Archive for Law

The demonisation of people who use the word ‘Chav’

7 May 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

When most people think of the word Chav they think of someone on benefits with a distinct appearance of what one who is poor and whose common ancestors were working class and did not have much mobility outside of their locality.

For me however, the term reflects a socio-economic cultural group, that should not be looked down upon. Characteristics of this group for me include:

  • Aspiration – Despite living in an environment where their income is not as high as they need it to be, they are driven to want to be successful and would be if they had the opportunity
  • Delusion – Because they are being denied the opportunity to be successful, Chavs adopt a way of life which is an exaggeration of those typical of those in the upper classes or simply wealthy celebrities

From this, one can easily identify the stereotypical Chav – the person who wears a baseball cap like a sportsman, has lots of jewellery like a rap star, and always has designer clothes and the latest gadgets.

Unlike Owen Jones, I don’t think the word ‘Chav’ applies exclusively to the working class. I know of people who are Middle Class who act ‘posh’ by adopting the lifestyle people of more upper classes would find normal. These people will look down on other Middle Class people as less worthy, if they do not dress or sound pukka for instance.

I once made an app for Facebook using these stereotypes called ‘Are you Chav Labour?’. For each of the other options, people were given a negative description, like ‘pacifist’ for the apathetic and ‘stooge’ for the loyalist. Only those who were ‘Chavs’ had a positive description. I wrote this app long before Owen Jones came on the scene making out the term ‘Chav’ was one solely to abuse and “demonise” the working class.

I use this word no differently to the way others use NEET, or any other socio-economic term. I feel ‘demonised’ by Owen Jones for wanting to use this term, and regularly tweet him to make this fact known. A Chav for me, as someone who is an egalitarian who believes in the eradication of the class system will always be:

Someone who is denied opportunity or income that they would be able to manage if it were not of the barriers placed on them by the financial system imposed on the community they are in, and whom deal with this through acting out grandiose stereotypes of the socio-economic group they would rather be in.

This applies therefore to all classes and not just the working class. So I should be allowed to use the term Chav in a sympathetic way without being told I am being unfair to the working classes, as I think being a Chav is less about lack of money and more about a lifestyle of imitating those with the economic status one desires but ‘knows’ one can never have.

The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

What should Labour’s Clause IV actually say?

5 May 2012 jonathanbishop 2 comments

Every British political scholar has spoken about the ‘Clause 4 Moment’ in the Labour Party – the point at which Tony Blair changed the Labour Party’s fortunes around by removing the Regressive Clause IV that wedding them to nationalisation, and created a new one, the Progressive Clause IV. I write here about how that had the same effect on me of convincing me the Labour Party was now ready to use Labour values in a 21st century context.

At the election account on Friday, even the Labour MP Owen Smith said he doesn’t believe in the Progressive Clause 4 – hardly anyone in the Labour Party does. This is even more frustrating that I felt I had to leave when on paper I was a member of a party whose progressive vision of pro-business, pro-opportunity, pro-market, pro-freedom I identified with as someone from a family of three generations of entrepreneurs.

Maybe if the people in the Labour Party were to be completely truthful about what they see the Labour Party as existing to do, then Clause IV would look something like this (deleted parts marked, added parts bold):

The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more electoral wins than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the a few Labour Party members; where the rights we enjoy are disproportionate to reflect the duties we owe and where we live together freely, in a spirit of solidarity, without tolerance and or respect for people who aren’t Labour.

The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Strange name calling

2 May 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

As a former IT professional in the construction industry I was shocked to read Steve Rotheram MP’s comments in the Western Mail (Coffeebreak Quotes of the Day, April 25).

Mr Rotheram said: “Having worked on building sites, believe me, some of the strangest characters I have ever met in my life are in Parliament. It’s a very strange place.”

Is Mr Rotheram trying to suggest that people on building sites are strange? The construction industry has been the backbone of Wales, providing the many jobs and facilities needed in Wales. Mr Rotheram’s apparent contempt for the construction industry is shared by his newly found Labour colleagues at Westminster.

