ANOTHER RAMBLING SERIES OF THOUGHT

I was listening today to a BBC Radio 4 broadcast entitled ‘The Great Crime Mystery” presented by Mark Easton. He notes that:

Over the past thirty years, both violent crime and property crime have fallen by some 80 per cent in England and Wales - a fact also seen in other part of the UK and across Europe. At the peak there were around 20 million incidents of crime a year - today, the figure is closer to 4 million. This includes crimes not captured in official police stats - crimes which have gone unreported by the public, or not recorded by the police - but instead captured by the National Crime Survey.

In his report Easton “explores the gap between perception and reality, unearthing clues as to why our perception is at odds with the statistics, why politicians are reluctant to tell voters that crime is down, and why it is we have an innate bias to believe in the worst and hold a rose-tinted view of the past.”

I have spent 35 years of my working life as a lawyer dealing with crime, and I confess that I have never quite believed statements made by government, police authorities or scholarly pundits that crime was falling. It appears from Mr Easton report and from his diligent research on the statistics and other reports on the scale of crime, that there was a distinct period from 1995 when the crime figures began to fall substantially. This is something that most people find difficult to assess or accept, given the way crimes have been reported in the media. Also, strategic statistics of crimes have been used by politicians to support various views and positions, to gain public support, by playing on the fears and concerns of the public. 


There was an interesting phrase and comment spoken by Mr Bobby Duffy, Director of Policy and Research at Kings College, London. He states, unsurprisingly due to years of evolution, we are a “threat focused species”. In addition, so far as political points of view are concerned,  among Reform UK supporters, despite the real statistics, “56% think that crime has gone up, compared to 25% of Green supporters.” 

He also deals with confirmation bias, in that “we tend to seek out information that confirms our already held views and we try to avoid or disparage information that doesn’t fit with one’s views” . He goes on to note that we do not appear to have a neutral assessment of the facts. One only has to listen to one of Nigel Farage’s tirades about crime, using incomplete and biased so called statistics, to make claims about the increases in crime to increase peoples anxiety.

What does appear to have increased however, over the past few years, are instances of anti-social behaviour, up 46% in the last decade. This includes groups hanging around, litter or dog mess on the streets, homeless people begging and such instances of what is considered a nuisance and can cause anxiety. Some of this behaviour was dealt with by the introduction of ASBO’s in 1998 (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) which were civil orders in the UK used to stop individuals from engaging in behaviour that caused harassment, alarm, or distress to others. This has now been more specifically defined in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.

There is an added note that in the current climate, shoplifting is an activity that has been on the increase in recent years, although, generally crime has been in decline. Whether this is symptomatic of the increase in anti-social behaviour and a breakdown of social conventions, or as a result of a sever divide in economic circumstances, or both is a question to be resolved. 

One has to bear in mind the continuous references to disasters and violent activity on media broadcasts and the prolific use of violence and criminal activity in the making of popular films and television dramas. Just how much of an affect this has on social-behaviour is to be considered. Is there a general decline in standards being reflected by the media or promoted by it? Or is it just reporting the particular facts?

There are only two things that people do which are anti-social. They steal and they hit. Some to a greater extent than others. It really does boil down to dishonesty and/or violence. There appears to be an infinite number of ways to be dishonest. The law has a way of defining and collating the different kinds of dishonesty. Simple theft, burglary, deception, receiving stolen goods, robbery - which is just theft with violence or threats of violence - elaborate frauds, embezzlement etc…scams of all sorts. But it all adds up to plain and simple dishonesty. They are all the same thing under different names. They all vary in degrees of the amount of loss and the degree of harm they cause, which is why there are different kinds of sentences imposed by the courts on the perpetrators of dishonesty. 

With violence, there are equally various definitions for the kinds of injuries that are inflicted. It ranges from simple threats, to hitting, to causing slight injury, to causing serious injury, to deliberate killing. We all know what violence is and we all react to violence in different ways. We have no difficulty in recognising violence, be it physical or indeed psychological, as in menace  or stalking, etc..The problem has always been what to do about it. How de we control our own tendencies toward violence? 

We have to recognise that some times our personal behaviour can result in dishonest activity or violence. The person who is drunk and disorderly, the addict in search of a fix, these are all individual human activities that can lead to criminal behaviour, but again it is either dishonesty or violence. It’s what humans do. Very simple, very boring, but deeply troubling and vastly expensive for the collective state to deal with, be it maintaining a police force, a criminal courts system, prisons or maintaining the accident and emergency departments and ambulance service to clean up the mess. The amount of time and money spent on dealing with our citizens’ bad behaviour is vast. 

