Lehman Brothers

This observation on Marginal Revolution is interesting in terms of Lehman Brothers spurring government action:

...without the immediate panic caused by the Lehman default, the government would never have agreed to make the loans needed to save A.I.G., a company it knew very little about. In effect, the Lehman bankruptcy caused the government to panic, which in turn caused it to save the firm it really had to save to prevent catastrophe....

Maybe locking the right stable door after a 3 legged horse has bolted can prevent the purebred racehorse from following it. (You might have noticed that the last comment lacked a little something - like a knowledge about 'good' and 'bad' horses. Apologies to all equiniphiles out there.)

Ethics Questions

I'm busy cramming for the upcoming interview (having forgotten that areas such as 'contract' even existed) and so am sorting the legal knowledge for myself, have got my supervisor at work to run through with 'fluff HR questions' with me (eg: dinner party, biggest weakness, why the bar) but would like your collective opinions on two ethics questions. I don't think there is necessarily any 'right' answer, I would just like to know your thoughts.

1. You are prosecuting in the crown court. One of the jurors is wearing a 'I (heart) the BNP - whites rule' t-shirt (or similar). What do you do in the following scenarios (is your answer different in any of them):

a: A white man is accused of raping a white woman (ie: a crime with no race element and where a race element could not be perceived)

b: A black man is accused of raping a white woman (a crime with the potential to be perceived to have a race element)

c: A white man is accused of racially aggrevated assault towards his asian neighbour as it is said that he yelled a racist comment to his neighbour in the middle of a dispute in which he also spat on his neighbour. (ie: a crime where race is an inherent aspect of the offence).


2. You are prosecuting. The defendant is unrepresented. You have learned of a number of mitigating factors which the defendant fails to put forwards himself. To what extent are you obliged to put forward those matters on his behalf and how would you go about doing so?

Let's assume that 'asking a senior member of chambers' or 'phoning the Bar ethics hotline' are not options.

I know what I think my answers would be, but I would like to have them confirmed!


Thank you for your thoughts.

Save the Sea Kitten!

On the whole, there is very little I agree with PETA about.

However, credit where it's due, I love this campaign to 'save the sea kittens'.

(My sea kitten is called Dee Dee and has a unicorn horn, a ball of wool and a pink dress. She's one hot salmon!)

Debate on anonymity in rape cases

My post on 'what law would you change and why?' (I gave anonymity to those accused of serious sexual offences) has been picked up and responded to by Ms Marcella Chester in her blog abyss2hope.

She disagrees with me on a many issues. Her post is copied, in full, in italics below, followed by my response (in non-italics). As you can see, I take the view that many difference of opinion lie in the differences between the US and UK. After posting my response on her blog, I checked the US law and my assumption was right. Frankly, I find the notion of thinking its acceptable to force a rape victim to stand in court and give testimony the the defendants face appalling and a wicked example of reading the letter of the law over the spirit.

Comments are invited, especially from anyone who can correct me on Crim PR or anyone who knows the US equivalent of 'Daily Mail reader'.

M

False Allegation About Ease Of Making Rape Allegations

From This Side of the House:

Now, I think I might opt for anonymity for people accused, but not yet convicted, of serious sex offences.

I think that rape is a very serious accusation to make, one of the most serious after murder. Why, therefore, would I argue to grant anonymity for rape and not for murder? Well, it's because the accusation of rape is far easier to make.

With murder, you need a body, for starters, and then there needs to be a plausible explaination as to how you saw the murder occur (you being the accuser in this case). Murder is a crime of action, more than anything else. If you kill a person, if you don't have the requisite mens rea, it is still considered a very serious crime indeed.

The very reason Miss Middle of Manchester claims that a rape allegation is easier to make is why in fact the accusation of the crime of rape is harder to make and why rape is so under reported.

This explanation does demonstrate why false accusations of, "she wasn't raped," against living rape victims are especially easy to make. For starters, there is no body to be disposed of.

False allegations in murder cases are made and often come from the murderer, who points the police toward someone who is innocent. Yet this fact is ignored.

Gerald Pabst is one example of someone who successfully pointed the police toward an innocent man who was wrongfully convicted and later exonerated. Pabst was aided in his lie, which helped wrongfully convict Clay Reed Chabot, by twice passing polygraph exams. Pabst was eventually charged after he was matched via DNA to the murder of Galua Crosby.

