Beyond the pale

One thing that's totally beyond my comprehension is how people can go on supporting a public figure or a workmate or a spouse even if they've been guilty of the most dreadful behaviour, or a serious crime, or habitual acts of violence. Why do they not say, this isn't acceptable, I can't condone this behaviour, it's totally beyond the pale?

The person I'm thinking of obviously is Donald Trump, but there are plenty of people equally guilty of appalling behaviour but enjoying widespread support from all and sundry.

Nigel Farage, who is standing in the upcoming British general election, is known principally as one of the architects of Brexit, which according to numerous economists has been an economic disaster (sorry, Infidel). Yet still millions of people support him regardless.

But it's not just public figures who benefit in this way. Spouses are fond of saying they'll stand by their man (or woman), even if they're guilty of murder, repeated sexual harassment, massive frauds, medical negligence or whatever.

I don't understand what inspires this blind loyalty. Do they think the person has done nothing wrong? Do they believe they should support their spouse "for better or for worse"? Do they believe they should "love the sinner"? Are they defending the person against what they see as unfair persecution?

I can only assume that the person's actions are being justified in some way. They had been taught that sexual harassment was normal masculine behaviour. They committed fraud to get back at a stingy, domineering boss. And so on.

If I was guilty of some atrocious crime, I wouldn't expect Jenny to stand by me. She would be quite right to pack her bags.

False impressions

When Jenny and I first moved to Belfast in 2000, a lot of people were puzzled by our decision. Why Belfast, they asked? What was wrong with London? So do you think you'll be staying there for good or might you be moving back to England?

Well, we couldn't understand all the fuss. We'd had holidays in Northern Ireland several times and really liked the country and the people. There were beauty spots everywhere, property was much much cheaper than London, and there wasn't the ubiquitous congestion - on the roads, on the trains, on the buses.

Londoners constantly fed news headlines about terrorism, bombs and paramilitaries assumed we would be dicing with death every time we popped out to the shops. The reality of course is that there are small pockets of violence but 95 per cent of the country is as safe as anywhere in England. Actually crime levels where we live in East Belfast are almost zero compared with crime levels in Islington, North London, where we used to live. In Islington car thefts, muggings and burglaries were routine occurrences.

I mention all this because the new TV drama Blue Lights, which focuses on the police force in Belfast, suggests that Belfast is nothing but a hotbed of violence and disorder that the police struggle to cope with.

In fact the drama is set mainly in a specific area of West Belfast where violence and disorder are indeed a constant feature. But other parts of Belfast, like our own East Belfast neighbourhood, are almost embarrassingly sedate and sleepy. The only sign of violence is a grand old house being noisily demolished.

We would say that our quality of life here is a lot better than in London. The Big Smoke is vastly overrated - and totally unaffordable.

Pic: The lovely Belmont Park, five minutes' walk from our house.

Trust eroded

It seems the police are increasingly not pursuing so-called petty crimes like burglary, theft and minor assault. And the police watchdog, the Inspector of Constabulary, says this is corroding the public's trust in the police.

As a result, the public are often not reporting such crimes, assuming nothing much will be done about them.

Well, to be fair to the police, what do people honestly expect? Do they really think the police can solve every crime that comes their way? Do they really think all that's needed is a bit of hard graft and shrewd detective work?

Are they serious? If a random stranger has picked your house to burgle or your car to break into, how the heck do you identify that random stranger? Unless they've left something incriminating behind them, like their wallet or a shop receipt, where on earth do the police start looking?

If nobody has actually seen the burglar or car thief, there's not even a photo or description to go by. So you're looking for a needle in a haystack.

I'm sure the victim would love to see the offender getting his just desserts in a courtroom, but let's face it, it's unlikely.

It makes perfect sense to me that the police prioritise really serious crimes like domestic violence or fraud or arson. Anyone worried about being burgled should take out adequate insurance to cover the possibility. And get decent locks on all their doors and windows.

Luckily Jenny and I have seldom been crime victims. We've never been burgled and we've only experienced car thefts twice. And I was mugged once. We never expected the police to find the culprits. We just put it down to bad luck and moved on.

Maybe Dixon of Dock Green* was able to magically nab the villains. But that wasn't real-life, it was TV make-believe.

*Long-running police TV series from 1955 to 1976.

A blind eye

I have to admit that when I notice someone doing something reprehens-ible - something criminal or cruel or anti-social - I'm always in a quandary. Should I turn a blind eye or should I take action? Many's the time when for one reason or another I've turned a blind eye.

I'm sure I'm not the only one. How many of us are prepared to take it further if we risk violence, abuse or some other kind of retaliation? I suspect most people would hesitate before diving in.

