‘Austerity, Abandonment and Silence on Israel/Palestine: The Day I left Labour ’

by Thomas Kiernan - Respect Party Member (North West)

    Before I begin this, let me set the background. I come from a traditional, working-class background in the North of England. My mother is English, but the child of Irish immigrants to Britain in the 50’s. My family has, more or less, voted Labour their entire lives and would not dream of voting for anybody else. Whilst I have followed George Galloway and the Respect Party for years, I did not commit to being a member until several months ago.

   I was in Gdansk a few weeks ago, having treated my grandmother to a holiday for all her support during the three years I have been at University, when I stumbled across the news that veteran Labour MP, Dennis Skinner, had been voted off the Labour National Executive Committee. I was immediately infuriated; Skinner is one of the few true Labour politicians left in the Party. Much like George, he stands for many of the things which the Respect Party is championing alone: an end to austerity, the support of trade-unions and, above all, equality and peace. However, his Party have abandoned all of those concepts and adopted the Conservative policy of refusing to end austerity measures and promising to be ‘tougher than the Tories on welfare’. With Skinners removal, it is clear that the Party is going for a younger, more centred approach to try and emulate Tony Blair’s success in 1997. They may have some nice sound-bites (regulate energy companies, free childcare and decentralisation), but nothing of substance and certainly nothing which has enticed me to support them come 2015.

   Already apathetic and disillusioned with Labour and any major party, I had considered cancelling my membership with the Party there and then. Then the real kicker: Miliband has been silent over the recent events in Gaza which have seen roughly 600 Palestinians die and several thousand injured in the indiscriminate (or ‘precision’) bombing of innocent lives. Miliband, on his trip in April to Israel, had publicly denounced the increasing illegal settlements but has never gone as far as to publicly condemn Israel for its horrendously poor treatment of the Palestinian people whom they subject to a life of internment and poverty on a daily basis. What has happened to the man who looked likely to bring Labour back to the left, to return to its stance as the Party of peace and opportunity? His silence is, to me, as bad as Michael Gove’s admittance that he is a ‘committed Zionist’ and the USA’s constant defence of the Israeli government. It seems tragic that the UK, who was complicit in the USA’s killing of over one million civilians in Iraq, is still comprised of leaders not willing to learn from its mistakes and immediately order sanctions on Israel until it ceases raining death over Gaza, sit down at the table with Abbas and finally broker a deal which will see the Palestinians receive fair and just compensation for the misery to which they have been subjected.

   That, for me, was the final straw on a very strong back, and so my membership is now in the post. I refuse to support a Party which has adopted a name for which its policies do not represent, and I refuse to vote for any Party which does not have a firm commitment to equality both nationally and overseas. The Labour Party is dead; what remains is a walking frame of opportunity which regularly gets overlooked and increasingly sucked in to the political centre. What remains is something which will soon be considered like it will help no-one, speak for no-one and can be trusted by few. If first-past-the-post was abandoned, the Labour Party would be forced to kick itself into gear, to become a party which people would want to be a part of. As it stands, it remains little more than a bleak alternative to the Tories. I am convinced that, if Labour does indeed succeed come May, it won’t be because they’re a party of change. It’ll be because they’re the better of two very, very poor choices. 

Why the world needs to get tough on Israel’s ‘never-never land’ mentality.

Unmasking Israeli myths is the first step on the long road to peace.

Respect Op-Ed

   Gaza is under attack again; the third sustained aerial bombardment since 2008. In the world’s largest prison camp (the words of well-known Hamas operative David Cameron), the number of dead has now risen to over 160, with women and children making up a depressingly high percentage. The Israeli armed forces rain down indiscriminate death and destruction, giving nothing more than an occasional perfunctory warning, onto the defenceless people below.

   This routine has become something of a political blood-sport in Israel. This recent wave of the crisis began with the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. I was in Israel when the kidnapping happened and visited the site where the teenagers had been taken. As soon as the story broke the Israeli government were blaming Hamas, without any real clarification as to whether it had even been sanctioned by its central command as opposed to being committed by underground militants. The speed at which this narrative became accepted reality says much about the loyalties of mainstream media.

   The emotional outcry in Israel was remarkable, given that such events have become so commonplace in the Israeli conscience. Within days, everyone was on first-name terms with the teenagers. You couldn’t drive along any road without coming across a reference to the #BringBackOurBoys campaign. Once their bodies had been discovered, the atmosphere turned from grief, to anger, to vengeance. Within hours, #BringBackOurBoys had been replaced with #AvengeOurBoys. The inevitable result was the copy-cat kidnapping and murder of a 16-year old in East Jerusalem, one of at least six deaths in the days that followed. And that was before the bombing began…

   The grossly disproportionate response and collective punishment demonstrated by Israel in the wake of such periods of turmoil has become normalised. Not many people in Israel – or in the Western mainstream media, it appears – regard the life or blood of Palestinians as being as valuable as their own.

   This is the institutionalisation of an occupation at work. In the beachfront cafés and smart shopping centres of Tel Aviv to the sleek suburbs of West Jerusalem, nobody much cares for the occupation on the West Bank or for the disastrous humanitarian effect of the siege on Gaza. That is until their peace is shattered by the wail of the air-raid siren and they have to retreat temporarily into a reinforced bomb shelter (a luxury not afforded to many Palestinians, who just have to take their chances).

