It is possible to mount private prosecutions, but it is very expensive and the state can chose to take it over, then change its mind later and drop it.
This is not a thing in English law. The police and CPS decide whether a prosecution should go ahead. Usually they won't if the victim is not co-operative and it makes conviction difficult, but there's no "pressing charges" concept for victims.
This is not a thing in English law. The police and CPS decide whether a prosecution should go ahead. Usually they won't if the victim is not co-operative and it makes conviction difficult, but there's no "pressing charges" concept for victims.
Though, there is an option for private prosecutions, which Parliament specifically allows in the 1985 Prosecution of Offenses Act. About a quarter of cases before magistrates in England and Wales being private prosecutions, prominent examples include many cases brought by the RSPCA or the private prosecutions by the Post Office (all of the convictions from these have now been overturned); prosecutions by the DVLA, TV licencing, transport authorities and some other government bodies are also sometimes considered private prosecutions.
Probably the most famous individual private criminal prosecution was brought by the parents of Stephen Lawrence after the CPS decided not to prosecute the five main suspects in his murder.
Probably the most famous individual private criminal prosecution was brought by the parents of Stephen Lawrence after the CPS decided not to prosecute the five main suspects in his murder.
For the UK, I always of think of Mary Whitehouse and Gay News. In Canada, I remember some animal-rights activists privately prosecuting some lab-researchers in the 1980s. I believe that prosecution failed.
This is not a thing in English law. The police and CPS decide whether a prosecution should go ahead. Usually they won't if the victim is not co-operative and it makes conviction difficult, but there's no "pressing charges" concept for victims.
Though, there is an option for private prosecutions, which Parliament specifically allows in the 1985 Prosecution of Offenses Act. About a quarter of cases before magistrates in England and Wales being private prosecutions, prominent examples include many cases brought by the RSPCA or the private prosecutions by the Post Office (all of the convictions from these have now been overturned); prosecutions by the DVLA, TV licencing, transport authorities and some other government bodies are also sometimes considered private prosecutions.
Probably the most famous individual private criminal prosecution was brought by the parents of Stephen Lawrence after the CPS decided not to prosecute the five main suspects in his murder.
This is of course true, but isn't what people usually mean when they say "press charges".
What annoys me most about Reform, or almost as much as their awful policies, is the fact they are so chaotic and not very good at running a party. A lot of this is due, I think, to the way it is organised. I've met so many people wanting to stand for local government who do have a clue about Reform's policies and don't think it matters as 'Nigel will tell us.' As Nigel, by his own admission, doesn't listen half the time goodness know what their first 100 days of power would be like.
Nigel speaks, and I believe thinks, in soundbites. If something can’t be expressed in a simple declarative sentence, you won’t hear it (or see it). Consequently, it’s hard to argue with, because of the paucity of any content.
“Plain English” is equivalent in complexity to that found in Harry Potter books, easy read to that found in The Gruffalo - all politicians who want to engage with the majority of the population (who will have limited attention and interest in what they are saying anyway) need to be aiming at plain English or below.
I don’t think we need to start talking as though they are going to be in power at all. There reputation is dying. They cannot rely on the vote going their way. If Labour can keep going in the sam way Reform are not going to do well
I don’t think we need to start talking as though they are going to be in power at all. There reputation is dying. They cannot rely on the vote going their way. If Labour can keep going in the sam way Reform are not going to do well
Does the last sentence mean that Labour will continue governing well, and then Reform will collapse as a result of large numbers of Reform voters migrating over to Labour?
I don’t think we need to start talking as though they are going to be in power at all. There reputation is dying. They cannot rely on the vote going their way. If Labour can keep going in the sam way Reform are not going to do well
Does the last sentence mean that Labour will continue governing well, and then Reform will collapse as a result of large numbers of Reform voters migrating over to Labour?
We are told there were a lot of voters choosing Reform because they were against the established elites. That Reform are different. Burnham is different from the elites. He is attempting to make things better for those less well off. If he can do that then yes I can see some Reform voters moving to Labour. Not to mention undecided voters.
