Petards, Hoists and Assorted Hypocrisies.
What delicious irony! Sir Stuart Bell complaining that allegedly ‘retrospective rules’ were introduced by Sir Thomas Legg during his inquiry into the probity of MPs use of taxpayers monies.
There must be near deafening hollow laughter echoing round accountant’s offices this morning – for much of the funds raised from taxpayers into which our MPs dipped so voraciously was raised by – retrospective tax legislation! Specifically the 2004 Finance Act which introduced the ‘pre-owned asset tax’, thus closing a loophole which had been legitimate during the previous seven years, and left many tax payers with tax bills they had not budgeted for and had not reasonably expected.
Even the Times leader thunders ‘Sir Thomas has created a new set of rules and, extraordinarily, applied them retrospectively’.
MPs, are very partial to retrospective legislation when it suits them – not just in financial matters – it allows them to impose their own morality on events long before they had any control.
Take the Adoption Act of 1976 – many thousands of women had rebuilt their lives, and constructed new families after being persuaded by the laws extant when they gave birth to illegitimate children, in an age when there was no support for single mothers, that no identifying information would ever be exchanged. Entire families have been torn apart by that agreement being removed retrospectively. Certainly there have been some heart warming stories as some adopted children have managed to accommodate a second family in their lives, and vice versa, but equally there have been many horror stories.
Likewise the Assisted Reproductive Act which allows to be identified those medical students who had supplemented their grants by taking themselves off into a small cubicle with a pile of Playboy magazines and technically becoming a ‘biological Father’.
The War Crimes Act 1991 and The Genocide Act 1969 are equally retrospective.
Whilst talking of War Crimes, the Nottingham MP Alan Simpson was another whinger out on the whinge circuit this morning. (Yes, that would be the same Alan Simpson MP who was earnestly setting out early day motions demanding better progress under that specimen piece of retrospective legislation – the 1991 War Crimes Act – in July 2006)
“If he thinks that the principle of him (Legg) coming in and retrospectively re-writing the rules would stand up before the courts, then I think he should test it before the courts,” Mr Simpson told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.
They already have done, dear boy, and the principle was indeed upheld – and over a damn sight more than your pathetic £500.
Whilst I agreed with the decision of the House of Lords in R v R – where it was held that it it was no longer part of the law in England and Wales that a husband cannot rape his wife, I was incensed by the decision to charge ‘SW’ with raping his wife in 1990 – when it was not against the law to do so. R v R had been decided by the time of the ‘SW’ trial, so he had no defence to what I agree was a reprehensible act that I do not defend, the fact that he had been charged with something that was not a crime when he committed the act still irks.
‘SW’ took his case to the European Court (SW v UK), where he received no sympathy, and their summing up might be useful to Sir Stuart Bell:
‘There will always be a need for elucidation of doubtful points and for adaptation to changing circumstances’
The Court affirmed their principle that where the law appears to allow something which is inherently and seriously wrong then it should not be an excuse for them to hide behind a legal exception or technicality “because the context is one in which they are only having to face the consequences of doing something they should not have done”.
No succour from that beast beloved of the liberal left, the Human Rights Act or the courts.
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October 15, 2009 at 17:56 -
BBC News
Harman warns over expenses probeMs Harman said Sir Thomas was asked to look for over payments
Harriet Harman has warned that Sir Thomas Legg’s review of MPs’ expenses must be based on the “rules and standards that obtained at the time”.
“To do anything else would be arbitrary,” the Commons leader said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8308825.stm
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October 15, 2009 at 18:12 -
Stuart Bell Is my MP (I refuse to call him Sir) and I’m off to add his pic to ….Is a C*** I despise the man.
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October 15, 2009 at 22:16 -
Excellent Anna,
that cheered me right up, at least until i read Joe Public’s comment – bugger ! -
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October 15, 2009 at 22:21 -
Stuart Bell(end) and the others will moan and bleat, lets just hope they are not planning on standing again for the Commons.
If any good comes out of this whole saga, it will be that we will see a huge clearing out of useless dead wood from the House of Commons.
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October 15, 2009 at 23:29 -
I’m on English lessons again … Didn’t know the word “petard”, yet seen it twice today in different blogs. That’s how we [I] get educated nowadays
BTW your expression “hoist with one’s own petard” is called in Dutch “Fall into the hole you’ve been digging for someone else”. Or [for you’re education] “Wie een gat graaft voor eenander valt er zelf in”.
How’s that?
Good night -
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October 15, 2009 at 23:32 -
Good night Ch
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October 15, 2009 at 23:47 -
U2 Gloria
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October 16, 2009 at 03:19 -
I agree about the retrospective adoption law. I had a child adopted in 1962, I went to London alone, told no one, stayed in a mother and baby home. I knew I had no choice about keeping the baby much as I wanted to. The sheer cruelty of keeping a loved baby for six weeks and then having to part cannot be explained. However I knew I was doing the best for her, there was no support then and the disgrace was awful. I was horrified when the law was changed retrospectively, had I known I would be traced I would have arranged things differently. I had married and had a family and, much as I would like to have known how she grew up it was a door I thought I had closed in 1962. I wouldn’t have minded if the change had been made from 1976 but to place this burden on young girls who were only trying to do the best for their child was cruel. In a way I was lucky, my child was pretty mature when she traced me and had a good and happy life. I was glad to know that and met her and we keep in casual touch but I couldn’t face all the upheaval it would cause , still can’t, I doubt I ever will. It is a sadness I live with and never expected to have to face , I made up my mind in 1962 and no government had the right to make me live in fear and guilt for that decision made in good faith and for the best. I kept my side of the bargain but they didn’t. She would like more from me but I just cannot do it and so far at least she has accepted my choice.
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October 16, 2009 at 09:43 -
Good article, Anna.
It is beginning to look as though this one will be tested in court. I can hardly wait. In their righteousness, I doubt that they see the possibilities of digging themselves into an even bigger hole.
If any of them have any honour and common sense left, then they will pay up and shut up.
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October 17, 2009 at 15:21 -
Wasn’t all this fuss foretold in the Bible?
And there was trembling and fear among the children of Westminster, for it came to pass that the shadow of the taxman fell over the land. And the taxman waxed exceeding wrath…
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October 18, 2009 at 00:27 -
Was it the same controversial tax law? I remember hearing about one . EU Human Rights says a person can’t be prosecuted for something that wasn’t a crime at the time it was commited and same with sentences – if a sentence is increased the person can only get the maximum sentence of the law around the time it was commited.
The law I am thinking of was about taxing for the past (although under EU it shoudlnt be enforceable as the law didn’t exist at the time).
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