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TandemJeremy - Member
Of course you are putting the boot in. To say some forms of rape are not serious is wrong. simple as. Thats what Clarke did.
<sigh> Ignorance is indeed bliss.
Simple words for you: I have not said and do not think that. Stop being silly now.
Reading your earlier posts is a waste of time TJ (unless I come back and say 'you're absolutely right'). You're now reverting to the STW TJ stereotype that people really don't like.
. To say some forms of rape are not serious is wrong. simple as. Thats what Clarke did.
Did he? From what I recall he said that some forms of rape were less serious than others not that some forms of rape are not serious.
Perhaps you should actually [s]read[/s] listen to what [s]I wrote[/s] he said rather than putting your interpretations on it?
leffeboy - by referring to "serious rape" that must mean there is non serious rape.. he did not say "more serious" he said "serious"
I am not delibertly misinterpreting anything to make a political point. As I said earlier I respect Clarke in general but on this he shows a mindset that is rooted in the 50s.
I am not trolling - I am hoping that some will open their minds but apparently not.
There are two issues here, conviction rates and length of sentence once convicted.
Nobody can argue that conviction rates are too low (what you do about it is another matter) but there is a debate to be had about length of sentence. That's what KC was talking about and to assume having that debate means he thinks conviction rates are acceptable or that rape is not a serious crime (when he said just the opposite) is wrong and dangerous.
Unless of course you are an old right winger like TJ who believes in fixed tariff sentencing 😉
Boblo - I did not say you said that - I said Clarke said that.
Really - go back thru what I have posted and read it with an open mind.. nOt what people claim I have posted but what I actually did post.
gonfishin - no he did not. He referred to "serious rape" which must mean there is non serious rape.
by referring to "serious rape" that must mean there is non serious rape
No that's [i]your[/i] interpretation, another interpretaion is that there is less serious e.g. one that does not involve violence for example. That does not make either acceptable or not serious but does allow people to distinguish between the two.
Why is acceptable for you to interpret the words of others but when others interpret your words you get all huffy?
Havent the time to argue but would just like to say I agree with TJ
leffeboy - by referring to "serious rape" that must mean there is non serious rape.. he did not say "more serious" he said "serious"
Only if you choose to interpret it that way. I'm another who would never vote Tory but I despair that this is the level of political debate we are reduced to.
Mrs Toast - MemberDo you mean that you think Clarke holds this view or do you mean that it reminds you of what was once a widely held view?
Kind of a mixture of both - when someone pointed out that rapists normally serve around 5 years so would be out in 15 months with the new guidelines, Clarke defended the short average sentence by saying it was skewed by "date rape, 17-year-olds having intercourse with 15 year olds...
"A serious rape with violence and an unwilling woman - the tariff is longer than that."
By saying that, he's saying that date rape isn't 'serious'. He's also inferring that victims of date rape are somehow willing by putting them in the same category as consensual teenage sex, and in a different category to 'violent' rape against 'unwilling' women.
Which does sound a bit like he'd class John Worboys' crimes as not being serious, because the women got into the taxi of their own accord and accepted drinks (which were spiked), and were knocked out therefore not needing violence to rape them. I mean, women, accepting drinks from strangers - they're asking for it aren't they? And most of them were unconscious and can't actually remember what happened, so no harm, no foul, eh?
Maybe it's 'putting words into his mouth', but Clarke should really think about the words coming out of his mouth if he doesn't want them to be so easily misconstrued - if they are being miscontrued. At worst he does belittle 'date rape'. At best he's a moron.
If a woman from the feminists against rape had said "in the case of serious rape with violence" no one would have blinked. And if one did analyse it she would not be villified, as the presumption (or the prejudice) is that she is very pro victim and on the "correct" side of this. Because KC said it TJ and others have applied their prejudice and assumed it means something deeper. Just one word is really all this is about, and your interpretation of this one word is fundamentally based on your prejudices.
TJ you need to open your mind.
TJ you need to remember that being wrong is OK, that is how you learn, so maybe take a step back and think why is everyone against me, is it because I am wrong or I am an unrecognised genius? You decide.
Toys - read Mrs Toasts post. Everyone is not against me. several on this thread follow the same sort of line.
My mind is open. Try reading what I wrote carefully. I like ken Clarke but will not let that influence my opinion of what he did here.
Repeatedly quoting someone who agrees with you but is also guilty of putting words into Ken Clarke's mouth isn't an argument. Honestly...
