Taking One For The Team

Where I work (at least, for the time being, ha ha), we often play host to a company who use our facilities to run speed awareness courses for those caught a few clicks over the limit and who choose to pay £80 to be talked at, rather than have points on their licences. One of my duties is to check these people in and direct them to the correct location for the course. In this role, especially with the conscientious ones arriving half an hour early, I often have a brief chat and try to make them feel, at least temporarily, welcome. Some are just in a bad mood and don't want to talk (which is fair enough) and one lady was even highly abusive to me - I think because she blamed me for her getting caught in the first place. Perhaps the uniform triggered something. Most are in a cheerful but resigned frame of mind, and prepared to have a laugh about being put through all this nonsense for doing 34 in a 30 limit, or whatever. A few arrive in hot hatches or well-worn Beemers, but the majority are ordinary folk that you wouldn't give a second glance to in a car park, let alone think that they were dangerous or aggressive hooligans.

What has amazed me, however, is the number that say "Oh, it wasn't me: I took the blame for my husband because he needs his car for work." Yes, it's usually women who do this. Sound familiar?

Equally amazing is how everyone who has admitted this to me has done so with a laugh, as if it's no big deal. What I don't mention, but is at the back of my mind, is that they have moved - perhaps ignorant of the fact - from a traffic offence to a criminal one. From what is a minor irritant that most people have a bit of sympathy with, to something that, if they were caught, could land them in prison and leave them with a criminal record. Perverting the course of justice is not a trivial thing, nor should it be.

Perhaps a high-profile case involving someone famous (well, famous-ish) will give people a different perspective?

None of this really affects me at the moment. Anna has kept her licence clean all her life (although I think there's been a fair bit of good luck involved) and mine is currently in one of its clean phases. On the one occasion when I was caught speeding in her car, she shopped me without a second thought. But if I was on nine points and was caught by a camera, would I ask Anna to take one for the team? I regard myself as law-abiding and I would like to think that I wouldn't. But I can't say categorically. Sometimes, you have to do what you have to do.

Does that mean I would be tolerant of a high-profile public servant doing it? Absolutely not. Those who make the law must obey the law without exception, or how are we ordinary Joes expected to take any of it seriously? The things that are most corrosive of faith in the legal system are where the law-makers become law-breakers and get away with it.

The last three years have afforded us many examples, none of them very edifying.

If Huhne is guilty (and from what I have seen of the evidence I think he probably is) then I hope he goes down for a long time. Pour encourager les autres, and because justice demands it. If he gets off on a technicality, or if he is found guilty but given a small fine, then look out for a million ordinary citizens doing the same thing. That can't be good.

(Footnote: if he is found guilty, what a delicious irony that the offence committed by the Minister for Climate Change was in a Toyota Pious.)

Kettle on Huhne: where to start?

I have read things in The Guardian that I have disagreed with. I have read things that have made my blood boil. I have read things that have made me shake my head with disbelief. But I have never read such a pile of freshly-delivered, aromatic, steaming horse-shit as Martin Kettle writes today.

Investigating Chris Huhne is disproportionate

Sorry, but I am afraid that I just don't get it about the current hue and cry over Chris Huhne and his alleged transfer of speeding points. Yes, of course, I know he shouldn't have driven too fast on the M11 in 2003. And, if true, I also know he shouldn't have persuaded his wife to accept the penalty on her licence rather than his own – though for the record he denies it. In a perfect world, Huhne would have accepted his punishment if he was guilty, as most of us do in such circumstances.

So far, so good. You can hear a 'but' coming, though.

But let's get real.

*grinds teeth*

And let's start with the nature of the offence. Speeding on a motorway is technically a crime. But, except in the most egregious and genuinely dangerous of cases, it is not a very serious one.

First of all, he's wrong. Speeding is not a crime, it is a traffic offence and - absent any aggravating circumstances - will not get you a criminal record. But other than that I would agree. Speeding is something that most motorists and riders do almost daily to a greater or lesser extent, and it's hardly a hanging offence. But then Kettle and I start to part company.

And let's also get real about the fact that lots of people do what Huhne is accused of doing [asking his wife to say she was driving and take the penalty points on his behalf]. I think I read somewhere that one in six speeding fines that would take an offender to the point of losing their licence are transferred to consenting spouses, partners or buddies. Maybe that's false information, but – again – I suspect most of us know people who have done what Huhne and his wife are accused of doing.

