In a world where a sizeable portion of the electorate don't vote and in a city like Liverpool, who through the experience of Hillsbrough, have experienced the institutional corruption of the police, you might expect that the person elected by the public to be eager to be seen to be holding the police to account, but no Jane Kennedy takes the normal politician's role and has become the public face of the police, not the face of the public in the police.
Happy to accept that when police officers are caught acting in a criminal manner on video, whilst other police stand around watching, that it be dealt with internally and not brought before the courts, where the CPS asked for an opinion or was just some pats on the back in private?
The problem is that Jane was elected because she was a member of Labour, she doesn't have to do anything locally, what she is doing is appealing to the Law and Order brigade, that isn't the group that is interested in the law of the land but the group that is interested in having their Daily Mail like views enforced on society with no questions asked.
Her position is to appeal to the right to not reform the police, not to give the IPCC teeth, not to give the Tories even the slightest opportunity to make claims about soft on crime, based on simply wanting the law followed by all. The people whose votes she relied on to get into office will not be put off by her stance, it wouldn't cost her a single vote to be tougher, but some undecided voters somewhere in the UK may be affected if the Daily Mail uses the criticism of the Police by a labour politician to attack the party. For the sake of some floating voters in a marginal, leafy part of the world. Jane is not representing her electorate, but someone else's.
You can see the integrity of those who take the "Law & Order" positions by their calls for the Home Secretary to deport someone against the law. The same home secretary after having been forced to bring the UK extradition standards up to international levels fumes and plots to prevent supervision. It's important to remember the European Convention on Human Rights was written by British Lawyers, trained in the common law. It is as British as it is possible to be, it was designed to in the light of the horrors of WW2, and designed to identify and correct things that the Nazis and the British had done wrong in the run up to WW2. They are not people anyone should be trying to appease but should instead confront.
It's not just me that thinks that but back in 1997 Robert Owen QC put it far better here.
Jane of course views even discussing this as a risk so comes out with her terminal "Not Playing".
As long as there are National Political parties each of their members will never be the representatives of their electorate, but will instead by a representative of the party. It is a rare beast that will put a representation of their electorate before the party. You'll recognise that rare beast by its possession of integrity, something Jane said goodbye to long ago.
Happy to accept that when police officers are caught acting in a criminal manner on video, whilst other police stand around watching, that it be dealt with internally and not brought before the courts, where the CPS asked for an opinion or was just some pats on the back in private?
The problem is that Jane was elected because she was a member of Labour, she doesn't have to do anything locally, what she is doing is appealing to the Law and Order brigade, that isn't the group that is interested in the law of the land but the group that is interested in having their Daily Mail like views enforced on society with no questions asked.
Her position is to appeal to the right to not reform the police, not to give the IPCC teeth, not to give the Tories even the slightest opportunity to make claims about soft on crime, based on simply wanting the law followed by all. The people whose votes she relied on to get into office will not be put off by her stance, it wouldn't cost her a single vote to be tougher, but some undecided voters somewhere in the UK may be affected if the Daily Mail uses the criticism of the Police by a labour politician to attack the party. For the sake of some floating voters in a marginal, leafy part of the world. Jane is not representing her electorate, but someone else's.
You can see the integrity of those who take the "Law & Order" positions by their calls for the Home Secretary to deport someone against the law. The same home secretary after having been forced to bring the UK extradition standards up to international levels fumes and plots to prevent supervision. It's important to remember the European Convention on Human Rights was written by British Lawyers, trained in the common law. It is as British as it is possible to be, it was designed to in the light of the horrors of WW2, and designed to identify and correct things that the Nazis and the British had done wrong in the run up to WW2. They are not people anyone should be trying to appease but should instead confront.
It's not just me that thinks that but back in 1997 Robert Owen QC put it far better here.
Jane of course views even discussing this as a risk so comes out with her terminal "Not Playing".
As long as there are National Political parties each of their members will never be the representatives of their electorate, but will instead by a representative of the party. It is a rare beast that will put a representation of their electorate before the party. You'll recognise that rare beast by its possession of integrity, something Jane said goodbye to long ago.
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