The Wrap
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The Wrap: Taking liberties
Michelle Pauli
15 May 2006
Welcome to the Wrap, Guardian Unlimited's roundup of the best of the day's papers.
TAKING LIBERTIES
As Blair prepares to deliver what the Telegraph calls his "mea culpa" on the criminal justice system today at the launch of a Labour campaign on the future of public services, there is some uncertainty in the papers over what exactly he intends to do about the Human Rights Act. The government has been on the defensive over the issue since last week, when a high court judge allowed nine Afghan hijackers to stay in the UK. It was widely reported in the weekend's press that the prime minister was planning a radical overhaul of the law.
Will it be a real assault on the bill or just a lot of hot air? At this stage, says the Independent, "it scarcely matters". The papers, leader writers and columnists are happy to set out their stalls on the matter regardless. Both the Indy and the Guardian come out strongly against any crowd-pleasing reforms that would undermine the Act. It is, says the Indy, a law too precious to be sacrificed to populism. The paper's columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown devotes a strongly-worded column to the matter and brings in a global perspective. "The impact on the world of this degradation of human rights in Britain is incalculable," she warns.
The Human Rights Act is not beyond criticism, concedes the Guardian. However, what is "shabby" and "destructive" is the government's tendency to foster lies and rightwing myths about it because ministers are "running scared" of a confused and often xenophobic press campaign.
Moving on, then, to the Mail, and Melanie Philips. Human rights law has "driven justice, morality and social order off the rails altogether," she complains. The only way out of the mess is to get rid of not just the Act but the whole circus, including the European human rights convention.
On a pragmatic note, Joshua Rozenberg in the Telegraph comments that amendments to the Act are "unlikely and unnecessary", as repealing the Act is not an option and even if it were, Britain's is still a signatory of the human rights convention on which, he points out, EU membership is conditional. His colleague Janey Daley concurs. Even if the "pestilential, platitudinous, ambiguous" Act were to be repealed, it would not solve the problem of the "cosmic shift in philosophical perspective that has taken place in Britain: that of putting the welfare of the criminal over the protection of the blameless citizen.
The red tops splash with crime stories designed to emphasise the failings of the criminal justice system. The Mirror leads with the news that boxer Maseem Hamed, who was jailed for 15 months for nearly killing a driver in a high-speed crash, is in a "cushy open jail" after spending just one night in a "tough prison". The law is "pulling its punches," complains the paper.
The case of a rapist who attacked a woman while free on bail is the focus of the Sun's ire. It links the story to crime statistics that, it says, show that criminals on probation are committing an average of 10,206 new offences. The Sun's solution? Build more prisons and "do something about the ludicrous Human Rights Act".
Guardian: Adrift on a tide of panic
Independent: A law too precious to be sacrificed
Independent: UK has lost right to lecture on liberty
Telegraph: Changes are unlikely and unnecessary
Telegraph: Hijack of the justice system
HEALTH OF THE NATION
The papers that do not run with crime this morning have plumped for health stories instead. The Independent's is the most eye-catching with a black and red front page
dedicated to the stark warning that Britain is the "sick heart of Europe", alongside a picture of a ventricle. The paper reports that cardiovascular disease costs the
UK GBP29bn a year, with the bill only likely to rise given an aging population, increasing rates of obesity and prescription bills for drugs such as statins. The UK
spends more money on the condition than any other European country and, say experts, would be better off pumping money into preventative measures such as diet and exercise advice.
Those who read the Express will be wonder who will deliver that health advice, given that the paper leads with the news that family GPs could soon "disappear" from "swathes" of Britain. One in six is expected to retire within the next two years, "plunging grassroots medical care into crisis".
The Mail, meanwhile, leads with the government changes to maternity care and the proposal that women who wish to give birth at home will be encouraged. "But will there be enough midwives to go round?" asks the paper.
A newborn baby is featured on the front page of the Telegraph, which also runs with a maternity story. Samuel Baum is a "world first" - he was born after screening for a genetic disorder. Although research into the screening procedure which made his birth possible was conducted in Britain, Samuel's parents had to go to Belgium for treatment.
