political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Axe Killer Hirst Gets Creamed by Andrew Neil
What a horrible few minutes of television. This is axe killer John Hirst being taken to task by Andrew Neil on the issue of prisoner votes. Hirst showed himself up for what he is. I refused to have him on my LBC programme yesterday and I am glad I did.
It is merely a symptom of the existential nihilism that is endemic at the BBC that such an egregious example of humanity be allowed airtime.
The answer is, and this is the only answer, since the Government refuse to face them down, is to not have a Television and thus, legitimately not need to pay the BBC licence fee.
If you watch television, and have a licence, you are part of the problem, not the solution.
The BBC's error here was not airing the subject but in having Mr Hirst to present the case. There is a perfectly respectable case for prisoners to have the vote - but this case is hardly furthered by this individual. Andrew Neil handled him very well.
Whilst John Hirst maybe not your ideal house guest at least he has succeeded in keeping his word to get prisoners the vote. Unlike a certain leader of the coalition who has once again broken his word on giving us a referendum if the EU were to change the Lisbon Treaty.
When/if the BBC gets flushed away, make sure Neil gets looked after. One of the few BBC bods who thinks for himself.
I'm glad that man was given airtime, he did his cause zero favours whatsoever. Its easy to romanticize "prisoners" from a distance, not so when they are in your face like this, completely without shame or remorse or common sense.
I am not interested in who hands me back my stolen property. He held the State to account (unlike the army of publicly funded millionaire human rights lawyers out there) and the State held him to account for his crimes.
He did the crime and has done the time. You can either jail him for 25 years and put him on a lifetime licence to die poor and alone or you can hang him. Not both, as most here wish to do.
Being a woolly liberal, I'm pro-votes for prisoners, but the cause (such as it is) needs to find a more coherent spokesman than this aggressive, unpleasant individual. I never used to be a fan of Brillo, back in his Rupe apparatchik days, but he's turned into a thoroughly good hack since then. My respect for him grows daily.
Are there any human rights lawyers out there who can explain to me something?
Hirst says that it is your 'human right to vote'. Now, I can accept that we have universal human rights, but dont you lose certain rights when you are in prison (like liberty?). Therefore, isnt voting just another right you might legitimately/legally lose when being in prison?
For once, can our so called leaders do the right thing and tell Hirst and the ECHR to go and f@ck themselves. No votes for criminals and no compensation either. It may not win them friends in Strasbourg but it will win them plenty in the UK who they are supposed to represent.
Funny that the notorious sex tourist/employer of David Irving Andrew Neil can find can find a moral standpoint when it suits him. Whilst Hirst may have committed crimes in the past - and whatever you think about the issue at hand - Neil conducted himself terribly there.
Notorious sex tourist/employer of David Irving finds morals when it suits. Whatever we think of Hirst or the issue, Neil conducted himself like a sub-Paxman prat.
while hirst was mauled, i note andrew neil does have a nasty habit of making personal attacks rather than addressing the important political issue. Bad journalism.
What an odious individual (politeness prevents me from using the 4-letter word I'd prefer to use). I'm very proud of Andrew Neil today. If I'd been him I'd probably have lost my temper.
I thought it was an extremely poor performance by Andrew Neill, who somehow manage to make this vile piece of shit appear to be his intellectual superior.
Hirst's point was that Human rights apply to all humans per se; that's why they are called Human Rights.
It was up to Neil to argue why voting might not be a Human Right, despite the latest judgment.
Instead, his entire interview was based on an ad hominem attack supported by hearsay from newspaper reports, which completely ignored the issues, and thus played into Hirst's hands.
I think it is too easy to praise Brillo against an odious character such as Hirst is.
The point is he beat the system however much we dislike that fact. He obviously has had help in doing so and we may never know whi provided him with that help.
The only thing to do is suspend our membership of the European Human Rights charter and put the question to the nation as a second question to the referendum on AV.
Personally I would re-introduce the concept of 'OUTLAW' which is viable to use as those deemed outside of societies law enables the state or more correctly the people to serve justice on convicted and wanted criminals.