In 2007 the Labour Government proved it was under the thumb of the trade unions by forcing most sub-contractors to become employees. This meant that during the downturn from 2008 they had to be made redundant because there was not enough work and equally as they had lost their status as sub-contractor they couldn’t easily work for someone else, as they could prior to 2007.

Mr Rotheram has been campaigning for new internet trolling laws. Would he expect these to be used on people calling others “strange” online, or “deranged” as he has on Twitter?

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Blunkett’s frustrations over cyber-crime need consideration

27 April 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

David Blunkett has spoken about how he felt his Labour Government faltered in tackling cybercrime.

As I showed in a research paper in the International Review of Law, Computers and Technology in 2010, New Labour did not fail in putting law on the statute books to deal with Internet abuse.

The problem they had was they created lots of offences that the police then felt was a low priority for enforcement. It is my view that for serious trolling offences police officers should be more like GPs/Solicitors and diagnose problems and then specialist agencies like the Serious Organised Crime Agency should be paid by those police out of their precept to take the case on.

The police are generalists and not specialists, and we don’t need to create huge geographical police forces as Charles Clarke suggested in order to get the specialism needed to tackle organised crime, which is often across frontiers that the geographic police service we have can’t cope with and thus creates a post-code lottery.

Law, Socio-legal, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

My policy on same sex marriage and civil partnerships

26 April 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

My policy on marriage per se is that there should not be gay/same-sex marriage and straight/opposite-sex marriage, just marriage.

I would like to be able to choose whether to marry a man or a woman depending on where life takes me. If it was a same-sex marriage I would not want a gay wedding/marriage because that way of life does not fit with how I see myself. Coming from a more conservative village where people keep themselves to themselves, if there are gays in the village no one cares because they are people not a label.

From my point of view, whichever sex I married I would want us to be married as ‘soul-mates’, in the ‘eyes of God’ if you like, but not in the eyes of the state. I do not want to share my property with anyone and inheritance tax doesn’t bother me because in my will I have left all my property to Jonathan Bishop Limited, the only consideration is who I leave the shares to.

So on this basis my policy is that the churches should be separated from the state. One would have the choice have having a religious marriage with the church of one’s choice if they allow it, having a civil partnership in terms of tax and property, or both.

Practically one could get married in a church and be married in the eyes of the state and that church at the same time, with the only change being signing two pieces of paper instead of one. Or alternatively one could get married in a civil partnership at a hotel and sign the civil piece of paper, and then have the marriage ‘blessed’ in a church and sign the second.

People could even do one now one and one later. So it might be that while I might only marry someone as a soul mate now, our relationship may grow to the extent I trust them enough to have a civil partnership also. It should be for people and the churches of which they are a member to decided and not the politicians through imposing unwanted legal restrictions.

Consciousness, Law, Policies and Consultations, Public Policy Communications, Socio-legal

Police do have powers to act over online ‘trolling’

26 April 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

It was with sympathy that I read about the abuse faced by mother Bridget Agar, who was targeted by Facebook trolls who set up a fake account in her late son’s name to taunt her (“Grieving mother’s disgust at messages in dead son’s name”, Derby Telegraph, April 19).

Known as ‘Sockpuppet trolling’, after the cottonmade glove characters one operates with one’s hands, this type of troller is common on the internet but more often than not for good rather than bad.

For instance, one can follow the Downing Street cat on Twitter or, in my case, people can become a fan of my family’s pedigree Yorkshire terrier on Facebook, where with me acting as a “Sockpuppet troller”, Sammie talks about the funny things he gets up to.

It is clear, though, that the dark side of Sockpuppet trolling exists and, for Bridget and others, little is often done about it.

There are laws to deal with the harmful variety, however, as old as the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and as recent as the Communications Act 2003.

The police have no excuse for receiving taxpayers’ money and then doing nothing while the public suffer abuse, which they seem more likely to prosecute if it is one of their own – as they did with Gavin Brent, from Flintshire, in 2008.

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Internet trolling

24 April 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

As the founder of the Trolling Academy, I felt I had to write to concur with the comments of Alan Francis from Llanelli, who wrote in criticising the fuss regarding the comments of surgeon, Brendan O’Riordan.

