Claire's law - would you check out a potential partner?

The home office is expected to announce a trial in certain parts of England and Wales whereby people will gain the right to ask whether a partner has a history of domestic violence.

The scheme has been named Clare’s law, after Clare Wood, a woman who was murdered by an ex partner, whose father campaigned for the law to be changed.

Interestingly, domestic violence groups such as Refuge are against this, as they feel it will have little impact.

I can see why a parent might want to push for this if their daughter had been murdered, on the basis that if only she had known about his past, she might never have got into the relationship in the first place, and might therefore still be alive. But in reality, would she have known? Would she have checked?

It’s one thing to say that people have the option to check out a potential partner, it’s quite another to assume they would actually do so. Because apart from anything else, if you feel safe enough with someone that you would want to embark on a relationship with them, generally, it wouldn’t occur to most people to want to first ask the question as to whether they might have a criminal past. And it doesn’t exactly create a happy trusting atmosphere for the start of a new relationship if one partner decides they first want to ensure the other partner doesn’t have convictions for domestic violence before taking it any further.

I’ve heard people say they wouldn’t have a problem if someone wanted to look into their past as they have nothing to hide. But I think a lot more people would. I would and I have nothing to hide – no violent convictions or allegations. I have no issue with having to have a criminal records check as part of the requirements for working in a school in a voluntary capacity. I understand the need to be sure that people who work with children should be, to the best of their knowledge, safe to do so. However, a relationship is entirely different. Relationships are based on feelings and mutual respect, and while of course it doesn’t always work like that, and people do get into relationships with individuals who might have a past, or might have violent tendencies, as a rule, most people are not like that, and you cannot expect people to be happy with having the finger of suspicion pointed at them based on what other people may have done in their own pasts. And in truth, relationships have to be about feelings, and trust. If you feel you need to look into a potential partner’s background, then perhaps it is not unreasonable to think that you already have doubts, and should be basing your future on those rather than the outcome of a police check.

And possibly the more crucial point, is the fact that a police check only shows up those people who have actually been convicted of domestic violence. It won’t show those who have been violent but never been prosecuted. Scarily, many women are far too afraid to ever press charges against violent partners, and perhaps controversially (since most would assume this law should relate to men only) men who are victims of domestic violence are even less likely to press charges against a violent partner. So what would this law do for those people? In a word – nothing.

In truth we need to be looking more at police responses to domestic violence, ensuring that victims are taken seriously and that people feel safe to go to the police if they are at risk, rather than putting the onus on the potential victims to take responsibility and make judgements based on whether someone has been proven to be violent or not.

Clare Wood’s partner had a known violent past. However, there were no guarantees that she would have checked him out before getting involved with him. And there are no guarantees therefore that having had a law in place would have save Clare Wood’s life, or the lives of anyone else who is killed by a violent partner.

When football tops child abuse in the headlines - what message does that send?

“Harry Redknap is the favourite to be the next England manager,” was this morning’s top news story when I woke up. I suppose it was inevitable really, Fabio Capello resigned last night, and football fans up and down the country are speculating on who the next manager will be.

And then the newsreader went on to announce that “the number of children being taken into care is increasing,” and if you look at the news sites, it appears that 903 applications were made last month to take children into care.

I get that a large number of people in the country want to speculate about who the New England manager will be. I’m not entirely sure why, since the European Championships aren’t for another four months, but ok, people that like to discuss these things are clearly interested, and as such, these stories are newsworthy. But actually, we have a sports bulletin for that, and “Harry Redknap is the favourite to be the next England manager,” was the top sports story as well.

So how is it that our priorities of what is important appear to have become so skewed that the national sport is headline over the frankly heartbreaking fact that the perceived numbers of children at risk of serious harm is increasing, and that 903 applications were made last month alone to take children into care?

Why is it that football has dominated the headlines this week, with first John Terry’s removal as England captain, and then Capello’s reaction to said removal of John Terry, and then Harry Redknap being found not guilty of tax evasion, And then Capello’s resignation, and finally, Redknap being the favourite to take over the England team, and yet a story that seems to indicate that the increase in neglect an abuse of children in the UK is apparently on the increase comes second? Not only that, apart from a mention of it on the news this morning, and one news service tweeting it on twitter (and I follow all the major news ones), that story has been pretty low key.

And I can only conclude that in truth, people are more interested in a story that relates to football than they are in one that relates to child abuse.