When I was working at a London bookshop once, one of the staff quite casually walked out with two bulging carrier bags of stolen books. Nobody said a word. None of the other staff, including me, were prepared to intervene. Why, I couldn't say. I guess we were all waiting for someone else to make the first move.

Another time Jenny and I were in a supermarket when the manager stopped an elderly man who was walking out with some stolen cheese and physically knocked him to the floor. On this occasion we took action. We were so disgusted by this inhuman response that we abandoned a trolley full of shopping and took our custom elsewhere.

When I see a mother shouting and screaming at her truculent child, I'm tempted to defend the child and tell her to calm down. I don't though because I tell myself that (a) it's none of my business and (b) what right do I have as a non-parent to criticise her behaviour? But that allows her to keep shouting and screaming.

There are more trivial misdeeds - dog shit left on the pavement, parked cars blocking cycle lanes, people dropping litter. But I can't object to everything, I'd soon be known as the mad bossyboots at number 90. So I keep quiet and let them get away with it.

My mother was bolder, a shameless busybody. She was always embarrassing me by ticking people off for their bad behaviour.

I'd end up ticking her off for ticking people off.

Bending the rules

We've all committed crimes, haven't we? Maybe hundreds and hundreds of them. Sometimes petty, sometimes serious. So we can hardly get on our high horse about "criminals" when we're less than snowy-white ourselves.

And if you tell me you've never committed a crime, I don't believe you. No speeding? No petty pilfering? No VAT-dodging? Nothing from the black market? No illegal drugs? No litter-dropping? How could you be so saintly? Do you have a police officer in the family?

I frankly admit that I have on occasion done all the things on that list. Not out of ignorance either but quite deliberately. Because the way I see it, although in general laws are needed to maintain decent behaviour, there are times when breaking the law does no harm, may actually be necessary in the circumstances, and may (shock horror) just be enjoyable and cathartic.

How many of us have nicked a few things from work to compensate for a tyrannical boss or miserable pay? Or hurtled through a 30 mph zone because we're late for work or just like to put our foot down? Or bought something knowing full well it's from a dodgy source but it's half the normal price? How many of us slavishly keep to the law because we're afraid of unleashing anarchy or mayhem? Is there anyone that puritanical, that strait-laced?

By the same token, I won't rush to judgment over other people who've committed crimes, or at least relatively minor ones. I won't condemn a penniless woman who's shoplifted from the local corner shop to feed the kids, or someone with rent arrears who's done a moonlight flit, or a homeless person who squats in a long-time empty house. Okay, so they're breaking the law, but maybe you or I would do the same in similar circumstances. How can I tell them they're criminals and happily see them fined or jailed? I'd need a heart of stone.

Those people who pontificate about law and order and coming down hard on law-breakers are probably not only heartless arseholes but also hypocrites. Let she who is without sin cast the first stone....

Strained loyalties

How far should loyalty go? Do you stay loyal to someone regardless of what they've done - crime, cruelty, promiscuity - or do you at some point say, enough is enough, I'm simply not tolerating this, it's harming both of us and it has to stop?

It's easy enough when someone's done something a bit disturbing but of no great consequence. You can turn a blind eye and say, I'm not comfortable with that but what the hell, it's not worth picking a fight over it.

If your partner fiddles their expenses or tells someone they're stupid or keeps flirting with the neighbour, it's not hard to shrug it off as human weakness, remember you've sometimes done the same, and keep the criticism muted.

But if it's something more extreme - they've done a hit-and-run, or they're a workplace bully - do you still find ways of justifying it, or do you unflinchingly condemn them? Where do you draw the line between excusable everyday behaviour and something that's beyond the pale?

I'm always aghast at those people who'll defend their kids/spouses/siblings against the most appalling accusations of fraud, murder or thuggery and insist on their innocence despite everything, forever valuing personal loyalty over other people's interests. Their loved ones can do no wrong and other people are mean, nasty liars.

Women of course were traditionally loyal to their husbands (read slavishly submissive) however vile their behaviour, but thankfully that's a dying attitude and men can get away with a lot less than they used to.

But the people I really admire, on the other hand, are the ones who stand by partners who've done something highly principled but unpopular, like going on strike, and aren't intimidated by all the hostility. No way will they side with the critics for the sake of an easy life.

When I was once in dispute with a workplace manager over a (quite untypical) instance of poor timekeeping, I expected some loyalty from my workmates, especially as we were all in a trade union, but the non-committal and evasive silences were upsetting to say the least. One case where loyalty didn't stretch very far.

Eye for an eye

If someone had attacked you so violently you ended up paralysed, would it be a fitting punishment for the attacker to be paralysed in return? An eye for an eye, as it were?

