Shirt tail frills

Barrister wants to know how many crates of champers can fit in a Ferrari? ... Chris Mullin's A View from the Foothills ... Official government liars ... Lyndon Johnson thought Australia was a "shirt tail frill" ... Blair exposed as another frill ... Evan Whitton at large

The Ferrari test

Chris Mullin: reporter, polly and diaristA View from the Foothills (Profile, 2009) is a fun book. It is the first vol of a secret diary kept by Chris Mullin, the reporter/politician (Labour) who got the Birmingham Six out, from 1999.

On Wednesday, June 21, 2000, a barrister, Paul Stinchcombe MP, told Mullin that on his first day in Derry Irvine's chambers he overheard one of his new colleagues ask another:

"How many crates of champagne can you fit into your Ferrari?"

The Blair test

Mullin noted that Tony Blair's highest accolade is that someone is "very clever".

Blair met the lovely Cherie when they were in Irvine's chambers. At their wedding, Irvine billed himself as Cupid QC for having introduced them. 

Irvine became a fairly dubious Lord Chancellor. Cherie not too cleverly became a pal of an Australian criminal, Peter Foster. Blair, seeking to ingratiate himself with George Bush, became a war criminal.

The judge test

Falconer LC: suppose Mullin is rightOn 20 November 2000, Lord (Charlie) Falconer told Mullin that in 1987, shortly before one of the Six's failed appeals, he came across Judge Igor Judge brandishing a copy of Mullin's 1986 book, Error of Judgement: The Truth about the Birmingham Pub Bombings.

Igor: Do you know of this man?

Charlie: Yes

Igor: He's a communist engaged in an assault on the criminal justice system.

Charlie: But supposing he is right?

Igor had no clear answer. That confirmed Mullin's view that judges can be very clever and very stupid. Igor was appointed Lord Chief Justice in July 2008. 

Bibi Sangha & Ors may confirm Mullin's view in Forensic Investigations and Miscarriages of Justice (Irwin Law/Federation Press 2010):

"Once a person has been convicted at trial and then has had an unsuccessful appeal, that person has no legal right to a further appeal based upon the discovery of fresh evidence... That view has been endorsed by the High Court of Australia."

David Blunkett, Home Secretary, complained on November 27, 2002:

"It is proving difficult to bring them [the judges] from the medieval to the Tudor."

Menzies: shirt tail frill

In 1961, Mr Pete Seeger (b. 1919) put the question: Where have all the soldiers gone? and answered it thus:

Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?

Bob Menzies (1894-1978; PM 1949-66) was a clever lawyer who sent thousands to their graveyards in the cause of licking the boots of leaders of larger countries, first England and then America.  

Dr Robert Rabel, a New Zealand historian, quotes Foreign Relations of the US 1964-68 (US Government Printing Office 1992) on President Lyndon Johnson's reaction to Menzies' grovelling in the run-up to the Vietnam War (Journal of the Australian War Memorial, March 1999):

"On 1 December [1964] he [Johnson] ... stressed to his advisers the importance of securing allied support, but he referred dismissively to Australia as a 'shirt tail frill', and he made no mention of New Zealand at all."

I'm not sure we want to know what Texans mean by "shirt tail frill".

We do know from the 1964 Cabinet papers that Menzies lied to the people to get our soldiers into the Vietnam boneyard. Unfortunately, it is not a crime in Australia for politicians to deliberately mislead the public. 

Holyoake: not a shirt tail frill

Holyoake and MingSir Keith Holyoake (1904-83, NZ PM [National] 1960-72) was a level-headed farmer. His Defence Secretary, Jack Hunn (1906-97), was a Master of Laws.

They knew Vietnam was a loser, and were opposed to getting involved.

It was not until May 1965 that Holyoake was persuaded that New Zealand could not "afford to be left too far behind Australia". He reluctantly agreed to send a token force of 120 to Vietnam. Hunn resigned.

Blair: shirt tail frill

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, reviewing Tony Blair's apologia, A Journey: My Political Life (Knopf, 2010), in The New York Review of Books (December 23, 2010) has this:

"The Americans humoured the British while ignoring them for practical purposes. It has been the repetitious theme of former ambassadors and other witnesses at the recent Chilcot inquiry into Britain's part in the Iraq war that Blair gained nothing whatever from the Bush administration in return for his unswerving support, and indeed exerted almost no influence at all in the White House."

When will she ever learn?

A not very clever lawyer, Ms Julia Gillard, has given another, Mr Barack Obama unswerving support on the matter of a good Queensland boy, Mr Julian Assange.

Obama is trying to get Assange renditioned to Guantanamo Bay for a nice dose of torture, or worse.

Ms Gillard said on December 7 that, "we've got the gross irresponsibility of this conduct"; that the "foundation stone" of Assange's operation was "an illegal act".

Elizabeth de la Vega: former prosecutor named the guiltyWhat does she think of Obama's cover-up of illegal acts in his own country?

It was noted here on November 1, 2006 that it is a criminal offence in the US for public officials to intentionally mislead the public. Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor, named the guilty men and woman in The Nation of November 14, 2005.

Vega said:

"From the fall of 2001 to at least March 2003, the following officials, and others, made hundreds of false assertions in speeches, on television, at the United Nations, and to Congress ... Their statements were remarkably consistent and consistently false."

The Iraq Seven were: George Bush, Dick Cheney, Ari Fleischer, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz.

Obama has refused to allow them to be charged; Assange is at serious risk.

Leaping to a truth-seeking system

Richardson: enthusiastic adversarialistA London silk, James Richardson, says there had been a great leap in the UK towards an inquisitorial system for both crime and civil litigation.

NZ's LawFuel reported (December 16, 2010) that he told the University of Auckland:

"Our criminal justice system is – if not careering – certainly sleepwalking into an inquisitorial process ... it may be that some see this as a good thing, but I make it plain that I am a firm believer in the adversarial process - both as a matter of principle and as being the best way of protecting both the innocent from being wrongly convicted and, fundamentally, the guilty from being convicted when the state does not have the evidence to prove their guilt."

In fact, the adversary process is NOT the best way of protecting the innocent because the lawyers who run it are not incapable of lying.  

But, as Richardson handsomely admits, the system IS the best way of protecting the guilty.

The state does not have the evidence because lawyers' pals on the bench have concocted six great rules since lawyers decently began to defend accused in the 18^th century. The rules happily prevent jurors from learning that dangerous criminals are guilty

Our learned friend also said:

"Politicians are just deluding themselves and misleading the public by suggesting that dramatic reforms of criminal procedure are going to have any impact on the 'crime problem'. Rather than confront the causes of crime, it is of course far easier to attack lawyers and the system."

We must all feel the pain of lawyer-bashing, but I suspect there would be a dramatic impact on white collar crime if the system were reformed to let the authorities put away a substantial number of tax evaders, inside traders, and price-fixers.

And if the mudder country is leaping to a truth-seeking system, can the colonies be far behind?