What’s bothering me

Quick news round up

Life seems full of busy right now, I hardly have time to get to this keyboard and jot down my thoughts on matters political, libertarian and annoying, both on a national and on a local level. So here’s a quick round up of the things that have bothered me over the past couple of days:

The historic court case without a jury – There you have it, NuLabour has finally allowed “Diplock Courts” to take place in England, your right to a trial by twelve of your peers can be removed, juries protected and revered since Magna Carta are no longer necessary, Fausty warns that tyranny may follow and Marcel Berlins in the Guardian asserts that economy is being served before justice:

I am a little concerned to see money being a factor in a case in which an accused’s liberty is at stake. But that is the way the government thinks now. Why is it so keen to abolish the right to trial by jury for certain fraud trials? Not because it serves justice but because it saves money. Why is it pleased about the Heathrow Four’s trial by judge alone? Because it many take only two or three months instead of six. Think of the ­lawyers’ fees saved.

Elsewhere, fellow Geordie Jack Pickard has an extraordinarily good post about Yasmin Aibhai-Brown who argued in The Independent that our collapse in moral values is pushing British Muslims to the edge of reason and extremism. Live and let live, and if what we do or think causes no harm or offence to other people then leave well alone!

Oh, and the general election will be on May 6th., as revealed by Tory Politico‘s reporting of Europe Minister Chris Bryant, and finally on matters more local South Shields Conservative candidate Karen Allen sounds a little bemused and taken aback that a Labour controlled South Tyneside council should actively want to transfer staff from the public to the private sector, and South Shields MP David Miliband has been described as immature by a fellow Labour MP. I was tempted to do a Photoshop mock up of the Foreign Minister in short pants and with Harry Potter hair but that would have been quite childish (I’ll leave it for another day).

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