Since this type of false allegation is in fact easy to make, then, by her own logic all those accused of murder should have their identity shielded unless or until they are convicted.

If Miss Middle of Manchester is claiming that she would find making -- true and false -- rape allegations easy to do then she needs to state this directly rather than using a blanket statement to cast unfounded doubt on all those who do report having been raped.

As a volunteer victim advocate for over 9 years, and as an activist, I have never met or talked to any rape survivor who found reporting easy. Even for those who were determined to see their rapists held legally accountable, reporting was not easy.

However, I have seen how easy it is for accused rapists to make the allegation that they are the victim of someone who should face criminal charges. I have seen how easy it is for people who claim to be against false allegations to make the false allegation that a lack of charges, dropped charges or an acquittal are proof that the reported rape never happened.

A variety of excuses are used to deem certain rape victims non-credible and therefore never to be believed. It can be the victim's possible motives for lying, being drunk, criminal history, profession, marital status, prior reporting of rape, etc.

I've had a man leave a comment on my blog that an alleged victim wasn't credible because she is black and the alleged rapist is white with a link to a report that misuses US crime statistics to "prove" that white men don't rape black women.

The list goes on, but none of these listed items are a magical protection against rape. Yet in far too many cases they are a magical protection for rapists who make false accusations against those they raped.

The ease and success of these false allegations is aided by Miss Middle of Manchester's next paragraph:

With rape, every part of the act is legal, providing it is done with consent. Rape, as a crime, therefore depends on the 'more difficult to prove' issue of consent. The complainant and the accused can both agree that they had sex, the only fact in issue is whether she said 'no' or not and the evidence for that is almost certainly going to be less cogent than a dead body.

This allegation is older than I am and is no more true for the crime of rape than for any other crime. Punching someone is legal with consent and in fact people pay to watch people punch each other. Yet there is clearly far more than 'no" that separates a boxing match from a physical assault where the criminal uses his or her fists.

Few people would accept the allegation that the only difference between murder and assisted suicide is whether the alleged victim said "no" or not. We get that these 2 experiences are far different so that baseless claims that a murder was an assisted suicide won't be viewed as being reasonable doubt. If this excuse is widely accepted we understand how this helps those considering murder and how this endangers public safety.

"They had sex," is not what has been agreed upon as fact when an alleged rapist uses the defense of, "it was consensual." Yet this lie gets repeated by those who claim to be against false allegations.

"We had sex," is a counter allegation.

What the failure to see, "we had sex," as an allegation does is create the illusion that rape and consensual sex are indistinguishable by anyone who wasn't there and indistinguishable by the rapist who claims that "no" wasn't heard or understood. This is a very dangerous false allegation and too easily made.

We certainly would never believe that murderers who claim "assisted suicide" simply misunderstood the situation. We certainly wouldn't tell people in crisis that they must clearly communicate that they don't want to commit suicide as murder prevention.

The false allegation that rape and consensual sex are almost identical helps rapists rationalize their crimes because if there is no difference other than "no" between consensual sex and rape then there is no reason for rape to be a felony or even a serious misdemeanor.

This dangerous false allegation is why so many rape victims -- who are believed -- are asked by an investigator if they really want to ruin their rapist's life by continuing with a true allegation of rape.

This explains why so many rape victims face harassment, threats and assaults by those championing people accused of rape.

Those who report rape have been arrested on unrelated charges, murdered, and become targets of murder-for-hire plots.

Those who report rape have been falsely arrested for making a false allegation. This can happen because investigators make bad assumptions. Or because the investigator succeeds at coercing that rape victim into recanting without bothering to do an actual competent investigation.

Here are details from the false allegation in Pennsylvania based on bad assumptions:

The woman was working as a service station clerk in Cranberry on July 14, 2004, when a man entered the store, sexually assaulted her at gunpoint, then stole $606.73 from the cash register. She called for help from local police, but the responding officers were skeptical of her account. Ms. Reedy ultimately was charged in January 2005 for making false reports to police, theft and receiving stolen property. She lost her job and spent five days in jail while she was pregnant.

So what allegedly is an easy action for rape victims to take, for this woman turned into multiple false charges. These false charges would have likely led to a wrongful conviction if her rapist hadn't been caught raping another woman under similar circumstances in a different county and if that rapist, during the interrogation, hadn't confessed to committing the rape other investigations guessed had never happened.