We can all speculate about football. It’s something you can talk about in the office, down the pub, on your preferred social media. What next for the England team/will they get an English manager this time/maybe they’ll go out of the European Championships earlier/maybe they’ll win, and so the conversation will continue.

But child abuse is something that, if we’re honest, people don’t want to talk about. Partly because the idea of it is just too unpalatable for people to want to think about, but I think partly also because people just don’t want to know or acknowledge that it goes on, and especially not to the extent that it is increasing rather than decreasing.

But only by acknowledging that it goes on can something be done about it, and so perhaps we need to question why it is that the media is assisting in this ignorance by prioritising the frankly trivial matter of who is going to be the next England manager over the welfare of our children.

US security are reading your tweets? and what else?

Two British tourists were refused entry to the US after one of them posted on twitter saying he was going to “destroy America.”

Leigh Van Bryan insisted he was just using the words to show that he was going to have a good time, but he was still sent home.

For me this isn’t about the foolishness of posting something on twitter which could have been misconstrued, no matter how innocently it had been posted. After all we’ve all read the stories of tweets that have been taken out of context and the fallout this can cause.

But for me this is about a bigger picture. It’s about the reality that if you tweet something, the higher authorities not just in the UK, but in the US and who knows where else, potentially have instant access to what you’ve tweeted, and can hold you accountable. And it’s not just that, it’s the fact that they know who you are in order to do so.

Now, I am entirely aware that if someone tweets something that could be construed as a threat to national security, this could be flagged and they could be traced back through their IP address and then back to the device used to write the tweet, which would likely be a home computer or a mobile phone registered to the person sending the tweet.

But it is chilling to think that if you book a holiday to the US, your twitter account is potentially automatically looked at, in which case, how do they know who you are? When I travel to the US I don’t give out my twitter information, nor my email address if I remember rightly – it’s not something that is requested.

And if I have more than one account, do they know? And what lengths do they go to in order to find out? I do in fact have more than one twitter account. One is linked to my real name, linked to my main email address and my mobile phone and in truth wouldn’t be that hard to back-trace to me, but that’s assuming I’ve given them some of the information that links to that account. But my other twitter account (which is fairly dormant anyway) has no bearing on my name, email address or mobile phone. But does that matter?

I’ve always been a bit blasé about the whole notion of so-called government surveillance – the idea being that if you have nothing to hide then it’s not really an issue. But I find the idea that not only our government but potentially other governments have the ability to know who I am and what I’m doing and saying and to decide I am a threat off the back of one tweet, and that they not only have the ability to do this but are, it would seem, actively doing so deeply disconcerting.

And if we are being watched through twitter and such like, what else do they have access to? My twitter account is public, most are, so in truth anyone on the internet has access to it, so it is not an invasion of one’s privacy if those tweets fall into the hands of the authorities. But my email isn’t public, my phone calls aren’t, and if I remember rightly, a bill to allow emails and phone calls to be hacked was rejected not so long ago. But does it matter? Maybe they can’t be intercepted from here, but could they elsewhere?

I think this story shows one thing for certain – big brother appears to be watching...

no smacking to blame for the riots?

Tottenham MP David Lammy has recently made it into the press by saying that if only parents had been able to smack their children, then last summer’s riots in the UK would not have happened.

Well, what he actually said was that many of his constituents felt that the recent changes to the laws on smacking have left them feeling unable to discipline their children.

Smacking is quite possibly one of the most emotive of parenting topics, and it is generally divided into the “smacking is wrong, it is abuse, damaging to children and should be banned,” group, and the “I was smacked as a child, it didn’t do me any harm, nothing wrong with a tap when all else fails,” group. And then of course there is the “What he needs is a bloody good hiding,” group, but on the whole I find there are few people that genuinely subscribe to that view.

But in truth this isn’t really about smacking, is it? It seems to be more about a section of society who feel the need to blame the state of their children’s’ behaviour on one law, brought in by someone else, that they seem to feel must hold the key to their children running riot and ending up as juvenile delinquents.

And it’s such an easy conclusion to reach. Children’s’ behaviour has changed, there’s little doubt about that. There’s far more anti social behaviour now than there was when I was growing up, and I suppose it’s easy to conclude that as smacking has been all but outlawed, the change in behaviour must be down to that.