I cannot agree that Brillo won, yes the man became abusive but hey what do you expect from a convicted murderer. The interview should not have taken place Period.
He was on Radio2 and made a complete and utter tit of himself, and he also showed clearly the case AGAINST prisoners and associated scumbags having a vote. His only raison d'etre seemed to be to make the Government squirm and to win against the system; nothing to do with human rights.
Hirst has made a cottage industry out of this over the past five years and what now? He has never held a job and still doesn't.
You might not know it Iain but in another incarnation I had a few years long battle with Hirst over his rights and what he actually was. He actually, and this is true, never once said he was sorry for his crime and actually said his victim deserved what she got.
He is revelling in his notoriety now, which was always his intent.
There is always a way round this, like allowing prisoners to only vote in constituencies where they were last REGISTERED to vote before incarceration. This would probably make many thousands not vote or be unwilling to try and vote as many were not on the electoral register.
Why does anyone with an IQ in excess of their shoe size claim that voting is a "human right"? Setting aside the logical inconsistency of "human rights" that do not impose "duties" on every single other human being (there are no "rights" in the Ten Commandments, only duties that produce the same result far more more reliably) I find it incredible that anyone thinks that voting is a fundamental and inalienable human right. When this stupid idea was promulgated, several Swiss Cantons did not have votes for women; when the Pankhursts demanded votes for all adult women, many men did not have the vote; currently Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor (aka Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay) and his siblings do not have a vote - does the European Court of Human Rights plan to invalidate all UK elections since he was born?
It's all very well the notion that human rights are constant, inalienable, permanent etbloodycetera but why not develop that caveman construct into a Social Contract? For crying out loud if religion has taught us one thing it's to keep an eye on your old dear and check she's alright. The kid who lives next door, the family across the road.
As soon as you break standard regulations of propriety of a violent or invasive nature then admit guilt and jog on.
I got done for drink driving and fortunately got 200 hours of community service and I adored every minute of it because I hadn't hurt anyone. A contract is a contract. I've been barred from more boozers than I care to mention and I barred a few from my boozer back in the day.
There is forfeit. There is breech. I dissaprove of this development.
He is not a citizen, he is a subject. This is not some back water on the outskirts of nowhere; aaarrrggghhh!! Where are the lawyers when you need 'em? Too busy getting their new suits or something? Hmm,.
I am shocked at how incarceration for 25 years in the prison system has brutalised an ordinary axe killer. It obviously hasn't taken on board the saintly Simone Weil's philosophy that human rights depend on one's obligations to others.
It's a right bestowed on citizens who follow the civil and legal code of the state, and who in return are given a say in how the state is governed and new laws formed.
It's a human right to have access to the vote if you follow the civil rules of the state.
Prisoners give up that right when they break the legal code set by the civil state.
Ergo, prisoners have no pre-ordained right to vote.
"There is always a way round this, like allowing prisoners to only vote in constituencies where they were last REGISTERED to vote before incarceration. This would probably make many thousands not vote or be unwilling to try and vote as many were not on the electoral register."
Good idea. And make sure they can't have postal or proxy votes. That should do the trick
Who was Hirst's lawyer/legal team and how much did they make out of all of this? As I doubt Hirst is capable of paying the bill, how much did this farce cost me and other taxpayers?
Voting IS a human right. To choose the system that you must live under is fundamental. It belongs to you when you are born, it is not given and taken at will by the state
I wouldn't say he creamed him, but, by not doing so, he did. V restrained performance. In conjunction with his even-handed Tea Party doc earlier this week, it's why Brillo is a cannier and thus better interviewer than Paxo...
I'm not sure where the whole "oh, it's just a 'civil right', and you don't really need those" is coming from.
Regardless of if voting is a "civil right" or a "human right" which civil rights would you rather not have? What actually is a civil right? Is it just what you call a human right if you don't want someone to have it?