The harm would be to more than this woman's reputation. Being convicted would make her much more vulnerable to being raped by those who know that a woman convicted of filing a false police report would be labeled as a serial false accuser if she rightfully reported rape a second time.

The township official shrugged this injustice off by saying that hindsight is 20-20. That makes as much sense as shrugging off amputating the leg of someone who went in for knee replacement surgery. Both are malpractice.

Hearing the equivalent of, "so sorry, the doctors here are doing the best they can," should send chills down people's spines.

This is the type of investigative practice which can also lead to wrongful charges against those who were not victims of rape and who were wrongfully suspected of committing violent crimes. However, many people who claim to care about dangerous underlying practices shrug these proven injustices off as acceptable collateral damage because the damage was done to someone who reported rape.

Most of those who spread this meme about the ease of reporting rape justify spreading this false allegation in the name of protecting people from false allegations. This is nonsensical unless you don't believe rape victims are innocent and don't care about false allegations made against those who are also raped.

It doesn't matter that Miss Middle of Manchester goes on to write that her gut tells her that false rape allegations are rare.

Her beliefs about rape will, as she notes, cause some jurors who know that the prosecution has proven the defendant guilty to vote for acquitting a rapist because the process of being rightfully charged and rightfully tried seems to be a sufficient punishment for rape. This belief is based on those jurors' minimizing beliefs about rape.

That this action will cause someone who was raped to be labeled by many as a false accuser will be of no import to those jurors since the only person's welfare they are thinking about is the rapist's.

Miss Middle of Manchester needs to educate herself about the full reality of false allegations and the reality that rape is not merely consensual sex with a, "no," preceding it.

__________

My response:

Dear Marcella,

Thank you for both taking the time to read my blog and providing such a considered response.

Firstly, by way on context (for those who just read this response), the question (and 'answer') was "what law would you change and why?" and the far more subtle sub context was that it was a question from a pupillage application form and so I wanted a somewhat more 'legal academic' argument than necessarily advocating something I am actually passionate about.

That said, I fear that my comments have been misunderstood - which is obviously my fault for being imprecise with my words.

Before I address my main contention, it may seem relevant that I write from an English law background and our criminal procedure rules are somewhat different from those in the US. In the UK, as soon as a woman makes an accusation of rape, the presumption is that she is granted anonymity. From that point, she will be referred to as Ms A in every public document. The media is prohibited from ever publicly naming her, in the allegations she will be referred to as Ms A, throughout the trial, the public may be restricted, for her evidence, she does not have to be in the court room (and if she is, she will be behind a screen) and she will usually give her evidence via video link and therefore not see the defendant at all. I believe that the situation is very different in the US system where the legal injunction that the accused has the right to face his accusers is taken at its most literal. I believe, and please correct me if I am wrong, that when a woman makes an accusation of rape in the US that then goes to trial, she must then go through the additional ordeal of giving her evidence in person, whilst seeing the defendant in the court room. I don't make any claims that the UK system 'cures' the problems of reporting a rape, I merely think that the system, rightly, tries very hard to make a difficult experience somewhat easier.

So where do I, respectfully, disagree with you?

Firstly, I believe that implicit in the model that I gave (although, again, it assumed a reasonably degree of knowledge of criminal procedure) was not from the moment of the first accusation - as you rightly point out, all kinds of crazy accusations are made which have no substance or proof for all manner of crimes - but from a later moment. If asked to consider, I would probably say from the moment of arrest (or that the warrant was issued, where applicable) - ie: from the point at which it appears there is a prima facie case against the defendant, but before the media could possibly be interested (or know anything).

I agree that this would not assist in the example you refer to of Pabst - no law is perfect - but I believe that it goes to a deeper problem.

I don't believe that for a woman who has suffered a rape that reporting it is easy. I don't believe that the number of 'cry rapes' is ass high as the Daily Mail would like us to believe (Fox News is probably a reasonably equivalent here). However, I do believe that there is a higher incidence of women who have not been raped reporting a rape and it being taken to a higher level than of the same happening for murder, for instance. Even taking into account evidential problems of 'he says, she says' as well as the trivialisation of rape within the CPS (who decide whether or not to prosecute a case on the basis of 'reasonable prospect of success'), a reporting --> conviction rape of less than 2% in some areas of the UK has to invite some comment of this nature.

I agree that the 'she consented' defence is 'too easy' to make. Because the evidential burden rightly lies on the prosecution, there will always be a number of cases where this is a successful defence where it should not have been.

On the issue of 'consent' for assault, again, I believe there are differences between UK and US law. In order to consent to assault for sport, there are a number of criteria that have to be 'ticked' - a 'boxing fight' on the street at night where one party claims the other consented would not cut it under UK law.

I cannot agree with your example of assisted suicide as it is inherently a medical procedure and as such, as fairly explicit documentary rules for consent.

My point is that rape is a unique crime. 'Dark alley' rape may be easy to prove, but given that something like 90% of victims know their attacker and the overwhelming majority of rapes take place in private, within a dwelling, evidence of consent is obviously harder to obtain.

Equally, I stand by my statement that rape is a crime of Mens Rea. In the UK it is defined as "the insertion of his penis by A into the vagina, anus or mouth of B where B does not consent and A does not reasonably believe B consented" (Sexual Offences Act 2003)

The crux of the matter is therefore a reasonably belief in consent - ie: an issue of MR. I also cry scorn on the idea that 'no' is a minor thing in this instance. The very existence of that 'no' turns a generally mutually pleasurable act into a violation of the most severe kind. I have said why I think that your assisted suicide point was irrelevant in this context, but to return to it for an instance #9and to assume that we are working in a frame work where assisted suicide is legal) the issue of 'no' would again be the crux of the matter there. If AS is legal, then the giving of a lethal dose of (say) morphine is a neutral act. It is only where there is no consent that it becomes problem.

My final point was a more subtle one on the intricacies of popular perceptions on collective decision makig in a retributive environment - but again, I think the legal differences are so great that it would not necessarily apply in the US. In the UK there is a perception amongst the Daily Mail reading public that there is a lack of parity in rape cases and that proceedings are biased toward the complainant - one aspect of which is granting anonymity to Ms A but not to the D. It doesn't matter whether this is true or not, those people are making decisions based on their perceptions. If a change can be implemented that causes no harm to the case, but could easily have a wider social benefit, it is surely incumbent to consider the issue.

I hope you will not mind if I copy your original article and my response for my blog, as well as posting this response here.

________________

I should also note that I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to rehash the arguments and improve on their clarity before I ever have to do the same thing in front of a committee. I also recommend her blog for useful example in debates on this issue.

More unintended consequences

Cracked has an article on 5 laws with unintended consequences - Freakonomics style and worth the read.

Hat tip: Prometheus Titan (his blog here)

What law would you change, and why?

Traditionally, I've gone for my 'change maternity leave into parental leave' rant. Then there are all sorts of laws which are great to change in debate world, but less suitable to discuss in an interview.

Now, I think I might opt for anonymity for people accused, but not yet convicted, of serious sex offences.

I think that rape is a very serious accusation to make, one of the most serious after murder. Why, therefore, would I argue to grant anonymity for rape and not for murder? Well, it's because the accusation of rape is far easier to make.

With murder, you need a body, for starters, and then there needs to be a plausible explaination as to how you saw the murder occur (you being the accuser in this case). Murder is a crime of action, more than anything else. If you kill a person, if you don't have the requisite mens rea, it is still considered a very serious crime indeed.

With rape, every part of the act is legal, providing it is done with consent. Rape, as a crime, therefore depends on the 'more difficult to prove' issue of consent. The complainant and the accused can both agree that they had sex, the only fact in issue is whether she said 'no' or not and the evidence for that is almost certainly going to be less cogent than a dead body.

I also wonder whether treating a person accused of rape with more sympathy may improve the conviction rate. There can be no doubt that some women 'cry rape' and are lying, however, my gut feeling is that this is a very rare phenomenon which is exaggerated when discussing conviction rates. However, the perception that it is frequent does create a certain amount of sympathy for those accused of rape 'perhaps she's just being nasty - it'll destroy his reputation whether or not he is convicted'. I wonder if a jury, who are perhaps sure that he did it, but only by a narrow margin, might sometimes think that the accusation means that he has suffered enough, and acquit on that basis.