On another subject. Should Reform not be held at a least a little responsible for the violence way their supporters at their conference reacted to hecklers? The hecklers were pushed to the floor, kicked and hit with various objects and Nigel just laughed from the podium
There is evidence to suggest that a significant proportion of Reform voters are those who considered the main parties as only interested in themselves and not the people, and that voting for them would be a waste - voters who therefore previously didn't vote at all. As Reform show themselves to be no different and just in it for Nigel's bank balance, they're going to go back to not voting (although, if they've got the bug Restore may pick up some of them). There is also evidence that the decline in Labour votes is with traditional Labour voters not voting because Labour is no longer Labour. The actual number of Labour voters who switched to Reform is going to be a lot less than the swing. If Burnham can convince traditional Labour voters to turn out and vote, by showing them that Labour is still Labour and working for working folk rather than chasing Reform to the right and pandering to the rich, then that will work out for Labour. If they think they need to win Labour voters from Reform, rather than the "didn't vote", then they may find themselves getting back far fewer voters than they expect.
I don’t think we need to start talking as though they are going to be in power at all. There reputation is dying. They cannot rely on the vote going their way. If Labour can keep going in the sam way Reform are not going to do well
Does the last sentence mean that Labour will continue governing well, and then Reform will collapse as a result of large numbers of Reform voters migrating over to Labour?
We are told there were a lot of voters choosing Reform because they were against the established elites. That Reform are different. Burnham is different from the elites. He is attempting to make things better for those less well off. If he can do that then yes I can see some Reform voters moving to Labour. Not to mention undecided voters.
This assumes that Reform voters have the same definition of "established elites" that Burnham has.
Which some of them might, but a lot of them instead envision the elites as being eg. government bureaucrats who supposedly hose the taxpayers for money to give to illegal migrants. In the event of Reform collapsing, most of those people are likely to move over to the Conservatives rather than to Labour.
There is evidence to suggest that a significant proportion of Reform voters are those who considered the main parties as only interested in themselves and not the people, and that voting for them would be a waste - voters who therefore previously didn't vote at all. As Reform show themselves to be no different and just in it for Nigel's bank balance, they're going to go back to not voting (although, if they've got the bug Restore may pick up some of them). There is also evidence that the decline in Labour votes is with traditional Labour voters not voting because Labour is no longer Labour. The actual number of Labour voters who switched to Reform is going to be a lot less than the swing. If Burnham can convince traditional Labour voters to turn out and vote, by showing them that Labour is still Labour and working for working folk rather than chasing Reform to the right and pandering to the rich, then that will work out for Labour. If they think they need to win Labour voters from Reform, rather than the "didn't vote", then they may find themselves getting back far fewer voters than they expect.
I too agree with @Alan Cresswell The key factor at the next general election is unlikely to be voters changing allegiance, but a substantial change in the part of the population that voted, ie, those who voted Reform in the recent council elections may be more likely to stay at home, whereas many would-be Labour voters, disillusioned with Starmer, stayed at home.
There will probably be substantial tactical voting, although whether that will be an anti-Reform pact I don’t know.
I am really interested to know what shipmates think about the second part of my post. The Reform conference was reduced twice to forcing hecklers to the floor and hitting and kicking them. Someone was filmed pulling a heckler’s hair as the heckler was forced to the ground by supporters. Should Reform no have to take some responsibility for the behaviour of their members at their conference.
Nigel just laughed from the podium. The next day a representative of Reform was being interviewed on a news programme and said boohoo and what have we come to when you can’t hit a heckler with a Zimmerman frame.
This will play well with their supporters who tend towards the "street justice" mentality and will consider this to be FAFO.
Leadership will say nowt as they can't be seen to support it but won't want to condemn it either.
They never accept responsibility for any of the repercussions of their tactics of demonisation so won't do so for this either. If it comes to court they're too far removed to find themselves in the dock.