I'm not saying it's exactly the same thing but the first section of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is titled "Civil and political rights" (with economic, social and cultural rights being the second part).
The hilarious thing about this whole mess is that John Hirst seems not to have actually read the judgement. This is what it said (paraphrased):
1) Voting is a human right, not a privilege. 2) Going to jail is not in itself sufficient to exclude a person from the democratic process. 3) Therefore, the current blanket ban on prisoners voting is wrong, and should be repealed immediately. 4) There are alternate justifications for revoking the right to vote other than 'you've gone to prison'. 5) A non-blanket ban, proportionate to the stated justification, would be acceptable. 6) The UK Parliament is to decide what to do next.
Clearly that is not the same as John Hirst's reading of the text, which is "murders and paedophiles get to vote". Readers can make their own minds up here.
Hard cases make bad law, and extreme examples discolour debate. Are you quite determined that no-one is jail, even for the smallest imprisonable offence, should lose the franchise? How about those released early, or given a commmunity service order in lieu of jail time?
Should we distinguish between felonies and misdemeanours, and allow those guilty of the latter (e.g. fraudsters) to vote?
Of course, one hardly dares to raise the issue of national sovereignty here, though it is most pertinent.
41 comments:
It is merely a symptom of the existential nihilism that is endemic at the BBC that such an egregious example of humanity be allowed airtime.
The answer is, and this is the only answer, since the Government refuse to face them down, is to not have a Television and thus, legitimately not need to pay the BBC licence fee.
If you watch television, and have a licence, you are part of the problem, not the solution.
I agree with you, Hirst is a nasty piece of work. However, the good thing from the Neil interview is that more people could see that.
The BBC's error here was not airing the subject but in having Mr Hirst to present the case. There is a perfectly respectable case for prisoners to have the vote - but this case is hardly furthered by this individual. Andrew Neil handled him very well.
Whilst John Hirst maybe not your ideal house guest at least he has succeeded in keeping his word to get prisoners the vote.
Unlike a certain leader of the coalition who has once again broken his word on giving us a referendum if the EU were to change the Lisbon Treaty.
Clearly you have greater perception than the ghastly Today programme, who gave Hirst virtually unchallenged airtime yesterday.
Wow, Neil drills him a new one.
When/if the BBC gets flushed away, make sure Neil gets looked after. One of the few BBC bods who thinks for himself.
I'm glad that man was given airtime, he did his cause zero favours whatsoever. Its easy to romanticize "prisoners" from a distance, not so when they are in your face like this, completely without shame or remorse or common sense.
I am not interested in who hands me back my stolen property. He held the State to account (unlike the army of publicly funded millionaire human rights lawyers out there) and the State held him to account for his crimes.
He did the crime and has done the time. You can either jail him for 25 years and put him on a lifetime licence to die poor and alone or you can hang him. Not both, as most here wish to do.
The above comment is a wonderful proof that using big words doesn't make you right or smart
John Hirst may be vile - yet he was correct.
Being a woolly liberal, I'm pro-votes for prisoners, but the cause (such as it is) needs to find a more coherent spokesman than this aggressive, unpleasant individual. I never used to be a fan of Brillo, back in his Rupe apparatchik days, but he's turned into a thoroughly good hack since then. My respect for him grows daily.
Are there any human rights lawyers out there who can explain to me something?
Hirst says that it is your 'human right to vote'. Now, I can accept that we have universal human rights, but dont you lose certain rights when you are in prison (like liberty?). Therefore, isnt voting just another right you might legitimately/legally lose when being in prison?
For once, can our so called leaders do the right thing and tell Hirst and the ECHR to go and f@ck themselves. No votes for criminals and no compensation either. It may not win them friends in Strasbourg but it will win them plenty in the UK who they are supposed to represent.
Funny that the notorious sex tourist/employer of David Irving Andrew Neil can find can find a moral standpoint when it suits him. Whilst Hirst may have committed crimes in the past - and whatever you think about the issue at hand - Neil conducted himself terribly there.