Just looking a some figures for 2026, the population of the United Kingdom is estimated at 69,931,528 people.  There are approximately some 91,500 people in prison. That’s 0.13% of the population, a tenth of one percent.  There were some 5,283,815 crimes reported in 2026, representing some 7.5% of the population, assuming each offence was committed by a different person. I do not know how many of the 91,500 currently in prison are responsible to those crimes committed in 2026. It would appear that some 380,082 cases have been disposed of so far in 2026 at the Magistrates Courts and 29,600 at the Crown Court, although those Crown Court cases will be included in the cases committed to it from the Magistrates Court. That represents about one half of one percent of the population. 

The budget for the courts, prison, probation and legal aid services is approximately 13 billion pounds and for the police services some 19.89 billion pounds. How much of the police budget is taken up for dealing with non criminal matters, I do not know, but take away around 5 billion  and we are looking at about 28 billion pounds to deal with dishonesty and violence in our society this year. That’s £400 per annum in 2026 per person in the United Kingdom and that does not include what we spend on insurance for theft of our goods. That is, of course, if every single individual pays up the £400. This just gives an idea of what the figures represent as, in any event, it is budgeted for in our taxes received by the Government of the day. Like all budgets, it is clearly not enough to deal with the worst of our human activities; however, deal with it we must. Dishonesty and violence are unfortunately not going away. 

Returning to Mark Easton’s report on the overall decrease in crime, it is gratifying that perhaps there is a possible positive progression towards more civilised behaviour. If the figures are, as he says, coming down, perhaps so too can the costs. Nonetheless, the disturbing stratagem of some political activity to gain power and influence by appealing to that ‘threat focus’ we all have, is a great worry. It is dangerous as it not only re-enforces anxieties and biases, it can easily propel violent protest and disorder as we have seen in Thetford, Epping and coming to Clacton. The exaggeration of crimes allegedly committed by immigrants and ‘foreign nationals’ is in the playbook of most national populists. One only has to listen to the rhetoric of Donald Trump against immigrants in the United States, accusing them of being sent from prisons and lunatic asylums and of being rapists, murderers and thieves. This has not stopped and is also implied in the pronouncements of Farage and Co. Scapegoating is popular politics. It has always been thus. One should also take notes how Farage’s party thinks of claimants for benefits, as being people who deserve nothing but a community service order being applied to them and their benefits withdrawn, as you might sentence an offender is court. What are they thinking? 

I hardly know where to begin. There are a variety of ways a democratic nation can exist and thrive, In the United Kingdom, under a constitutional monarchy, we have those of us who take a more liberal approach to running the state, which includes the notion that the welfare of the citizen is important enough for the state to lend a hand. We see health and welfare as a matter of human rights. Having employment is equally important. Feeling secure and safe is very much a matter of concern. The rule off law is paramount as they preserve all our democratic freedoms and rights. We like to think that those able to contribute to the general state funds are in line with the state and its uses of those contribution, as well as the manner in which it imposes those taxes which regulate our contributions. In other words, we are obliged to pay taxes, but we elect the government that imposes those taxes. 

Problems and disputes can arise over the amount of state revenue  that needs to be raised, how it is raised  and how it is spent.  Just how much should be done by the state. There are some who think the state should be involved as little as possible, and that somehow, the private sector and charities will take up the slack. Yet, while they feel the state should not be involved financially, they see the state as a controller of human activity. Make them work if they want funds, there will be limited state benefit. If citizen’s are ill, private insurance can be sorted. There is no need for the state to be concerned. The state should only spend money for the security of the nation, on the military, the police and the courts. Oh, and on the executive of course. There would be a small budget for dealing with licences and regulations, but nothing  too onerous. Where have we seen that before? Of course I exaggerate, but it seems to be happening before our eyes in the United States of America. There are those in France, Italy, Germany and the UK who would follow that lead. 

The problem is that people are never happy about having to pay taxes, mainly because they have been extracted from people who cannot afford to pay them. Those that can, are reluctant to pay and always try to pay as little as possible. The political parties who seek to want to run the state with less, play on that fact. The public are encouraged to complain by those very parties and are critical of any suggestion of increases in taxation. So much so that governments seeking to provide the services that are actually essential for the running of the state, are reluctant to increase revenue and look for different and obscure methods of gaining revenue. 

I can recall Trump even remarked during a debate that the fact that he paid so little taxes meant that he was smart and clever. He was not picked up on this comment, and so he still thinks getting away without paying any bill is clever and smart.  But I digress.

It comes back to the question of what do we want? If we want an NHS, if we want state pensions, if we want social care, if we want security, if we don’t want real miscreants loose, if we want freedom and the continued existence of democracy under the rule of law, then we will have to step up and our government will have to get the message across to get the public on side, to support them in putting a penny or two on the income tax. Just what is it you want?

At least we do not have the problem of trying to put America back together. Trump has so squandered the economy on his war and tariffs, his Gestapo, his failed and corrupt department of justice, his joke of an FBI, his general attack on freedom of thought and speech, his colossal personal venality and acquisitiveness, that the only people to whom America First applies are the billionaires who feed at his table. His disrespect and attack on lawyers, the rule of law and education  in general has ground the country into a cesspit from which it will have a very hard time getting out of.  The coffee that used to smell good? - now it reeks of excrement.
 

HOW DIVIDED ARE WE ?

The United Kingdom is no longer united. What is happening in Thetford is symptomatic of a growing distance between certain sections of our society. There is a demographic in this country that is clearly xenophobic, bigoted and racist.  There are varying degrees of prejudice within this group, but there are sufficient numbers who band together to create an active mob willing to take violent action against their perceived ‘enemies’. 

What is particularly despicable in Thetford is that this mob is attacking dwellings and citizens based on a rumour. They believe that certain dwellings are being occupied by ‘foreigners’ without any actual proof or certainty. That does not bother them in any way; yet, they try to hide their faces and identity, trying not to be recognised as they know full well what they are doing is not only wrong and illegal but shameful in the extreme. What do they hope to achieve? Is it to beat up and seriously injured or kill possible asylum seekers? Is it to eject them from the country? Will they escort their victims out of town or put them on transport to some other country? What is it they expect to do?

Is it perhaps just letting off steam and showing their frustration at their inability to have any rational or intelligent thought about their own primitive behaviour. How and when did these mostly young people become so disenchanted with they lives so as to become a mob rather than thoughtful citizens? How is it that they succumb to the hypocrisy of Farage, Tice, Lowe, Downes, Yusuf et al who claim to be non racists, socially minded Britain First advocates, but whose agenda is clearly to disrupt and perpetuate violence against anyone not of their persuasion. It is the subtext of everything they do and say in their outrageously venal approach to politics. Everything they say is an incitement to mob rule, particularly when they claim ‘woe is me, your all against me’. Their penchant for playing the victim is just a strategic condescension to get the mob on side and hope they come out fighting. 

This behaviour is suspiciously out of the Trump playbook; however, it appears to be going on all over. The French, Germans, Italians all have their mobs beneath the surface. How has it come to this? There is a piece in the Guardian Opinion section by Brendan Cox entitled “How divided is the UK really? Here’s a way to find out” In the article he invites everyone to the part in the National Conversation - all are invited to complete a survey at:  https://www.national-conversation.ox.ac.uk/

The researchers claim “This project aims to understand sense of belonging and perceptions of unity and division in the United Kingdom. The study will involve completing a questionnaire with some interactive elements. It will require around 10-15 minutes of your time. You will be presented with questions about how you feel about your local area and the United Kingdom along with some basic demographic questions.”

I have just completed the survey, although I’m not sure the questions and answers requested will in any way resolve the issues related to the divisions that beset the United Kingdom at the present time. Just because we like or don’t like where we live in a particular area, in a particular city, in a particular country, does not seem to me to be a necessary indication of why we are alienated from other people. We can be completely contented where we live but still deeply divided from our neighbour.  In any event, the larger community is made up of smaller ones. How people appreciate or deal with the larger community is down to individuals within each community, on an individual level. It’s rarely that one finds oneself in an ‘us or them’ situation. Nonetheless I would urge you to take the survey. Also you can write in what you feel about a variety of questions. You’ve got 3000 characters to answer several questions so lots of space to write stuff in. There is also voice answering capability but it has a 30 sec cap. Can’t really say as much as one likes in 30 seconds.Tee tee.

Speaking of divisions, here is a bit of information about Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC - I’m sure it will amuse:

 

WHAT KIND OF DISCIPLINE ?

Having coffee morning with Steve Jacobi. We talked about writing. I stated that I lacked the discipline required to finally sit down and write “the book”. Indeed, discipline was very much a required trait if one was going to write seriously. As a word, it conjures an entire monograph of its own multiplicity of meanings. It can be field of study in itself.

