InvertedSmiley

Private Eye's 'Hackwatch' column is a great read this week, as usual.

They only publish half the article on their website, so this is all I can show you:

WHAT did Jon Venables do to get himself returned to prison? It was more a case of what didn

Who are these posters you talk about Glen?

Presumably they are the same posters who are so concerned with the rights of the criminals that they forget what happened to James Bulger. Hence Glen's need to detail everything the toddler suffered.

I read this article in today's Times over my scrambled eggs and bagel this morning and it certainly puts an alternative spin on the absurd suggestion on here that there should be no criminal age of responsibility in Britain:

Our attitude to kids shows we need to grow up

 

Imagine this, since we

But when Denise Fergus speaks up to disagree with the taxpayer paid "Children's Commissioner" on a matter that affects her to the point that if what Atkinson proposed was in place in 1993 her sons killers would have literally got away with murder, she's called by the intellectual "heavyweights" here a cunt, whore and told to shut the fuck up. Liberal Fascism at its best.

What makes Mrs. Fergus's opinion bear any more importance than anyone elses? If anything, hers should be wholly discounted as biased, as she is (understandably) acting on emotion. How dare she call for a government adviser to be sacked just because she has the impudence to hold a point of view which differs from hers?

You like to talk about British society being "FUBAR'd". What kind of society is it where an educated professional is sacked for stating an opinion which is opposed to the screaming tabloid masses?

For what it's worth, the criminal age of responsibility in Britain is much lower than it is in other parts of Europe, where the age ranges from 14 to 18. The age was lowered in this country particularly so that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson could be tried as adults.

There should be no minimum age of criminal responsibility in this country, if a youth commits a crime the police should be allowed to determine wherever if the youth concerned was aware of what they were doing and wherever they should be sent to be prosecuted, along with the parents or guardians if need be.

Knowing that you are doing something bad is one thing, appreciating how bad it is is another.

Incidentally, if you're calling for the parents/guardians to be prosecuted: do you believe that Denise Fergus should have been prosecuted for leaving her son alone outside a butchers while she shopped inside?

As usual, Denise Fergus is spot on.

 

Atkinson's (guess who's paying her salary) comments were inflammatory and disgraceful. She could have only topped it off by making her announcement dancing on James Bulger's grave.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/cri...ers-mother.html

 

Okay I know Denise Fergus lost her son but I am sick and tired of the Woman and for the record I dont even agree with the majority of what Maggie Atkinson said.

 

The dirt rags are going to love this.

Since when should people be sacked from their jobs for having an opinion?

Earlier in the week she demanded that the justice officials who have been monitoring Jon Venables be sacked. Why? If Venables has indeed been accessing child pornography on the internet or whatever, what the hell can those in charge of monitoring him do about that? And, as she's fully aware, he has been recalled to custody.

What Mrs Fergus - and people like you - are essentially saying is that an educated person in a public position cannot make a measured statement, because it doesn't fit with the tabloid language of revenge. It's a ridiculous way to conduct a debate.

Caught the front-page headline on today's Daily Star.

REAL VENABLES REVEALED

It screamed.

Killer takes drugs, loves gangster films, cop shows and hard-action films

Take out the drugs and he could be me. Leave the drugs in there and he could be almost any 27 year-old British male.

The vile bastard is cunningly adopting the personna of an ordinary 27 year-old to mask his murdering ways. String 'em up!

Oh, and the article also says this:

Venables, now 27, also loves watching wrestling.

Link

If you put Calvert into the search box in facebook and search posts by everyone it updates in real-time when people are posting it as their status.

It amazes me how many people are so quick to pass that around without a thought for whether it's true or the potential repercussions. And yet there's still people who think they can be trusted with actual information on Jon Venables.

There was an interview with the 'real' David Calvert on Sky News this morning.

There he is, living and breathing and quite clearly not in custody, giving a television interview and people are still believing that he is Jon Venables. It beggars belief how incredibly blood-lustingly stupid some of these people are.