Notorious sex tourist/employer of David Irving finds morals when it suits. Whatever we think of Hirst or the issue, Neil conducted himself like a sub-Paxman prat.
while hirst was mauled, i note andrew neil does have a nasty habit of making personal attacks rather than addressing the important political issue. Bad journalism.
What an odious individual (politeness prevents me from using the 4-letter word I'd prefer to use). I'm very proud of Andrew Neil today. If I'd been him I'd probably have lost my temper.
I thought it was an extremely poor performance by Andrew Neill, who somehow manage to make this vile piece of shit appear to be his intellectual superior.
Hirst's point was that Human rights apply to all humans per se; that's why they are called Human Rights.
It was up to Neil to argue why voting might not be a Human Right, despite the latest judgment.
Instead, his entire interview was based on an ad hominem attack supported by hearsay from newspaper reports, which completely ignored the issues, and thus played into Hirst's hands.
D. thomas I could'nt care less who Andrew Neill employ or what he does,h ept his cool ,when Hirst made it clear that this law should be overturned
What an appalling individual. And Hirst wasn't much better either.
I think it is too easy to praise Brillo against an odious character such as Hirst is.
The point is he beat the system however much we dislike that fact. He obviously has had help in doing so and we may never know whi provided him with that help.
The only thing to do is suspend our membership of the European Human Rights charter and put the question to the nation as a second question to the referendum on AV.
Personally I would re-introduce the concept of 'OUTLAW' which is viable to use as those deemed outside of societies law enables the state or more correctly the people to serve justice on convicted and wanted criminals.
I cannot agree that Brillo won, yes the man became abusive but hey what do you expect from a convicted murderer. The interview should not have taken place Period.
He was on Radio2 and made a complete and utter tit of himself, and he also showed clearly the case AGAINST prisoners and associated scumbags having a vote. His only raison d'etre seemed to be to make the Government squirm and to win against the system; nothing to do with human rights.
Hirst has made a cottage industry out of this over the past five years and what now? He has never held a job and still doesn't.
You might not know it Iain but in another incarnation I had a few years long battle with Hirst over his rights and what he actually was. He actually, and this is true, never once said he was sorry for his crime and actually said his victim deserved what she got.
He is revelling in his notoriety now, which was always his intent.
There is always a way round this, like allowing prisoners to only vote in constituencies where they were last REGISTERED to vote before incarceration. This would probably make many thousands not vote or be unwilling to try and vote as many were not on the electoral register.
Hirst is one vile bastard and a perfect example of why prisoners should have the vote when they are inside.
Of course Euro bores like Barnacle Bill have to bring everything back to one issue - the EU which by the way is not the same as the ECHR.
Hopefully the Government can get around this by not allowing any prisoner who has over the 6 month sentence to vote.
Why does anyone with an IQ in excess of their shoe size claim that voting is a "human right"?
Setting aside the logical inconsistency of "human rights" that do not impose "duties" on every single other human being (there are no "rights" in the Ten Commandments, only duties that produce the same result far more more reliably) I find it incredible that anyone thinks that voting is a fundamental and inalienable human right. When this stupid idea was promulgated, several Swiss Cantons did not have votes for women; when the Pankhursts demanded votes for all adult women, many men did not have the vote; currently Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor (aka Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay) and his siblings do not have a vote - does the European Court of Human Rights plan to invalidate all UK elections since he was born?
Strange coincidence. This is the second John Hirst that Andrew Neil has tele-roasted this year. It's questionable which one he gave the hardest time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmQ89L8kLlU
Too right for not having him on.
It's the right judgement from the right court though. The argument is supercession and penalty not whether some git got lucky.
Odious creature but the court has Bosnia, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland to watch - hmm.
Politics aside. Gloves off.
It's all very well the notion that human rights are constant, inalienable, permanent etbloodycetera but why not develop that caveman construct into a Social Contract? For crying out loud if religion has taught us one thing it's to keep an eye on your old dear and check she's alright. The kid who lives next door, the family across the road.