What are you views? And what law would you change, if you had the chance?

Northern Ireland attacks

D Doyle has a very interesting post on the Northern Ireland Army attacks of last weekend. I recommend reading it. Here.

placebo+nudge=panacea?

Interesting article on Comment Central about placebos, both in medicine and in the economy.

I don't think homeopathy works, per se. However, it certainly has an effect when people think it will. Given that many diseases to have a psychological link (look at how quickly many patients recover when told they will be discharged in the next few days) then perhaps it is as well to continue to use homeopathy for 'homely' diseases - ie: fairly regular, uncomfortable but non-life threatening - such as eczema. Just because the science doesn't add up, if the sugar pill has the same affect on the patient as the 'real' pill and sugar is cheaper, give out lots of sugar pills.

The time I think there is a problem is obviously for diseases such as cancer. If people have got used to believing the sugar pill works for their coughs and colds, I can easily see a number of people trying the same for their cancer.

In the economy, I agree with the article's 'unethical' point, but equally, all of the economy is a confidence game (I don't say this is bad) so perhaps there could be a middle line to tred betweenthe outright lie and the modifying of behaviour - perrhaps a 'nudge' is what is needed.

Competitive government?

On Megan McArdle's blog, one of the commentators posted this, which is interesting.

"I've never seen a libertarian theory of the economy that's plausible in a country as large as the US. I think things like voluntary payments in lieu of taxation might work in a community of, say, 100 homogenous people."

Bob, what makes you think the current system is plausible? It should be obvious to anyone who is paying attention that the American system of government has broken down. The checks and balances of the three branches of government have failed to check and balance and the growth of state power has not only continued, but accelerated. Government spending has increased as a percentage of national economic activity to the point where the risk of default or hyperinflation approaches a mathematical certainty. Supreme Court Justices and legislators are biased toward increasing presidential power because, among other reasonst they draw their paychecks from the Executive Branch Department of the Treasury. Personal freedom has diminished to the point where we actually celebrate the ability to choose between despot A and despot B the way a condemned prisoner might be grateful to choose between death by hanging or firing squad.

The reason why I am so concerned about the usurpation of power by the Executive (and to a lesser extent the Judicial) branch is that the effect is a transfer of power from the citizenry to the government as a whole. Only Congressmen and senators are directly elected by majority vote. The president is selected by the Electoral College and the justices and judges of the federal courts are nominated by the president. The legislature is the branch of government most accountable to the people and it is the branch that has yielded it's authority to the other branches. Among other things, it has lost much of its authority to make war, negotiate treaties, and control spending.

Many patriotic Americans will argue that, although the system is imperfect, it is still better than many alternatives. I actually agree with that claim, but that doesn't mean that the current state of affairs is acceptable. A failure is a failure, regardless of the degree to which it is preferable over worse failures. Having herpes is wonderful compared to having AIDS. House arrest is better than prison, but the domicile we are confined to is starting to look more and more like a penitentiary every day as the cage's gilding loses its luster. Considering the rate at which our less-than-ideal situation is deteriorating, the "it could be worse" defense is particularly unconvincing.

The central weakness with constitutional government is the government's ability to use its rule-making power to modify the rules that limit its power. This is accomplished through constitutional amendments, presidential signing statements, judicial review, judicial activism, selective law enforcement, and other legislative tricks. In the U.S., this has meant that, in just over two hundred years, the government has morphed from a relatively benign force of minor inconvenience into a near-omnipresent leviathan that interferes with almost everything we do. It may not be totalitarian yet, but it is clearly headed in that direction. In order to arrest and reverse this descent into servitude, alternatives should be considered.

I propose that, instead of three branches of government, we adopt three (or more) completely independent and non-territorial governments. I make this proposal because it is not the concept of checks and balances that has failed, but the inadequacy of the particular system in place that is the source of our problems. I know this is a radical proposal, but no more radical than the constitutional republic that we live under now was when it was first proposed. A radical solution is called for because, in my opinion, attempts at incremental reforms have been no more effective than efforts to liberalize the mafia or the Ku Klux Klan would be. It is simply not in the nature of a territorial or monopoly state to relinquish its power or operate in a non-coercive fashion.

Considering how unusual non-territorial competing governments are, several objections spring to mind. I will address a few of them here.

