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To the Most Revd Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham:

You upset me last year when you took on the government over their very just idea that some of the people who actually pay a majority of the cost of your schools (non-Catholic tax payers) should have the right to have their children go to those schools but I kept schtum.

Now you're banging on about wanting an exemption to laws designed to eradicate discrimination against gay people. Need I quote from your Catechism, section 2358, that "every sign of unjust discrimination should be avoided".

Indeed, adoption is an ironic one. After all, if you have an heterosexual couple who offer to adopt because they are unable to conceive for themselves, they too are unable to fulfill naturally the great commission of marriage, to share in "the creative power and fatherhood of God". So you are happy to discriminate against one form of "imperfection" (as you teach it) whilst rewarding another. Does that not sound "unjust" to you? Incidentally, are you allowed to discriminate on the grounds of religious belief or is it only gay people you are targetting? If you do not, how can you be sure that people not in full communion with Rome do not hold beliefs with which you would not agree also?

The historical reputation of the Catholic church in putting people in positions of care and influence over children is not, shall we say, something to be envied. Maybe we are better out of the adoption game altogether anyway.

The bird on the acompanying recording has been singing now for about an hour - ie from 1am onwards. Can anyone tell me what it is?

NB - don't turn it up too loud  - about 1:25 into the clip it gets quite gusty windy!

...but I didn't speak up because I was not in jail.

(with apologies to Pastor Martin Niemoller)

Now it seems "mens rea" is at risk in the British legal system. In a case highlighted in the British Journal of Photography an academic at Sheffield University who ran a legitimate business in his spare time creating artsy photographs of models and children to make them look like fairies by superimposing images on each other (I know, I can't quite imagine it either, but presumably to make them look ethereal - and he has exhibited such work in local art shows and so on) has been convicted of making indecent photographs of children and sentenced to 150 hours' community service.

Parents of two girls commissioned the work and were in the studio with them most of the time, and were happy with the work, but he was shopped by staff at the film processing company, his home raided and his computer confiscated. Even the judge told Dr Marcus Phillips that he had 'always acted perfectly properly', adding that it was clear Phillips 'had no base motive, no sexual motive and there was not any question of deriving sexual gratification' from the work. The Judge also commented that the parents of the children were 'perfectly law-abiding, sensible people who cared for their children'.

You can read the rest of the story at the BJP website.

Now, apart from being a stark reminder of the over-hyped panic over photographing children that has meant people are scared even to take photos of their own kids' important moments such as school plays and sports, I always thought that there was a test called "mens rea" in English Law in which the intent of the perpetrator of an action was taken into account - you have to intend to commit a crime as well as actually carry out the criminal act. Also, I thought we had a sentence available called an "absolute discharge" which it seems to me from the judge's comments would have been more appropriate in this case. Have both of these concepts gone? Where? And when?

It seems you no longer have to intend to commit a crime, let alone know that your actions could be criminal, to be convicted and sentenced, and no doubt with a case like this involving children, have your reputation and possibly career torn to shreds. Which seems to me to be a pretty serious erosion of our legal rights.

Earlier this evening I found a quotation by Clement Atlee about Habeas Corpus on the Total Politics political quotations database:

"The real test of one's belief in the doctrine of Habeas Corpus is not when one demands its application on behalf of one's friends but of one's enemies."

It must be even more important to preserve our right to be judged by our intentions; there are all sorts of situations in which people could be committing a crime unknowingly and harming nobody in the process.

Hat Tip to the Libertarian Alliance Yahoo Groups mailing list.

And so, having linked, I may as well cite The Daily Pundit who writes about the number of NuTory candidates who were once NuLabour members. But it's not so much their political backgrounds that I want to take issue with - to me the interchangeability of such political favours merely highlights that both parties are really merely sibling subsidiaries of the post-Thatcher Managerial Clique.

No, what I'm more interested in is how a serious political party, claiming to be democrats of some sort, and on the one hand with its leader wanting to hold "public primaries" for some of its candidates, selects its candidates through some sort of appointed committee and without an all-member vote in the consitutency or jurisdiction concerned.

It's not just the successor to Doris that was selected this way, but apparently the Judas Karim for the North West Euro-Parliament list. No wonder the latter thought his chances better with the Tories if he really only needed to butter up a few committee members rather than reach out to the activists and members.

...predominantly for the Olympics, was question two on Question Time tonight.

Well, despite the news over the past couple of days that tourism might suffer in the years around an Olympic Games coming to town, ultimately the real beneficiaries are those who own land in Olympic cities.

If Londoners don't pay the greater share, they will benefit disproportionately from the tax donations of other parts of the country. Rent seeking, it's called. And it happens wherever new infrastructure is paid for by people far away from those who benefit most from it.

Technorati Tags: london, property tax, olympics, rent seeking, land value tax