Chris Huhne changes his plea

It is being reported that the former Liberal Democrat cabinet minister Chris Huhne has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice over claims his ex-wife Vicky Pryce took speeding points for him.

As he has changed his plea, presumably he will want to pay for a large part of the police and CPS costs which were only necessary because he originally pleased not guilty...

Somehow I doubt that and instead the court will take into his guilty plea (and not the wasted time prior to it)in reducing his sentence. I doubt that he'll even get a custodial sentence and if he does it will be less than a year and so, I believe, that he will be able to resume his role as MP.

Remember back in February last year, almost exactly a year ago in fact, the BBC reported Chris Huhne thus:

"I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I am confident that a jury will agree."

“It is hard to imagine the circumstances when saying ‘f*****g Jews’ in a gym used by other people... could be considered reasonable.”

"It is hard to imagine the circumstances when saying ‘f*****g Jews’ in a gym used by other people, and overheard by two strangers 20 ft away, could be considered reasonable."

The words of District Judge Howard Riddle at the original trial of Rowan Laxton who was recently cleared, at a rehearing of the case, of racially aggravated harassment, having previously been found guilty.

Hard to imagine indeed.

Thanks to Harry's Place for the spot.

Another piece of Labour's mania for control and criminalising as many people as possible

The Times reports that:

"Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, expects an official review of the law to recommend reducing the legal limit from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg. He said he would take this “very seriously” and added: “A strong case has been made to have a lower limit.”

At present the 80mg limit allows a man of average build to drink 1½-2 pints of normal-strength beer or three small glasses of wine and remain within the law. With a 50mg limit, the average man would be limited to just under a pint of beer or a large glass of wine and women to half a pint of beer or a small glass of wine.

The change could force some country pubs to close."

A Tangled Web thinks this is another example of

"The neo-Puritans in Labour seek(ing) to stop people having any alcohol when they go out for a meal or just a night with friends, especially in rural areas where there is no public transport... this is all about ideology, not science, not saving lives. This is aimed at furthering the criminalisation of drivers, a key part of their agenda."

David Vance is right and as I said earlier today:

"The end-game for authoritarian governments, such as the UK's Labour government, is for there to be so many laws that everyone is guilty of something at some time. Then it is easy enough to arrest and punish malcontents as the government wishes. Labour's new laws are not about reducing drink-driving or eliminating smoking in a public place but about controlling and instilling fear into the populace."

As blogged elsewhere

"The end-game for authoritarian governments such as the UK's Labour government is for there to be so many laws that everyone is guilty of something at some time. Then it is easy enough to arrest and punish malcontents as the government wishes. Labour's new laws are not about reducing drink-driving or eliminating smoking in a public place but about controlling and instilling fear into the populace."

See A Tangled Web for the context.

The Taxman changing the rules to get more tax

The Times reveals a worrying story of how the HMRC has changed some tax rules retrospectively and has been supported in this by the Court of Appeal:

"Thousands of entrepreneurs and celebrities face huge tax bills after a British businessman based in the Seychelles lost a long-running court battle over his residency yesterday.

The Court of Appeal ruled that Robert Gaines-Cooper was liable to pay UK tax despite spending less than 91 days a year in the country because England had remained “the centre of gravity of his life and interests”.

The ruling is a serious blow for wealthy men and women who are based overseas but visit Britain frequently. After the court’s decision, Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said that it would increase its efforts to catch people who owed tax.

Although the three Court of Appeal judges expressed “some sympathy” for Mr Gaines-Cooper, they ruled that he had never qualified for exemption from British taxes as a non-resident. Now he may be pursued for tax bills dating back to 1993, estimated at about £30 million. "

So there we go, judges have kowtowed to the HMRC and thrown out the well understood 91 day rule and replaced it with an entirely subjective and arbitrary "centre of gravity" rule.

Retrospective changes in the law, whether tax or otherwise, cannot be right. However 13 years of Labour misrule have left the UK needing every last penny of taxation, hence all the short-term "tax amnesties" to be followed by many in-depth tax investigations.

The other realisation that many are coming to is that there is a now a presumption in the UK that all the money 'earned' by individuals really belongs to the state and that citizens should feel privileged to be allowed to retain some of these 'earnings'. Of course the socialists who believe this don't realise that taxing the rich until 'the pips squeak' gives the rich a great incentive to move themselves, their wealth and their tax elsewhere thus eventually impoverishing everyone.

