BENEATH THE TIMES

Lessons will be learned. How often is that the final sentence uttered by somebody reading or writing from a prepared script to apologise for the failings of some authority, organisation or quango when public ire has forced remedial action to be taken over long known failings which more often than not have been covered up by those in the know.  So many Chief Constables and other senior police officers have resigned or been fired in the last 15 years that there is no easily obtained source to see the extent of their failings and/or wrong doings. In similar fashion many hospital trusts have been castigated for being unable to deliver the required standard of care demanded medically and in some cases legally.  When such happenings are finally recognised government drags its feet to the shame of all of us whose trust has been misplaced.  The current scandal at the post office took a TV programme to shame the government. The tainted blood scandal going back decades is, to this very day, not fully resolved but with every dying victim the compensation will be lessoned. Retribution for the Hillsborough tragedy might still to be said, incomplete after over 30 years. 

And so to the Times Crime and Justice Commission now published.  In The Times today there is a synopsis under the following headings:-

• Shoplifting, robbery and anti social behaviour
• Knife crime and gangs
• Violence against women and girls
• Cybercrime and fraud
• Terrorism, radicalisation and online harms
• The role of technology
• The causes of crime
• Policing
• The courts
• Sentencing
• Prisons and probation

These topics have not appeared from an alien planet; they have been systematically ignored by those with the power to have done something about them years or even decades ago.

There are common causes which link the above with examples in the opening paragraph:  I would suggest that apart from misguided parsimony in the allocation of adequate funding there is a tolerance to or acceptance of incompetence in the highest reaches of management and/or a preference by government for brushing under the political carpet those matters which would cause embarrassment or worse still affect the chances of some favoured MPs being re-elected.    

Shoplifting is a perfect example.  With much reduced police numbers and no time or personnel available to investigate; half magistrates courts closed and a decimated probation service lead to reduced sentencing combined with no prison cells for short custodial sentencing of recidivists. Result is an explosion in such crime.  A similar tale of woe is seen re theft of mobile phones.  Similar chains have been created with similar links in so many aspects of what has been since the beginning of this millenium a woke attitude to so much that held our society together. 

There has been much discussion about the increase of autocracy in the world.  Autocrats including the one causing recent economic headaches don`t appear from Aladdin's  magic lamp; they are a result of democratic processes which have developed since 1945 failing many sections of a society.  It`s not inconceivable that in 2029 with another showman as prime minister experts will wonder how such a nation as the UK could fall from grace.

In 1927 the BBC adopted the motto, "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation".  That phrase encompassed what this country thought it stood for.  Hitler had already published Mein Kampf and Mussolini had been in power for five years.  Few could foresee what was around the corner.  We have had 25 years of moral, social, financial and political decline. There will be some{many?} who will vent their frustrations at the ballet box.  So many countries have voted for authoritarianism, why should we think we are any different?  That is the hidden message beneath the report from The Times. ​