   This is why I don’t buy the “you don’t know what it’s like” argument that I hear from many Israelis. Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip has as yet mercifully failed to take a single Israeli life. Israeli bombing raids in Gaza, one of the most densely-populated areas on earth, are causing casualties which now run into the hundreds. The mismatch is glaring – not that you’d know it if you were watching the BBC. On Wednesday they led with the laughable headline ‘Israel under renewed Hamas attack’. The seething anger felt by Palestinians and Muslims generally is fed by this blatant double-standard which tells them that their lives are somehow not worth as much.

   This exceptionalism is now engendered in an Israeli society which is becoming forever more rabidly right-wing and forever less interested in a peace process, choosing instead to ‘manage’ the conflict. The settlement drive continues unabated, to the point where its continuation is on the verge of killing off the two-state solution forever. This is the ‘never-never’ land that supporters of Israel are living in: they think they can carry on with the reality of occupation because of their ‘exceptional’ circumstances; their opponents around the world just don’t ‘get’ the realities of their situation. But millions around the world are now calling their bluff.

    The onus is on Israel, and Israeli society, to change this. Israel holds the keys to occupation and they are to only ones who can unlock Palestinian statehood and freedom for its people. Failing this very unlikely prospect (the radical right is historically strong enough to resist it), it will be up to the international community to force a solution. There are signs that some countries are beginning to tire of Israel’s behaviour of exceptionalism.

   This conflict did not begin with the kidnapping of three Israelis, and will not end with any fragile ceasefire. It is tied up in the continuing Israeli occupation and supremacy, institutionalised through a complex societal framework over decades. A comprehensive process involving all parties from both sides is the only way to achieve a lasting settlement and help stability for the whole region. The only way that is going to happen is if Israel commits to it, or is given no other choice. That prospect looks as distant as ever.

Preconceptions are the womb of prejudice. Its sad, but it's true.

By Steven Mackie


There's a story doing the rounds from Fife Police about someone who was

electrocuted trying to pinch some copper cable, and it seems the consensus
is that he had what was coming to him. Quite often from people who, if
pressed, would be against child poverty, the bedroom tax, shocked at food
banks and aghast at the thought of a bairn sitting down to watch his or her
mother cry because they only had Pot Noodle for Christmas dinner.
Preconceptions are the womb of prejudice, so I'll tell you a wee Christmas
story that is as true as anything I can ever say.

Many many years ago, when I was but a wee toddler, around three I think, I
lived in a fairly poverty stricken farm cottage with four elder siblings.
My Mother was a farm labourer (a job that helped kill her in the end), but
at least she coulnt be accused of being a sponger. On the weather beaten
fields all around Glasmount Hill and the Binn and Banchory she toiled,
picking tatties, going to the dressing, thinning neeps - manual labour. So,
when I was the wee-est one, she had no choice but to be taken into the
fields with her. Swaddled in as much warm clothing as I could carry on my
tiny bones, there I tottered in the tattie fields as the squads bent to
their work.

Now, about this time a black man arrived, blown in on the trade winds from
the West Indies; a man called Larry. And Larry became the man in charge of
the squads at Tyrie farm (just outside Kirkcaldy on the Kinghorn road). I
cannot for the life of me remember his face, as much as Ive tried these
past 47 years since. But I DO remember the feel of peculiar feel (to a
Scottish child) his afro hair, the thrill of being lofted on his giant
shoulders, the welcoming warmth of his greatcoat. I can half 'see' him in a
field at the side of the Jawbane road. I sadly cant recall him fully but I
DO know that we were inseparable. How do I know this?

Well, it came to pass that the work ended as crops do and the land slumbers
beneath our feet through winter. The money dried up and, as there were no
benefit entitlements -especially for Black immigrant workers - like there
are now, Larry must have found himself in a very unenviable position:
Thousands of miles from what the slave traders had told his grandparents to
call home, in a strange country. A country growing colder as the season
progressed, with no-where to turn to - and no-one to care even if he
arrived there. So, he took himself over to Seafield Colliery, maybe to get
some sea coal to sell (a common enough practice, believe me) and saw some
cables laying on the ground. There are no coal mines in the Caribbean,
which might have led him to think of it as defunct ... I cannot say. But he
decided to cut it up and heft it to the scrap yard. And thats where they
found him the next day, dead, on the cold wintery shores of the River
Forth.

Now, few people will know the 1960s farming life, but as it was, a lot of
our purchases came via by Butcher and Bakers van. There was a fair stream
of men in suits selling brushes and polishes, Insurance, Rent men, Ticky
men etc. In effect, a whole network of people who could bring and carry
news from far and wide. Of course, as a toddler, I cant remember the actual
events themself, nor was I there. But I DO remember a man in a suit coming
to see us - Mum - at what must have been just after the funeral. I remember
the gist of the conversation too, in which he said to Mum, in front of me
that as Larry was a pauper (legally) and the only thing he had of value
when they found his body was a pocket watch. The Farmer at Tyrie had known
how fond of each other we were, and arranged 'through the grapevine' to
have it brought to our cottage and he gave it to Mum saying "He'd want
Steven to have it".