A man who was left crippled after being hit with a meat cleaver asked a Saudi judge to sentence his assailant to surgical paralysis. The judge is now getting medical advice on whether this would be possible, before he decides what sentence to pass.

The paralysis could be induced by severing the man's spinal cord.

Apart from the question of whether any criminal, however serious the offence, should be subjected to such a gruesome and debilitating punishment, it is extraordinary that the victim should have a say in what punishment is meted out.

In most countries this would be a matter strictly for the judge, precisely because the victim might demand something utterly barbaric.

It is extraordinary too that the traditional "eye for an eye" attitude is still seen as a sensible legal principle. If the real cause of the attack is a fit of uncontrolled anger, how is physical paralysis the solution? Surely it can only breed bitterness and more anger?

I also wonder what surgeon with any conscience or humanity could possibly agree to deliberately paralyse a presumably fit and healthy man, simply because a judge decides it is an appropriate punishment. How could he live with himself afterwards?

Looters

Once again there are dramatic headlines about a clampdown on post-disaster looting, this time in Chile. But isn't a lot of this so-called looting simply taking what you need to survive?

Sure, if someone's walking out of a shop with a computer, that's looting. You can survive without a piece of electronics. But if they're grabbing food, water, clothing or bedding, maybe it's because they urgently need them.

Shopkeepers may condemn it, but what's more important - keeping people alive or keeping your stock intact? Suppose you or I were starving hungry and right in front of us was a supermarket heaving with food? Would we just stroll past or would we take a few things?

The only problem is that if you turn a blind eye to "necessary looting", you encourage looting generally, and if people see easy pickings they pile in and take everything they can lay their hands on.

They stagger out not with a few loaves of bread but with trolley loads of saleable goods and blatant crime takes over.

It's hard to see how you can allow justified looting without opening the floodgates to unprincipled opportunists. When it comes down to it, despite urgent human need, you have to protect people's property against those who are out for their own ends and ready to exploit a chaotic situation.

But those in need of life's essentials shouldn't be forced into looting, they should be getting the help they need from elsewhere. If the authorities were doing their job and organising emergency supplies of necessities, people wouldn't be so desperate.

PS: It's reported that looters in Chile have handed back £1.3 million ($2 million) of stolen goods including hundreds of TVs, washing machines and other electronic and furniture items.

Thanks to Los Angelista, who also wrote about looting a while back.

Useful coppers

Reading about Leah's whole-hearted support for the police reminded me that I support the police pretty strongly myself, a view people might not expect from a fervent socialist.

Well, socialist I may be, but I also believe that if we don't let the police deal firmly with crime and anti-social behaviour, we would quickly decline into an anarchist, anything-goes nightmare.

In the sixties when it was very fashionable among the young to criticise not just police excesses but the police themselves, I can remember me and my friends cheerfully screaming "Pigs, pigs" every time we passed a copper, and thinking we were being deliciously rebellious and right-on.

As the years rolled by, however, I came to realise that there are an awful lot of vicious, heartless, ruthless people out there who need to be kept under control not just to protect everyone else but to protect them from their own self-destructiveness. If the police don't do it, who will?

I'd be the first to admit that the police often make big mistakes and go wildly over the top in their actions. There's a long list of people who've been wrongly arrested, secretly beaten, jumped on for utterly trivial offences, or fitted up. That sort of behaviour seriously discredits the police and needs to be stopped.

But the fact remains that most of the time police are doing an absolutely essential job in keeping criminals in check and enabling the rest of us to feel safer and less vulnerable.

I would like to ask anyone who really thinks the police are unnecessary or useless - what would you put in their place? Vigilantes? Paramilitaries? Private security forces? Lynch mobs? Whatever the alternative, it would be a lot less pleasant than a few bent coppers who get carried away and forget their professional ethics. It would be rough justice indeed.

Art denied

If a work of art is impressive, does it really matter that it was created by a child sex killer? Does a serious character defect invalidate everything else the person does?

London's Royal Festival Hall has been forced to stop exhibiting a sculpture by Colin Pitchfork, currently in jail for raping and killing two 15 year old girls.

The mother of one of the girls fears that such positive acknowledgement of his creative skills might lead to his 30 year sentence being reduced. But surely he will only be released early if he is considered no longer a danger to other people, and his artistic talents will be irrelevant?

I can't see how offenders can ever be rehabilitated if their offences mean they can never be given credit for anything they do, however mature or responsible or inspirational. They have no incentive to better themselves or atone for what they did.

Many brilliant works of art, including literature and music, would be lost to us if we rejected them because of the creator's personal vices. Anything by an alcoholic, drug addict, wife-beater, homophobe, racist or womaniser would have to be thrown out for a start.

