More than just reward for Proctor
I CONGRATULATE Harvey Proctor on his successful action against the Metropolitan police after he lost both home and job as a result of the crazy Operation Midland investigation, when police described the ravings of a lunatic as “credible and true” and misled judges into signing search warrants.
Proctor, below, deserves every penny of the damages and costs he has been awarded.
He, of course, was the hero of the sorry saga when he held a press conference and read out the ludicrous allegations. I can remember howling with laughter at the thought of Ted Heath stopping him cutting off a boy’s private bits with a penknife.
Yet laughter and congratulations aside, the question still remains: however could any of them have ever believed any of it?
JOHN RICHARDS set up a society to save the apostrophe, that most misused and neglected of all punctuation marks. At 96, he has given up.
The apostrophe is but one casualty of poor grammar. I am not a pedant and am happy to use informal language but there are limits.
There is a newspaper, not this one, which has recently had columnists writing “an alumni” and confusing approbation with opprobrium, despite the two having opposite meanings.
However, I save my real irritation for the advertisements. My favourite TV channel is Talking Pictures, which runs ads for Dormeo, the bedding company. One of these advises us to “lay back and relax” and every time I yell at the screen “Lie back, you ignoramuses, lie back!”
THREE very different cases this week illustrate the weaknesses in our justice system. The first was the tragic case of the young man who killed a friend when he failed to notice a red light and crashed into another car. He had not been drinking nor taking drugs. He was not speeding. He was driving perfectly responsibly just two months after passing his test.What followed was a mistake not recklessness.
The sister of the dead girl says she veers between feeling sorry for him and angry with him.The girl’s mother says they are all sad.
As the judge observed, he will carry this with him for the rest of his life and I cannot see that any purpose is served by prison but that is where he was sent.
Doubtless that was why diplomat’s wife Anne Sacoolas fled back to the States. Britain has no reputation for mercy.
It also has no reputation for protecting its citizens.We may lock up erring motorists butVanessa George, who ran a nursery and abused the tiny children in her care is now released. She is being kept away from Plymouth, where her crimes took place, but the one thing we know about paedophilia is that those guilty of it tend to repeat their offences time and time again.
ARE children really safe from Vanessa George? The police were only too right to remind parents against any vigilante action but what assurances can they give us that this woman will be monitored effectively and for a very long time?
Finally, there was the fanatical jihadi, Usman Khan, who was released from prison after serving eight years for conspiracy to blow up the London Stock Exchange. His conditions of release were stringent, but not it appears stringent enough. Now two innocent people are dead.
There is no such thing as a perfect justice system and human judgment will occasionally prove fallible but it seems to me we need to take a good long look at our priorities.
ALL I hear from the electorate is that nobody believes a word either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn say. Well there is an answer to that of course: vote for the Brexit Party and get some honest politics. Sadly, I think to most of the public the words “honest politics” bring to mind a third word: oxymoron.
IF I had not decided to re-enter politics and send my nine-year retirement off course, I would now be acting with Brian Blessed, left, in Aladdin at Hoddesdon, where I was due to play Chop Suey.
I think of them finishing rehearsals and getting ready for the opening night, although I suppose what I am engaged in now is a pretty good pantomime.
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CLIMATE change is blamed for everything these days but I did blink and read the sentence twice, when it was solemnly reported at the weekend that it is responsible for equine obesity.
Apparently, global warming has caused an abundance of grass and lush pastures and the gee-gees are feasting away and getting bigger and rounder.
What is the betting that if we get a freezing winter and the horses are disconsolately snuffling in the snow, climate change will be blamed for that too?