said. Just three properties remained unsold. “I don’t think we’re disappointed about [the mews house] in Ballsbridge,” said Allsop partner Michael Linane. “The key was to sell it. This is not about us telling the Irish or anyone else what property is worth, it’s about saying ‘you decide’. “If you market the auction right and generate enough interest you’ve done what you can. And as you can see the interest is phenomenal.” John Howard from UK company Auction House, a rival to Allsop, was also at the hotel. He was surveying the opportunities for his own firm and thinks there is going to be a surge of repossession auctions in Ireland and the UK. “Last time this happened in the 1990s interest rates were really high. Now they are at 1% in the UK and 1.25% in Ireland. There are also an awful lot of buy-to-let customers in both countries that we didn’t have in the last recession. I think this is going to take off. It is a learning curve for everyone.” Ireland Europe European debt crisis European banks Lisa O’Carroll guardian.co.uk
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Ferrell’s familiarity with Steve Carell was palpable, writes Hadley Freeman , but so was an itchiness in his new role And all too soon, he was finished. That’s what she said. On Thursday night, Michael Scott – the double entendre-dropping boss played by Steve Carell on the hugely successful US version of The Office – started to take leave of the show. To ease the trauma for the 7.3m US viewers who watch it every week, not to mention its cast members, who have publicly admitted to concern about the show’s future without Carell, the producers hired a new boss to take over as manager. Scott introduced Deangelo Vickers to the staff at Dunder Mifflin, and he soon revealed himself to be boorish, cruel, and in possession of an inexplicable fondness for terrible paintings of deserts. On the plus side, he is played by Will Ferrell. The original UK version of The Office ran for only 14 episodes, whereas The Office: An American Workplace has been on air since 2005, providing more of the characters with more storylines than the original possibly could. Gervais’s Office has been adapted in many countries around the world but, thanks to the presence of Carell, the US version is the most high-profile, and has been one of NBC’s most consistently popular shows. The cast was made up of near-unknowns, with the exception of Carell, who, it is rumoured, now wants to concentrate on more serious film roles, like the one he played to critical acclaim in the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine. Ferrell and Carell have acted together before in the films Bewitched and – somewhat more successfully – Anchorman. From the moment the latest episode of The Office opened, with the two of them talking to one another in a bar without realising each was whom the other was waiting for, their familiarity with one another was palpable, but so was Ferrell’s itchiness in his new role. Ferrell is a broad comedian, one the big screen sometimes hardly contains, and watching him try to tamp down his natural tendencies so as not to overwhelm was like listening to someone speak muffled: painful and not very clear. In an interview with the New York Times, Ferrell, who will stay for only four episodes, admitted to feelings of anxiety about joining such a beloved show with such an established cast: “I just really wanted to fit in. [It's] that first day of school feeling.” He’s not the only one. The show’s network, NBC, has become such a byword for beleaguered in the US that it is a running joke on the comedy show 30 Rock, even though it, too, is shown on NBC. By the end of the episode, Deangelo was beginning to fit in nicely, and Michael Scott was packing up. Scott’s finale at the end of the month will guest star Ricky Gervais and will be, producers promise, huge. That’s what he said. US television Television US television industry Will Ferrell Steve Carell NBC Television industry United States Hadley Freeman guardian.co.uk
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Burma’s tireless political campaigner talks about rebuilding the National League for Democracy, the
Continue reading …David Brooks is the latest Conservative running out to defend their much beloved, but morally bankrupt teenie booper, Paul Ryan. I bring up morality because it’s a a cruel individual that would propose the kind of changes to our health care and social security programs that Ryan did all out of a Randian belief system. In the mind of Brooks, if only the president invited little Paul to lunch just once, they could become kindred souls. President Obama and Paul Ryan are two of the smartest, most admirable and most genial men in Washington. It is sad, although not strange, that in today’s Washington they have never had a serious private conversation. The president has never invited Ryan over even for lunch. It gets funnier as it goes along because Brooks tries to paint a much different picture of Ryan, the man, than he really is. But what’s infuriating is this quote: These are exactly the sort of vague but well-intentioned policies that have sold well in election after election. The president is not being cynical about this. He genuinely does believe that seniors and the middle class can be spared from any shared sacrifice. Seniors and the middle class have already sacrificed, you boob. Boobie Brooks really believes that seniors have to make another sacrifice in life while the rich keep getting richer and the poor keeping losing more and more money and jobs just to defend Ryan. How morally bankrupt is that?