Writing off a person's entire life with no attempt to distinguish between good and bad is absurd and blinkered. Even the most barbaric historic figures have had their virtues along with the horrors.

I read that many of the original entries for the Oxford English Dictionary were submitted by a murderer, Dr W C Minor. Should we remove all these entries because of his criminal record? The idea would be laughable.

Photo: "Bringing Music To Life" by Colin Pitchfork.

Street smarting

I'm finding Google Street View incredibly useful for checking out a particular area we might move to. But some folk are complaining that it's invading their privacy and encouraging crime.

Angry residents of Broughton in Buckinghamshire formed a human chain to stop the Google camera-car driving through their village.

Paul Jacobs objected that his house was being photographed without his permission, and that pictures would help burglars to identify likely houses. The village had had three burglaries in the last six weeks, he said.

Oh, come now. What would be the harm in his house being publicly viewable? You couldn't see inside it, and you couldn't see the street as it is right now because it's a one-off image.

The likelihood of a burglar scanning his particular village, out of the countless thousands of villages across the country, is minute. In any case, a burglar could drive around the village and check it out that way.

All Mr Jacobs has achieved is precisely to publicise his village, which otherwise we would never have heard of.

I think Street View is fabulous. I can see if an area is smart or scruffy, leafy or built-up, quiet or busy. I can see if there are any local shops or services. That saves me all the trouble of physically visiting the neighbourhood and walking around it to get the same information. Surely that's a brilliant innovation?

Come on, Mr Jacobs, stop being so paranoid and let Google do their stuff. You know you want to really.

(Oh and before you ask - yes, our house IS on Street View. Fortunately I wasn't outside doing anything scandalous at the time)

Note to burglars: Broughton is just outside the town of Aylesbury, easily accessible from several major roads. What are you waiting for?
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Isn't it depressing that the media's only interest in Michelle Obama's British visit is the clothes she's wearing and whether they're more glamorous than Carla's? Excuse me, she was actually DOING a few things....

You're nicked!

Yes, it's that familiar tirade. Haven't the cops got anything better to do? Why aren't they going after the real criminals rather than nicking people like me for totally trivial offences?

The other night Jenny and I went to see "Rachel Getting Married" and then popped into our favourite Indian restaurant for a meal. All very enjoyable, lots of relaxing chatter and gawping. Then we headed back to the car.

A ****ing parking ticket! Some ****ing pettifogging jobsworth with nothing better to do had decided to amuse himself/herself by clocking me for "parking within 15 metres of a junction, causing obstruction to other drivers' views".

God give me strength. I wonder how many thousands of times I've parked next to a junction. Likewise every other driver on the road. And what hazard are we causing exactly? How many people have I killed and injured? Any advance on zero?

Yes, it's a technical offence. So yes, I'll have to cough up. But really, is this the best possible use of police time? Is this the highest priority for our over-stretched, paperwork-laden police officers?

There are drivers out there smashed out of their heads on drink and drugs. There are arsonists burning down factories. There are teenagers dropping rocks onto motorways. There are thieves beating pensioners black and blue. But never mind all that, let's find something dodgy about that little blue Clio. Aha, it's in the wrong place. It's not where it should be. Gotcha! Bang to rights!

Stupid ****ing bastards.

(My apologies to a certain blogger with relatives in the police force. Nothing personal....)
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Sales assistant: I'm sorry, your credit card's invalid.
Customer: Why, has it expired?
Sales assistant: No, your credit card's fine, but your bank's expired.

Behind the gates

I don't see the attraction of a so-called gated community. Why would anyone want to live behind high-security walls and barriers where just getting in and out is like being at Fort Knox? What are they so afraid of?

There's a huge block of apartments going up just a few streets away, which are being sold on the basis that the security measures are so elaborate you need never worry about crime.

But the local streets are perfectly safe anyway. The chances of anyone nicking anything are practically zero. You could leave the telly in the middle of the road and it would still be there three hours later.

It's sad that some people have such an exaggerated fear of crime they're convinced their homes will be stripped bare unless they're protected by every security device known to man.

I'd hate living like that. I want to just walk in and out of my house without a fuss. I wouldn't want to run a gauntlet of security guards, padlocks and access codes every time I popped out for a newspaper or a pound of tomatoes. It may be necessary for a gawped-at celebrity, but is your average homeowner really that vulnerable?

How easily fear turns into raging paranoia. And how cleverly the idea of gated communities trades on it.
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Work shock: Once again I'm a victim of the mania for job restructuring. It looks as if I might soon be out of work and back on the jobhunting treadmill. Watch this space....
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Blog shock: Good grief, I'm on the shortlist for Best Newcomer in the Irish Blog Awards. Some mistake surely? The bribe must have been far too generous....