Bob's Off but I Missed it

Bob Spink (Castle Point) featured in February's blog relating to Member's expenses. Only this week I realised Bob had become the third Conservative to lose the party whip after Derek Conway and Andrew Pelling.
Degsy Conway, you will recall, employed nearly his entire family in his Parliamentary office although quite what they did to earn the renumeration is not altogether clear. Derek is the only MP ever to resign to spend less time with his family. Andrew Pelling was "resigned" from the whip following a fracas with his wife last year, although charges of assault were dropped.
The reasons for Bob's departure are harder to discern. He raised the issue as a point of order during the budget debate and referred to "criminal and other irregularities" in his constituency.
Bob has been fighting his association who wish to de-select him and accusations about his private life abound. Say what you like about Bob Spink (and people do, often) he's certainly not idle, the day he took the hemlock, he laid 29 Parliamentary Questions. I confess I missed the entire episode as I was, that week, consumed by events at the Cheltenham Festival.
I've seen Bob Spink at work in the Commons and he comes across as someone from the Norman Tebbit school of tolerance and fraternity. In 2005 one of his election campaign leaflets included the following question to our former PM on asylum seekers, "What part of 'send them back' don't you understand Mr Blair?"
Anyone might now put the question, "What part of 'you're sacked' don't you understand, Mr Spink?"

Smoke Signals

James Brokenshire (Hornchurch) asked Drugs Minister Vernon Coaker this week how many trafficked children had been found to be working in cannabis factories. An important point - there is plenty of evidence to show there has been a huge shift in recent years from imported hashish from Morroco to home-cultivated cannabis. Vietnamese gangs have been behind a lot of it like they were in Canada. Vernon raised this point himself during the last Home Office questions in February hinting it was further reason for the Government to re-classify cannabis back to class B. And the answer to the question on trafficked children, um, just one actually.

Every Home Secretary seems to want to carry out their own cannabis review. The latest is at the PM's request. Announced in July the Government is likely to (eventually) make its decision public in early May after the disastrous local elections. The decision to return to Class B will be contrary to medical evidence and scientific advice provided by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The role of this independant body will, in the event, be totally undermined.

Cannabis will then be classed with amphetamines as a drug of equivalent harm. Many young people may like a smoke but would not dream of putting speed up their noses. The credibility of drug education messages will be lost at a stroke.

But the Government will say they will be sending out a strong signal about drug use. Except cannabis use has been in decline for 10 years. The police say they need the law strengthened to be able to tackle cannabis growers. Except the penalties for cultivation for Class C and B drugs are identical. The priority given to drug dealing is an operational matter for each force so the classification of the drug is irrelevant.

There is no issue today which better shows up Labour in a classic third term mode. They are pandering blindly to the popular issues but blundering about like some drunken hippo and making matters a whole lot worse. The fact that the Tories support them in this spliff enterprise should tell them something.

I swear it, by my beard

John Reid was known as someone not aversed to swearing at officials. Perhaps I was just lucky but whenever I met him he was extremely personable and polite. Maybe he liked my face, but he used to just sit in his big chair, smiling and sipping his diet coke.
But one colleague faced the full wrath of Reid over some criminal justice ballsup involving sex offenders. The confrontation inspired a general discussion in the local a few days later about swearing Ministers. After more than a couple of pints we had got it down to the top three which Dr Reid had just snuck into.
Riding high at number two was Charlie 'the Dome' Falconer, whose description of colleagues and senior officials would have shamed a Clydebank docker. But out on his own was Frank '%&*!' Dobson (pictured). It's hard to refer to any of the anecdotes without infringing both libel and obscenity laws but Department of Health officials still laugh nervously at the mention of his name.
Tony Blair knackered Dobbo's career, you will recall, by forcing him to stand as Labour candidate against Ken Livingstone for London Mayor in 2000 when Ken went independent. He knew, we all knew, he was on a loser and eventually came third behind Stephen 'Nobber' Norris. Faced with a Dobbo and a Nobber no wonder Londoners voted for Ken.
I only spoke to Frank once. It was a training seminar about the work of select committees and he was guest speaker. When Labour was in Opposition, a friend used to call him Shadow Minister for Calling-for-Public-Inquiries. I resolved to ask FD a question including the words 'public inquiry.' It was hardly a forest of hands at the plenary and soon enough I was chosen to put a question to the Father Christmas lookalike. I croaked, "I was wondering Mr Dobson, what happens if the work programme of a select committee co-incides with that of an ongoing PUBLIC INQUIRY, whether there is any particular protocol followed."
Frank breathed in, pointed his Uncle Albert beard at me, then pausing for a moment uttered, almost with relief, the words, "I haven't the faintest idea."

Respect the Dead

Chris Mole (pictured) member for Ipswich, raised a question on 27 February with the PM about the DNA database. The issue was raised in the wake of the successful prosecution last month of Steven Wright for killing five women in Ipswich. In reply, Gordon Brown referred "the murder of these prostitutes." On reflection Gordon may have wished to re-phrase that. They were five young women who got involved in drugs and resorted to selling sex to fund their addiction. They paid the ultimate price for their risky lives when one of their clients turned into a vicious killer.

To label these murdered women as simply 'prostitutes' demeans them and insults their grieving families.

The question itself called for "a proportionate and effective database of DNA [to be] sustained, not just one that records people convicted for violent and sexual offences?" Gordon reeled off the impressive figures of 450 murders and 640 rapes solved by DNA profiling last year.

But there was a problem with the question. The DNA database does not include any profiles for thousands of known sex offenders - it only includes details of sex offenders after 2004. All those on the sex offender's register between the year it was established 1997 and 2004 are not captured. So had Steven Wright been on that list for a sexual offence he would not have been caught by DNA testing. The Government were going to address this loophole in 2005 but they ran out of Parliamentary time before the election. There are some provisions in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill which would allow them to make the necesary change - but there is no indication yet they see this as a priority.