I have nothing but sympathy for Vincent Cooke and his family over the incident in Stockport at the weekend, in which alleged intruder, Raymond Jacobs, lost his life. If reports in the press are indeed true, then the Cookes' suffered a terrible shock – that of finding an intruder in your own home.
Details of exactly what happened are unlikely to emerge for sometime but, as far as I am concerned, once you cross that threshold uninvited, and threaten the peaceful comfort of another person’s home, then you lose any human rights you had. In the event, you deserve whatever you get coming to you, proportionate or not. If you cannot be safe in your own home, where can you be? And I fully understand why you might go to extreme lengths to protect it, and your family. No questions need be asked!
In this instance, I have no sympathy for Jacobs because, quite simply, had he not been where he shouldn’t have been, it wouldn’t have happened. End of story.
Rather than being accused of murder, Mr Cooke should be given a medal…for saving any other poor unsuspecting victim from Jacobs’ criminal activity, as well as the cost of keeping him in prison. This outrageous treatment of victims as if they were criminals is not acceptable and has got to stop. If the government are true to their word to bring in legislation accordingly, the message is…get on with it!

Alarming news today that by 2030 half of UK men will be clinically obese. The suggestion is that this is mainly due to passive overeating. Say, what? I understand the concept of 'passive smoking' but, passive overeating? So, if I spend too much time with someone who overeats, I get some of it, do I? Seriously, though, the point is made in the article in The Lancet, that serious leadership is required to get the message across. Hallelujah! Societal leadership is sadly lacking in many ways. It is time we got more phat!!

Ok, so I have an axe to grind due to my profession but, I am also entitled to an opinion as a taxpayer.
I am fed up to the back teeth with the arguments about public vs. private sector and the persistent undermining of the good work that does get done in the public sector. It is not perfect but, neither is the private sector, as I am about to explain. The simple truth is we all need each other.
The riots in London over the last few days will undoubtedly cost taxpayers a few million, one way or another. The criminals responsible should be made to pay, not us. Local authorities spend millions each year clearing the streets of litter and graffiti. The criminals responsible should be made to pay, not us. When are we going to get tough on people?
Even when we catch perpetrators of crime, we allow them to take the mickey. Last week I watched part of the TV documentary ‘Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son’, highlighting the case of Jane Clough’s killer*. The family of his poor victim are left to watch as he campaigns for his release. The brutality of his act means that he should never even be considered for release; in fact, I firmly believe that the death penalty is the only suitable sentence. Likewise, with Milly Dowler’s killer*; who is now taking action for being attacked in prison. Who will foot the bill for that, if he succeeds? The taxpayer!
(* I do not believe they should have the dignity of being named!)
It makes my blood boil to consider how much I ‘pay’ for all of this wrong-doing and yet we have people complaining about the cost of the Olympics and the, what is it, 14p we each pay each year for the Royal Family? Both of which have the capacity to have a real positive effect on us all…if you’re prepared to be open-minded! Get real, British public; I, for one, am sick of allowing people to walk all over us. It’s time to get strong with criminals; otherwise I am afraid we are doomed!
The cause of this latest rioting is attributed to the shooting of Mark Duggan by the Police in North London. No it isn’t! The protests about that incident began as peaceful. What has since transpired is opportunist thugs escalating it and ‘making hay’. The bottom-line is that this has been coming for a while now; they were waiting for the opportunity.
It began with the business leaders and bankers letting us all down with the financial meltdown. Therefore, employment opportunities have become severely threatened. (The happenings in Derby with the decisions to hand contracts to German companies, rather than Bombardier and Rolls Royce, have only rubbed salt into the wounds. Globalisation is something that we Brits have not got our heads around yet but, that’s another story!)
Then we had the MP’s expenses scandal, let down by the lack of moral compass from our so-called leaders. Now we have the phone-hacking scandal, involving senior executives in our communications media, as well as political leaders and the Met Police. The public let down by senior people in three key walks of life, at the same time.
A looter in London was quoted as saying, when asked why they were doing it: “To get back my taxes!” That just about sums up the mood; people do not believe that they are getting value for what they pay. I do not condone the violence and looting, as we will all have to pay, as I explained earlier; merely try and understand what is actually happening.
In a nutshell, we have been shown to have no leadership by any quarter of society. It was, to me, inevitable that this would all manifest itself in violence and I no longer have any confidence whatsoever that those tasked with resolving it will do so. This is one such set of circumstances when it would be acceptable for political leaders, senior police officers and the media, to work together for the good of the public; not when they are seeking to further their careers, or lining their pockets.
And it is no good the general public seeking the moral high-ground on these issues, because we have continued to buy rags, such as The News of the World, to quench the thirst for scandal. In effect we have brought it upon ourselves.
I do not buy into this claptrap that the political leaders need the press on their side and that the press need to buy-off the Police to feed the hunger for ‘juicy stories’. If people took an active interest in the real world, rather than salacious gossip, they would see through the crap fed to them by the media. And, therein lies the problem.
The only answer to all this is education. Teaching people from a very young age about how to behave and, therefore, it is a responsibility of the parents as well as the teachers.
We need to teach people what ‘globalisation’ means, and that it is possible to make life enjoyable without drugs and alcohol. We need to teach people that there is more to be gained from reading books – even if it is on an Amazon Kindle – rather than wasting your time watching other people live their lives, on programmes such as Big Brother. Get out and live, rather than fritter away this wonderful gift.
As a result, maybe we will nurture some political and business leaders with some real backbone to simply do their job. But, it will take a long time to reach fruition and some sacrifices may have to be made, in the way that our forefathers did to progress as we have. And, yes, we have progressed, otherwise we would still be living in caves, hunting wild boar and starting fires with flint!
The world will never be perfect and free from corruption and scandal, because we are human beings. However, I repeat an oft used quotation: ‘people expect to be managed, they desire to be led’. Our current leaders, in all walks of life, would do well to remember that and start showing some real leadership. In the meantime, we have some difficult times ahead of us…are we up for the fight?

