Legal Aid for the Wealthy & Connected

-

 



OK - Hancock and Johnson are both getting their legal fees covered out of the public purse to contest charges various relating to their nefarious activities whilst in public office during Covid: they're not alone in their wrongdoing, so expect more burden on your collective finances to come. Large swathes of legal aid cover were removed by the Tories during their current - and hopefully soon-to-be-curtailed - tenure. Legal aid: put in place so that the under-resourced - read poorer - could at least get decent representation in court, criminal or civil. A kind of National Health Service for the legal sphere, picking up the pieces for those unfortunate enough not to have been born wealthy and connected.

How so that the wealthy and connected Hancock and Johnson are getting public aid to fight against the cases against them of offences against the public offices they held? How so is it that these two, who, let's face it, both have earned, and continue to earn handsomely from essentially their fame and notoriety, get their legal fees paid for out of our pockets? No-one else - at least in the real world - would get away with it. But I forget, these people re-wrote the rulebook as they went along, protected by their bubble of invulnerability: a stupidly-large mandate - bolstered by right-wing media - handed to them on a plate by the very people who will be paying for their day in court: red-wall, working-class Tories: those who will be the first to be dumped and ignored by these bastards. Get a grip: let's get 'em out before they do any more harm...

Misconduct in public office is a serious offence: the public should not be expected to defend those accused of it in the courts, let them pay for their defence out of their own money, however ill-gained.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [
Read more