Ive always been secretly pleased that, despite my many, many mistakes in
life, I possess a redeeming kernel of truth in the fact that the first
black person I even met loved me, and I loved him ... And I still have the
watch to prove that every adult for miles in every direction knew it.

Preconception is the womb of prejudice - so before you condemn this
unfortunate to an eternity of Hell for cutting through some bits of wire,
take a moment to consider that it might have been sheer, heart rending
desperation that drove him to do so, and not the callous greed that suits a
negative preconception.

UKIP, Immigration and the response of LibCabCon: A Politics of Fear

by Thomas Kiernan

    The United Kingdom Independence Party, in particular Nigel Farage, has spoken of a political earthquake hitting Westminster. With a gain of 161 councillors and 11 MEP’s, Farage has hailed a 5% drop in support from 2013 and victory in an EU election with a turnout of 34% as ‘meteoric’. Whether this alleged earthquake dies down come 2015 is a story for another time, for it is the immediate effect of these results which is far more disturbing.

    The Conservatives have brought forward their promise of a referendum to 2017, and calls for one in 2016 seem tempting in the face of a 3^rd place EU election result. This is unsurprising; with the General Election 12 months away it is clear that Cameron intends to marginalise UKIP by moving his party to the right. The Liberal Democrats, the only loudly pro-EU party contesting the election, were demolished. This was not because the EU argument is lost, but because Nick Clegg could offer a lifetime supply of chocolate for everyone in the country and still find himself on the losing end of any significant vote. Clegg has maintained his stance, in an act of defiance which could be commended if it wasn’t him maintaining it. His party, and any argument they put forward, will be dead in the water as long as he is towing the boat.  

    As for Labour, Ed Miliband has already confirmed, via twitter, that the ‘party has changed its stance on immigration’. This is nothing new, with catchphrases as ‘British jobs for British workers’, a slogan of the BNP, becoming a common feature of all three major parties. What is disappointing is that it has taken the Labour Party less than 48 hours to respond, and have chosen to done so in a way which indicates that Miliband has no intention of taking his party to the left of politics. Instead, Miliband has seemingly agreed to play the politics of fear, pushed by UKIP, that millions of immigrants are due to rush our borders, steal our jobs and nest behind our fridges (let’s hope Godfrey doesn’t check). The party which was once known as inclusive may soon become exclusive to those who bark that immigration is the sole cause of the UK’s problems. It has indirectly resigned itself to support a man who openly admitted that living next to a family of Romanians would make him uncomfortable, and that ‘it was quite clear’ why living next to a family of Romanians was such a tragedy

    The Labour Party had a chance to stand up, admit that they recognised the fears of immigration and then challenge the lies propagated by Farage, James and other significant UKIP figures. We have seen no such backbone protrude out of Labour or any of the major parties, including the floundering Liberal Democrats. It is therefore up to smaller parties, like Respect and The Greens, to act and challenge the status quo. If we do not, I fear this pedalling may lead to a subtle repeat of the 1960’s, in which signs in windows made clear that Irish immigrants were not welcome in the country.

    As a descendant of Irish immigrants from the 50’s, the issue of immigration will always be a close one to my outlook on life. It has become clear that racism and xenophobia is being openly whipped up in the UK. The only difference is that now it is simply rebranded as common sense opposition to immigration. 

‘Police Corruption in the UK- ‘can it be countered?'

By Ian Ross

A critical evaluation of the counter fraud and corruption strategy of a public sector organisation and a discussion to advocate reforms to it that would enhance its effectiveness.

This article will provide an evaluation of a public sector counter fraud and corruption strategy and highlight its strengths and weaknesses, dealing in priority with its weaknesses and with focus on the need to reform it. As a base of understanding we will first summarise the meaning of what constitutes the

‘public sector’ and then detail the defining constituents of its counter corruption strategy, which will be followed by an account of my understanding of the reforms necessary of the counter strategy of my chosen organisation.

In contrast to the private sector, the public sector essentially is funded by the taxpayer. The public sector is made up as an institution of organisations offering public services in differing areas of public amenity support and outputs. A wide range of services make up the public sector; from the National Health Service (NHS), social security and benefits, education and transport, to the police, local government and defence, et al. Public services have emerged from what were previously voluntary tasks by charities and religious organisations. With the growth and expansion and immense legal consolidation, the public sector came to be recognised as the pillars of the state. The key aims are to provide social and welfare support to citizens and consequently large amounts of statutory regulatory and procedurally driven legislation has been passed to both administrate and enforce certain elements of it. An enormous differing and cyclic phenomenon, the public sector attempts to address these issues in terms of how the different services are funded, managed and to whom they are accountable. A definition of the public sector was provided by Jones (2004 p.23) as ‘continually provided goods and services paid for by taxation or other revenues raised by law’.

