Sunday, July 04, 2010

Podcast: The 7 Days Show Episode 31


The latest edition of the Seven Days Show is now online.

This week we debated whether prison works; is a referendum on voting reform really a priority – particularly when we still have had no referendum on our relationship with the European Union; whether politicians can do anything to aid their public perception; if we should be worried about the cost of security in politics and can the Department of Health really hope to retain its protected ring fenced status. Finally don’t miss my viagara shocker and my secret Desperate Housewives shame! (is that tabloid enough??)

To listen to the podcast click HERE, or you can also subscribe to the show in the Tory Radio section in the podcast area of Itunes.

1 comment:

Tapestry said...

There is little crime in Singapore and much of Asia where punishment is brutal. That is another reason why their economies are more competitive than ours. Employers in the UK not only have to suffer from poor discipline in the workplace with their authority undermined by Industrial Tribunals and other interferences.

They are also under constant threat from criminality of one kind or another.

If we want jobs we have to give back authority to employers, teachers and police forces and so on. Punishment has to deter. Discipline has to be good enough to the point where we can organise ourselves to compete.

The criminology which became fashionable in the 1960s onwards looks sympathetically at individual criminals, while victims are disregarded. The ultimate victim is our ability to run a society at all, which is running close to collapse.

Money has become the sole value on which everything has been held together. That option is now over and no longer available, as cuts of 40% are looking likely to be needed.

As money crashes, other methods of holding society together must come back in, and discipline will be on the list, and probably top in a year from now. Other forms of institution and enterprises will need to fill the gap which will open up as the state withdraws.

Criminals have had a very nice run for fifty years, and kept many lawyers and other professionals in a good living. The wheel is turning, and this huge waste of resources cannot be tolerated any longer.

I suspect that Peter Hitchens' view of crime will prevail over those of Dale as the economy slips into quickening descent.