It's widely accepted that Priti Patel is one of the least intelligent members of the least talented government this country has ever suffered, but once again she's made an absolute fool of herself.
You'll probably already be familiar with some of her other blunders, like claiming that applying the death penalty to innocent people would serve as a deterrent, getting caught working as an agent for another state embedded within the UK government, and being unable to read a six digit number off a piece of paper.
Her error this time is particularly sinister and disturbing because it highlights the fact that she has absolutely no understanding of the fundamental basics of how the criminal justice system functions in a liberal democracy.
Patel's latest blunder came about when she put political pressure on the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset police to ensure criminal prosecution of the activists who took down the statue of Tory slave-trader Edward Colston over the weekend.
This is simply not how the law works, and this kind of political interference represents a dangerous step towards police state authoritarianism.
The way it's supposed to work is that the police conduct an investigation, and then pass their evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service.
The CPS then make a decision whether to bring the case to trial, based on considerations such as the likelihood of conviction, and whether a trial would actually be in the public interest.
The legitimate role of the government, and specifically the Home Secretary, is to propose new laws, and alterations of existing laws, which are obviously subject to parliamentary approval before they can be enacted.
A legitimate position for the Home Secretary to take would be to argue that the current laws prohibiting vandalism of public monuments are not strong enough, and to propose new legislation.
It's completely illegitimate for the Home Secretary to put pressure on the police or the CPS in order to demand prosecutions, because then any case that is brought, can obviously be perceived as politically motivated.
And once we slip into the territory of politically motivated prosecutions, we end up with political prisoners, meaning we're living in a police state.
Patel is obviously far to dim to understand any of this, but ever since the Stalinist Cummings Purge of the 21 liberal-capitalist Tory MPs in September 2019, the Tory party is even more bereft of talent than it was before.
I'm obviously no huge fanboy for purged Tories like David Gauke, Ken Clarke, Rory Stewart, Justine Greening, Dominic Grieve, Philip Hammond ... but at least these individuals would have been somewhat more likely to actually understand a little bit about the history and structure of the legal system, and the critical importance of avoiding political interference in the application of justice.
The fact of the matter is that if the protesters who organised the statue removal are found, and prosecuted, they can easily demonstrate that the prosecution was politically motivated, thanks to Patel, and then portray themselves as political prisoners if they're convicted.
I'd actually expect black civil rights campaigners to be queuing up to face such a ludicrous prosecution, because the prospect of being jailed for opposing slavery, in a politically partisan trial, would obviously create a powerful martyrdom narrative and turn their predicament into an instant cause célèbre.
Furthermore, conviction at the behest of a right-wing government would make a powerful demonstration of the systemic racism that the Black Lives Matter protesters were protesting against in the first place!
So whichever way you look at it, Patel has screwed up.
If you're you're even remotely liberal, you'll be opposed to politically motivated prosecutions as a matter of principle.
And if you're of the authoritarian persuasion, and want to see the statue-removers punished, then Patel's politicisation of the process has made the prospect of a reasonable conviction all the more difficult than it already was!
As ludicrous as this situation is, it's also deeply concerning, because once again we're an absolute laughing stock of a country, with a profoundly unintelligent and disturbingly authoritarian Home Secretary who demonstrably doesn't give the slightest damn about how the law is supposed to work in liberal democracies.
Any reasonable person, of any political persuasion (other than rabid right-wing authoritarianism) must be left wondering how on earth we've sunk so low.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. Access to my online writing will always remain free. If you see some value in what I do, please consider supporting my work.
The news that a Tory politician has been charged with electoral fraud may have passed you by today, but it's happened.
It was easy to imagine another whitewash was on the cards after the previous whitewash ruling by the CPS that most of the Tory election fraud cases should be dropped, not because no crimes were committed (they obviously and undeniably were), but because they couldn't prove a conspiracy at Tory HQ (somehow the "I didn't know it was a crime guv" defence never works for us mere mortals does it?).
However Craig Mackinlay has been charged with two counts of election expenses fraud in South Thanet, which is a tad awkward for the Tories since he's standing there again as their candidate next week!
He wouldn't be the first politician facing criminal charges to stand for election (Jeremy Thorpe did so in 1979) but he'd certainly be the first candidate standing for election in a constituency whilst simultaneously facing criminal charges for electoral fraud in that constituency at the previous election.
Jeremy Corbyn's response to the news that Mackinlay has been charged was an incredibly restrained and dignified display of political integrity. Instead of using the case to score political points and boost his election campaign, this is what Corbyn said:
"Nobody should be commenting on the details of an ongoing case. The police must be allowed to act independently to investigate on the basis of any evidence they’ve got, and the Crown Prosecution Service must be allowed to make its decision on whether to proceed on a case.
It is a very bad road when democratically elected politicians start offering a running commentary on independent judicial processes. We have to have total separation of political and judicial powers in this country.
"All politicians need to be extremely careful – politicians are elected to parliament to be held to account by the public."
Just think about it for a moment and imagine if the boot was on the other foot.
Imagine of it was a Labour politician who had been charged with cheating his way into parliament within a week of an increasingly tight general election.