My chosen public sector organisation is the police force (United Kingdom). One would at least hope that as with all counter fraud and corruption strategies in the public sector, the strategy to counter police corruption would be robust and capable of complete enforcement, as opposed to being a mere theoretical or ‘paper’ policy product. Underlying causes of dissatisfaction as identified by Harrison and Cuneen (2000) is also supported by many academics and writers on this issue, asserted by the quote by Lambert about the inadequacies of the civilian supervisory model:

‘No system, however elaborate, which concentrates on supervision and ex post facto review of police investigations will satisfy the demand that justice will only be seen to be done when the investigation of complaints against the police is taken out of the hands of the police themselves.

Harrison and Cuneen (2000, Liberty p.6.-1.7)

Shaping the discussion to deal with the evaluation of the police corruption strategy, it would first be useful to summarise an account of the meaning of corruption. Defining corruption is relatively simple because a definition for corruption was created in 1889 by reference to the common law offence of bribery and the statutory office committed contrary to Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889, passed to deal with corruption in office which later enabled the Prevention of Corruption Act[s] of 1906 and 1916 which created two new ‘alternate’ offences to deal with bribery committed by Agents or bribes given to Agents. The police force is seen the principle law enforcement organisation with a duty of care and as such ought to be the doyen of trust and integrity.

But the problem of police corruption cannot be explained within just a constricted legal framework and such narrow terms of reference. This is because there are numerous academic definitions of police corruption and equally diverse explanations of what actually constitutes corruption. Some authors centre their explanations of corruption as purely criminal conduct (as defined within the criminal law) whilst others open the debate to much wider topics and methods of corruption, including favouritism and nepotism, abuse of power, racism, bribery, case manipulation (abuse of legal process) malpractice and the use of police informants. Newburn (1999) probed more deeply into the matter of defining police corruption in that police corruption is conduct that is mutually exclusive of actual criminal conduct. For example, stealing would not be corruption but wrongful ethical behaviour, the professional ‘grey areas’ would be. Interestingly therefore Newburn and like-minded authors effectively set a challenge to policy makers in setting out a counter corruption strategy by virtue of the fact that they seek to capture all wrongful behaviour. Conduct or behaviour which could not be easily which was passed off as ‘sharp practice’ or which gives ‘cause for concern’ is swept into the meaning of police corruption – and rightly so. Legislation is not enough and the range of attitudes; even the connivance or tacit tolerance of police corruption from within their own ranks and senior officers, is a facet of the police corruption itself and rankles the public and the public good.

Counter corruption strategy governing and supporting the police force is difficult to identify with any immediacy. This is because the huge range and array of corrupt practices now espoused and referenced by Newburn (those not ‘legislated’ for) along with wider definitions and explanations provided by

Roebuck and Barker (1974) with an open definition and Quinton and Miller (2003) who structured their definition and which made wider connections; to leaking information, obtaining money or sexual favours from the public and then returning to the remit of the criminal law, direct conspiracy with criminals to commit crimes.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is now the principal authority which deals with police corruption. The IPCC has succeeded several establishments, some defined by statute. Predecessors of the IPCC were deemed to be a failure became of low success rates in detecting corruption, added to the manifest problem of police culture which stems a deep distrust and lack of faith in the police investigating themselves. This in turn led to a conclusion of the investigations themselves being questionable and not trusted but becoming also being a defining characteristic of police corruption.

The IPCC was created by the Home Office to investigate and monitor complaints against police. This gives an immediate message of the counter corruption strategy being reactive instead of proactive. Also, notwithstanding its central placing concerning police wrongdoing it is still difficult to see beyond the overall role of the IPCC being a mere facilitator when it comes to forming counter corruption strategy. It is acknowledged that the IPCC have successfully investigated notable cases of corruption and secured eventual criminal prosecutions involving police officers and support staff but one must search extensively and deeply to find a strategy which sets out to marginalise corruption in the police force.

One notable success however for the IPCC was to engage with the Children’s Legal Centre. This led to an updated and hugely improved procedure to deal with complaints from children which even contained a section in the report to identify areas for future improvement (Hamilton and Sherwood: 2006).

 However since the inception of the IPCC as an independent organisation, there is no tangible evidence provided by them that any part of their policy sets the belief that continued and systematic engagement and working strategies will ‘naturally’ help them to create good governance frameworks that imbue both an anti-corruption culture, and help to review and implement policies which will marginalise fraudulent and corrupt behaviour and networked activities. The current strategy of the IPCC provides an impactive image to the public of ‘professional standards’ which are et al, police officers are honest, act with integrity and do not compromise or abuse their position, treat information with respect and access or disclose it only in the proper course of police duties, report and challenge or take action against the conduct of colleagues which has fallen below the standards of professional behaviour expected. The last example is probably the most challenging. This is the grey area and in part alludes to ‘whistle blowing’.

The notoriety in the public sector of whistleblowers being hounded, interlinked with the collaboration culture in the public services adds credence to the evidence that the police are more concerned about getting power for themselves than supporting victims of crime. Moreover, the Home Office report on police overtime published in February 2010 shows ‘concern’ about the dubious ways police overtime is effectively contrived and millions of pounds extracted from the public purse in many forces. One particular force where such malpractice was endemic was helpfully anonimised by the Home Office. Thus the IPCC and their counterparts in the National Policing Improvements Agency (NPIA) are badly in need of strengthening because they have done little to dispel the reputation of the senior command and officers of forces having a ‘couldn’t care less attitude’ towards police corruption per se and more importantly, to the victims of it – the taxpayer. Limited understanding of what police corruption can fully consist of, or selective acknowledgement of, or inconsistent dealing with corruption is a culture still indulged by many Chief Constables. This is ably abetted by the cluster of ACPO policy which has closed many doors to justice for victims.