But in fact there is so much more to discipline than smacking. Now instead of the slipper we send children to the naughty step, and instead of the belt we reach for the parenting book. And what’s wrong with that? The answer is nothing, but perhaps there is a section of people who it would seem lack the skills to move from a short sharp shock into the realms of reasoned discipline. But in an age where asking for help is seen as failure, and where sections of society are deteriorating as a result, it’s far easier to dress up those failings as political correctness gone mad, and the government turning into the nanny state wanting to tell us how we should bring up our children.

I think there is little doubt that a significant part of the reason behind the riots is the fact that many parents have failed to bring their children up in disciplined homes. But I very much doubt that the lack of discipline has to do with the lack of a good smack now and then, and probably has more to do with a lack of reasoned discipline that the more modern parenting methods subscribe to.

The fact is not smacking a child isn’t going to turn him/her into a delinquent. But not disciplining them might. And in truth, if a parent doesn’t feel that there is any other way to discipline a child that doesn’t involve physical punishment, then maybe it is the parent that needs to think about what is wrong, not society, or the government.

After all, it is not the punishment than shapes the child, it is the reasoning behind the punishment. If you simply smack a child when it does wrong, it doesn’t reason as to why it did wrong, it reasons as to why it was smacked. And therein lies the fundamental difference. You can still reason with a child without having to add the physical force of your anger behind it. You can still add consequences without having to resort to punishment.

So perhaps if parents feel uncomfortable smacking their children, maybe they need to reason with themselves why that is. Is it really because they feel the government has taken that option away from them? Or is it perhaps that they themselves don’t actually feel comfortable with the idea of smacking their children, but it’s easier to blame someone else for the fact they don’t know of an alternative solution?

Never mind education, Michael wants to Gove the Queen a yacht

The minister for Education, Michael Gove, has suggested that we mark the Queen’s Diamond jubilee by buying her a new royal yacht.

So in a time when the government is cutting spending on public services, when local services are being cut due to spending, when the NHS is being forced to make job and budget cuts, when there is talk of cutting disability benefits and when ultimately education, for which Mr Gove is responsible, will suffer as a result, we should apparently channel £60 million from somewhere and give the Queen a new yacht?

I am still wondering where Mr Gove thinks the money for this should come from. As minister for education, he will no doubt have a good understanding of maths, so how about solving this puzzle:

If you have £0, and you buy the queen a new yacht for £60 million, how much do you have left? Oh that’s right, you can’t afford to buy the queen a new yacht because there isn’t any money.

I think it’s fair to say that if the Queen wants a new yacht she can quite well afford to buy one. At this point in time though we, the taxpayers, cannot.

Public figures on twitter, do they need to stop and think?

Today Labour MP Dianne Abbot has made it into the news after making a comment on twitter which was construed by some as being racist.

The comment was apparently made during an exchange with a journalist following the Stephen Lawrence verdict, and Ms Abbot said, as part of an ongoing exchange that “white people love playing divide & rule we should not play their game #tacticasoldasclonialism”.

Numerous accusations of racism have followed, along with calls by conservative MP’s for ms Abbot’s resignation, hardly surprising really, there’s nothing the media and politicians love more than to call for a resignation when someone in opposition steps out of line..

Dianne Abbot has apologized for her comment, saying that it was taken out of context.

But I do think there is a different element to this, which is the prevalence of public figures on twitter and their seeming inability to think before they tweet.

Many politicians as well as celebrities use twitter, and Dianne Abbot is not the first to hit the news for comments made on twitter, and she almost certainly won’t be the last.

Twitter is easy. You can access it on a computer, or on your mobile phone, and it’s a great way to just make a quick comment or two, and it also puts you out there, which I imagine is especially useful if you’re a public figure wanting to get your message across.

Indeed, I will share this blog post via twitter once I’ve finished writing it, which means that it might reach another 140 or so people that wouldn’t otherwise have seen it.

But the problem arises when public figures end up tweeting what are essentially their private thoughts, and are then held accountable for them. And by the time you’ve sent the tweet, it’s too late, and even if you delete it, it can’t be unsaid.

Dianne Abbot’s tweet was essentially part of what should have been a private discussion between two individuals, but instead was tweeted back and forth on the public timeline, meaning that anyone could read it, and did.

I’ve posted before about people who share their private lives on the internet, and have made the point that generally, you wouldn’t stand in the street and broadcast many of your opinions publically, so how is it that online is different?