1. Isn't a known but flawed system preferable to an untried solution?

In fact, a system similar to that which I propose lasted for 300 years in Saga-era Iceland, which is longer than our current experiment in democratic republicanism has been running. Actually, as drastic as my solution admittedly is, when looked at another way, it is not so radical. People have the option of changing governments today by moving. I am merely suggesting we extend that same option to those who choose not to relocate. By increasing the ease at which we could switch governments, they would be forced to become more responsive or risk losing their subjects (and tax revenue).

2. Wouldn't a lack of a strong central Government invite invasion?

It's true that a group of non-territorial governments would be less able to protect us from foreign and domestic threats, but the upside of that limitation is that the governments themselves would be less threatening both domestically and abroad. The attacks on Pearl Harbor and the World Trade center killed thousands, but not nearly as many as the Washington policies of slavery, the draft, Indian eradication, and Jim Crowe. Protection from government is at least as important as protection by government, and a decreased ability to prevent attacks is a decreased ability to aggress against other nations and consequently a decreased likelihood of provoking attacks against us.

3. What's to keep anyone from just choosing no government and stop paying taxes altogether?

Most people would still prefer to choose a government for the same reason most people now prefer to buy food rather than growing or raising their own. In economics, the phenomenon is known as Specialization. Nothing would absolutely prevent anyone from opting out of collective government altogether, but the benefits of specialization would encourage most to retain the services of a government at the same time such an arrangement would ensure that the governments would provide services equal to or exceeding the tax revenue they collect (otherwise, they would go out of business).

4. Wouldn't having several competing governments be less efficient?

Some economies of scale would be lost by having several redundant governments, but the benefits of competition outweigh the benefits of monopoly. If governments were run more like private businesses, the incentives would be reversed. Currently, a state agency that does a poor job asks for and receives more funding, which effectively rewards poor performance. Alternately, private companies usually lose revenue or go out of business altogether when they perform poorly and they profit when they do well.
These objections are by no means comprehensive, nor are my responses to them. The purpose of this proposal is not to end discussion but to start it. Real world constraints require practical, not utopian, solutions. As time progresses and the failure of democratic republicanism becomes more apparent, this discussion will assume greater importance and the need for some kind of alternative will be obvious. In my pursuit of a solution to the separation of powers problem, I have drawn on the ideas of many others. I don't claim to have developed this idea on my own and in fact very little of it is original. My goal is not to challenge the ideals of the American Revolution, but to advance them beyond their current implementation. Liberty is a noble objective in itself, but it is also the surest path toward future prosperity.

Posted by Bearded Spock | February 11, 2009 11:19 PM

And later

"There is no choice between government and no government, there is just the choice between big government, small government, and good government/bad government."

DrPat, there is a choice between a state and no state. It's MONOPOLY government that's the problem. Voluntary, competing governments of varying sizes with no permanent exclusive territorial areas of operation would work, just like the providers of every other kind of service works this way.

"At least with our current system, everyone has some sort of say."

Really? Which election was decided by your one vote? Assuming there was ever a 1 vote victory, do you honestly think that it would stand or would it get thrown into court? Voting is worse than a waste of time. It lends legitimacy to a thoroughly corrupt system.

Posted by Bearded Spock | February 11, 2009 11:49 PM

I very much like the idea when it comes to provision of goods and services, and taxation, but I wonder what the response is if a person who affiliates with government A commits a crime against a Ber. Will the Aer be metaphorically extradicted to B's criminal justice system?

I would link to Bearded Spock's blog but his name takes us to this link instead.

Moral quote of the day

"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

-Jingo, Terry Pratchett

Home Schooling

I was reading one of NHS's facebook notes and so have directly stolen the following from him, needless to say, I like it. for those of you who do know him, the link is here . EDIT: Forgot he has a blog, the original post can therefore be seen here.

_____
The government loves micro-managing classrooms in the state sector. And why not, you might ask? It's their money, and if they want to decide what consitutes great literature, a major historical event or the right way to introduce literacy, then who are we taxpayers to quibble?

But the government often tires of its own toys and experiences an irrepressible desire to reach out and play with the education of children who don't use state schools. This would seem not to be their business, until you remember this is the 21st century and they hold both the rights'n'responsibilities card and the child protection card.