The inevitable effect on a strategy intended to deter corruption is clear to see. If such notions and patterns of behaviour exist yet the force itself remains aloof from the problems. The police commonly state that they are practitioners and ‘leave the law to the lawyers’ holds equal meaning to the entity that the IPCC are viewed as not just having pole responsibility for dealing with police corruption, but also abandoned to its politics, its methods and peculiar influences in why it occurs and the idiom which varies so much that many officers and staff have difficulty understanding that what they are doing is corrupt.

As one finite example the issue of dubious police overtime, the paying of police informants to ‘turn’ criminals into witnesses or even write them out of a case altogether, on these examples only, we must understand that just as a fraudster, when this is happening, the mind which schemes in corruption is in a nigh-on permanent state of denial.

To another example, but in stark contrast to illustrate this point, is the case of the Metropolitan Police commander Ali Dizaei, a corrupt police officer with a long history of corruption of varied serious criminal conduct in the force, including drug dealing and leaking police information to criminals for payment. Sent to prison eventually, yet astonishingly he has not (at the time of writing) been dismissed by the force which time and again, overlooked serious evidence against him because it feared that Dizaei would instinctively and immediately accuse the force of being racist. Dizaei knew he could push the boundaries and how to use the forces’ fear of appearing racist to make it difficult to investigate him. Dizaei rose through the ranks despite severe reservations about his character and conduct, was constantly making loud proclamations about the ‘cancer of racism’ within the force, and with that activity, always poised to sue for discrimination. Investigations into his criminality were halted on the orders of the highest authorities within the force. Dizaei was at one point untouchable, and de-facto could do no wrong.

The Dizaei case is the epitome, the quintessence of institutional police corruption, but a perverse and twisted example because of a feeble police counter corruption attitudes and made worse by a total abandonment of responsibility by the Metropolitan police force as a public sector organisation, and murky political influences. Dizaei believed that he could get away with anything because he was not white, and this case is also, for the purposes of this evaluation, a clear indicator of the near total failure and even refusal by the police and related authorities to pursue any form of counter corruption strategy. Too scared politically event to follow their own processes.

Police corruption in the UK is now so entrenched and widespread within the service that it is now equal in incidence with most third-world countries (Seed and Palmar, 1998) and the strategies to counter it. Key points of the weaknesses of the current IPCC strategy is that the IPCC whilst it investigates well after the fact, is a lustrous purveyor of mission statements, guidance to the public and assurances. In fact the IPCC in its statutory guidance to the police service and police authorities on the handling of complaints presents a dominant point of zero tolerance of discrimination, ‘ensuring a diverse approach’ and clear processes for the public to make complaints. This in fact shows a typically political dominance of police policy, highlighted especially by the Dizaei case. But what is evident also, is that the authorities who lead the counter corruption strategy are fragmented in this regard. There is no overall strategy to include all identifiable corrupt activity and further intricacies and problems can be inferred from the IPCC operational advice note (2009): ‘the police have an obligation to preserve evidence so that it is available for the IPCC to enable it to conduct an effective investigation. At the same time a force should not act in a manner that might compromise the independence of the investigation. ‘ Likewise, the regulations governing the conduct of IPCC investigations, one of which being; ‘Before the arrival of IPCC investigators on the scene [of a crime] police officers shall ensure that the scene is secured in a manner that is consistent with the need to preserve all evidence relevant to the investigation of the complaint.’

(Harrison and Cuneen: 2000).

With that are proven cases of the police officer in London in 2009 who was allegedly responsible for the death of Ian Cousins during the summer disturbances in connection with the UK and global recession.

The police tactics of ‘kettling’ was the central controversy of that incident, but after the incident the

Metropolitan Police claimed that there was no CCTV footage available of the incident when Mr Cousins collapsed and died in the street when assaulted by police officers. One police officer at the centre of that case, PC Simon Harwood was cleared of manslaughter on a majority verdict. This officer had been previously investigated a number of times for alleged violence and misconduct. In a string of incidents Harwood was accused of having punched, throttled, kneed or threatened other suspects while in uniform. One complaint was upheld, yet Harwood was allowed back into the Metropolitan Police - against the advice of the IPCC.

The outrage and inevitable accusation of destroying or suppressing evidence followed (the covering up and closing ranks was the corruption and the IPCC relied on the police who seemingly sabotaged the investigation from the outset). The shooting of Jean Charles De Mendez, not so much the shooting but the police tampering with photographic evidence of the suspect to make him look more like Mendez in a deliberate attempt to mislead a coroners’ court. These incidents along with the preceding points of evaluation, stresses a collective point that the current strategy is deeply flawed and the actual process puts too much trust in the police, ironically instigating an investigation against their own. There is little doubt that the police force needs additional people to address corruption and this reminds us how heuristics in the police force, if not set in firm ethical and foundations will inevitably stray back to police cultural norms of collusion and self-protection.