And unlike the anonymous web forums I wrote about last month, twitter generally isn’t anonymous, especially if you’re a public figure. People know who Dianne Abbot or Lord Sugar, or Rupert Murdoch are on twitter, and generally they have tens or sometimes even hundreds of thousands of followers who read their every word and will happily comment on, and retweet any undesirable comments until one comment has
spiraled far beyond those followers on to the wider twitter community and then often into the media. And these people are generally fairly media savvy individuals, who know that if a comment is taken out of context that could be costly for them in terms of their reputation and in some instances even their job. So how is it that they seem to lose sight of that fact when posting publically accessible comments on a public timeline?

Why are some missing people reported on and not others?

On New Year’s Day the body of a woman was found on the Sandringham Estate. Initially the report was that “human remains” had been found, since then this has been amended to confirm that it was the body of a woman, and the last report suggested that she had been dead for between one/four months. Police have launched a murder investigation.

As I read the reports it dawned on me that there haven’t been any reports of women going missing recently (in the past one/four months), as often when a body is discovered the reports are often made in conjunction with the line that “police looking for X have found a body.” But this time there have been no such reports, or even suggestions as to the possible identity of this poor woman.

And for me it raised the question, what is it that makes some peoples’ disappearance more newsworthy than others? I can think of some cases where people have gone missing and their disappearance has been high profile in the media, Claudia Lawrence, Jo Yeats, Sian O’Callaghan, all in the past couple of years, and sadly all with tragic outcomes. Yet a woman has been murdered, and the first we learn of her death is when her body was discovered. And if she hadn’t been found on the Sandringham Estate, I wonder whether we would ever have learned of her disappearance, or would only her family and friends ever have learned of what had happened to her.

Of course it could be argued that hundreds of people go missing every day, and that the media cannot possibly report on all of them. But the media does report some of them, and I do wonder what sets those that are brought into the media spotlight apart from the rest, that their disappearance becomes national news until there is an outcome, while the rest seemingly go unnoticed?

Who was this woman? Where was she from? Was she even reported missing? One can only assume so. But if so, why was her disappearance not worthy of news coverage until she was found at Sandringham?

And maybe that is the key. Maybe the media only considers a person worth reporting on if there is something interesting about them. If they are pretty/disappeared in unusual circumstances. Claudia Lawrence's disappearance was mysterious and unexplained (and is to this day); Jo Yeats disappeared at Christmas, after a party, and her disappearance was totally out of character according to her friends and family. Sian O'Callaghan disappeared after leaving a nightclub, it's something that I think every young woman dreads, after all it's not the first time a young woman has disappeared in such circumstances. And now the body of a woman has been found at Sandringham. This too is unusual. Except the difference here is that we didn't know of her until this interesting piece about her, i.e. the location where she was found, made her newsworthy.

The fact that hundreds of people go missing every day is tragic. And presumably some of those will ultimately be found dead, without so much as a report in the press (maybe in the local papers but rarely the nationals). But what is more tragic is that even if you disappear you have to have something special about you to make your disappearance worthy of reporting on in the media.

My news review 2011 - The final countdown, thank you and a happy new year.

There are just hours left until 2011 draws to a close. I’ve touched on several news highlights already as well as what kept us entertained. There is so much more, but in truth I could write on and on, but I will touch just briefly on some other newsworthy items before musing about the year to come.

The death of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, and the man who some might argue changed the world with the iPod, iPhone, iPad etc.

The Eurozone crisis which is still ongoing and which might conceivably push us all back into recession in 2012. We can only hope that it will be resolved before that happens, but no-one can predict what will happen.

And of course the world was supposed to end with the rapture which was predicted not once, but twice. I think we’re all still here.

So what might 2012 hold?

Well perhaps the most anticipated is the London Olympics and Paralympics. After all, we’ve been building up to those for the past eight years. I realize that some people are not as enthusiastic about the games as I am, but my view is that this is a once in a lifetime event here. These games will never be in our country in our lifetime again. I am looking forward to them.

It will on the whole be quite a sporty summer as there are also the European football Championships in Poland and Ukraine, and while I’m not a massive football supporter I think there will be little chance of escape from it, well at least until England are knocked out by the quarter finals. I predict a penalty knock-out. ;)

Financially the year is uncertain. Will the Eurozone crisis resolve? Will the Euro break up? Will we be pushed back into recession? Or might we possibly come out the other side? Will there be more cuts or less and if so what will they be?

The next year holds so many questions and as yet we can only guess, and hope, at the answers.

This is my last post of 2011, so I will just close by saying thank you to all that have read my ramblings over the past few months since I started writing. Thank you to those that have commented, followed, and retweeted my posts. And to those that read invisibly, thank you for reading. Hopefully you will continue to do so in 2012.

