A thug wearing a suit is still a thug, and a crime is no more acceptable when it is committed by a “respectable” member of society than when it is carried out by what the right-wing press like to think of as the criminal classes.
Yet the concept of one law for all, while an invaluable legal principle, is in reality something of a sham. Racial prejudice, unequal access to a costly legal team, as well as a public preference for the tough sentencing of some crimes over others, all contrive to make the idea of equality before the law an ideal rather than a reality.
David Cameron has labelled the British culture of drunkenness a “
Almost all of those with an overtly ideological take on the conflict in Israel/Palestine come across as slightly deranged. The justification offered by supporters of each side is that it is their faction that is in the right, their faction that is acting in self-defence, and that it is the other side which is motivated by little more than cynicism, bigotry and malevolence.
Newspapers are in trouble. That much is clear. The Guardian and the Observer lost £44.2 million last year as growth in online revenue failed to match Guardian News & Media’s (GNM) investment. Last week GNM was even forced to issue a denial after it was claimed that print editions of its papers would soon be scrapped altogether. 