While it might seen shocking hearing him say he was “slaughtering” patients, in context one can see it was not made in bad faith. One can see his comments no different to a member of the public saying they are going to see a nurse to be “stabbed” when going for a blood test.

In criminal law cases in the UK it is necessary at trial to prove “mens rea” (ie guilty mind) to show that someone intended to do something. I instead think this should have to be proven before trial on the basis of whether an act was made in good faith or bad faith. If the former was true there would be no criminal prosecution, only an option for civil action if the person was harmed.

One cannot compare Mr O’Riordan’s remarks with those of Liam Stacey, sentenced recently for his racist comments on Twitter. Nor can they be compared with the actions of Sean Duffy from Reading, who perpetually harasses grieving families however many 13 week sentences he is subject to.

We need some common sense in dealing with Internet trolling. If we all faced prosecution for the offensive things we said in the real world, then the prisons would be crammed full!

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Should prisoners have the right to vote?

21 April 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

There will be many moralistic perspectives on this issue. I will instead look at it from a legal point of view with regards to the way I interpret the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as well as a crime prevention point of view.

While Article 3 of the ECHR gives everyone the right to vote, Article 5 ECHR says that a government can take away someone’s liberty in a number of cases, including where they are likely to commit a crime or have committed one. The proviso is that they must have a fair court hearing.

So I would say that if the government does not want prisoners to have the right to vote, then all they need to is pass a law to require the judiciary to decide whether someone they are sentencing to a jail term deserve the right to vote, based on some objective test.

This could mean for instance someone sent to prison for not paying their council tax might be able to vote out the councillors who raised it beyond a realistic level. It could also mean that anyone sent to prison because of any other bad law, can vote for the party that will reverse that law.

There are many issues facing all prisoners when leaving jail, like housing, employment, and other daily living issues that need to be met to avoid them returning to crime. Is it not right that they should have the chance to vote for the government that will best give them a life without crime?

The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

The public want more jobs – The Jobcentre Plus gets in the way of that

20 April 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I tried to create a job for a sub-contractor last night. I went to the government’s recruitment website and there was no way to register I had to go via an ‘unapproved route’.

I got an email from DWP today telling me to contact them. So I did.

I was then told by the member of staff that before I could place an advert I needed an Employer reference number so I could register a User ID on the website. They set one up for me.

I took this to the website and got a User ID, but when I tried to link it with the employer ID it said it could not register it.

I telephoned technical support, who asked questions like was it my first vacancy – they couldn’t find my employer number on this system. They then asked me for the job titled so I told them.

They said as the job was for self-employment they had to send me a National Minimum Wage leaflet to sign, so I basically told them to get stuffed.

I’m not wasting my time with bureaucratic paperwork – I’ll go elsewhere. So if the people wonder why there are no jobs, it is because there is too much bureaucracy in creating them

The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Residents need strong local voice

20 April 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

It was with concern I read the letter from Coun Stuard Gregory of the Abercynon ward (‘Why do we need roadside trees?’, April 12).

Many people know I often ask “why should a councillor from Abercynon decide what happens in Llantwit Fardre?” This is because I have a business in Abercynon and live in Llantwit Fardre. His letter proves that I am right to think this.

Coun Gregory calls the newly diverted A473 the Llantwit Fardre bypass. It does not bypass Llantwit Fardre but travels straight through it!

Furthermore he complains about the planting of trees off the bypass, yet the whole point of this was to offset the carbon emissions the road created, and to replace the ones felled in the process of building it.

Seeing as Coun Gregory knows little about Llantwit Fardre, why should he decide our planning applications, for instance?

It is my view that the only people that should be part of the decision-making on planning are the residents near the site, the developers and others how might directly face a detriment or benefit from the development.

Councillors sitting in ivory towers in Clydach Vale know nothing about our local communities and the ‘margins of appreciation’ as it is called in Europe, should lie with those who the planning application affects, and not politicians who should mind their own business and not interfere in others’ lives.

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