Successive government have tried and failed, to impose standards of management and accountability such as are taken for granted in the private sector and large parts of the public sector. The last attempt at wholesale change which could have improved the image of the force in corruption cases was prompted by Sir Patrick Sheehy's report in 1994. This was welcomed by many outsiders, but met with complete hostility from the Police Federation and nearly all senior officers. Likewise police authorities are ineffectual monitors of their local forces, so there is little chance of ferreting out corruption as the constant inner cyclic political forces at play are never still long enough to settle the problems of police corruption and ‘strategy’ successes are sporadic hits on corrupt officers whilst day-to-day corruption is widespread and constant.

In my evaluation also, there is a chronic weakness in middle management. It can be dismaying that the response of police officers to almost any problem is to invent a new form for solving it. They work in a fantastically bureaucratised system, in some ways forced upon them by centrally imposed targets, so one could even argue that certain elements of police corruption are a natural product of the organisation and the pressures it creates.

Societal shifts will also form the crux of recommendations of reforms of the counter corruption strategy, meaning advances in technology, creating new opportunities of corruption and sophisticated criminal activity meets firmly with the police force day-to-day; that is in the world that is characterised by employment insecurity and the primacy of economic goals, drivers of corruption are as diverse as the acts themselves.

A standard and consistent (compulsory) external training programme should be provided to all involved in the police complaints processes. The training should raise the standard of understanding the civil against criminal outcome dilemma in dealing with corruption cases, namely if the conduct warrants a criminal case or the case is disposed of by other resolutions and case outcomes. This area is the one most often confused at present and misunderstood to do nothing at all. An overriding ‘police corruption Act’ would be necessary with a dominant regularly function (as per the current Bribery Bill 2010) to impose conformance of strategy in reporting corruption and an offence of negligently allowing or permitting corruption to take place. But more importantly, behind that, to remove the excuses and loop holes exploited by senior police officers as do politicians, about the rules not being clear and that it is someone else’s problem (such as the IPCC who do not get the precise co-operation they ought to have). But of key importance, a statutory requirement to overcome the nonsense identified by the IPCC themselves concerning the obligation to preserve evidence for the IPCC. Such police conduct suppressing evidence and incapacitating IPCC or other investigations as in the De Mendes and Cousins cases, should constitute criminal offences in their own right. This is because at present the police cannot be trusted to support the IPCC and merely use the IPCC as a fake flag of independence in having complaints handled – especially complaints about corruption.

Finally, overblown political dominance should be a specific target of deliberation. Political agendas should not be allowed to rule over justice.

REFERENCES

Association of Chief Police Officers (2007). Practice advice: introduction to intelligence-led policing. www.acpo.police.uk/asp/plicies/Data/Intelligence_led_policing

Crown Prosecution Service (2007).

Jones, P. (2004). Fraud and Corruption in public services: a guide to risk and prevention. London, Gower.

IPCC (2010). Statutory guidance to the police service and police authorities on the handling of complaints.

IPCC operational advice note (July 2009) extract from the new IPCC Manual of Guidance issued on the 13th July 2009

Hamilton, C., and Sherwood, S., (2006). Complaints from children: the new police complaints procedure.

Report. The Children’s Legal Centre (CLS).

Harrison, J and Cuneen, M.,(2000). An Independent Police Complaints Commission. The National Council for Civil Liberties.

Human Rights Act 1998

JUSTICE IN POLICING, (2007) A joint and thematic review of the handling of cases involving an allegation of a criminal offence by a person serving with the police. HM Crown Prosecution Service. Prosecution Service Inspectorate, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Newburn, T. (1999). Understanding and preventing police corruption: lessons from literature. Police Research Series. Paper 110. London: Home Office.

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984

Police Reform Act 2002

Prevention of Corruption Act 1906

Prevention of Corruption Act 1916

Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889

Roebuck, J.B., & Barker, T. (1974). A typology of police corruption. Social Problems.

Quinton, P., & Barker, J. (2003). Promoting ethical policing: findings of research on new misconduct procedures and police corruption. www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/rdslr1203.pdf

(Seed, G., and Palmar, A., (1998). ‘Police corruption in the UK at ‘third world levels’. Reported from: www.telgraph.co.uk/archive/1998/09/27

The Sheey Report, Value for money in policing’. Sir Patrick Sheehy's report in 1994, reported from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/police-in-peril-from-sheehy-report-1463380.html

Wells, J. T. (2007) Corporate fraud handbook: prevention and detection. 2nd ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. I

‘We’re All In This Together: A Fairytale Story by Cameron, Osborne and the Conservative Party at Large’

by Thomas Kiernan, Respect Party Member

    At 21 years of age, I occasionally come under the generalised criticism of knowing nothing about ‘real politics’. This is far more common when people learn I am an ardent supporter of politicians such as the Respect MP for Bradford West, George Galloway, as well as veteran Labour MP for Bolsover, Dennis Skinner.  What these critics mean by real politics, I have often found, is little more than their own opinions about economic philosophy, political ideology and why the Conservative Party has the best of both. So, in order to put that criticism to bed, this article will be mainly dedicated to the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition which has run roughshod during my time as both a college student and law student at Lancaster University.