No TJ, you've performed as expected. Straight into the 'right on' corner whilst demonstrating a bit of the prejudice you apparently despise as your inclusivity mantle slipped and you started slinging party political perjoritives around. I'm just surprised at the absence of your best mate to back you up in this piffle....
Quote from a friend of a friend on Facebook (female), 'someone should date rape Ken Clarke and see if he still thinks it's not serious'. Nice, would it be considered acceptable to make that comment about a female?
Boblo - I LIKE KEN CLARKE no party political pejorative here. Straw as home secretary said something similar and I castigated him for it.
Please explain how I demonstrated prejudice?
Yeah I read Mrs Toasts post, and it's a wrong analysis of what he said for exactly the sames reasons as have been outlined by me and others.
KC is motivated to change the law to make things better for the victim, it is completley pointless and destructived to make a massive fuss over a possibly "mis-said" word and divert attention away fron the real debate. It stinks of political opportunism by Milliband et al, and by TJ, really it shoots down any credibilty you may have in this debate becasue you cannot see beyond the triumphalism of "outing" clarke as a dinosaur. Which achieves nothing positive for anyone.
Grum, are you allowed to tell your friend she's being an idiot?
TandemJeremy - Member
Perhaps you should actually read what I wrote rather than putting [b]your interpretations[/b] on it?
Yet you spectacularly fail to do that yourself TJ.
TandemJeremy - Member
He referred to "serious rape" [b]which must mean there is non serious rape[/b].
TandemJeremy - MemberPlease explain how I demonstrated prejudice?
Read the posts 😀 Might be near the bit about 'Old Tory' you know the factual description you always preface a sentence with. 'Julie. young, red dress' Y'know, that sort of thing?
Straw as home secretary said something similar and I castigated him for it.
Exactly which shows how you have missed the point of the argument and why the problem is no nearer a solution, because of the petty squabbling over some badly chosen words.
No toys - I am genuinely disappointed 'cos as I said several times Clarke often makes a lot of sense on judicial matters.
phil - if he says there is a category of "serious rape" there must be a category of "non serious rape" You cannot have a category of "serious" without there being a category of "non serious"
No, there could be a category of EVEN more serious rape as all these crimes are deemed serious?
Grum, are you allowed to tell your friend she's being an idiot?
It's a friend of a friend, I don't know them. Tempting to tell them anyway but I'm not sure I want Facebook drama on this issue.
- if he says there is a category of "serious rape" there must be a category of "non serious rape" You cannot have a category of "serious" without there being a category of "non serious"
Yeah this is just a semantic/logical fail. There could be any number of steps between serious and non serious.
You can write a list that looks like this(in order of severity):
not serious
slightly serious
quite serious
[b]serious[/b]
very serious
bloody horrific like being in dantes inferno
or this:
[b]serious[/b]
quite serious
very serious
incredibly serious
beyond serious
or this:
Not serious
slightly serious
a bit more serious
very serious
[b]serious[/b]
You can see that it is easy to pu the word serious on its own anywhere on the line of seriousness depending on your appraoch, and it demonstrates how pathetic it is to be jumping on every little semantic nuance for postional, ego, or political gain.
if he says there is a category of "serious rape" there must be a category of "non serious rape" You cannot have a category of "serious" without there being a category of "non serious"
EDIT: same as Toys post above
No Toys, it's binary - everyone knows [i]that[/i]. Serious/non serious.
Rearrange: to, wrong, conclusion, jumped
TJ wrote
Try reading what I wrote carefully
I give up. You continually reduce threads to a pathetic "misunderstood TJ against the world" and refuse to acknowledge or accept that another point of view might actually have some merit. Do you really think that anyone has the time or inclination to go back over your every word?
There is a broad agreement on this thread regarding rape and what could have been an interesting an enlightening discussion has once again been reduced to petty point scoring and semantics.
Well done, I hope you think you won 🙁
boblo
😆
leffeboy - by referring to "serious rape" that must mean there is non serious rape.. he did not say "more serious" he said "serious"
No. It means that there can be less serious rape rather than non-serious. I would choose 'less serious', you would choose 'non-serious'. The point is that the whole of this huge discussion is falling on the interpretation of the opposite of a single word. Something that wasn't actually said but was [i]implied[/i] was said
what nonsense is that
And nicely put toys19
Is there non-serious murder?
The debate over first and second degree murder never got quite so emotive IIRC.
I'm reasonably sure that KC meant serious and more-serious. That's a perfectly valid thing to debate but suggesting that he meant that some rape is not serious is party politics, taking advantage of a poor choice of words by KC. All IMO of course.
