Life should mean life...for Sophie's memory

Two morons who kicked a young girl to death as she tried to protect her boyfriend have been jailed for life.

Well, I say life: Brendan Harris, 15, and Ryan Herbert, 16, have been told that they must serve a minimum of 18 years and 16 years respectively for the brutal murder of Sophie Lancaster, 20, in Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Lancashire, in the summer of 2007.

So when they get out of prison they could be as young as 33 and 32 - still in the prime of their lives.

Sophie won't get the chance to be a mother or live a happy life.

Isn't the least her memory deserves that these thugs spend the rest of their miserable, useless lives behind bars?

Empty the bins, damn you!

The world has officially gone mad - or at least this country has.

A father-of-three has been fined £225 because his wheelie bin was overflowing - not rubbish strewn on the floor but overflowing.

Council officials took pictures and two turned up on his doorstep wearing stab vests, read Gareth Corkhill his rights and then issued him with an on-the-spot fine of £110.

Taken to court, he was ordered in absentia to pay the fine plus hit with costs of £100 and a £15 surcharge.

Mr Corkhill said: "I could not believe I had been fined for putting rubbish in a bin. I tell my kids not to throw rubbish away and always use a bin."

Whitehaven magistrates convicted Mr Corkhill in his absence of overfilling a receptacle used for waste.

In a statement the council said: "Copeland Borough Council will continue to crack down on the problem of overflowing bins, which cause problems for local residents and in the battle to reduce waste."

Here's a radical solution: why don't they crack down on overflowing bins by emptying them weekly instead of fortnightly?

And why does everyone have to pay a £15 surcharge? Well, I say everyone - if you are sent to prison you don't have to pay it. The surcharge is supposed to go into a fund to help victims of crime - muggings and the like. But if you are convicted of, for example, "overfilling a receptacle used for waste" why should you have to pay towards a mugger's victim when the mugger himself doesn't have to pay if he is, rightly, sent to prison.

More traffic on the roads...

The one thing that you need to remember about the government's motoring policy is that it does not work.

Speed cameras are not there to save lives - they are there to raise revenue.

Now Transport for London has admitted that the congestion charge has not cut traffic.

Transport for London said the freed road space created by the 21 per cent drop in traffic had been taken up by other road users.

It is the first time TfL has publicly admitted to such a sharp rise in congestion in central London.

Gordon joins the sinking ship... again

The Evening Standard reports today that Boris Johnson's lead over his mayoral rival has been cut by half.

It also says that Gordon Brown- rated the worst Prime Minister since the 1930s - is campaigning alongside Labour mayor Ken Livingstone - that should put a few more votes Boris's way.

The abuse of power

As Richard Littlejohn has said on more than one occasion, the more powers you give to the police, government or local authorities the more they will abuse them.

A case in point is Poole Council in Dorset who used laws designed to track terrorists to see if a family were really living in a school's catchment area.

The council admitted using powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) on six occasions in total.

James Welch, legal director for Liberty, said, "It's one thing to use covert surveillance in operations investigating terrorism and other serious crimes, but it has come to a pretty pass when this kind of intrusive activity is used to police school catchment areas.

"This is a ridiculously disproportionate use of RIPA and will undermine public trust in necessary and lawful surveillance."

Tim Martin, the head of legal and democratic services ("democratic services"? eh?) at Poole Borough Council, said, "The council is committed to investigating the small minority of people who attempt to break the law and affect the quality of life for the majority of law-abiding residents in Poole."

Where do they find these people?* He will go far.

The child in question is THREE-YEARS-OLD.

Martin added, "An investigation may actually satisfy the council that the application is valid, as happened in this case."

So, in other words it was a waste of public money.

* I know, I know - the jobs pages of The Guardian.

Be afraid...investigators are out there

A couple from Weston-super-Mare has been caught claiming child benefit for offspring they never had.

After the case Sarah Bamford, of HM Revenue & Customs, said: "This case is the result of many months of intense and thorough work by a dedicated team of tax credit investigation officers."

Many months? The couple lived in a one-room property in the town yet claimed that they had 16 children.

How long does it take HMRC to investigate that it is highly unlikely that anyone would have 16 children, let alone that they would all live in the same room?

Hillary says it all....

Great quote from Hillary Clinton when asked why she should be the next president:

"I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."

It's only a game....

There is a new computer game being launched next month in which teams in camouflage try to kill teams wearing arab headdresses.

The Sun's Anila Baig states that the game is "racist and completely unacceptable, especially in this climate of fear...It insults all Muslims."

Who instigated this "climate of fear"?

Stop the fiddling...

Finally, MPs' expenses have been published.

I understand the need for a second home for honourable members who live, say, more than 50 miles from Westminster.