The latest finger-dipping is yet another review into home education, the Elective Home Education Review, which will be the fourth review into home education since 2005. Education, education, education, education: if only reviews were outcomes...

Headed by Graham Badman, the EHER will consider
1) Whether local authorities and other public agencies are able to effectively discharge their duties and responsibilities for safeguarding and ensuring a suitable education for all children.
2) Whether home educating parents are receiving the support and advice they want to ensure they provide a good, balanced education for their children.
3) What evidence there is to support claims that home education could be used as a ‘cover’ for child abuse such as neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

Allow me to translate.

1) In 2006, The Education and Inspections Act placed a duty on all local authorities to make arrangements to identify children not receiving "a suitable education". Without knowing what happens in your living room, they can't make that judgement. So inspectors need to be sent into people's homes to gather that information. But we don't know how many children are home educated - between 20,000 (DCSF) and 50,000 (Education Otherwise) - so expect a policy requiring parents to register their home-educated children with the local education authority.

2) Home educating parents often do not want or seek advice from the LEA: it is, after all, the organisation whose schools they are avoiding. Nor are they under any obligation to receive such advice. But as Mr Badman reminded the BBC "Legislation affords every parent the right to choose to educate their child at home but with those rights go responsibilities, not least being to secure a suitable education." Expect the word "suitable" to be defined by Mr Badman and the inspectors to have a strong mandate.

3) The child protection card. If the government can find a single example of neglect or abuse, it gives it the green light to investigateand regulate the lives of all home educators. You can only find a bad apple by checking all your apples. The government hasn't yet given an example of alleged abuse - Education Otherwise asked for the evidence and none was provided - but making the claim means that a claim has been made and must, therefore, be investigated.

Parents have a right to educate their children privately or using the state system. This private education can be in a school or at home. Parents who choose home education are often helping their children to escape the abuse of bullying, or get out from the anti-learning culture of their LEA schools. The government is heaping review after review on these people and branding them as potential abusers.

The government wants to control and regulate the education of every child. How else can it guarantee every child an equal start in life? Parents may play the freedom card, but rights'n'responsibilities and child protection will surely beat it.

The human side of the second law of thermodynamics

People behave more badly when they are in worse environments.

By worse environments, I don't mean surrounded by bad people or violence or crime.

Litter, disorder (mislaid shopping trolleys) and graffiti all made people behave in less acceptable ways than when the same situation was set up in a tidy/pleasant area.

Well worth a read, here.

(For physics geeks, go here)

South Africa, Apartheid and Sanctions

This article is interesting in taking down the common claim that popular sanctions ended apartheid in South Africa and arguing, instead, that it was that Apartheid became economically unfeasible.

It's a tempting argument, and I'm happy to believe that the fall of many undesirable social systems was caused by economics rather than any moral imperative (see Anne Applebaum's Gulag - worth a read, by the way).

However, if the principle reason for the fall of apartheid was money, then sanctions surely exacerbated this?

Prince Harry and wordplay

No, I wouldn't use the word. Yes, the world would be a nicer place if we were all nice to each other. On the other hand, he said it in private, to a person who hasn't publically objected. Frankly, what is the issue?

A word has no inherent value in its own right, it's just a sound. All words are context specific. "You bitch!" said to a woman is very different when the proceeding line is:
1. "Who was that man you were talking to? Were you chatting him up? I saw you flirting with him"
or
2. " OMG, I love your new shoes. I can't believe you managed to get a pair of Jimmy Choos for less than £50".

Yes, some words are more likely to be offensive, on average, than not but ultimately all are situation specific and it is that which must be looked at, not the word itself.

Unsurprisingly, Spiked takes a similar view point but articulates it far better than I can.

The individual and the State in the minds of the centre left

I found this article to be quite interesting, and very true.

To give a small extract:

"Where does this all come from? Well, I have a theory. The most powerful bit of Cameron's speech at the Conservative conference was the bit about Labour seeing the world as containing the State and individuals, with nothing of any value existing in between. This is very true, but also unsurprising. With new Labour, legislation was the answer to every question. That was because most of them were lawyers. A government of priests would pontificate and pray, and if hacks ruled the world we'd place our faith in publicity. Outside politics, David Cameron has only worked in television. So maybe that's why his instincts tend towards EastEnders and Pigeon Street"

Worth going here to read the rest of it... Though I can't see an imam doing a tombola, what with gambling being so popular in Islam.