In this, Kettle is completely wrong. I don't know anyone who has done this. I have read about it happening in the papers, but I don't know anyone personally who has admitted it to me. To be honest, it would affect my opinion of them very considerably, and very much for the worse. It goes without saying that I could not countenance doing this myself. Martin Kettle must mix with some dishonest people.

Speeding is one thing. Lying to a court (which is what you do if you enter false driver details on the form) in order to escape a legitimate punishment is very different matter. I'm not sure if it is perjury - I think that may refer to lying in court under oath - but it is certainly perverting the course of justice. And that is rightly regarded as a very serious offence in this country: so serious that it is punishable by imprisonment for a first offence and carries a maximum of a life term.

The current investigation is utterly disproportionate to the nature of the offence. Police time and resources – we are constantly being told – are under huge strain as 20% cuts begin to bite. Is it a worthwhile use of those resources to have Essex police tracking back and interviewing Huhne over a speeding offence eight years ago? I think not. The only reason it's happening is because the press and the Labour party want to embarrass Huhne. In my book, though, that's not a good enough reason. I think the Essex investigation is a waste of resources and it should be called off.

A Member of Parliament, a Cabinet Minister, is accused of an offence which strikes at the very nature and practice of justice, and you want us to let it pass? I don't think so. Those who expect the rest of us to obey the laws that they introduce must be scrupulous in obeying them themselves, and if they fall short they must be treated exactly as anyone else would be. Democracy demands it.

But don't just listen to me. Here are the words of Judge Michael Heath, sentencing a 77-year-old man who had taken the blame for his son's speeding offence to spare him a driving ban:

That is a serious offence. It strikes at the fabric of justice. The message must go out that people who do this, and who say they don’t think they are doing anything seriously wrong, will not get away with it. I have considered your health and domestic circumstances, but I am not persuaded any sentence should be suspended.

He jailed the 77-year-old and his son for three months. Should Huhne be treated any differently if he is charged and found guilty? I don't think so.

Huhne has not been charged and deserves to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but to say that this case should not be investigated because it was 8 years ago, it's a trivial matter anyway, and it's something we all do, is despicable.

Things are not looking good for Huhne. When asked by Channel 4 News for a comment yesterday, he repeated the words that he has used ever since this all started: the allegations are "incorrect". I wonder why he didn't use a simpler English word: wrong? The irony is that if he had just accepted the fine, points and a short ban, people would have shrugged and forgotten it in a week. Now, his career is in serious jeopardy and he is possibly - if guilty - looking at a stretch in prison.

Martin Kettle has just shot himself in the foot as a serious journalist, for me and, if the comments below the line are anything to go by, most of The Guardian's readership too. I have never seen such unanimity amongst the CiF chatterati. They rip him apart.

Thought experiment: replace 'Chris Huhne' with 'Nick Griffin' and imagine the same article appearing in The Guardian.

The last Great War soldier

The funeral of Harry Patch. I find this incredibly moving.

It had been a specific request of Mr Patch, who was buried today after a memorial service at Wells Cathedral in Somerset, that his coffin should be carried by men who were the same age as he was when he fought in the trenches of the First World War.

But as the last surviving British veteran of the Great War was laid to rest, the message was not of military honour, or glory, but of peace and reconciliation, the cause to which he devoted his last years.

For the passing of an old soldier – the Last Fighting Tommy, as the title of his memoir put it – there were always going to be the timeless rituals of military ceremony: the buglers sounding the Last Post, the medals, the salutes.

But there were other touches, too, that spoke of Mr Patch’s earnest belief that fighting can never be the right way to solve disputes. During the service a chorister sang the 1960s peace anthem, Where Have All The Flowers Gone: the order of service said that the song had been chosen by his grandson “to reflect Harry’s view of the futility of war”.

Equally symbolically, the coffin was escorted by six other pallbearers, including two soldiers from the German army. Dr Eckhard Wilhelm Lubkemeier, charge d’affaires of the German Embassy, who read a lesson from the Bible at the service, said: “We really appreciate the generous gesture on the part of Harry Patch because he explicitly wanted his former enemy to be represented at his funeral service.

“It is a great honour for us and we really appreciate the opportunity of being here and honouring a great man.”

A fine and noble ending to a life. Nuff said.