Happy new year to all. :-)

My news review 2011 - how were we entertained?

I’ve covered some serious news events in my previous posts, but what was newsworthy in terms of entertainment?

In March Radio 1 Breakfast presenter Chris Moyles set a world record by doing a marathon show in aid of Comic Relief. He and fellow presenter Dave Vitty stayed on the air for 52 hours and raised a total of £2.5 million for the charity. I think that Chris Moyles on the whole is a bit like marmite – people either love him or hate him. But one thing is for certain – he seems to have a remarkable ability to get those who listen to his shows to do things – such as donate their cash, or influence the charts (more on that later). The initial goal was to raise £1 million, but I think it fair to say that the longer he stayed on air the more people got caught up in it all. It was a remarkable feat really – 52 hours of non sleep is generally not to be recommended – especially when you consider that sleep deprivation is often used as a form of torture. Love him or loathe him, you have to admire him for that I think.

In terms of the charts another record was set when the Military wives choir gained the Christmas no. one, managing to out-sell all the other entries in the top ten combined. X-factor winners Little Mix came in at no. Two, however they’d already had the no. One slot the week before since the Christmas no. One was actually announced on Christmas Day this year. I mentioned Chris Moyles earlier and his ability to influence people, well, the collective buying power of his listeners took Lou Monte’s 60’s song Dominick the Donkey to no. Three in the charts. This is a song that has never charted before, and this is apparently the longest period between a song being released an appearing in the charts.

So what did the viewers complain about this year? Well the complaints started out fairly early in the year when thousands of users complained about the controversial Eastenders baby swap storyline. Viewers felt that the storyline, in which the character Ronnie Mitchell swapped her dead baby for Kat Slater’s live one showed bereaved parents in a bad light and was an unrealistic depiction of how a bereaved mother would react. The number of complaints led to the show’s producers ending the story earlier than had previously been planned.

This month record numbers of complaints were received when Jeremy Clarkson made comments on BBC’s The One Show, saying that public sector strikers should be taken out and executed in front of their families. I think there’s fairly little doubt that the comments were clearly made as a joke, and it seems that the number of complaints only really rose after the story of complaints hit the headlines.

TV adverts did not escape unmentioned, and many viewers felt the need to complain about the Littlewoods Christmas advert, saying that it ruined the magic of Christmas for children, because it claimed that the presents were all bought by “my lovely mother,” instead of by Santa. Of course, if children up and down the country believe that their mothers can afford all the things on that advert then they probably have bigger things to worry about than the shattering of the illusion that is Santa.

But perhaps the advert that gained the biggest aww factor was the John Lewis Christmas ad. Although I think the question still remains... what was in the box?

It’s certainly been an entertaining year.

My news review 2011 part 2 - natural disasters, riots and the rise and fall of the super injunction

In my last post I touched on some of the most newsworthy events of the past year. But of course the news doesn’t end with just a few stories – this year has been eventful in so many ways.

In March the world was shocked, when an earthquake with a magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale struck off the coast of Japan, causing a tsunami. The devastation was immense, and tens of thousands of people died. But the horror didn’t end there, in the aftermath of the tsunami, damage caused to generators at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants resulted in explosions in at least three nuclear reactors. A large area around the plants were evacuated, and there were fears of a nuclear disaster. Fortunately a major nuclear meltdown was averted, but things could so easily have been different.

Back in the UK in August a wave of riots spread across the country. Initially the protests started in London, in response to the shooting of Mark Duggan during a police operation in London, a man who police believed at the time to be armed. A wave of riots began in London over a three day period and then rapidly spread across the country. Large numbers of people headed to the streets, looting, smashing up shops and cars, in some instances businesses were irrevocably damaged, and several people died, most memorably perhaps three men who were killed in a hit and run incident in Birmingham. The criminal proceedings are still ongoing, and the UK riots will no doubt be remembered for a long time to come.

Then we witnessed the rise and fall of the super injunction. These injunctions were taken out by celebrities, in order to prevent the press from reporting details about their private lives, generally their extra marital affairs. Perhaps the most prominent of these injunctions was taken out by footballer Ryan Giggs to prevent reporting of his extra marital activities. However, it all came back to bite him in a big way when rumours of his affairs were posted on twitter and retweeted across the internet. After all, while you can stop a story being published in the press, it is not so easy to stop it being published on social media by members of the public, and Ryan Giggs found that out the hard way. In fact his affairs would almost certainly have been less of a story had they just been printed in the tabloids, but instead the injunction just made the story far more desirable, and a far bigger one than would otherwise have been the case. I have little doubt that celebrities will think twice before taking out such injunctions in the future.