These two murderers have been put in to an extremely rare situation of having their identities after release being protected from the general public, but there is no reason for Jamie's parents not to have at least some access to these details and allow her to confront the killers of her child as long as they do not do anything that would normal break the law (e.g. assault, stalking) and that she could not pass such information to a third party.

The problem is, once you give the Bulger family the right to confront their sons killer, you'll be opening the door for everyone to claim that they should also be allowed to confront the killer of their family member, aren't you?

 

It's just not feasible.

Most murderer's, if they are released from jail, don't normally have anonymity protection given to them so for the relatives of the murdered it isn't too hard to track them down normally.

Most murderers aren't ten years old when they commit their crime.

Loss of life for a loss of life and an eye for an eye. And no, it doesn't leave everyone blind, only those who are dead end up blind.

So you're happy with the solution being to kill more children?

Hanging Venables and Thompson would have made no difference compared to now in helping society "understand" why they killed a two year old boy for kicks. Do we as a society have any less understanding with these two murderers effectively walking free having spent eight years in a glorified Butlins camp?

Of course it would have made a difference. It would have completely eliminated any opportunity we may have had to look at those young boys and see what we can do to perhaps stop others going the same route as they did and to change the behaviour of those who perpetrated the act. You can look at the victim from now till eternity but that wont do anything to avoid the next victim. Looking at the perpetrators and understanding their actions might, crocodile tears on one side, practical action on the other.

And I don't know about a Butlins holiday camp, but in my view the two boys were serverly punished, and have lost most of their most formative years in prison & secure care homes. They likely have had minimal to no exposure to different people, cultures & travel due to their sentence, which is fully correct. However, they have served their sentence. They should not be hounded by a blood baying public and the government should never have made any comment on them.

They have to live with the scars of what they did when they were kids, and as a decent society (I'd like to think) we should give them the opportunity to be able to make a new life in the world for their own betterment. If that fails to work, for whatever reason, then we look at the system and think about why it didn't work and what we need to do differently.

Join the bleedin' heart brigade then that hasn't learned a single thing from this failed social experiment from the 1960's onwards. An evil bastard is an evil bastard, all of whom once they pass a certain point cannot be rehabilitated.

If they're both just naturally evil, and their actions would subsequently put them in the most extreme version of evil possible... does it not seem a bit of a statistical stretch that these two relatively unique examples of extreme evil, just happen to have grown up in the same area and been mates?

Is it not more likely that they're a product of their internal wiring, their environment, and probably a bit of peer pressure between the two of them?

Surely that makes more sense than the two most evil boys in Britain just happen to be classmates, the same age, from the same area, in the same town, etc. There's more to this than the simple black and white lazy labelling of them being "evil bastards".

If the stories that have surfaced about Venables are true, then it is perfectly valid that Thompson may have also breached his "licence" but hasn't been called back because he hasn't committed yet an offence that is serious. If Thompson is brought back in however at any point in the future, then that's it. Game Over.

No it isn't "perfectly valid" to assume that because Venables has done something wrong then Thompson may also have committed a crime. The fundamental basis of a life license means that if these guys are suspected of committing any kind of offence then they will be recalled to custody, regardless of the seriousness of the offence. Fail to pay a parking ticket on time or download some child pornography, the outcome is the same.

No rational person would say that Denise Fergus should not have the right to access details of the murderers of her son.

Within a couple of hours of her becoming the first person to be told that Venables had been arrested the story was all over the news. That is reason enough to suggest that the government is entirely right in keeping further details private. He murdered her son, which was a horrible, horrible crime. But that is where his involvement with her ends. She has no involvement in the allegations currently being made against him.

Child Porn? Sexual Assault?

 

If either of these turn out to be true then I will be vindicated by what I said earlier about Venables and Thompson being executed.

 

No you wont.

 

Were both murderers now to be rotting six feet under, Venables wouldn't be in a position to possibly commit sexual assault or download child porn.