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CNNMoney.com ran a provocative piece Friday listing what it determined to be the top “meanest budget cuts.” The website laid out seven government programs that are victims of the recent budget compromise – programs that provide assistance to the poor and support humanitarian causes overseas. Most of the individual cuts make up a small fraction of each program's annual budget, and a Democratic source is quoted multiple times downplaying the significance of the cuts. Don't tell CNN, however, as these cuts are apparently “mean.”
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Talking to political strategist Stu Rothenberg on her 1PM ET hour show on MSNBC on Friday, anchor Andrea Mitchell saw the Medicare reform proposal in Congressman Paul Ryan's 2012 budget as a major negative for the GOP: “Obviously the White House feels very good right now….it's sort of like a tar baby situation where they're loving the fact that the Republicans are now voting on Medicare cuts.” In response, Rothenberg argued: “For the last year, the political debate has been about the President and about the President's performance. And now Democrats can breathe a sigh of relief and say, 'Ah, now we have something to shoot at, it's about Republicans.'” He later added: “I think the Democrats are much more comfortable with the comparison between the Democrats' performance and the Republican proposals.” Mitchell followed up by wondering if it was even possible for the Republican proposal to not to be a political disaster: “Is there a scenario, though, where the Republicans will get credit with independent voters, where elections are won and lost, for doing something? And that this Medicare – the Medicare tar baby, if you will, won't really be such a negative?” Rothenberg did see a possible political advantage: “I think it's possible. And I think we don't know….if we have an economic double dip, if we have increasing unemployment, I think the focus will be on the President's performance and back on Barack Obama and then the Republicans will say, 'See, we need a dramatic change.'” He went on: “…the Democrats are counting that the Republican proposal is too dramatic, too radical, too extreme, as they say. But if voters are dissatisfied with the President's performance come November 2012, they may be willing to take a chance on the Republican message of change.” Here is a transcript of the April 15 exchange: 1:35PM ET (…) ANDREA MITCHELL: Obviously the White House feels very good right now. They seem to be relishing this fight. They – it's sort of like a tar baby situation where they're loving the fact that the Republicans are now voting on Medicare cuts. STU ROTHENBERG: Right. MITCHELL: And it's more than cuts, it's a complete restructuring of Medicare. ROTHENBERG: For the last year, the political debate has been about the President and about the President's performance. And now Democrats can breathe a sigh of relief and say, 'Ah, now we have something to shoot at, it's about Republicans.' Remember those people last year who said the Republicans needed to present an alternative and their agenda, and the Republicans generally didn't before the election? That was because they were smart, they understood they needed the election – the midterm to be about the President. But now they're climbing out on the limb, whether it's Medicare, Medicaid, overall spending. And I think the Democrats are much more comfortable with the comparison between the Democrats' performance and the Republican proposals. MITCHELL: Is there a scenario, though, where the Republicans will get credit with independent voters, where elections are won and lost, for doing something? And that this Medicare – the Medicare tar baby, if you will, won't really be such a negative? ROTHENBERG: I think it's possible. And I think we don't know, because there are going to be so many events between now and November of 2012. We don't know how the President's going to react, or the Republicans are going to react, or what the economic news is going to be. But sure, if we have an economic double dip, if we have increasing unemployment, I think the focus will be on the President's performance and back on Barack Obama and then the Republicans will say, 'See, we need a dramatic change.' And, yes, the Democrats are counting that the Republican proposal is too dramatic, too radical, too extreme, as they say. But if voters are dissatisfied with the President's performance come November 2012, they may be willing to take a chance on the Republican message of change. — Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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Click here to view this media Former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan is defending Donald Trump against charges of racial insensitivity. On a conservative radio show Thursday, Trump said that he was concerned that he wouldn’t get many African American votes given President Barack Obama’s high poll numbers with that demographic. “I have a great relationship with the blacks,” Trump said . “I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” “I don’t find any malice in what he said in that statement about the black folks,” Buchanan told MSNBC host Chris Jansing Friday. “I mean, I’m a Catholic and if he said ‘I have a great relationship with the Catholics,’ I don’t think I would take great offense.” “Well, Pat, you know it’s a completely different dynamic,” journalist Karen Hunter objected. “Give me a break.” “What do you think he meant?” Buchanan asked. “It’s that thing: ‘you people,’” Hunter replied. “We’re not aliens. We’re Americans.” “Maybe you’re hearing something Donald Trump didn’t really say,” Buchanan suggested. “I think you can listen to it and it’s very clear what ‘The Donald’ had to say,” Jansing concluded.
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