I am really interested to know what shipmates think about the second part of my post. The Reform conference was reduced twice to forcing hecklers to the floor and hitting and kicking them. Someone was filmed pulling a heckler’s hair as the heckler was forced to the ground by supporters. Should Reform no have to take some responsibility for the behaviour of their members at their conference.
Nigel just laughed from the podium. The next day a representative of Reform was being interviewed on a news programme and said boohoo and what have we come to when you can’t hit a heckler with a Zimmerman frame.
Reform have never been made accountable for their actions, what makes you think they will start now?
I am really interested to know what shipmates think about the second part of my post. The Reform conference was reduced twice to forcing hecklers to the floor and hitting and kicking them. Someone was filmed pulling a heckler’s hair as the heckler was forced to the ground by supporters. Should Reform no have to take some responsibility for the behaviour of their members at their conference.
Nigel just laughed from the podium. The next day a representative of Reform was being interviewed on a news programme and said boohoo and what have we come to when you can’t hit a heckler with a Zimmerman frame.
Reform have never been made accountable for their actions, what makes you think they will start now?
I can dream I guess.
They have a responsibility for safety at their conference. People were violently attacked. At least their security should have protected the hecklers while removing them. I guess it has come to this on the far right. They feel emboldened to commit violence against another human being in a political conference. If it happened at the Labour or Conservative conference it would be all over the news.
I am really interested to know what shipmates think about the second part of my post. The Reform conference was reduced twice to forcing hecklers to the floor and hitting and kicking them. Someone was filmed pulling a heckler’s hair as the heckler was forced to the ground by supporters. Should Reform no have to take some responsibility for the behaviour of their members at their conference.
Nigel just laughed from the podium. The next day a representative of Reform was being interviewed on a news programme and said boohoo and what have we come to when you can’t hit a heckler with a Zimmerman frame.
Reform have never been made accountable for their actions, what makes you think they will start now?
I can dream I guess.
They have a responsibility for safety at their conference. People were violently attacked. At least their security should have protected the hecklers while removing them. I guess it has come to this on the far right. They feel emboldened to commit violence against another human being in a political conference. If it happened at the Labour or Conservative conference it would be all over the news.
Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Wolfgang
It's debatable if it's worse for the governing party to misuse terrorist legislation against an elderly holocaust survivor but at least the Blair regime backtracked and apologised rather than endorsing the incident.
I noticed how a Reform supporter interviewed on Newsnight yesterday said that he was thinking of shifting his allegiance to Rupert Low and Restore UK after Farage had condemned the 'thuggery' (his inverted commas) at Dover.
He played down the injuries to police and the damage to police cars and said he'd only seen 'one or two' demonstrators wearing masks.
From the footage it seemed like rather more were wearing them than that.
Farage has condemned face-coverings now it seems. That'll lose him more support to Restore - unless he's referring to burkas of course.
On a less violent level my experience of Reform at a local council level is that they are very adept at provoking a reaction then playing the victim card whenever anyone responds to them.
Trouble is, they thrive on publicity and do anything they can to court it. Sometimes it's best to ignore them but it's easier said than done.
I follow my local MP on Facebook and therefore get a load of other Reform and further far right stuff. I'm hoping most of it is bots but if there are really lots of people out there that think the RNLI is a taxi service for migrants and the BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news, God help us.
I follow my local MP on Facebook and therefore get a load of other Reform and further far right stuff. I'm hoping most of it is bots but if there are really lots of people out there that think the RNLI is a taxi service for migrants and the BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news, God help us.
The BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news just not in the way Reform headbangers think.
Words fail me. I am really confused about Reform and Restore Britain supporters. They seem wilfully blind to the faults of Farage, Tice, Lowe and co: I suppose they are desperate for a simple explanation and a simpler solution, to the nation’s problems.
I follow my local MP on Facebook and therefore get a load of other Reform and further far right stuff. I'm hoping most of it is bots but if there are really lots of people out there that think the RNLI is a taxi service for migrants and the BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news, God help us.
The BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news just not in the way Reform headbangers think.
Quite - the BBC and ITV perpetuate a lot of the rhetoric that Reform types build upon in the first place.
I follow my local MP on Facebook and therefore get a load of other Reform and further far right stuff. I'm hoping most of it is bots but if there are really lots of people out there that think the RNLI is a taxi service for migrants and the BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news, God help us.
The BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news just not in the way Reform headbangers think.
Quite - the BBC and ITV perpetuate a lot of the rhetoric that Reform types build upon in the first place.
They have hamstrung themselves with the notion of providing “balanced” coverage. How can one report accurately by giving equal weight to evil and corrupt organisations?
Can I say that our major broadcasters need to grow a pair?
Words fail me. I am really confused about Reform and Restore Britain supporters. They seem wilfully blind to the faults of Farage, Tice, Lowe and co: I suppose they are desperate for a simple explanation and a simpler solution, to the nation’s problems.
If you compare with our local fash (the RN), it's not that people haven't noticed that Marine Lepen has been convicted of embezzling a couple of million euros of public money. She's promising to do things they want her to do, so they don't care.
Words fail me. I am really confused about Reform and Restore Britain supporters. They seem wilfully blind to the faults of Farage, Tice, Lowe and co: I suppose they are desperate for a simple explanation and a simpler solution, to the nation’s problems.
Originally posted by Sarasa: if there are really lots of people out there that think ...the BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news, God help us.
My Difficult Relative thinks that they are unreliable, because she thinks they are extreme right-wing. She has gone down some very odd rabbit holes online and is impossible to talk to, as she just sneers about my "ignorance and naivety."
I follow my local MP on Facebook and therefore get a load of other Reform and further far right stuff. I'm hoping most of it is bots but if there are really lots of people out there that think the RNLI is a taxi service for migrants and the BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news, God help us.
The BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news just not in the way Reform headbangers think.
Quite - the BBC and ITV perpetuate a lot of the rhetoric that Reform types build upon in the first place.
They have hamstrung themselves with the notion of providing “balanced” coverage.
This is partly true but doesn't completely describe what's going on, their idea of balance is heavily skewed by who shouts loudest, and their senior management (and many senior producers) are fairly right wing figures who were put in place by various conservative administrations.
So a certain sports commentator gets disciplined for his social media output, but the longest running presenter of Today can put out column after column of inflammatory commentary for The Times.
Can I say that our major broadcasters need to grow a pair?
You think having testicles = strength?
I think it's the opposite. Male fear adds enormously to the right wing's ability to manipulate.
Point taken. They do need integrity and courage and that doesn’t correlate to sex or gender.
@chrisstiles I believe the expression is “The squeaky wheel gets the oil”. With notable exceptions, mainstream journalists haven’t got their teeth into serious issues for decades.
However the law may change and even if it does not, one has to ask if as internally disputative an organisation as Reform, can arrange for their brains in target constituencies to act in concert.
At the moment they have one saleable policy and one figurehead.
I really doubt if the government will face up to the way that Reform, Restore Britain and the rump of the Conservative Party have conflated illegal immigrants with asylum seekers, migrants per se, those born outside the United Kingdom, people with any non-white British blood and of a certain Abrahamic faith.
Just had a thought: isn't there a proverb out there along the lines, 'Give a bunch of fools a lot of money and watch the destroy themselves'? If there isn't, there should be. Think of all those wretched football pools and lottery winners who couldn't handle the sudden wealth.
Interesting .....
Just had a thought: isn't there a proverb out there along the lines, 'Give a bunch of fools a lot of money and watch the destroy themselves'? If there isn't, there should be. Think of all those wretched football pools and lottery winners who couldn't handle the sudden wealth.
Interesting .....
But those people don't usually lead entire countries, as Reform potentially might. Elon Musk being extremely wealthy and (from what I personally can see) personally miserable didn't make his actions as part of DOGE less harmful to others, especially destroying USAID.
