Innocent until proven guilty

Matthew Hooton deals nicely with Clark’s spin about not having been able to act against Field as he is innocent until proven guilty.

If a teacher or a doctor ends up having sex with a distressed student or patient then we do not need to know anything else – we know that the teacher or doctor is wrong. Similarly, if a person who approaches their MP for help ends up tiling that MP’s investment properties for below the minimum wage then we do not need any more information – we know that that MP has abused their position.

If these are the standards we should apply, then Clark and Williams had all the information they needed 18 months ago to act against Field. Their inaction was a disgrace to the labour movement.

Labour has tried to say it is an issue of “innocent until proven guilty” but the criminal standard is surely not the one we should apply to our MPs, and it is not the one that Clark and Williams are applying to Field now.

As Clark has said, Field’s actions were “unacceptable, unethical and immoral”. She indicates she has believed this from day one.

Hooton them makes the obvious conclusion:

That Clark did not act against an MP who, in her judgement, was “unacceptable, unethical and immoral”, suggests she sees these qualities as unexceptional in her Labour Party.

She may well be right. “Unacceptable, unethical and immoral” is exactly how to describe her own office’s conduct over the election spending affair.

And finally a comment on carbon neutrality:

That’s because it’s unachievable and absurd. Only in countries where people are starving has it ever been attained. And even if we achieved it at unimaginable cost, we’re a small country and it wouldn’t delay climate change for a single hour. Climate change is a global issue, and in global terms we emit almost no carbon at all.