There is of course still more to say about the past year, and perhaps a time to think about what next year might hold, but I’ll save that for my next post.

my News review 2011 part 1 - revolutions, voicemails and weddings

As the year 2011 draws to a close, I thought I would take a look back at some of the events that have made the news. Some good, some bad, some light-hearted, in news terms this has been a busy year, and I couldn’t possibly cover all of it in one post. So over the next couple of days I hope you’ll keep reading as I share my opinions of what I thought was newsworthy this year in a series of posts.

It’s been quite an eventful year all in all, and I think it’s fair to say that in many ways 2011 is a year that will go down in history. Here in the UK we’ve had media scandals, rioting, super-injunctions and a wedding, while undoubtedly the most significant happenings abroad have been in the Middle East.

The most significant world event has been the Arab Spring, which has been a series of uprisings across the Middle East which actually started in December 2010 when a Tunisian man burned himself to death in protest over his treatment by the police. This sparked uprisings across the region, in Tunisia, where the government was overthrown and President Ben Ali
Was ousted, Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak and his government were overthrown, Yemen, where the President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, stepped down. Further protests (some of which are still ongoing) occurred in Syria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Morocco, Jordan, Algeria, Iraq, but perhaps the most notable was the civil war in Libya where there was also involvement from NATO, and which resulted in the death of Muammar Gaddafi.

I think it fair to say that all this has merely marked the beginning of change in the Middle East, and that it will most likely be a while before the full implications will be known. But one can only hope that all this change is change for the better, in countries where true democracy is still only in its infancy.

Back in the UK, the phone hacking scandal, which has actually been ongoing for several years now, took a nasty turn when it emerged that the voicemails of murdered school girl Millie Dowler had been hacked by journalists. Following this revelation it subsequently emerged that other victims of crime had also been victims of phone hacking by tabloid journalists. All these revelations led to the closure of Britain’s longest running Sunday paper, the News of the World, and has deeply tarnished the reputation of British journalism, perhaps irrevocably, but only time will tell. Currently a public enquiry into events, the Leveson Enquiry, is still ongoing.

On a lighter note, this year saw the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, (the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge) which in truth has been a long-awaited event. A record 24 million people watched the wedding in the UK, with the ceremony being televised in 180 countries across the globe. People waited in anticipation to see Kate's dress.
, and the crowds eagerly awaited the first kiss.

Of course the next big question people have is when the couple will be announcing the arrival of a royal baby, but I think that with the upcoming Olympics and the Queen’s diamond Jubilee they might just be busy with other things for the time being.

There have of course been many other significant and indeed historical events in this year’s news, and I will cover some of those in my next post, so do keep reading.

Don't fear the CCTV - fear the camera phone

Britain is renowned to have more CCTV cameras than any other country in Europe. Therefore, many people feel that we are constantly under surveillance, by the police, the government, etc. But recent events have left me wondering whether in fact that surveillance is a lot closer to home.

Recently a woman made it into the news when her swearing and hurling racial insults at a group of passengers on a tram was captured by someone on a mobile phone and then uploaded to YouTube. Within hours the video had had multiple hits and was being publicised via twitter. The incident was probably more shocking because of the young toddler she had on her lap.

Subsequent to this, other similar incidents have been made public in the same way, the latest of which being a man on a train who had allegedly failed to pay the fare for the journey, had refused to get off at the next stop, so another passenger had physically removed him.

Generally, we all know where the CCTV cameras are. We don’t necessarily avoid them, but as a rule, if you’re in town causing trouble there’s probably a fair chance you’re going to be captured on CCTV and held accountable for your actions. But being captured on CCTV only means that the camera operators and perhaps the law enforcers are going to know who you are and what you’ve done, being captured on CCTV isn’t going to earn you national (or perhaps even international) infamy. But being captured on someone’s camera phone might.

Nowadays most mobile phones have cameras, and video capabilities. This means that any event can be videoed by anyone at any time, and once that happens there’s no knowing where it might end up.

We don’t know where the camera phones are. We don’t know who has one (well actually we can generally assume that most people do have one) but we don’t know who is using one at any time and if so, what they intend to do with the footage.