So you honestly, truly believe that the answer to the horrific murder of one child is to kill another two? I must admit that I struggle to understand the morally superior standpoint of a person who is so sickened by the murder of a toddler that they would wish to inflict something equally as vile on the offender. But maybe that's just me.

To me, killing two youngsters who commited such an incredible crime would be absolutely senseless. It gives us as a society no opportunity to understand why it happened, what motivated the boys to do what they did and to learn how we can prevent similar events occurring in the future. Rather than dismissing the killers as being full of evilness and relegating the crime to the history books until the next time it happens, I would look at the perpetrators and try to change thins to avoid a repeat.

Ignoring the reasons for the actions in the first place by simplifying everything down to the amount of evil in everybody is short sighted, IMO.

And, with regard to your original point, if these allegations against Jon Venables are in fact true and he is found guilty of a crime, it would not vindicate executing he and Robert Thompson. While there are all these stories and rumours and speculation regarding Venables, there has been little or nothing (from what I have seen anyway) said about Robert Thompson. For all we know his rehabilitation has been much more successful than Venables's appears to have been.

Child Porn? Sexual Assault?

 

If either of these turn out to be true then I will be vindicated by what I said earlier about Venables and Thompson being executed.

No you wont.

Kiddy porn? Based on his past?

 

If thats true then he should never ever be allowed out again.

The Sunday Mirror's stablemate, The Daily Mirror, 'reported' during the week that Venables was back in prison following a fight with a work colleague.

To put it into context, I'd reckon that The Sun is a more reputable source for news than the Mirror Group, and that's saying something.

I think it does. If the Mother and Father want to know why shouldn't they know about this? Whatever you say it still has an impact on them. Its none of the publics business, no, but the two of them fought tirelessly to stop them being released early, they've been proven right, the home office has a duty to tell them why they have let their sons killer out when he clearly can't be trusted to have been. You're opinion differs from mine and I'll doubt I'll change yours, but I just feel they deserve to know.

In what way have they been proven right? Despite the fervent press speculation, nobody knows why Jon Venables was recalled to prison. He may have been involved in a 'violent altercation' or he might have innocently failed to report to his supervising officer as required. Nobody knows!

While I can understand why Jamie Bulger's family might want to know the reason behind Venables's recall to prison, I can't understand what purpose it would serve to tell them.

Though I take what the tabloids say with a pinch of salt, the reports today suggest Venables is still a fucked-up individual with every chance of posing a danger to society. Even if they're wide of the mark, I think it's highly unlikely that he'd be summarily marched back to prison and the story leaked to the press for something as inconsequential as failing to report to his parole officer on time.

As you allude to yourself, it all depends on which newspaper you are reading. While The Sun (or any other tabloid) reports that Jon Venables is a danger to society, The Times suggested this morning that he is a born-again Christian and had served in the army. There are so many stories about what has become of Venables and his accomplice that it simply isn't possible for any of us to know what the truth is. All we can know for certain is what is in the public domain on record, such as that Venables' former solicitor expressed surprise that he had been sent back to prison as he was "by unaminous agreement the lesser evil."

While there are reports coming out today (from the Daily Mirror, it should be cautiously stressed) it is still not known why Venables has been returned to prison. It could be for something as minor as leaving the country without prior permission or failing to reside at an agreed address. He may not have reported to his supervising officer or taken on a job without approval from his supervising officer, though it's unlikely that either of those would have resulted in him being imprisoned.

But I would have liked him to live in fear of the fact that it might happen as a ten-year-old. And I would have liked him to be unshadowed by the cloak of anonymity when he was released from prison.

Do you honestly think that, as a ten year-old, the boy didn't live practically every day in fear? He was reportedly paranoid that his secure unit would be broken into by people seeking to harm him, and feared being seen as "the new Myra Hindley". I can't imagine how it must feel to wake up every morning wondering if this is going to be the day the guy I work with finds out who I really am and what I did seventeen years ago. While that absolutely pales in comparison to the emotions Denise Fergus wakes up with every morning, it's something that I don't think the "string 'em up" brigade really consider.