Who goes? You Decide!

As this article points out, words come in and out of fashion and use.

When a word has not been used for a while, it is culled from paper versions of dictionaries. (The internet is changing cyberspace preservation)

The Times has a list of words 'up for eviction', cast your vote here to save the ones you like the best.

North Korea Kremlinology: Predictions of the Future

This article is quite interesting. It discusses the potential futures of North Korea when Kim Jung Il dies. On the grounds that assassination props are run fairly frequently - and often will be set in North Korea, it's probably worth a read.

I find what he says about the army v the party interesting - I wonder if anyone has been able to find out whether the leaders of both are as brainwashed into support Kim Jung Il as the rest of the population?

Duty of Care and the Armed Services

I always find this a difficult topic.

On the one hand, it is clearly right that an employer should owe a duty of care to the employee.

On the the other, it is equally clear that applying this to the heat of battle is stupid.

However, if the MoD give out faulty equipment (say, bullet proof vests) and if that vest fails and leads to the death of a soldier AND the MoD knew the vests were faulty, should the soldier be allowed to sue?

Under the SQ, they cannot. But to mitigate this, issues surrounding the armed forces are given special parliamentary time for discussion in a manner that even other arms of the state (the police, for instance) are not.

James Rowley, of Byrom Street Chambers, has written an interesting article on this subject. If you follow this link, and then scroll to the bottom of the page.

My good luck is mine. My bad luck, yours.

This is a very short, but elegant, article on how we apportion 'luck' in society - especially when it comes to holiday companies and bad harvests.

Children, diet and exercise

We were chatting in the office today about the contents of children's lunch boxes (have I mentioned that it's an all female office?). It was sparked by a news article which had been read which stated that a father said his five year old daughter was obese because of 'comfort eating'. (this was sparked by me asking if other people thought it was possible for a child to weigh 20 stone...)

How does a 5 year old possibly comfort eat?!

At that age, the child has no income, is too short to reach into high cupboards and should have been taught to ask, if they wanted food, anyway. A 5 year old eats what is in front of them. Of course they will refuse to eat some items, and then ask for pudding anyway. At that point, the parent either insists that they eat the item, keeps it for later or throws it away and then says yes or no for pudding depending on the behaviour of the child. I just can't see how comfort eating comes into this equation.

When I comfort eat, then sure, I go to the freezer/Sainsburys and eat a whole tub of Ben and Jerry's, or Kettle Chips, or a bar of chocolate. I ahve access to the food and even if I didn't, I can buy it. At work, I never eat like that because someone else is in control of my time and therefore in charge of when I can eat. For children, it is surely similar? When a child is slightly older, they may have their own money or have developed a measure of deviousness and are therefore able to have a measure of control over their eating. With young children, this shouldn't be an issue.

Continuing the theme of childhood obesity, we were also comparing the contents of children's packed lunches today compared to what we take to school. The consensus was that today's lunches are healthier than ours were (more fruit and salad, less chocolate and crisps). If this works out over an average, then I wonder to what extent childhood obesity is fuelled far less by crap food than by a complete lack of exercise.

On this, I do blame the parents far less. Given the condemnation which was dumped on the McCains for Shock! Horror! leaving their children alone a short distance away for a short period of time rather than being sugically attached to them constantly as well as the attitude from officials where EVERY lone adult is ALWAYS a paedophile I can scarcely blame parents for being scared of the condemnation they would suffer if busy-body noticed a child playing alone in a garden... Much safer to keep the child indoors and give them a playstation.

Equally, my grandparents talk about going across London by themselves to go to school. I remember walking to school by myself (about 1 mile) from the age of 8 or 9 (year five, at least) where now children are driven. Again, the driving is partly a manifestation of the parents being too busy to walk their children to school, some are being too lazy but all are too scared to let their children walk the route alone.

I don't particularly want children at any point in my life, but I hope that if I did have them, I would be firm enough in my own beliefs to allow them the same freedoms I enjoyed rather than projecting my own fears onto them. Given that obesity is at least in part caused by a lack of exercise, given that, in the UK, obesity is far more deadly than terrorism (possible abuse of statistics), I would propose a fairly massive transfer of funds to try and win 'hearts and minds' of parents to convince them that the world is a safe place for their children to be in.