ץ The BBC Poll that Shooting Burglars Won; Stephen Pound, M.P. The notoriously leftwing BBC 4 invited listeners to submit proposals for bills, and Stephen Pound, a Labor M.P., said he would actually introduce whichever one won the most votes. What won, to his outspoken dismay, was a bill that would allow homeowners to shoot burglars. Here's the story from BBC Radio 4:
...
On Christmas Eve a panel chose a shortlist of five ideas. Their
decision was based largely on popularity but they also threw out ideas
which were patently unreasonable - the beheading of people caught towing
caravans during daylight hours, for example.
...
We had a total of 26,007 votes.
The BBC says of Mr
Pound,
There were 17,829 telephone votes,
8160 secure email votes and the rest were other emails and faxes.
* 1st place:
Law 5: The proposal to authorise homeowners to
use any means to defend their home from intruders:
37% of the
vote.
* 2nd place:
Law 3: A Bill to allow the use of
all organs for transplant after death unless the individual has "opted
out" and recorded that opt out on an organ transplant register :
30% of the vote.
* 3rd place:
Law 1: A Bill to
ban smoking in all workplaces, to include bars and restaurants:
20% of the vote.
4th place:
Law 2: Double-headed
Bill which would have limited the number of terms a Prime Minister can
serve to two and would have made voting in General Elections compulsory
for all of voting age, subject to the provision of a "No Vote" box on
the ballot paper:
9% of the vote.
5th place:
Law 4: Ban all Christmas advertising and the erection of municipal
street decorations before 1st December :
5% of the vote.
OVERALL BREAKDOWN:
TELEPHONE VOTES
LAW 1:
18%
LAW 2: 8%
LAW 3: 28%
LAW 4: 4%
LAW 5: 42%
SECURE EMAIL VOTES
LAW 1: 25%
LAW 2: 10%
LAW 3:
35%
LAW 4: 5%
LAW 5: 25%
History of the
Vote
Stephen Pound MP agreed to put forward whichever
idea eventually won the final vote.
What the Papers Said
The Times,
Simon Jenkins;
"Mr Pound was clearly embarrassed by having
undertaken to act as the corporation's stooge. He might have hoped to
become a hero of the airwaves by championing a bill to save rhinos or
uphold motherhood. Instead he must now sponsor legislation for what he
predicts would be the mass slaughter of 16-year-olds with pump-action
shotguns. That is what happens, Mr Pound, when you sell your soul to the
media"
Before showing his support for the programme...
"The show reminds me of the old Daily Mirror at its best. By that I
mean unmissable..." He added: "There is a virtue in the listeners' law
after all . I am sure that the B.B.C would declare this as no more than
their original intention. A listeners' law is better than no law at all.
Where indeed would we be without the B.B.C?"
The
Independent, Vincent Graff;
Mr Pound told the Independent
"we are going to have to re-evaluate the listenership of Radio 4. I
would have expected this result if there had been a poll in the Sun."
His serious concerns include homelessness, a subject on which he worked
before his election, and Europe, for which he is an enthusiast.
A self-mocking bruiser who takes pride in being rough around the edges,
he caused a stir in the 2001 campaign when in a case of mistaken
identity he accused a voter of being a "middle-class whinger".
Mark Steyn has
great fun with this story in
The Telegraph.
That would be Dick Tuck, a long-ago California state senate candidate,
in an unusually pithy concession speech. It's an amusing remark as
applied to the electorate's rejection of oneself. It's not quite so
funny when applied, by Mr Pound, to people impertinent enough to bring
up a topic that you and the rest of the governing class have decided is
beyond debate. As used by Mr Tuck, it reflects a rough'n'tumble
vernacular politics; as used by Mr Pound, it comes out closer to "Let
'em eat cake".
So, reasonably enough, Today listeners voted for the only proposal they
knew for certain the governing elite will never go for. Why, the
People's Champion himself, Stephen Pound, dismissed it as a "ludicrous,
brutal, unworkable blood-stained piece of legislation. I can't remember
who it was who said, `The people have spoken, the bastards'."
So we see that even self-consciously rough-edged British M.P.'s are snobs who look down
on constituents who read The Sun or who worry more about burglars than about homeless
people. An American politician, even Howard Dean, wouldn't call 37%+ of the voters
"bastards", not to mention calling them brutal and ludicrous. What is wrong with the
British system of government?
Well, perhaps I spoke too soon. Al Sharpton just might talk like that, or any Congressman with a very safe seat. I can't recall any instances just now, but perhaps I will later.
The story inspired me to take a look at The Sun, which is wonderfully written. Read Richard Littlejohn on the police:
Not enough bobbies on the beat; too few police stations; a complete indifference to
protecting private property; an obsession with bullying motorists; a tendency to put the
rights of criminals before victims.
Only yesterday we learned of a chemist saying he was threatened with prosecution under
the Data Protection Act for having the audacity to invite the Old Bill to nick a thug
who beat him up in his shop.
That�s another one for the list.
By now you�ve probably filled one side of your sheet of paper without blinking.
How many of you have written down "Not Enough Homosexuals"?
I thought not.
...
In this bold spirit, every single police officer in Britain is to be required to declare
his or her sexual orientation.
The aim is to ensure that at least one in ten recruits is gay, lesbian or bisexual.
Why?
What can possibly justify this gross intrusion into privacy?
And why should it only apply to gays, lesbians and bisexuals?
What about foot fetishists, golden shower merchants, rubber enthusiasts, gerbil fanciers
and French tickler fanatics?
Don�t they get a look in?
Imagine the interview at Hendon. Name? Age? Sexual preference?
Just a little light spanking, Sergeant.
And why exactly do you want to join the police service?
The handcuffs, Sarge. Oh, and the truncheon.
How will they know whether or not you�re telling the truth?
Are we to see people pretending to be gay as a ruse to get on the fast track to Special
Branch?
...
Commander Brian Paddick, the man who turned Brixton into an open-air drugs den, has
milked his homosexuality for all it�s worth in his relentless assault on the greasy
pole.
Inspector Brian Cahill, 32-year-old chairman of the Gay Police Association, has been
awarded the MBE.
Good luck to him, but what marks him out from hundreds of other inspectors other than
his predilection for same-sex sex?
Jack Regan never got a gong for knocking off the barmaid in The Feathers.
Put your trousers on, you�re due at the Palace.
...
And what if it turns out that a third, or even half, of police officers already ride in
the other patrol car?
Will some of them be forced to resign because they are over-represented?
I�ve always assumed all policewomen are lesbians anyway, unless provided with
incontrovertible proof to the contrary.
TRY this simple test. Get yourself a piece of paper and write down what�s wrong with the
police.
Now I know where Derbyshire and Steyn get their style! And I wonder--- is the
conventional snobbery that papers like The Sun are less accurate and worse written than
papers like The New York Times just a fraud perpetuated by the New York Times and others
in its market niche? In the Clinton years we saw the newspapers of the lower classes
breaking important stories, and The New York Times itself is notoriously inaccurate. It
is a special case, of course, but is Newsday any less high quality a paper than, say,
The Washington Post?
[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/04.01.09b.htm . erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]
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