Of course most people are law-abiding citizens who wouldn’t think to behave in the manner of the individuals mentioned above. However even being a law-abiding citizen doesn’t mean that you are immune from being captured on camera at your worst moments, on a drunken night out with friends; having an argument in the street with your partner; shouting at your kids when they’re having a tantrum, and that footage being uploaded to YouTube and sent via twitter to as many people as are prepared to retweet it. And because that footage is generally condensed into a couple of minutes maximum, people only get a snapshot view of that part of your life, and then make their judgements accordingly.

As it happens, the man in the train video has since spoken out saying that while he accepted his language against the conductor was wrong, he had bought the wrong ticket and wasn't given the chance to state his case before being thrown off the train. Meanwhile the man who threw him off was branded a hero. And all the million or so people who have seen the clip have to go on is a two minute or so snapshot into what happened. We don't know what happened before, we can only judge on the events captured on film.

And the more of these incidents are posted online, the more people are going to film every little event, in the hope of capturing something that might earn them a few thousand hits on YouTube. No longer is it possible to view an event in your life as something that just happened and can be forgotten, when you have no idea who might have filmed it and whether it is at this very moment being tweeted up and down the country and across the globe.

Generally, the CCTV is there to act in the interests of the public.

The camera phone is there to feed the interest of the individual, and potentially, the world.

no "honour" in violence and murder

A study published today has revealed the extent of so-called honour crimes in the UK. 

I have serious issue with this term.  Because while the people committing these crimes obviously do so in the name of some warped sense of family honour, any normal-thinking individual knows that there is nothing honourable about these crimes. 

While we continue to refer to these as "honour" crimes, we are in fact reinforcing the belief that violence and murder committed in the name of family honour is different to other forms of violence and murder, when in fact, it isn't. 

We all know that violence and murder is wrong.  When reported, individuals who commit such crimes in the name of so-called family honour are often prosecuted.  But they are still prosecuted under the label of "honour" which sends the message back to their family as to why the crime was committed, and continues to normalise this belief amongst some that murder and violence done in the name of "honour" is still ok. 

We need to get past this.  We need to take away the "honour" label from these crimes and make it abundantly clear that murder is murder, that violence is violence, and that there is nothing "honourable" about either.

And we need to stand up against this acceptance by some that murder and violence committed in the name of family honour is somehow different to murder and violence committed in any other setting.  It isn't.

the right to die - in the name of disability?

A man who was paralyzed from the neck down following a stroke is to go to court to request that doctors be allowed to help him to die. 

Tony Micklinson is paralyzed from the neck down and is only able to communicate by blinking.  But mentally he is still entirely competent.  He has expressed the wish to be allowed to end his own life with the help of doctors on the basis that his death may be a long drawn out affair which will be hard on his family. 

I think this raises some serious questions.  In the past there have been numerous attempts from individuals suffering from terminal illnesses requesting permission to be assisted to die, and for those who assist them be granted immunity from prosecution.  So far, all these requests have been unsuccessful. 

But Tony Micklinson is not terminally ill.  Tony Micklinson is severely disabled, and while it is perfectly understandable that he might feel he does not wish to live that way, his condition is not degenerative and is not one which will ultimately kill him. 

He has made the point that if he were able, then he would have the right to commit suicide.  However this isn’t actually the case.  It’s not having the right, it’s having the ability.  But even if Tony Micklinson were able-bodied, were it to be known that he was suicidal, it is likely he would be sectioned to prevent him from killing himself.  Or if he attempted and failed he would be admitted to hospital and given psychiatric help in order that he not attempt suicide again. 

Suicide is still actually illegal in the UK, so it is inaccurate to suggest that the able-bodied have the right to end their own lives while the terminally ill/severely disabled do not.  The able-bodied have the ability not the right – there is a difference. 

But there is another aspect of this case which leaves me somewhat uncomfortable. 

When someone commits suicide due to depression, the reaction expressed is always one of overwhelming sadness and regret that the person could not seek help in order to overcome their state of mind in order to have not felt the need to commit suicide.  This is of course right – after all it is desperately sad that anyone should ever feel that there is no way out for them but suicide. 

But when someone with a disability commits suicide due to their disability the reaction is often totally different, almost to the point where it is seen as acceptable to want to end your life due to disability. 

When Daniel James, a 23 year old rugby player, went to Dignitas in Switzerland to commit suicide in 2008 the reactions were varied.  But overwhelmingly many people seemed to believe that for him, ending his life rather than learning to come to terms with his disability was the right thing to do.  That disability is seen as this thing to fear and that wanting to kill yourself rather than face it is perfectly understandable and should not be judged. 

