Temperama

Thought For The Day

Max Hastings in The Guardian:

"Incomprehension makes us the City's prisoners. We know what vacuum cleaner manufacturers do, and waiters and lawyers and doctors and even ministers. We are told that the activities of the City of London now account for a frighteningly large proportion of national economic activity. But as to what those activities are, who can tell? I have met lots of investment bankers, hedge fund managers, currency dealers. But I would struggle to describe on one side of a sheet of paper how they spend their days, beyond peering at screens. I bet you would, too. Financial management is the new witchcraft, an art that makes many of its practitioners absurdly rich, commands the grudging respect of millions, but relies upon skills and secrets that remain opaque to all outside the Magic Circle."

Now read on.

Littlejohnning

Just because you're losing, just because you're losing, just because you're losing...!

Assaults On Female Prison Officers

Another Guardian scoop.

In Defence Of Tax Credits

Chris Dillow presents one.

Sink Schooling

Why Gordon should be watching Big Brother.

Self Projection, Bush-Style

Nice take on the Brown-Bush chemistry from Bookdrunk.

Tony Wasn't Working

From The Guardian:

"The government's use of indeterminate sentences today suffered a further blow today after the court of appeal ruled there had been a 'general and systemic failure' in the sentencing of a sex offender. David Walker, who was convicted of a sexual offence in 2005, contested the controversial indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPP), which was introduced two years ago. The sentence binds a prisoner's release to completion of rehabilitative courses to prove he or she is no longer a danger to society.

However, Walker's lawyers argued that the conditions of his indeterminate sentence were unrealistic because the prison in which he was serving time did not offer any parole courses. Many prisons do not offer the proper courses, which means some prisoners are left to endure indefinite sentences beyond their tariff.
The appeal ruling will be seen as a victory for prison advocacy groups, prison staff, inmates and judiciary members who have opposed IPPs. Only five out of 147 people serving IPPs had been released by the end of April 2007. Most had exceeded their tariffs, which ranged from one to 18 months.

Today's ruling, if upheld on appeal, could leave ministers facing a multi-million pound bill as they are forced to plough cash into prison treatment programmes."

It's an ill wind, as they say. Full story here.

Politics Of Dope

A report in The Lancet has found a major link between cannabis use and the risk of developing psychotic conditions: grist to the mill of Gordon's signalled intention to re-classify the drug back up to category B. Both the Tories's David Davis and the mental health charity Sane have come out in favour of such a move, but what would be the sense of it? To "send a message" about law and order to Middle England might be politically helpful to Brown in the short term but would do nothing at all to reduce the risk of dopers messing their heads up in the future.

That's the view reached by the Royal Society commission on illegal drugs and by Labour MP Brian Iddon, a former chemist who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Drugs Misuse Group. Both told today's World At One that to re-classify cannabis would achieve nothing other than criminalising more young people for possessing small amounts, thereby reducing their prospects of future employment. Both bemoaned the continuing power of moral panics to drive drug policy and make sane, productive debate about the issue among politicians almost impossible.

OK, it would be be naive to expect the new PM to risk instigating such a debate just now, even if we dare suppose he'd like one. Even so, his disinclination demonstrates that they'll be no change from the change-maker where this burning social issue is concerned for the foreseeable future, if ever. Shame.

On Comment Is Free: Dope Politics

Here, in full, is my CiF piece about today's entertaining dope revelations:

"What a hoot. First, Jacqui Smith owns up to having smoked dope, then her Home Office sidekick Tony McNulty does the same, and suddenly I'm wondering if there's anyone in Marsham Street who hasn't got a roach or dismantled Rizla packet to declare. Questions should be asked. Were you a bong man, Admiral? Ever resorted to recycling dog ends, Vern? The new PM should have gone further with the carve-up of Doc Red Top's shambolic empire. He should have renamed Home the Head Office.

While we await further disclosures there's the political smoke signals to decipher. Today's red-eyed revelations follow Gordon Brown's announcement yesterday that Smith's department will soon publish a consultation document on drugs strategy (so let's hope Jacqui can, like, get it together, man). His intimation was that cannabis will end up being reclassified upwards back to class B, where it used to be before that craz-ee libertine David Blunkett downgraded it to C. The public will also be invited to suggest ways of improving drug education, supporting users undergoing treatment and helping communities wishing to "chase out" drug dealers from their communities.

This whole episode has the mark of the new Number 10 regime all over it. The reclassification message was sent to address public anxiety about the potency of skunk - which is far greater than anything Smith and McNulty could have inhaled when they were at university - and recent evidence about the mental health implications of heavy marijuana use. The review as a whole will have the virtue of invading David Cameron's "social responsibility" space, where toughness and tenderness on drug crime are proclaimed to co-exist. As for the ex-tokers' tales we've been enjoying today, their telling has surely been motivated by finely-calculated expediency: it will have been anticipated that the drawbacks of honesty on this subject would be smaller and sooner got over than those of endless evasions or lies, and also put the Tory leader under renewed pressure to come clean about his own past. From the media response so far, this seems to be working. But what good will come of the strategy review?

A few months ago a new resident arrived in my neighbourhood, which lies in a part of East London where many drug gangs operate, policing their territories ferociously. Soon, people nearby were making nervous noises about him and the posse of pals who congregate in and outside his home. A few nights back their noise attracted a police raid, but subsequently a bunch of young males has emerged from the front door in question and set off down the middle of the street, the menace of their swagger unambiguous.

No one I know has firm evidence that a drugs gang has set up a base in our midst, but not to suspect it would be naïve. Further police action seems inevitable. But what of longer term remedies to the lethal association between hard-faced criminality and illegal drug use? Earlier this year the Royal Society produced a report into Britain's drugs policy. Its findings are sober, honest and practical, and it is not the work of "wet" liberals. While not calling for legalisation it emphasised both the virtues of a bold "harm reduction" approach - which would help take some of the profit out of the drugs trade - and the difficulties this creates for politicians terrified of being called "soft".

The debate is well under way over to what degree if any the refreshingly measured tone of the Brown government in addressing other emotive issues - a tone first struck by Jacqui Smith herself after the failed car bomb attempts - signals a serious change of policy substance too. The evidence so far is that it doesn't much. Dare we hope that drugs policy will buck the trend?"

P.S. I especially enjoyed Tony McNulty's confession. His transformation from Big Balls Authoritarian under his previous boss to self-outing pothead under his new one has been charming to behold.

Charities & Government

The "Third Sector" - a new name for what has usually been called the voluntary sector - is being called on more and more to deliver social welfare services that used to be the sole responsibility of the state. In some ways this good because charities can be more flexible, innovative and user-friendly than the statutory sector, meaning local authorities and the state. Blair was very keen on this and Cameron looks even keener. Brown, apparently, has a bit more confidence in the "old" providers but he too seems set to maintain and even increase the giving of government contracts to the larger charities. Opinion is very divided about whether or not this trend is a good one. Listen Again to this recent edition of Radio 4"s Analysis programme to hear the arguments. Or read the transcript.