David Cameron famously stated at the 2010 Conservative Party conference that “we’re all in this together”. He was, of course, referring to his party’s economic austerity programme which was about to sweep across the entire United Kingdom. He assured us that everybody would feel the pinch and that we would all face the outcome of ‘difficult decisions’ made by Cameron, Osborne and his seemingly out-of-touch ministers. It only took a month for the universities minister to announce that students would be the first to be pinched, with tuition fees tripled from £3000 to £9000 and an economic warning shot fired across the bow of the less-well off students amongst us. Nick Clegg and the majority of his party’s MPs sold their largest political fan base (the student population) and will hopefully suffer substantial losses at the 2015 general election. They certainly deserve it.

    In 2012, George Osborne released a budget which saw a primary attempt to shield their true allegiances. Whilst they increased the tax threshold for millions of poorly paid workers, which is to be welcomed, they decreased the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p and there are suspicions that this will be reduced to 40p before the end of this Parliament. Labour were guilty of not raising the top rate of tax for over a decade, but the Conservatives have insisted that we’re all in this together. Whilst the rate of people’s disposable income continues to spiral in real terms, those earning over £150,000 will see their rates of disposable income increase when it is simply not necessary. Basic economics tells you that the less-well off spend a greater percentage of their income, whilst those tax breaks at the top are more likely to be saved and thus taken out of the economy altogether. Imagine the savings made by millionaires in Britain. Just imagine. Rich people were definitely not going to be pinched.

    And then there is Iain Duncan Smith’s wonderful bedroom tax which came into force from April 2013, or the removal of the spare room subsidy for the more pedantic critics. I would prefer to call a spade a spade, and argue it to be the most demonising policy against the truly struggling in recent history. The government assured us that this would save money, ensure that more houses were available and would not significantly impact those set to lose money as a result. He failed magnificently on all three accounts. Almost immediately, we heard of people who could not find a place to live and instead had to suffer a draconian cut to their welfare payments. Approximately 6% of people have moved and the measure has been argued to have cost more than it saved. It is a truly damning reality of how the Conservative Party has attacked the welfare state.  To round it all off, our own chancellor had the nerve to consider the story of Mick Philpott as a valid platform in which to support IDS’ reform of the welfare system. The poorer amongst us have almost certainly been pinched.
  

    Then we have the recent case of Maria Miller’s expenses scandal. The Tory minister gave both Parliament and the public a half-hearted apology and made it clear to the voters that she did not feel as though she had wronged us. The Prime Minister and the Tory chairman Grant Shapps have vehemently defended Millers conduct after her expenses were exposed, truly highlighting that they do not recognise the reality which would befall any member of the public caught acting in such a way. They would be grilled, sacked and ridiculed as a thief, or at best cascaded as an unapologetic and ungrateful employee. Mrs Miller proved herself to be worse: an ungrateful public servant. To put the cherry on the cake, Cameron has replaced the position of Minister for Women, a post held by Miller, with Nicky Morgan. A woman who has a voting record which shows she is a two-time opponent of same-sex marriage (the Minister for Straight Women?) and a supporter of policies which would reduce the reproductive choices of women (the Minister against Women?). 

    I could write about so many more policies, but I just wished to highlight the main reasons why I am a fervent supporter of the left in British politics. I will support any party which wishes to better the lives of working class and middle class people in Britain. The rich do not need assistance as long as they exist in a capitalist system which already supports them before a Conservative government decides to further their interests. I refuse to support a party which demonises the poor and encourages different members of society to blame other members for their own hardship. Austerity has only resulted in a squeeze for those who need the State’s hand in a recession: the poor, the disabled and the young who are simply in search of a better future for themselves. Instead, we have a society which supports the vilification of those in need and those who have strived to help them, for example the late and great RMT leader Bob Crow. Until this significantly changes, I see no reason to change my support for parties such as Respect and I encourage anybody reading this article to do the same. As it stands, not even the Labour Party does enough to support those worse-off and a serious question needs to be asked of so many Labour MP’s today.

What reason exactly was it that caused the Labour party to form in 1900?

Thank you for reading,

Thomas Kiernan

Britain’s Pro- fraud Laws of Britain and Impact on fraud cases

by Farzana Haque

It is hard to understand how the following laws ever came to be approved by Parliament,.. perhaps the laws escaped the scrutiny of Parliament because the

job was given to a few people instead.  The rules listed below have defaced the face of justice and has most certainly given a big boost to corruption and judicial fraud and enabled targeted discrimination.  Unscrupulous decisions of judges are stopped from review by the following rules:

1) Judges no longer have to explain their orders and judgments, this means that transparency and accountability has been removed. So if we ask them about an irregular element of their decision, we no longer get an answer.

2) Discretionary powers have become extensive. Discretion secretly enables discrimination.  Discretion means that an intermediary has been wedged between the law and the citizen, so that the citizen has to plead according to the human intercessor’s personal gratification rules rather than the law.