Imagine what the Aussie muck-slinger Lynton Crosby would be advising Theresa May to say about the story.
Imagine what kind of low digs political opportunists like Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith would be spewing all over the shop.
Imagine the political advantage that so many unscrupulous Tories would be trying to worm out of the situation.
But Jeremy Corbyn just rose above the temptation to cast aspersions or try to make political capital out of it, and gave the correct response: The guy is innocent until proven guilty, and it's not his place to provide a running commentary.
Surely even Corbyn's harshest critics have got to admit that responding in the way he did, rather than trying to use the situation to score cheap political points, is actually decent, honourable and impressively statesmanlike behaviour?
For years we've complained about dishonest, untrustworthy, muck-slinging politicians and slick spin-doctor propagandists dragging down the standard of political debate, and now along comes a man who seems to rise above it all, and people just believe all the atrocious smears they read about him in the right-wing propaganda rags.
Outside the tabloid-addled worldviews of the political sleepwalkers, Jeremy Corbyn clearly represents a fantastic opportunity for Britain to drag our politics out of the gutter and begin focusing on the really important stuff like policies that work for all the people - not just the super-rich minority, investment strategies, and above all democratic accountability (one of Corbyn's strongest beliefs).
Whether us Brits take this opportunity to clean up our political system, or hand the keys of power back to Lynton Crosby's band of Tory muck-slingers, well that's up to us isn't it?
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
On the same day that Theresa May announced the snap General Election that she repeatedly declared that she wouldn't be calling, the Crown Prosecution Service told Channel 4 News that they are considering cases against 30 Tories, including sitting Tory MPs and their electoral agents.
Electoral fraud
It's a shocking display of self-serving opportunism from Theresa May to put the entire country through the increased uncertainty of a General Election as an attempt to nullify the erosion of her parliamentary majority as numerous Tory MPs are taken to court over cheating their way to electoral victory in 2015.
What is more, when challenged by the veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner over the Tory electoral fraud investigations, Theresa May openly declared that she'll fully support the Tory fraud suspects to stand in her snap election, even if they're being criminally prosecuted for cheating their way to victory in 2015!
The Brexit clock is ticking
What makes the opportunistic timing of Theresa May's snap General Election even more shocking is the fact that it's only three weeks since she triggered Article 50 and set the clock ticking on the most complex and risky set of diplomatic negotiations the UK has ever faced.
At this absolutely crucial juncture where the UK needs its government to focus 100% on getting the best deal possible from the remaining 27 EU states, Theresa May has decided to make sure her ministers spend the next two months totally focused on fighting a General Election instead!
Appalling timing
Theresa May dithered around and fobbed the electorate off with meaningless "Brexit means Brexit" platitudes for 9 tedious months before finally triggering Article 50. If she wanted a stronger majority in order to force her kind of fanatically right-wing Brexit onto the nation, why on earth didn't she call a General Election before triggering Article 50 and setting the clock ticking?
Theresa May's belligerent and diplomatically inept threat-based "negotiating strategy" has only succeeded in unifying the 27 remaining EU states against her demands, and they're clearly going to spend the next couple of months working hard on their Brexit strategy to make sure Brexit does as little damage to the EU economy as possible.
Britain stands alone against the combined political power of 27 other nations, but instead of focusing on the enormity of the task at hand.
Self-serving opportunism
By diverting everyone's attention away from the vital Brexit negotiations and onto the snap election that she repeatedly said that she would never call, Theresa May has clearly and undeniably decided to put the party political interests of the Tory party above the interests of the nation as a whole.
How could anyone possibly conclude that Theresa May is not a self-serving opportunist and an outright liar to boot?
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
Theresa May lied through her teeth over and again that she wouldn't call a snap General Election, yet she's broken her word and done it.
Given this track record of lies it would take an immense amounty of gullibility to conclude that her stated reasons for breaking her word and calling a snap election are her actual reasons for breaking her word and calling a snap election.
The Crown Prosecution Service are currently considering 30 Tory electoral fraud cases, and the announcements are due in late May and early June. There is plenty of evidence from whistleblowers, the Tory party accounts (that they tried to withhold from the fraud investigations) and from their own social media accounts that they engaged in electoral fraud in a large number of marginal constituencies, so it would look like a total whitewash if there are no criminal prosecutions whatever.
The suspicion must be that Theresa May knows that she's on the verge of having her wafer thin House of Commons majority eroded away as several Tory MPs are charged with committing electoral fraud and taken to court, so she's hoping to get a snap General Election out of the way to shore up her majority before the fraud cases begin going to court, and before the social and economic devastation of her fanatically right-wing hard Brexit agenda kicks in.
One of the most extraordinary aspects of this snap decision is the fact that she's announced it within three weeks of triggering Article 50 and setting the clock ticking on the most complex and risky set of diplomatic negotiations since at least the end of the Second World War.
Just when the government should be fully concentrated on getting the best Brexit deal possible for the nation, the Tories have decided to put their own party political self-interest first by holding a snap General Election in order to make the threat of the Tory electoral fraud scandal go away.
There really couldn't be a stronger demonstration of Theresa May and the Tories putting narrow party political interests above the interests of the nation as a whole.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
