Clarke should be sacked

The crime, committed by a man, of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with him without their consent and against their will, esp. by the threat or use of violence against them

Dictionary definition

KENNETH CLARKE, the Justice Secretary, is being hounded from office by the raucous fraternity of Labour politicians and women’s groups, because of his insensitive treatment of the crime of rape. To the cry of ‘all rape is rape’, the beleaguered Justice Secretary had to trawl the studios in order to undo the calamity of his appearance on Radio 5 yesterday  .

            Trying clumsily to suggest there are differences to be made between different forms of rape, his language reflected his personality. I find Ken Clarke an attractive politician who cares little of what people think of him and prefers bluntness to the spin often used by his colleagues from all parts of the House.

            Rape is second only to murder in the hierarchy of criminal behaviour, and those found guilty should be treated without any consideration for parole and serve the full sentence allotted by the law and unleashed by the judge.

             There should be no plea bargaining which would free the rapist prematurely to reoffend and reoffend again.

            Both Ken Clarke and David Cameron have used the argument that only 6% of men who are accused of rape are ever prosecuted, and if the sentencing were more liberal, then more rapists would be convicted because they would enter a plea of guilty long before the case comes to court, thus saving the victim of the long drawn out procedure of awaiting a trial, as well as the trauma of appearing to give evidence.

            The Justice Secretary’s priority since holding office has been to find ways of reducing the prison population, and by doing so to save the taxpayer and the government many millions of pounds. Ken Clarke is a liberal Tory to whom reform of the criminal justice system, along what would be commonly described as ‘progressive’ lines, would come easily; and if in doing his duty he upsets, shall we say, those who favour the more traditional approach to criminality, then Ken cares little for such opponents.

            But he picked the wrong crime to liberalise. Rape leaves the progressives free of any kind of mercy for the rapist. When it comes to this particular crime the liberal left display all the instincts of the ‘hang ‘em and flog ’em’ brigade they would ordinarily despise.

FROM WHAT I HAVE read, it appears that Ken Clarke sought to make a distinction between a 15 year-old girl giving herself freely to an older man, and the case of a woman being violently raped.

            While the first example may be defined legally as rape (I am no lawyer), the dictionary definition  says that force being used against the will of the victim is the true definition of rape. This does not mean that the older man who has been invited into  intercourse by a girl below the age of consent should not be punished. Indeed he should be, for he would be well aware of the law, and he should be held as accountable as anyone else who breaks any law.

            But could what he was invited to do by this young girl meet any of the dictionaries definition of rape? This, I think, is the only point Ken Clarke was (rather clumsily) trying to make. The Justice Secretary is not, as the feminist sisterhood has sought brand him, a misogynist. He was just living to type.

WHY I THINK Ken Clarke should be given the red card, has little to do with this latest Coalition farce. My problem with Ken is his ideological view of criminal justice that seems to fit so easily into the dire economic condition of the country. For such a state of affairs allows the justice department, under the leadership of its liberal enforcer, to go against the grain of popular opinion when it comes to law and order. Ken Clarke uses the economic argument to oversee the diminution of sentencing in order to free up our overcrowded prisons. He seeks to ease prison overcrowding by reducing the tariff  that the judges decree to be necessary on all forms of crime.

            Is it not true that even before Ken gets started we know that as things now stand and  stood throughout the last government’s period in office, was for any sentence given by a judge to be reduced by the simple calculation of halving it. It is this state of affairs that goes against the grain of public opinion (or, as the likes of Ken Clarke would prefer – the grain of ‘populism’).

            If Ken had confined his liberal approach toward crime to all the forms but with the exception of rape, he would today be supported by all of those he finds himself in conflict with – the very liberals who like himself  now form the modern British establishment

KEN CLARKE SHOULD GO. He should do so because his priority seems to be financial rather than, as it should be, applying the characteristics of honesty, fairness and integrity, which are by definition the requirements of justice, especially to the victims of crime.

            Under our criminal justice system, the victim of a crime can become the victim of the justice system itself, especially when that system is overseen by the likes of Ken Clarke.

            Our prisons are indeed overcrowded and have been for the last ten years; during which time not a single extra prison has been built to mop up the overflow from overcrowding in other prisons. Rather, it has been the liberal politician’s view that reduced sentencing leads to reduced numbers – but it also leads to injustice for the victims of crime.

            Rather than build more prisons, our politicians punish the victims of crime by halving the sentences of the criminals that caused their pain in the first place. Even a murderer given 15 years can expect to be released back into the community in seven years providing he behaves himself.

            The building of new prisons are expensive, running into billions of pounds. Our politicians may think the oversees aid budget is worth it, but when it comes to the people’s safety as well as their defence, then that money would be better used on a division between prison building and defence.

            Our justice system is a disgrace and the people to whom it is supposed to support and protect have little confidence in its existence. I can assure Ken Clarke that every piece of his rhetoric on crime and the criminal that seeks to reassure the community, is treated with the utmost cynicism. It is treated as such because of the empirical experience of the communities to which such banalities are aimed.

KENNNETH CLARKE SHOULD GO. He should do so because his prescriptions for the justice system are liberal and as such will fall fowl of what the likes of Ken Clarke would dismiss as ‘populism’ - meaning  of course the majority of the British people.

            This populism that the liberal fraternity are so comfortable in despising, comprises areas of the country where the liberal brotherhood has little place. All over this island nation of ours, people have personal experiences of crime that they feel go ignored by the police: but then, even when a serious crime is brought to trial, we are left with a sentencing policy that is guaranteed to diminish over time until the guilty party is released long before their time is up.

            The British justice system could have at one time counted upon the Conservative Party to put it once more on the right track. But sadly, like the Labour Party, this once great entity has been diminished because of  the lack of faith of its leadership in the conservative values that helped bring this country to its fulfilment .

            Ken Clarke is a creature of the European Union(EU), and as such his ambition is for a Federal States of Europe. His present position on the justice system falls within the charter of the EU. For this is Ken’s real focus for  the law of these islands: to fully integrate its law into European law.