However, wouldn't a small flat or semi do? David Cameron has a sprawling home worth £750,000 in his Witney constituency - not to mention a large house in Notting Hill.

And why are we paying for MPs' television licences? If I have televisions in two homes, then I have to pay for two licences - why was Tony Blair allowed to claim for his second set?

Political prats

Is this anyway for senior Government ministers to behave?


I can't imagine Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home or even John Profumo behaving in such a pathetic way.

One rule for Muslims and none for the rest of us...

Yesterday the brilliant Richard Littlejohn echoed Ben Elton's statement that the BBC is scared of Muslims and said that there was one law for Muslims in this country and one for the rest of us.

If ever that argument has been proved true, it is the case of a Muslim curry house owner who has been spared a driving ban (he was doing 64mph in a 30mph zone on 21 August 2007) so that he can visit his two wives.

Mohammed Anwar's lawyer told a Scottish court he has one wife in Motherwell and another in Glasgow and sleeps with them on alternate nights. He also needed his driving licence to run his restaurant in Falkirk, Stirlingshire.

Ian Blair should stick to his word

Some time ago Metropolitan Police Force commissioner Sir Ian Blair called for middle-class drug users to be targeted.

There is a drugs problem in this country but for the most part that problem is not exacerbated by middle-class drug users. It isn't middle class drug users who mug or burgle to fund their habit because they can usually afford the price of cocaine. It is the working-class junkies who steal to pay for their drugs who cause misery.

Today the inquest of actress Natasha Collins heard that she died in a scalding hot bath after she and fiancé Mark Speight "partied" at home on drugs and alcohol.

Miss Collins, 31, had 60 per cent burns to her body including her face and tongue and appeared to have died in the bath with the hot tap on after taking almost five times the lethal level of cocaine. She Collins also had a 0.4in diameter hole in the septum of her nose - something pathologist Professor Sebastian Lucas said was associated with cocaine use.

Her body was found the following day, 3 January 2008, by her fiancé. He told police that they had been "partying" on their own and had taken cocaine and sleeping pills as well as drinking wine and vodka.

Speight was initially arrested on suspicion of murder and supplying Class A drugs, but Scotland Yard later said he would not face any charges over the death.

If Sir Ian Blair is serious about targeting middle-class drug users, why has Speight not been arrested and charged with possession of cocaine. If his fiancée had five times the lethal level in her body then they obviously had more than a "personal use" quantity of the drug in their home.

Gay books have no place in junior schools

Muslim parents' protests have resulted in two books about gay relationships being withdrawn from Easton Primary School and Bannerman Road Community School, both in Bristol.

Around 40 parents are said to have gathered at Easton to speak to staff and another 50 at Bannerman Road.

Farooq Siddique, the community development officer for the Bristol Muslim Cultural Society and a governor at Bannerman Road, said: "In Islam homosexual relationships are not acceptable, as they are not in Christianity and many other religions."

Ben Summerskills of gay rights group Stonewall said: "The small number of parents who make a fuss will cause children to think there is something wrong."

Actually, they won't because despite what a number of "gay rights" campaigners think, children are not obsessed with sex in junior schools.

Feel safe now - Dirty Harry's on the beat...

Remember a few years ago when Michael Heseltine wore the camouflage jacket?

The latest politician to get dolled up is "Labour's Deputy Leader and Chair Harriet Harman MP". Have you seen the picture of Harman wearing a kevlar stab vest when she toured, er, her own Camberwell and Peckham constituency? It's below and also on her website.

She has attempted to defend herself saying that it was like wearing a white hairnet at a meat factory, or a hard hat at a building site.

As John Humphrys pointed out, "You wear a hard hat on a building site because... there is the danger that something might drop on your head. You don't need to wear a bullet-proof vest on the streets of London, do you?"

To which Harman replied, "No of course you don't. It was just a courtesy, there was no security issue whatsoever, it was almost like wearing the kit when you go out with the team."

So why wasn't she wearing a helmet? If the answer is because she is not in the Job one might say that she is not a policewoman but she is still wearing a stab vest with the Metropolitan Police force logo on it.

What is it with politicians and the dressing up box? Remember Blair and Cherie donning the Nehru suit and the sari when they went to India? I don't recall Indian politicians dressing up like pearly kings and queens when they visit the East End or wearing a bowler hat when they go to the City.


UPDATE: "Dirty Harry" Harman said she wore the vest as a "courtesy" to the police. Is she saying that they would have been offended had she refused? She added that it was the same as wearing "an Indian outfit going to meet Indian constituents". Have you ever heard such patronising twaddle? Why on earth would you wear an Indian outfit to visit an Indian constituent? Does she don a shell suit to meet chav constituents? Harman is an embarrassment to her party and the country.