3) They have made appeals harder; they have added subjective and authoritarian steps, like permission to appeal (even in small claims court), and removed independent review of the appeal by giving the offending judge the power to decide the permission knowing that it is unnatural for an offending judge to give permission. Permission to appeal step takes away power from the citizen and the applicability of law over to the human intercessor so that the human decides by way of subjectivity and their personal whims rather than by rights or law.

4) Previously, the Defendants were not part of appeals, now they are, the purpose is to allow them to cause physical disruption, reduced speaking times for Claimants and additional cost to victims for trying to appeal. 

5)  Costs are not recoverable in small claims court (but the small claims band limit has been increased to £10,000, so it is not so small and therefore it covers a larger range of the population).  This rule is very “pro-fraud” because it means that the victim bears extra legal expense and trouble to bring uncooperative fraudsters to court but as the fraudster only incurs the cost of the original debt, they are able to come to defend just for fun, to cause costs without incurring any cost themselves as revenge to victims, however it takes a fraudulent judiciary to allow their frivolous and vexatious defence with the intention of not allowing cost relief to the victims. 

6) On 14Jan2013, BBC Parliament channel showed the debate over reforms to the “Crime and Courts Bill”.  On this debate there was a mention about unifying the courts but no one gave an explanation about it and I was confused at first since it would be impractical to merge all court buildings into one building, so then it must have meant “Unified Judiciary”.  A Unified Judiciary concept will totally wipe out independent review concept.  Unified Judiciary means that a judge is no longer free to have a different observation on the evidence of a case or conclude with a different opinion, as they must be seen “Unified”.  So this rule will further suppress freedom of thought and expression, thereby strengthen and disguise any unscrupulous judicial ruling, rather than bring it to accountability.  

(7) The idea that a case does not have to be heard at all is an extension of discretionary powers and its aim is to avoid evidence. The consequence is obvious, it leaves the victims’ harm done to become worsened or remain ongoing.  This concept has had a profound effect on the general integrity of the characters running the justice system as they no longer feel an obligation to do justice.

(8)  Unscrupulous judges can thus avoid evidence by cherry picking or select snippets of information and partial sentences out of context to suit their preferred outcome. 

(9)  Likewise, the use of the term, “No Prospect of Success” is often fraudulently used to prevent appeals or to avoid transparency behind an order or judgment where the evidence is not liked.  “No Prospect of Success” is a forecast that someone else will agree with their outcome, but how can an independent reviewer know what to agree with if the reasons/evidence and/or risk analysis is not supplied with it?  Its false use have increased the predictability for fraudulent Defendants that appeals can be stopped this way. 

10)   All regulatory bodies in Britain (who give the impression that they are watchdogs working for the public) have been de-activated or neutered so that remedial action is not taken and accountability is removed.  The 3 methods by which the inactivity is ensured is:

(1) by preventing them from checking the evidence of individual cases

or by,

(2) imposing a ban on freedom of speech by asking the regulators not to express an opinion or by,

(3) making it a law that they should “not interfere with the judicial process”.

What these rules do in effect is prevent the number of witnesses and expert witnesses being available, and to prevent relevant experts/authorities from being able to understand how the judge ought to have ruled.  This in turn increases the scope for judges to unlawfully alter/manipulate or falsify the evidence in a victim’s case in accordance with their personal interests, whims and wishes, more easily.

11.  a)  Another more direct restriction and an obvious measure of protection for judges from being confronted with judicial fraud evidence is how they have stopped solicitors and barristers from uttering the word, “fraud”.  Such a rule would not have been needed if it was not a frequent problem. This rule stops identification of the problem being addressed by a legal person. This enables the activity to exist but prevents the investigation of it because making a finding of fraud cannot be expressed.    

11 b)  And just so to ensure an additional obstacle is put on judicial fraud recognition, the solicitor or barrister is also not allowed to make any suggestions that there might be a [Judge to Defendant] relationship even though the evidence exists and is obvious.

11c)  On a similar note, rules have been brought out to not allow court tapes to be shared with the public/applicant whilst preventing applicants from bringing their own tape recorders. The offending judge is then given the step of accessing and authorizing the tapes for transcription.  In other words the opportunity to check the tapes and edit them before releasing them to transcription companies for transcripts

has been allowed.

Impact :

The impact is that there is regular misuse of these laws due to lack of transparency and accountability, it can best be seen from how individual cases are treated, that’s why regulatory bodies have been prevented from studying individual cases, so that the evidence would not be so easily leaked.  I have many cases to reveal these behaviours, one such example is that a false defence statement which misleads a judiciary is supposed be a crime (or contempt of court) under CPR rule (Civil Rules of Procedure) PD32 sec 28 (1) which we are allowed to report to the Attorney General

if we have the evidence.  But when I did send my evidence to the Attorney General’s Office (dealt with by the secretary general MP Oliver Heald), he refused to apply the law to my case (ie take action against the Defendant) even though he agreed that his office is right place to deal with contempt of court cases).  So here is an example of a senior judicial role failing to uphold Rule of Law and quite distinctly discriminated me. The effect of this decision is that it opens up the floodgates for all fraudsters to submit false defence statements with the expectation that their false statements can win as the judiciary and any regulatory mechanism fails to take action against them.