It can refer to a subject matter, branch of knowledge, speciality or curriculum. One’s personal discipline. It can refer to  regimen, drill, regulation, method, exercise of training. It is also a type of control, direction, supervision or strictness, as well as self control, maintaining one’s self restraint, orderliness or calmness. It is also a course of punishment, a chastisement, correction or punitive measure. It can lead to pain or fulfilment. 

There are many aspect to writing, discipline being one of the principle characteristics to have in order to maintain the direction of thought and endeavour, and to avoid the pitfalls of displacement activities, which, even although interesting and diverting, does just that, and moves us away from an intended objective. Diversions always lurk no matter our direction. It is unproductive if the detour moves us completely away from the intended destination, but can be helpful if it brings us back on to the projected path. An instructive and perhaps necessary diversion is always welcome and sometime inevitable. That discipline gives us a strength and sharpens the mind the more we use it. Keeping that control hones ones thinking. As Goethe proposed, “thinking is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas”. That perception gives us strength, perhaps even power. 

There is an exchange in the script of Lawrence of Arabia, between Prince Faisal (Alec Guiness) and Colonel Brighton (Anthony Quayle) in Faisal’s tent, in which the Colonel speaks of the power of discipline, which makes England “great”, whereas the Prince puts it down to the power of the British Navy and its guns. An interesting argument around refined discipline, hardware, traditional behaviour and culture. It says much about different kinds of discipline, the one failing to see the logic of the other. Herewith the scene: 

In an exercise of his own discipline, Steven has just written another book which I have had the privilege to read (a draft) and which I hope will soon find a publisher. His agent has expressed that he loves the book and I assume is keen to get on with it. I hope he is and I hope that others will be equally delighted. It is a simple tale of a family’s progress and the developing relationship of a brother and sister over the years. As such, it is, in my view, a very universal theme and should strike a cord with most readers. It is well written and flows gently across the page. It is a very intimate, thought provoking and searching story about finding understanding and family love. An uneasy discipline for many of us. How do we cope with growing up, separation, education, work, marriage, divorce, in-laws, aged parents, death, inheritance, brothers and sisters ? In short it is very well told unique, but universal, family story that gives us all much to think about. 

It reveals a very Stanislavski method approach to writing, reaching into one’s inner memories and very private personal, and sometimes embarrassing, experiences. That requires a great deal of discipline as well as courage. Anyone with a modicum of theatrical knowledge will certainly appreciate the work, as should any reader, regardless of their own personal discipline. I will or course let you all known when it is released, as I’m sure it will find a publisher. If it does not, I must clearly have lost all sense of critical values. 

I also listened to a discussion on Radio 4 this morning concerning the falling birthrate in the UK, as well as elsewhere.  Some see this as a serious risk to the welfare of the state whilst still others are of the view that we will adapt to a world which has smaller populations. The number of deaths are apparently exceeding the birthrate. This indicates the possibility of a smaller but older population, with fewer able-bodied citizens to work, and keep the economy running, sufficient to cover the welfare needs of that aging population.  There are, of course, a number of reasons the current child bearing populace are deciding not to have children, or are perhaps incapable of having them. This development is mainly in the nations with higher economies, where birth control is more available and since the majority of women have become more concerned with independence, career employment and equality then before. Not that it wasn’t a concern for some considerable time, particularly during the two world wars when women became indispensable to the work force to keep the country going. Indeed, following on from those conflicts people were encouraged by the state to have children. In France, for a long time, there has been substantial financial support given to families encouraging them to have children. 

I am on the side of those who believe that the nation states will adapt to smaller populations, which may well ease the tax burdens on the average citizen by slowing down or reducing the necessity of a growing welfare bill. The fact that people are living longer  may also indicate  that they are healthier and perhaps less in need of welfare,  although at present the number of health problems among the elderly seems to be escalating rather than decreasing. There may come a cross over point where the need for welfare is lessened by a shorter time between illness requiring care and death. I say this as a positive as opposed to a negative depressing point of view. None of us wants to be a burden for any great length of time. We may as well laugh and be jolly along the way. 

In our morning coffee discussion, I raised the above subject with Steve, who lives in Shanghai, and it would appear that despite its population of 1,404,890,000, the growth rate is -0.24 percent. He states that the Chinese are well aware there may be a growing problem. As of now, it has a definite reducing population. How this will play out, who knows? In any event it will require a disciplined population to adapt to whatever new situation develops as a result.