To all you do gooders, that are saying he should not be harmed, and they where only 10

 

I do hope you never ever have kids

Why? Not everyone who loses a loved one - particularly a son or daughter at such a young age - suddenly turns into Charles Bronson, seeking vengeance on everyone involved.

A 10 year old knows better than to take a small child and cave its head in with a iron bar.

Does a ten year-old growing up in an abusive household know anything but violence? If a child is so neglected at home that he or she cannot empathise with any other kind of emotion, how can they judge something to be cruel if cruelty is all they know?

Those who are saying that Venables is back where he belongs are stupid.

 

He and Thompson should have been hung after being found guilty.

Yup, because the answer to a child killing is to murder two more...

This is not as black and white as simply stating that murder = evil bastard = death penalty. There are so many varying factors which have to be considered when those involved are so incredibly young. It is said that tortured children frequently grow up to carry out deranged acts, though here Venables and Thompson didn't even make it to the 'grow up' point. It's a headfuck just thinking about it.

I'm more of a DVD viewer than a television viewer. I didn't think that anything could ever come close to the brilliance of The Sopranos or The Wire (can never separate which comes first in my pecking order) but I have to say that season five of The Shield is utterly compelling. Just about to watch the final episode now.

As for actual television, I'm another enjoying Eastbound and Down on FX. With lacking the ability or desire to download shows I am also finding the return of Curb Your Enthusiasm to be a grace. I've found myself watching Flash Forward, almost wanting it to fail to live up to the hype. I snigger down at the cheesy dialogue and sigh through all of the insane plot twists; yet I can't help but want to watch the next episode.

Rest of the Question Time panel is Chris Huhne and Baroness Warsi who is, of course, a British born Muslim. Maybe Griffin will offer her money to go "home".

From today's Comment page in The Times:

Picking the right fight

The BBC is right to host Nick Griffin, but he must be deftly opposed

 

 

A week tomorrow, on Question Time, the BBC will play host to Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party. The corporation is right to do so. There may be little public appetite for what Mr Griffin has to say, but there is an enormous public appetite for him to be taken to task while saying it.

 

Some form of demonstration is to be expected outside BBC Television Centre, with anti-fascist protesters having already announced their intention to blockade Wood Lane so as to prevent Mr Griffin from entering the building.

 

A protest is understandable, and possibly even desirable, but a blockade is not. The strategy of denying the BNP the oxygen of publicity is of questionable morality and, at any rate, it has not worked. Mr Griffin and his colleague Andrew Brons now sit in the European Parliament. They represent a real, if still marginal, political presence that cannot just be wished away. Much as its existence may dismay and disgust, ignoring it will not help.

 

Nor is such an approach helpful. Misconstrued notions of victimhood and oppression are the BNP

So, Gordon Brown says the Sun's switch of support from Labour to Conservative won't matter, as it's "people who decide elections, not newspapers".

 

Fine, but considering it's got some stroke considering it's the most circulated newspaper in the UK and many people who read it don't trawl their way through manifestos and instead go with the bullet points featured in tabloid papers such as this, it's not looking good, Gord.

Newspapers today are a different animal to what they were back in, say, 1992. None of the newspapers these days are opinion formers. People barely look to the broadsheets for a political lead any more, never mind the gutter press. As someone posted a few posts back, this is more a case of The Sun following the national mood rather than setting it.

What's more interesting than the announcement that they are switching their support is the timing of it. It has been fairly well documented over the last six months to a year that Rupert Murdoch was heavily considering backing David Cameron. The fact that the Conservatives have been openly criticising the BBC and have hinted that they would relax the rules on news programmes requirement to show political balance (thus opening the way for the type of "news" broadcast you see on Fox) has obviously pleased the Dirty Digger.