The MPs who are members of Reform don’t have much experience in office, still less successful experience. For the most part they are city traders and we should bear that in mind. Musk is another example of money chasing money and I think he’s aware that DOGE is, was and will always be a dead duck.
However the law may change and even if it does not, one has to ask if as internally disputative an organisation as Reform, can arrange for their brains in target constituencies to act in concert.
At the moment they have one saleable policy and one figurehead.
I really doubt if the government will face up to the way that Reform, Restore Britain and the rump of the Conservative Party have conflated illegal immigrants with asylum seekers, migrants per se, those born outside the United Kingdom, people with any non-white British blood and of a certain Abrahamic faith.
However the law may change and even if it does not, one has to ask if as internally disputative an organisation as Reform, can arrange for their brains in target constituencies to act in concert.
At the moment they have one saleable policy and one figurehead.
I really doubt if the government will face up to the way that Reform, Restore Britain and the rump of the Conservative Party have conflated illegal immigrants with asylum seekers, migrants per se, those born outside the United Kingdom, people with any non-white British blood and of a certain Abrahamic faith.
Please, what are 'illegal' immigrants?
For what it’s worth, I think there are illegal immigrants, but asylum seekers, and those of the other groups I mention are not per se illegal immigrants. Most illegal immigrants are simply overstaying work, study or tourist visas. But they can’t be identified by colour or faith, which is the issue that the Fash exploits.
Personally I would accept anyone unless they were a real threat to order (Musk, Trump, Putin etc). I’ve lived in far more crowded places and they work ok.
They are undocumented, but not illegal. People can't be illegal.
The people are certainly legal, and they have a document, ie, a visa, but problems arise if their visa has expired or is no longer applicable.
Those who don’t have a document are “undocumented entrants” (I think that’s the official term) and many asylum seekers and refugees are in that category.
Comments
OK - good point. I was using shorthand IYSWIM...
Probably the most famous individual private criminal prosecution was brought by the parents of Stephen Lawrence after the CPS decided not to prosecute the five main suspects in his murder.
For the UK, I always of think of Mary Whitehouse and Gay News. In Canada, I remember some animal-rights activists privately prosecuting some lab-researchers in the 1980s. I believe that prosecution failed.
This is of course true, but isn't what people usually mean when they say "press charges".
This seems very 'the food is terrible and in such small portions'.
I don't think we need to start speaking as if they are going to be in government imminently.
Does the last sentence mean that Labour will continue governing well, and then Reform will collapse as a result of large numbers of Reform voters migrating over to Labour?
We are told there were a lot of voters choosing Reform because they were against the established elites. That Reform are different. Burnham is different from the elites. He is attempting to make things better for those less well off. If he can do that then yes I can see some Reform voters moving to Labour. Not to mention undecided voters.
On another subject. Should Reform not be held at a least a little responsible for the violence way their supporters at their conference reacted to hecklers? The hecklers were pushed to the floor, kicked and hit with various objects and Nigel just laughed from the podium
This assumes that Reform voters have the same definition of "established elites" that Burnham has.
Which some of them might, but a lot of them instead envision the elites as being eg. government bureaucrats who supposedly hose the taxpayers for money to give to illegal migrants. In the event of Reform collapsing, most of those people are likely to move over to the Conservatives rather than to Labour.
I think I'd agree with this analysis.
There will probably be substantial tactical voting, although whether that will be an anti-Reform pact I don’t know.
Nigel just laughed from the podium. The next day a representative of Reform was being interviewed on a news programme and said boohoo and what have we come to when you can’t hit a heckler with a Zimmerman frame.
Leadership will say nowt as they can't be seen to support it but won't want to condemn it either.
They never accept responsibility for any of the repercussions of their tactics of demonisation so won't do so for this either. If it comes to court they're too far removed to find themselves in the dock.
Reform have never been made accountable for their actions, what makes you think they will start now?
