Ian84

But that argument can be made for all sorts of things. Personally I don't think £8m (or £12m as Jakee's post seems to suggest) is worth the snub, or indeed the very real security risk. Can you imagine the embarrassment for the country if he were injured or killed on our watch? You should also remember that he holds significant sway over Catholics in the UK, who make up a fairly sizeable proportion of the population. That in itself makes him a diplomat of some significance.

I won't dispute that there are pressing demands on public funds. However, as a visiting head of state (which is what I believe he is treated as), should he not receive the same security provision as any other head of state? There is a pretty good track record of attempts on his and other Popes' lives so I think such a provision is prudent. I think we provide security to plenty of more dubious leaders so picking on the Pope because of his role as the head of the Catholic Church seems a little vindictive. I say all this as an atheist by the way.

In the case of a commercial dispute; yes. The court will simply look at the contract and tell the parties that they agreed that a third party's decision would bind them, therefore they are bound. It’s pretty straight forward contract law. In other cases, the only difficulty in obtaining an "appeal" against the decision of an extra-judicial body stems from the individual's willingness to go to court, which may be affected by community pressure, intimidation etc.

I think the title of this thread is a bit misleading. Sharia courts are not, by any measure, conquering the UK. They are one of many extra-judicial bodies whose decisions are binding only to the extent that the parties to such decisions have agreed to be bound by them. This is generally the case where two Islamic businessmen, or two Jewish businessmen etc, decide that in the event of dispute a final decision will be made by the local Imam or Rabbi. Such decision making bodies can also be non-religious, for example where parties to a contract agree that the decision of some third party expert will be binding on them. In the case of family law, such extra-judicial decisions are only binding to the extent that those subject to them volunteer to be bound, or can be coerced into forgoing their right to seek a decision in the law courts. This raises a legitimate concern; the coercion of women and other vulnerable members of certain communities to accept unofficial decisions as being final. This is not unique to Muslim communities though. There are plenty of vulnerable elderly people who are coerced by unscrupulous relatives to deal with their property in certain ways, or vulnerable wives who are intimidated into accepting their husbands’ decisions without recourse to the courts which would, if made aware of their plight, enforce their rights against those who seek to oppress them. To take away the rights of people to conduct their affairs according to their faith would, in my opinion be a disproportionate (and tyrannical) response to the admittedly oppressive practices that take place in certain communities (as well as in private throughout society). It would also lead to a situation where the courts MUST take jurisdiction over every kind of dispute, which would just be impractical.

I suspect that he'll be "on probation" for a while. If he screws it up I don't think that Cameron will waste much time before replacing him with Ken Clarke. I think they would have already done so but for the fact that it would look pretty bad this close to the election. People keep banging on about how trustworthy Vince Cable is but he was demolished in the Chancellors' debate. For anyone who thinks that he was the only person who predicted the recession, I should also point out that Vince Cable has predicted 17 out of the last 2 recessions.

I'm voting Conservative. I agree with most of their policies but more significantly, their attitude is more about personal responsibility, which is the polar opposite of what the Lib Dems and Labour are offering. I honestly can't stand the Lib Dems. They're presenting themselves as something new and insist that they want to clean up politics, but when you scrutinise them you realise it's all a fiction. This is a party that refused to give back donations received from a convicted fraudster, whose victims have lost everything. Nick Clegg maxed out his expenses on garden furniture, international phone calls and cake tins. New politics my arse. They say they want "fairness". But their idea of fair is to impose an inflexible tax on homes worth £2m. How is that fair? A pensioner living in a 3 bedroom flat in London would have to pay the "mansion tax" while a person living in an ACTUAL MANSION somewhere more remote would not. This is a tax that is geographically biased. Fairness has nothing to do with it, but populist measuress that are percieved as punishing the wealthy are vote winners these days.

I understood that. I was just making a general observation on how I would like to see the law altered here in the UK.

I was thinking this exact thing but didn't comment since I have no idea how we could achieve it in practice. What if the police had caught the guys, put them in jail and a few years later when they're released, the father tracks them down and kills them for fear of another attack? The immediacy of the threat seems to be the distinguishing factor between self defence and vigilantism and it appears to me that it's the best we can do. In cases like this one I think that it would make sense to take account of peoples' legitimate fear when considering the degree of their culpability, but it shouldn't get them off the hook completely. I thought that the father in this case did go too far, but I understood why he had done so and would have preferred his sentence to be suspended.

I'd support a legal presumption of intent to harm on behalf intruders in the home. A person shouldn't have to wait for an intruder to make the first move in order to justify using force, particularly where that person has a family in the house.

Ok, near the bottom of the story they mention a guy who was jailed for using a cricket bat on intruders who had tied up his family. Is that true? The cricket bat thing was quite recent. The father of the family managed to escape and the intruders ran for it. The father followed them down the street and beat one of them over the head with the bat causing brain damage. It was found that his actions went beyond self defense since they were quite obviously fleeing and were no longer in the house. That said, I can't say I have much sympathy for the brain damaged perp.

I only got as far as the second paragraph. After the reference to the "Messiah" I couldn't take the article seriously, even if it may have contained a valid point.

I don't think we should be concerned about whether a line exists between free speech and hate. If someone hates something or someone else they should be able to express that view. The line that needs to be drawn is between speech and threats or incitement to violence/intimidation. Those things are already criminal offences. Trying to censor political speech, however unpleasant, is simply thought policing and is at odds with the very freedom that we are trying to protect.

Details of her secretive trips to Argentina are about to be revealed?

I've never waited longer than 45 minutes. For routine dental appointments you book in advanvce. If it is an emergency you will be seen immediately. You can always go private and pay for treatment yourself if you want to. People pull their own teeth? Maybe if they have underlying psychological issues. Otherwise they're just idiots.

The quality of politicians in this country has suffered significantly since we started paying them and allowing every populist numbskull to have a say. *19th century elitism shout*