Questions of truth and legality.

I heard Priti Patel on the television news last night going on about how child poverty was not the government’s fault. Apparently local councils take a lot of wrong decisions but the problem has nothing to do with the government, we can’t blame the Tories! Not even after years of their austerity measures and cuts and anything else the evil lefties might lay at their door? Anyway, it seems that a clip of her interview went viral. Only to be expected really. But then I heard that the BBC shut it down.

And I thought of this that a friend of mine posted on social media:-

“Is this really where we’re at? BBC execs: ‘We can’t call the Prime Minister a liar because people might think the Prime Minister’s a liar?”
The writer had come across an extract from a document which said, “I have talked to senior BBC executives and they tell me they personally think it is wrong to expose lies told by a British prime minister as it undermines trust in British politics.”

Whether such a document actually exists but the sentiment does rather suggest that the media are taking decisions on our behalf! Interesting! That increases my confidence in the media no end!

Rather like whoever it was that decided that Andrew Windsor should not be immediately questioned by the police, or whoever, but should do an interview on prime time television instead. And we all know how well that worked! Since then other sorts of accusations have come out against the poor beleaguered prince.

 “Prince Andrew has been accused of using the N-word in a conversation with a senior political aide, adding to the royal’s woes after his BBC Newsnight interview regarding his friendship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The claim was made by Rohan Silva, a former aide to David Cameron, who met the prince at Buckingham Palace in 2012. Silva asked the Queen’s son whether the government department responsible for trade “could be doing a better job”, according to the Evening Standard.
 He claims the prince responded: “Well, if you’ll pardon the expression, that really is the [N-word] in the woodpile.” Buckingham Palace sources have categorically denied the claim.
The same phrase was used by Conservative MP Anne Marie Morris in 2017, prompting the party to suspend her for several months.”

In the case of Prince Andrew it goes back to 2012. The poor chap had probably used that expression as a matter of thoughtless course. I know people who did. And it’s one of a host of expressions which are no longer socially, let alone politically, acceptable. Think of the reduced “gollies” in Enid Blyton’s stories, not to mention how much criticism that writer has come in for. Personally, as a small child I really enjoyed her books. There you go.

Anyway, Andrew has now stepped down from his royal duties. Quite what they were I have no idea but now he has none.

Is there something similar we can do with certain politicians? Oh, yes, it’s called voting! Lets see what happens in a few weeks time.

Here’s another thing: ticket sales. Whenever you go to a pop concert there are people outside selling last minutes tickets, or indeed asking if anyone has tickets to sell. Now it seems that there has been a trial in Leeds of two men who used multiple identities and computer bots to buy £4m-worth of tickets, selling them on secondary ticketing websites such as Viagogo for £10.8m. And the jury at the fraud trial has been told that there is ‘Nothing illegal about reselling tickets'.

 Ben Douglas-Jones QC, defending Hunter, said: “Some people may think the secondary ticket websites like Seatwave, StubHub, GetMeIn and Viagogo and sellers are parasitic. “Others may think the market functions because it puts people who own a commodity that they are willing to sell together with others who wish to purchase it at an agreed price.”

Maybe the judge has never tried to buy concert tickets and found that within minutes of them going on sale they are sold out!

It’s a funny old world!