Yet we don’t have this view towards depression.  I don’t believe that anyone would sanction someone suffering from depression ending their own life – quite the opposite – people would want that person to seek help and support, and would tell them that nothing could be that bad. 

And yet there are people out there who are happy to fight for the right of someone with a disability to be able to end their life.  I think it is very sad that we still have such a two-tear way of thinking in terms of when it is ok to commit suicide and when it isn’t. 

We should no more express understanding for the disabled person’s wish to end their life than we would do of someone who is depressed.  One life does not equal more worthy of ending simply because that person has a disability.

And I am of course not referring to terminal illness in this way of thinking, since terminal illness is an entirely different thing, after all, if someone is going to die then it is perfectly understandable that they may wish to hasten this process while they are still able to do so.

They'll drink to that - children as young as twelve drinking too much?

This week a survey was published which revealed that children as young as twelve are allegedly drinking as many as nineteen glasses of wine a week.  Furthermore, it revealed that a quarter of children are regularly getting drunk by the age of fourteen. 

I think it’s been common knowledge for some time that young children do often gain access to alcohol and that some will do so to excess.  And in truth this is not a new phenomenon, as teenagers have been experimenting with alcohol for decades. 

However, while there will of course be children who have used alcohol to this degree, I can’t help wondering how much of this is just bravado on the part of those answering these surveys.  

If the results of this survey are to be taken at face value, then we have to believe that Britain has a serious alcohol problem among our teens.  What we also have to consider is that somewhere, adults are enabling this behaviour by either purchasing alcohol for these young teens or allowing them to purchase it.  And then what of the parents?  Twelve is still very young – they are only just in secondary school and for most will only just be given some freedom to venture out on their own.  Even at fourteen one surely wouldn’t imagine that they have enough freedom to be going out and getting drunk once a week.  If at fourteen 25% of children get drunk once a week, then should we not consider that 25% of parents are failing?  After all how could you not notice your child getting drunk that regularly?

While of course the prominence of alcohol among teenagers should not be underestimated, I think it is equally important that we not necessarily blow these findings out of proportion, and that we should allow some leeway for the fact that a large proportion of children, who are impressionable and easily led after all, will give the answers that make them look most favourable in front of their peers, and that if drinking nineteen glasses of wine or getting drunk once a week is seen as cool, then they will most probably want to be seen as conforming to that, even if they would be unlikely to actually do it.

The death of Gaddafi in pictures - do we really need to see?

This morning, history was made when Libya's Col Muammar Gaddafi was killed. 

News quickly spread around Libya, and before too long, around the world.  This is the end of an era for the Libyans, and hopefully the beginning of a new one. 

But as the news spread, so did the graphic images and video footage, first of a still alive Gaddafi being paraded around the streets and then of his bloody corpse.

This is more than just news – it’s history.  Our children will learn about it in years to come.

However, I can’t help feeling uncomfortable at the level of graphic imagery that has been shown in conjunction with the broadcasting of this news story.  If you opened any news website this afternoon, you were confronted with the image of Gaddafi’s corpse without any prior warning.  The 6:00 BBC news headline started with “shocking images have been shown around the world,” as the “shocking images” scrolled across the screen.  And tomorrow’s front pages carry many of the same images. 

I personally think we should all take an interest in the news, I am constantly shocked at people who have no idea of what is going on around them.  However I fail to see why news stories such as this one need to come with graphic images attached.

The Libyan people needed confirmation that Gaddafi was dead.  Only if you have lived in Libya can you surely know just what it was like living under his regime and the impact his death may have on your life and that of your family.  But I don’t see why we need to see proof that he is dead, and if the media outlets absolutely feel they must publish these images, why they can’t do so more discretely either on the inside pages or after the watershed.

Our televisions have an off switch.  Every one of us has the option to not watch the broadcast news.  However it is much harder to avoid walking past newspaper stands or newspapers in supermarkets.  Is it appropriate that young children be subjected to these pictures without warning? 

The watershed exists in order to shield children from acts of sex or violence.  Is the broadcasting of a bloodied dead body, whoever he might have been, any less an act of violence purely because it’s a real life event and not a portrayal?

We are quick to condemn other countries for parading our own soldiers on their news channels, and while there is no comparison between Gaddafi and one of our own, and his death was inevitable, sensationalizing it by adding video footage and graphic pictures is no less distasteful.