Political correctness gone mad

[Sheilbh]

I think that's true, but I thing things could be changing.  There are more 'emergency questions' and long debates going on in the Commons than I remember and so there seems to be more explanation of government policy in the Commons which is good - I think Bercow deserves a lot of credit for that.  But because the Select Committees are no longer packed with party loyalists on all sides they seem to be producing more probing stuff (phone hacking raised their profile too). 

I can think of several times since the last election when they've published reports that are highly critical of government policy.  That's not happened before, I don't really remember many stories about Select Committees in the New Labour years except for Gwyneth Dunwoody's annual re-election

You're right not everyone knows but I think the more there are stories based in the Commons and reports from them that get treated with respect by journalists because they're serious independent works the better it is for Parliament.  The same goes for MPs rebelling.  People always prefer their local MP to a generic MP from the party, but the 2010 intake seem pretty serious, not many seem to be careerists.  We've probably got the most independent Commons in the post-war era, I think precisely because the reputation had fallen so low, and if that continues I think it's only a good thing.  But it'll take a while for that to be clear on a general level, as opposed to lots of people liking their MP.

Edit:  Also I think elected mayors for big cities could be really good for politics in this country.  Though personally I can't wait for 2016

[crazy canuck]

Your statement seems at odds with what the Court said.

There are no applicable sentencing guidelines. We have been referred to no previous decided cases either in the Court of Appeal or at the Crown Court to assist in determining an appropriate sentence for this type of offence.

But that just means there's no sentencing guidelines and neither side referred the court to any precedent for sentencing guides.  I'm saying that the personal experience of the magistrate in sentencing, the barrister in defending and prosecuting these crimes and the judge in hearing appeals may be that this is about a standard sentence for this sort of offence.

With respect that makes no sense.  You said there were 3000 convictions a year - and yet not one case was referred to the appeal court!  There may be no sentencing guideline but that means the discretion of the Court is not fettered by legislation - ie it is precedent that matters. The Court is clearly making the point that they have no reference point form which to determine that the sentence was in error add to that the fact the defence counsel conceded there was no error in principle and the Court had no option but to dismiss the appeal.

The other way to look at it is that the court made its decision for unstated reasons - ie you say they made a determination that the sentence was indeed justified on the basis of prior - unstated cases.  A justice system isnt supposed to work that way.  Reasons need to be given that give certainty and predictability.  You cant have justices making decision based on their unstated view of what is fair and equitable.  That would be absurd.  And of course that is not what they did.  They made the decision for the reasons they gave which in part was that nobody provided them with any cases on point.

If there was a case out there that said the decision was in line with past cases one would have expected that at least the prosecutor would have brought that to the attention of the court.  It seems reasonable to conclude that was not done precisely for the reason there are no other cases on point.  Indeed the reason this is a story in the first place is because this is not one of 3000.