As soon as you break standard regulations of propriety of a violent or invasive nature then admit guilt and jog on.
I got done for drink driving and fortunately got 200 hours of community service and I adored every minute of it because I hadn't hurt anyone. A contract is a contract. I've been barred from more boozers than I care to mention and I barred a few from my boozer back in the day.
There is forfeit. There is breech. I dissaprove of this development.
He is not a citizen, he is a subject. This is not some back water on the outskirts of nowhere; aaarrrggghhh!! Where are the lawyers when you need 'em? Too busy getting their new suits or something? Hmm,.
I am shocked at how incarceration for 25 years in the prison system has brutalised an ordinary axe killer.
It obviously hasn't taken on board the saintly Simone Weil's philosophy that human rights depend on one's obligations to others.
I think the point of democracy is that everyone gets a vote.
You couldn't have paid an actor to be a worse figurehead for the prisoner's votes campaign though.
Voting is not a human right. It's a civil right.
It's a right bestowed on citizens who follow the civil and legal code of the state, and who in return are given a say in how the state is governed and new laws formed.
It's a human right to have access to the vote if you follow the civil rules of the state.
Prisoners give up that right when they break the legal code set by the civil state.
Ergo, prisoners have no pre-ordained right to vote.
Lady Finchley
I hope this won't bore you too much.
"There is always a way round this, like allowing prisoners to only vote in constituencies where they were last REGISTERED to vote before incarceration. This would probably make many thousands not vote or be unwilling to try and vote as many were not on the electoral register."
Good idea. And make sure they can't have postal or proxy votes. That should do the trick
Who was Hirst's lawyer/legal team and how much did they make out of all of this? As I doubt Hirst is capable of paying the bill, how much did this farce cost me and other taxpayers?
Voting IS a human right. To choose the system that you must live under is fundamental. It belongs to you when you are born, it is not given and taken at will by the state
Well, in North Korea it is of course
voting is NOT a civil right
I wouldn't say he creamed him, but, by not doing so, he did. V restrained performance. In conjunction with his even-handed Tea Party doc earlier this week, it's why Brillo is a cannier and thus better interviewer than Paxo...
I'm just surprised he wasn't made Labour leader.
In the parlance so beloved of American cop shows, Hirst should have his ass violated back to jail immediately for such a blatant parole violation.
I'm not sure where the whole "oh, it's just a 'civil right', and you don't really need those" is coming from.
Regardless of if voting is a "civil right" or a "human right" which civil rights would you rather not have? What actually is a civil right? Is it just what you call a human right if you don't want someone to have it?
I'm not saying it's exactly the same thing but the first section of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is titled "Civil and political rights" (with economic, social and cultural rights being the second part).
@ Old Holborn
Voting is only a human right in democratic societies.
Now, how many truly democratic socities are there - and which particular form of democracy?
The hilarious thing about this whole mess is that John Hirst seems not to have actually read the judgement. This is what it said (paraphrased):
1) Voting is a human right, not a privilege.
2) Going to jail is not in itself sufficient to exclude a person from the democratic process.
3) Therefore, the current blanket ban on prisoners voting is wrong, and should be repealed immediately.
4) There are alternate justifications for revoking the right to vote other than 'you've gone to prison'.
5) A non-blanket ban, proportionate to the stated justification, would be acceptable.
6) The UK Parliament is to decide what to do next.
Clearly that is not the same as John Hirst's reading of the text, which is "murders and paedophiles get to vote". Readers can make their own minds up here.
I've always wanted to have in my mind a visual image of the typical Guido commenter.
Got it now.
Hard cases make bad law, and extreme examples discolour debate. Are you quite determined that no-one is jail, even for the smallest imprisonable offence, should lose the franchise? How about those released early, or given a commmunity service order in lieu of jail time?
Should we distinguish between felonies and misdemeanours, and allow those guilty of the latter (e.g. fraudsters) to vote?
Of course, one hardly dares to raise the issue of national sovereignty here, though it is most pertinent.
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