That reminds me of the story that I have told before about how the Tax System works, do read it:

"Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to £100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay £1
The sixth would pay £3
The seventh would pay £7
The eighth would pay £12
The ninth would pay £18
The tenth man (the richest) would pay £59

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by £20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just £80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the £20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that £20 divided by six is £3.33. But if they subtracted that from everyone's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid £2 instead of £3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay £5 instead of £7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid £9 instead of £12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid £14 instead of £18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid £49 instead of £59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a pound out of the £20,' declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got £10!'

'Yes, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a pound, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I did'

'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get £10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up any more. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier and weather is nicer. "

My how I hate this Labour government

The Labour government's war on the UK people continues apace. Back in October legislation was introduced that prevents acquitted defendants from recouping the full legal costs of defending themselves. Now these innocent people can only claim back legal aid rates, which can be as little as a third of the true cost. Why the change? Well it will save around £25 million a year - which used to sound a lot but under Gordon Brown's mismanagement of the economy is a drop in the debt ocean. I think the real reason may be somewhat different; let's say you upset the State/Labour government then they can just charge you with something complicated and financial and then even when you are found not guilty you could still be bankrupted by your no longer covered legal costs.

This is just the latest in a long line of Labour dilutions of the legal system: now we can be tried twice for the same crime, the presumption of innocence has been diluted, some people no longer have the right to see the evidence against them, summary punishment (fines) without trial are common place, innocent people's assets can be confiscated before trial and kept even the defendant is not found guilty. And don't forget that the amount of compensation you receive for loss of earnings whilst wrongly imprisoned is now paid less the cost of your prison bed and board.

Despicable, evil, insane? Well that's a Labour government for you.


And what do the protectors of civil society have to say?

"The Police Federation of England and Wales is backing the action because police officers are more often subject to criminal proceedings."

Fed up with the UK yet?

"The burden of evidence required on each side is "essentially" the same"

The BBC report Home Secretary (and the BBC's new favourite Labour minister) Alan Johnson as saying re the upcoming extradition of Gary McKinnon that:

"Home Secretary Alan Johnson told them the 2003 treaty had simplified extradition procedures while safeguarding defendants' rights.

The burden of evidence required on each side is "essentially" the same, he added."

Really? I suppose this one boils down to Alan Johnson's definition of "essentially", somehow I don't think it's the same as mine... Would Alan Johnson care to comment?

Pirate Bay have a cunning plan

I don't use file sharing software and indeed have never downloaded a piece of music from an online service; I prefer my software legal and my music on CD. However I was rtaher impressed when I read that Pirate Bay have a cunning plan to upset the apple-cart when they pay their fine. Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm (Anakata) has devised a plan which means that the fine will never be paid although the money will be sent; sound confusing... . The plan is to pay via internet-avgift, internet-fee in English.

"Anakata encourages all Internet users to pay extremely small sums around 1 SEK (0.13 USD) to Danowsky’s law firm, which represented the music companies at the Pirate Bay trial. The music companies will not benefit from this, instead it will cost them money to handle and process all the money... A friend of anakata told Blog Pirate that the bank account to which the payments are directed has only 1000 free transfers, after which any transfers have a surcharge of 2 SEK for the account holder. Any internet-fee payments made after the first 1000, which includes the law firm’s ordinary transfers, will instead of giving 1 SEK, cost 1 SEK to the law firm. Since Danowsky & Partners Advokatbyrå is a small firm, all the transactions are handled by hand. Handling all payments will be time consuming, costing the law firm in productivity."

Nasty but oh so clever.

"The plan can be called a Distributed Denial of Dollars attack (DDo$). The plan is an away-from-keyboard DDoS attack. DDoS attacks involve lots of users overloading the victim with internet traffic damaging their ability to provide services. Money, instead of Internet traffic is used in this case. The victim is Danowsky’s law firm which represented the IFPI at the Pirate Bay trial."

This could be a story well worth monitoring.

Jarndyce and Jarnyce transplanted to Italy

The Telegraph reports that:

"A 102-year-old Italian woman has won a 12-year legal battle – only to be told that under the country's appeals process it could take another decade or more for the case to be properly settled."

It reminds me of Charles Dickens' Bleak House -

"Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless."