Comments on: Ken Clarke Reintroduces Slave Trade to Britain

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 09:56:35 +0000

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/10/11/the-values-of-everything/

It could just work and Bozh your thought’s on this Values of everything.

By: John Andrews

John Andrews — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 06:42:05 +0000

Thanks for the comments.

I found the full text of Clarke’s speech on the Tory party website (but must admit I didn’t read it all – once you’ve heard one raving fascist you’ve heard them all don’t you think?):

http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/10/Ken_Clarke_Making_prisoners_pay_to_support_victims.aspx

By: hayate

hayate — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:51:31 +0000

I used to use dhl for shipping, then I found out they used slaves in British prisons for some of their work in Europe, making labels or something like that, I forget exactly what the slaves worked on now. After I found that out, I ceased using dhl.

By: Mulga Mumblebrain

Mulga Mumblebrain — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:31:43 +0000

The use of prison labour is one of the profoundest hypocrisies in Western media discourse, which is saying something.While prisoners in the US are routinely used as a pool of captive labour, the pathocrats of the media sewer never hesitate to slander China over the same practice. The duplicity and double-standard is automatic and reflex. For myself I think prison labour is a good idea,if voluntary and properly paid. Convicted prisoners are not slaves. Some money could go for victim compensation, where appropriate, and the rest be invested to give the prisoner a head-start on release and limit the dangers of recidivism. There are many eminently sensible policies that come readily to mind that would reduce the level of re-offending, but the Right opposes them because, for them, prison is all about revenge, punishment and the pleasures of sadistically dealing with the powerless, the same motivations behind Israeli bastardy in Palestine and US atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:14:47 +0000

A camera on every corner. Somebody is watching somebody. They went in that shop and didn’t buy anything call the thought police.

By: MichaelKenny

MichaelKenny — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:08:50 +0000

The interesting thing about the press coverage of this is that all the reports dated 5 October say that Clarke “will” announce the above scheme, but there’s nothing to suggest that he ever actually did make the announcement. I see a report in today’s Daily Mail which places the idea in the context of Clarke’s belief that “prison doesn’t work” and that the prison population should be reduced. In that report, what is being proposed is not that prisoners should work while in prison but that people who would otherwise have received short custodial sentences would instead be sentenced to community service work, with electronic bracelets to control their movements etc. That sounds slightly more logical than the original reports. Never forget that all these private media are in the business of making money and sensationalist stories sell papers! My test is that if it sounds silly (and the original report sounded very silly indeed), it’s probably not true.