I read, with a mixture of amused surprise and concerned bewilderment, about the outcome of last week's local election in Bury, Lancashire. The overall control of that council was determined by the result of its Ramsbottom ward, which was eventually resolved by the drawing of straws after a dead-heat!
Now, I do not know how often in our electoral history such an occurrence has taken place but, if it were not so serious an issue it would be quite funny. These elections can determine the quality of life for residents and it is shocking that this is the constitutionally recognised means of resolution in such circumstances. Is it not ironic that such an event should also occur on the very day that we were voting in a referendum about whether an alternative voting system should be introduced, the nature of which would almost certainly remove the possibility of anything similar to events in Ramsbottom occurring?
Sad also that the result of the referendum was a 'no' but, once again, we have the result being determined by a minority of the population, due to the paucity of the turnout; caused by the populations worrying disinterest in local politics.
At the same time, I was angered by an article I had read last week that discussed how we could turn young people onto local politics. No mention of the only way to do this: education!
Until we teach young people at school how important this issue is, we will fight a losing battle trying to win them over in adulthood.

I guess that people in any profession will get angered by any comments that they feel misrepresent them in the media. Some professions, e.g. Police and NHS staff, are even constantly exposed to that risk by being portrayed in TV dramas in a particular way, which may or may not be an accurate representation. So, I have allowed myself a little ‘breathing space’ before voicing my concerns.
I refer to the news yesterday that civil liberties groups were alarmed at the extent of bailiff activity in recovering local authority debts, such as Council Tax and parking fines. Whilst I understand that there would be concern about over-forceful bailiff activity, this issue does, I feel, need to be put into context.
It was no more than a few weeks ago that local authorities were being criticised for the level of outstanding arrears on Council Tax, in the light of a financial squeeze. The general public ought to be made aware that most local authorities eventually collect over 99% of all Council Taxes due. This is an exceptional level of performance in anyone’s book. David Magor, Chief Executive of the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation, describes this work by its members as world-class. It is!
However, given the financial circumstances at the moment, I know for a fact through my own experience that local authorities are being more flexible about payment, when a debtor asks for help. Consequently, it is inevitable that arrears at year-end may be slightly higher than normal.
The key to effective collection is being able to identify those who ‘can’t pay’ from those that ‘won’t pay’. The latter deserve the full force of enforcement action to be taken against them. Paying taxes – and that is exactly what Council Tax is – is a fundamental requirement if you wish to live in a structured society.
Comment was made yesterday, in relation to the use of bailiffs, that it should be a remedy of last resort. Unlike utility companies who can turn off supplies in the event of non-payment, a local authority cannot simply ‘turn-off’ any supplies for non-payment of Council Tax. The other remedies open to a local authority – Charging Orders, Insolvency and Committal to Prison - are all now described as ‘last resort’; but, they cannot all be, especially if you add bailiffs to that list. The danger is that a local authority may become toothless and those aforementioned outstanding levels of performance will soon deteriorate.
Surely, committal to prison should be the ultimate sanction for those that won’t pay – although this is extremely uncommon, with prison places being as rare as a long hot summer in the Shetlands. But, what is also not understood by many is that, in order to take committal action, a local authority is statutorily required to use bailiff action as a pre-cursor. So, as I said, let’s get this into context.
The overwhelming majority of people pay their Council Tax without such measures being necessary. For those that do refuse to pay, the likelihood is that they will get a visit from the bailiff; and I wouldn’t mind betting that, as opposed to the squealing from the civil liberties groups, that overwhelming majority of payers will welcome that news!