I will not now comment on the undisciplined chaos of the current administration of the United States  of America. Whilst the growth rate has receded it is still positive at +0.51% and the median age is 38.7. In the United Kingdom the Growth Rate is currently at +0.30 percent but down by 72% since 2023. The median age is 41.1. In the United States, the projected median age by 2050 is 41.9 and in the UK it is 43.8. So go the statistics. 

I confess I am surprised by the median age statistics in the US. It would seem that the median age in 1960 was 28.3, by 1965,  27 and by 1970, 26.7,  since when it has been slowly creeping up to the current 38.7. What can possibly have possessed a country of 30 somethings to favour an addled 80 year old criminal idiot suffering from NPD as their president? Clearly a lack of emotional and educational discipline.

A SHORT NOTE ABOUT MALAISE

Malaise.  A word for our time. A vague feeling of bodily discomfort. A feeling of unease or sickness not symptomatic of any particular ailment. Something undefinable and not necessarily associated with depression. There is an element of the expectation  of something which makes one wary or cautious. Although that ‘something’ is not necessarily to be overly worried about, as it could be something hopeful and positive, yet one is nonetheless chary. 

I suppose this is a feeling that has been present in our lives since the beginning of time. It has been explored in countless ways, most notably but Samuel Beckett. His Waiting for Godot is a prime essay on the subject, as is Molloy: “When a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle. I did my best to go in a circle, hoping to go in a straight line”.

I have a notion that my blog is much the same. I had hoped to no longer dwell on the calamity that the American State Department has brought upon the world. The number of horrendous choices they have made over the years makes one cringe. In most cases it revolves around the simple choice of choosing sides. Invariably they have chosen what they considered to be that faction which purports to uphold free enterprise and the capitalist economic agenda ready to do business with American enterprise. They see it as a win win situation, even though the factions may prove to be repressive and corrupt. There are a number of instances where a simple change of course might have changed the entire nature of global affairs. 

The decision to back and support Chiang Kai-shek, a corrupt nationalist would be dictator, rather than come to an early arrangement with Mao Zedong, who as early as 1944 might have been amenable to compromise and accept the assistance of the then United States had it held out a supporting hand.  Similarly had Ho Chi Min been approached and assisted as he should have been over Ngô Đình Diệm and which was clearly on the cards at the time in 1955, the Vietnam war might never have happened. The Cuban crisis could have been avoided if, as in the beginning of Castro’s regime a simple accommodation would have been possible but for the stupid obstinacy over the word Communism, or the idea of socialism. The horrors of Chile, had Allende’s democratic election been left in place, would never have occurred. 

You may think the suggestions far fetched, but there were, if not direct negotiations with the parties concerned, there was certainly indirect contact. Indeed, as regard Vietnam in 1954,  had the US given more thought, they might have brought the French onside, despite the debacle of Dien Bien Phu. It was certainly a possibility at the time to exercise rational foresight. As to Cuba, Mr Castro was feted in New York in 1959, at which time real deals could have been made. Chile, of course, we know was direct CIA interference to satisfy the various US oil and commercial interests, not in keeping with a social democratic government that might nationalise certain enterprises.  In the end, in order to propagate authoritarian regimes that were assumed to be completely acquiescent to US commercial interests and eminently corruptible, the State Departments went with the ‘strong man”. In my view, the wrong man. You can check the history for yourselves. I don’t think I am too far off the mark.

It is something that keeps happening and the American public keep voting for representatives who go along with  very poor international decisions to keep the ‘communists’ from taking power. It is still the dirty word. Anything that smacks  of a socialist agenda is vilified, as are the democrats now. The party is seen as a party of demons and monsters from which America must be saved. How is that at all rational? The current Mayor of New York claims to be a Democratic Socialist and the city is still standing.  The colossal hypocrisy and stupidity is without doubt the failure of the American dream. How is it possible, given the current state of the United States, that there should be any question about who should be voted out of office across the country. It is as plain as the nose on anyone’s face, yet the midterm elections are in flux. What is wrong with the American voter? How can they not have had enough? You would think the polls showing the dissatisfaction with the Trump regime would be clear; yet, it is not. 

I have seen and heard pundits who urge people to get out and vote. The voters should need no encouragement. They should be chomping at the bit  and already standing in line to get to a polling booth. No encouragement should be required. 

In any event I sit and wait, waiting to shed my malaise, pondering what that 'something' I am waiting for could be. Will it be specific positive effect in the UK from our new Prime Minster in the coming month, or a landslide democratic vote from the coming November elections in the United States. I hold out no hope that the conflicts in Middle Europe and the Middle East will be resolved by then, though that would not be so bad. Like the refugees in Casablanca, we wait and wait and wait.