Independent: The sick heart of Europe
Telegraph: We had to go abroad for screening
CARACAS COME TO CAMDEN
Were the Times and the Guardian at the same meeting? "Revolution in the Camden air" trumpets the latter. "Chavez fails to paint the town red in Camden," downplays the former which adds that an "eclectic" audience of elderly CND activists and members of the Socialist Workers party listened "bemused" to the Venezuelan president's rusty schoolboy English. The Guardian's take is slightly different, as it describes how the man called a terrorist by Washington took his "admiring listeners" through a history of revolution in Latin America and "spiced his talk with references to Pythagoras, George Bernard Shaw and Edgar Allan Poe".
Hugo Chavez was in London at the invitation of Ken Livingstone, which tells the Mail all it needs to know. "Hugo Chavez helps drug barons, backs the Taliban, jails his enemies ... and hates the middle classes. Meet Red Ken's new best friend" is the paper's summing up of the visit.
The FT, meanwhile, focuses on Chavez's warning that the English middle classes will have to stop using their cars if the US attacks Iran, as the cost of oil would rise to $100 dollars a barrel or more. He added that Venezuela would also cut off its oil if attacked.
Guardian: Revolution in the Camden air
Times: Chavez fails to paint Camden red
FT: Chavez issues oil price warning
VIOLENCE IN IRAQ
As two British and two US soldiers, along with at least 28 other people, die in bombings on what the IHT calls "Iraq's bloodiest day in weeks", the Telegraph warns on its front page that "the lives of troops will be put at risk" if the Ministry of Defence refurbishes a fleet of vintage helicopters.
The paper reports that the MoD plans to take 30 Sea King helicopters out of mothballs as a "cost cutting measure" to deal with a shortfall in the number of troop transport helicopters. They would be "sitting ducks", says a military engineer quoted in the paper as they are slow, cumbersome and perform especially badly in desert heat. 'Our servicemen deserve better than this," sighs the paper, which dedicates a leader to the MoD's "woeful" defence procurement. Its problems are twofold, finds the Telegraph. It is protected from market competition, and it is shielded from democratic accountability.
IHT: Blasts kill 14 in Baghdad
Telegraph: MoD cuts 'put troops in peril'
Telegraph: Lions equipped by dinosaurs
ORGANIC BEEF
Shoppers are being "duped" in an organic meat scam, according to the somewhat overblown front page story of the Times. Some butchers are believed to be cashing in on the higher value of organic meat - it can sell for up to five times the price of conventionally reared produce - by labelling ordinary meat as organic.
The paper reports that the crime carries very little risk as it is difficult for shoppers to tell when they are being duped.
The investigation, which the Guardian clarifies comes from a television documentary investigation to be screened tomorrow night, also found that "a farmer sold pork sausages without the necessary credentials".
Guardian: Meat illegally sold as organic
Times: Shoppers duped in organic meat scam
GERRARD'S GLORY
The red-tops are also the red-backs today, with the sports pages glowing scarlet with pictures of the victorious Liverpool team on an open top bus parade of the city to celebrate their FA Cup triumph. "Next stop Germany" says the Mirror of the team's skipper, after he gave the performance of his life in Saturday's Cup final victory over West Ham. "Fantastic Gerrard" says the Indy. "Superman," agrees the Times. How quickly is Theo forgotten...
There's less cheer for the English cricket team. "This is not time for fingers to turn buttery," says the Telegraph, sternly, as England fumbled their chances against Sri Lanka with two more ctaches going down. They should still beat the them today, weather permitting, but, says the Times, the hard work they made of bowling them out a second time does not auger well for their chances of retaining the Ashes this winter.
Guardian: Fresh glory for Liverpool
Times: England's drop in standards
FOR JOHNNY, SEE POTATO
In a story surely designed to give the Mail and the Express palpitations, the Guardian reports today that the quintessentially English resort of Lyme Regis is to have its beach replenished with sand from ... France. The paper adds treachery to insult by noting that the French sand allegedly makes "excellent sandcastles".
The paper also gives us the story of an unusual new phonebook from Cedillo in western Spain. The habit of giving people nicknames has led to so much confusion that the town has published its own phone book which lists the inhabitants by their nicknames. And so Johnny the Potato can be found under "p" for patata. The phonebook was the idea of the town's mayor, Antonio "Booties" Gonzalez. "My mother bought me some boots when I was a little boy and the heels clicked on the pavement, so my brother called me "Botines" - booties - he said. Over time that has been reduced to the diminutive "Boti". Not everyone is happy, however. A man known as "Baldy" and another called "Peg-leg" asked to be registered under their proper surnames.
Guardian: French sand for Lyme Regis beaches
Guardian: For Johnny, see Potato