Don't Forget Today's Relevance

Labour leader Ed Miliband has launched his local election campaign today, including some very worthy policies. He wants to reinstate the 50% income tax rate for the highest earners, introduce a mansion tax, crack down on rising train fares, and reform the rip-off energy market. Unfortunately, nobody is going to listen to any of this now, because Margaret Thatcher has died, which I’m sure will receive blanket news coverage (and most of it probably fawning). Even in death, she is stealing the limelight for the right-wingers. I suppose it would be disrespectful of me to say anything too negative about her on her death-day just to promote my own socialist agenda, but I’m certainly not going to say anything good about her either. Just don’t forget the other news stories of the day which will have more constructive impact for the future.

Categories Of Rape?

The understandably emotive issue of rape is in the news today because Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has stated his viewpoint that it is morally correct for some rapists to get different sentences from others. It was during a radio interview where the host suggested that quite simply, “rape is rape”. Clarke said it wasn’t because a predatory rapist who abducts a woman and subjects her to sexual violence is much worse than someone who has consensual sex with a person under the age of sexual consent. Personally, I think Ken Clarke is spot on; the context of rape should always be taken into account, and this does not have to mean that the seriousness of the crime would be in any way diminished. Yet since his comments, Ed Miliband has called for Clarke’s resignation, and Clarke has been made to clarify / toughen his comments in various interviews.
I have two main problems with the rather hysterical response that has been generated by Clarke’s original comments. First, I honestly think that we should stop using the term ‘rapist’ to describe someone having consensual sex with a person under sixteen years of age. The age of sexual consent is an arbitrary decision which changes from one country to another - it is thirteen in Japan, and twenty-one in some American states. As much as I appreciate that the law needs to be enforced and underage sex has to be punished in some way, it is not an act of rape, which the Oxford English Dictionary says has to entail “forcing another person…against their will”. And second, this furore has all come about because the Conservative Party want to reduce all criminal sentences by 50% if the offender pleads guilty; a ridiculous proposal considering they already get a reduction of a third which is quite enough incentive for someone to plead guilty. Quite who David Cameron thinks this policy is going to appeal to is beyond me. So let’s focus our bile on him and his policies rather than the more knowledgeable Justice Secretary.

Splitter!

David Miliband is a crybaby. Just because he doesn’t win the leadership election, he proceeds to throw all of his toys out of the pram and refuses to be a member of the shadow cabinet. Even though I don’t like David’s ‘New Labour’ politics and was very happy to see him lose to his brother, I still would have liked to see some party unity; David received almost half the votes and could have rallied everyone to a unified cause if he had wholeheartedly placed his support behind Ed. But no, David has put his own ego before ideological success; and because the party is having a change in direction, he’s throwing a hissy fit until he gets his own way. What a child!

Congratulations To Democracy

Finally, something good to report. Ed Miliband has become the new leader of the Labour Party. It would have been disastrous if his big brother David had won the election as all three leaders of the main parties would have been virtually identical. But now we have a distinctly different leader in Ed; someone who is principled rather than consumed by spin. It's unfortunate that it took the trade unions to get him the job - if it had been left to party members or MPs they would have handed it to David, the Tony Blair wannabe - but at least the right result was achieved in the end. And even though Ed would never admit to this himself, I hope he throws New Labour in the dustbin and goes back to a time before Blair changed the whole concept of what the Labour Party was meant to stand for, i.e. the working class. Incidentally, the voting system used in this election was the Alternative Vote, so let's hope people take that into consideration next year when we get to decide in a referendum on our general electoral system; AV is much fairer than Proportional Representation. But that issue can be discussed another time; for now, well done Ed!