Interesting link here on the cps website - [url= http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/s1_rape/ ]cps sentencing manual on rape[/url]
Essentially it breaks down all the categories of "seriousness" and pretty much blows Milliband out of the water.
People really get hung up over the odd detail and use of words in a conversation. I heard the interview live, and just knew some people would boil over what he said.
It was quite clear what he was saying, and a fair enough point. People like TJ are the reason why politicians have to act like moronic robots, much the same as other high profile people.
I'm reasonably sure that KC meant serious and more-serious. That's a perfectly valid thing to debate but suggesting that he meant that some rape is not serious is party politics, taking advantage of a poor choice of words by KC. All IMO of course.
This is essentially the truth, the key things being "I'm reasonabaly sure" and "IMO of course".
No one really knows whether KC has an outdated view on rape, they can only make assumptions on what he says. In this case he seems to have used the wrong words and the question is whether that was a simple mistake or whether it was more of a 'Freudian slip' (for want of a better phrase), and betrayed his true opinion on the matter.
Oh lord I thought this had all been sorted out yesterday afternoon?
Can I raise the point about the 6% conviction rate please because I don't think it's technically correct.
This was brought up a few months back by one of the women in the shadow cabinet, (was it Yvette Cooper?)
At that time the statistic was criticised for being very misleading because the conviction rate for rape cases that are actually prosecuted is actuyally 58%, broadly the same as for all other crimes
The MP concerned was using it to make a political (and in my view a gender political) point and has been criticised on both the left and the right for a number of reasons, not least because it could easily disuade more victims from reporting a rape, wrongly believing a conviction was almost impossible.
It's more correct to say that the ratio between reported cases and prosecution is very low and there will be a whole host of reasons for that.
Sensible question(?) What's the ratio of report/prosecute for serious crime in general?
BTW getting everyone away from speculating on what KC actually meant is [i]really[/i] not helpful 🙂
The MP concerned was using it to make a political (and in my view a gender political) point and has been criticised on both the left and the right for a number of reasons, not least because it could easily disuade more victims from reporting a rape, wrongly believing a conviction was almost impossible.
I think the same about the interviewer yesterday. By stating that a convicted rapits will be back on the streets in a year, she's going to put victims off reporting the crime.
It was Harriet Harman that made the statement and it was Lady Stern, who put together the Stern Report on the subject, who criticised her for it, suggesting the figure of 6% was reached in a way not used for evaluating any other crime statistics. Stern also said there was annecdotal evidence that the use of the 6% figure had indeed disuaded women from reporting their ordeal.
It seems that around 25% of reported cases are actually prosectued and of those 58% result in conviction. That conviction rate is actually higher than for a lot of other violent offences.
What I am not sure I get is how the 6% figure, right or otherwise, is actually reached since 58% of 25% gives a conviction ratio of reports to convictions of 14.5%.
This seems to be a pretty balanced overview: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/05/rape-sentences-clarke-victim
Other stuff here: http://beneaththewig.com/in-screwing-ken-clarke-victoria-derbyshire-****ed-rape-victims
Good points GT and mike.
The way this has been reported will have a much more detrimental effect than anything Clarke actually said in relation to the reform, which I believe was very positive step for victims.
It's a shame that more prominence can't be given to the figures above but I guess that wouldn't make much of a headline. Balanced reporting seems to be a thing of the past.
[url= http://beneaththewig.com/ ]fixed mikes link[/url] which is worth a read.
Some people just want to be "outraged" about issues (especially when there is political prejudice involved) and jump on a miss chosen word and just don't let go.
[url= http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/05/ken-clarke-comments-rape ]more newstatesman[/url]
A pal of mine 3 years ago was "done" for statuatory rape, he was 16 and 4 months, girlfriend was 14 and 11 months, her father was well placed in the legal system (I'm not saying any more as many of you will have read about this) and to my mind used his position to mitigate his inabilty to accept his daughters inevitable progress in life. The lad has a prison sentence, criminal record and is on the register, because he was as much in love as any of us were when we were 16. Legally he is a rapist, morally he is a boy who has been raped by the system.
I've been asked to correct this I posted on p3.
It was [b]unlawful sex with a minor[/b] not [b]rape[/b], so he isn't legally a rapist, althoguh I still maintain he was raped by the system, he had a custodial sentence and is ont he register.
Thanks for the link Toys - exactly what I was trying to say but rather more eloquently written.
Edit: That Laurie Penny article is a disgrace
I've been asked to correct this I posted on p3.
Doesn't it depend on when it happened? I think the law was changed in 2003 according to TJ.
Oh and if you want to see gender politics in action, just read or listen to Laurie Penny.