They have a responsibility for safety at their conference. People were violently attacked. At least their security should have protected the hecklers while removing them. I guess it has come to this on the far right. They feel emboldened to commit violence against another human being in a political conference. If it happened at the Labour or Conservative conference it would be all over the news.
Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Wolfgang
It's debatable if it's worse for the governing party to misuse terrorist legislation against an elderly holocaust survivor but at least the Blair regime backtracked and apologised rather than endorsing the incident.
He played down the injuries to police and the damage to police cars and said he'd only seen 'one or two' demonstrators wearing masks.
From the footage it seemed like rather more were wearing them than that.
Farage has condemned face-coverings now it seems. That'll lose him more support to Restore - unless he's referring to burkas of course.
On a less violent level my experience of Reform at a local council level is that they are very adept at provoking a reaction then playing the victim card whenever anyone responds to them.
Trouble is, they thrive on publicity and do anything they can to court it. Sometimes it's best to ignore them but it's easier said than done.
The BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news just not in the way Reform headbangers think.
Quite - the BBC and ITV perpetuate a lot of the rhetoric that Reform types build upon in the first place.
They have hamstrung themselves with the notion of providing “balanced” coverage. How can one report accurately by giving equal weight to evil and corrupt organisations?
Can I say that our major broadcasters need to grow a pair?
If you compare with our local fash (the RN), it's not that people haven't noticed that Marine Lepen has been convicted of embezzling a couple of million euros of public money. She's promising to do things they want her to do, so they don't care.
They don't see them as faults.
You think having testicles = strength?
I think it's the opposite. Male fear adds enormously to the right wing's ability to manipulate.
if there are really lots of people out there that think ...the BBC and ITV are unreliable sources of news, God help us.
My Difficult Relative thinks that they are unreliable, because she thinks they are extreme right-wing. She has gone down some very odd rabbit holes online and is impossible to talk to, as she just sneers about my "ignorance and naivety."
This is partly true but doesn't completely describe what's going on, their idea of balance is heavily skewed by who shouts loudest, and their senior management (and many senior producers) are fairly right wing figures who were put in place by various conservative administrations.
So a certain sports commentator gets disciplined for his social media output, but the longest running presenter of Today can put out column after column of inflammatory commentary for The Times.
Point taken. They do need integrity and courage and that doesn’t correlate to sex or gender.
@chrisstiles I believe the expression is “The squeaky wheel gets the oil”. With notable exceptions, mainstream journalists haven’t got their teeth into serious issues for decades.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3k72k1y3vo
Good
Apparently this is perfectly legal!
It’s legal according to Robert Jenrick.
However the law may change and even if it does not, one has to ask if as internally disputative an organisation as Reform, can arrange for their brains in target constituencies to act in concert.
At the moment they have one saleable policy and one figurehead.
I really doubt if the government will face up to the way that Reform, Restore Britain and the rump of the Conservative Party have conflated illegal immigrants with asylum seekers, migrants per se, those born outside the United Kingdom, people with any non-white British blood and of a certain Abrahamic faith.
Interesting .....
But those people don't usually lead entire countries, as Reform potentially might. Elon Musk being extremely wealthy and (from what I personally can see) personally miserable didn't make his actions as part of DOGE less harmful to others, especially destroying USAID.
Please, what are 'illegal' immigrants?
For what it’s worth, I think there are illegal immigrants, but asylum seekers, and those of the other groups I mention are not per se illegal immigrants. Most illegal immigrants are simply overstaying work, study or tourist visas. But they can’t be identified by colour or faith, which is the issue that the Fash exploits.
Personally I would accept anyone unless they were a real threat to order (Musk, Trump, Putin etc). I’ve lived in far more crowded places and they work ok.
The people are certainly legal, and they have a document, ie, a visa, but problems arise if their visa has expired or is no longer applicable.
Those who don’t have a document are “undocumented entrants” (I think that’s the official term) and many asylum seekers and refugees are in that category.