Two big stories
Gordon’s speech to conference
It almost passed unnoticed in the blogosphere, but it seems Gordon Brown made some sort of speech yesterday.
As the Daily Express put it:
Brushing off reports he is a “dead man walking,” a deluded Brown gushed: “It’s our Britain that works best.”
Though Labour activists might prefer The Guardian’s take:
In a determined 59-minute speech to the party’s autumn conference in Brighton, the prime minister said the Conservatives had faced the “economic call of the century” and had called it wrong.
Polanski arrested
Roman Polanski had sex with a 13 year old girl 32 years ago, so is his arrest justice at last, or sinister victimisation.
The Independent reports the Swiss Economy Minister, Doris Leuthard:
The international outcry on Mr Polanski’s behalf implied that there should be a law for ordinary people and another for celebrated film directors, she suggested.
“The Americans strongly believe that the arrest of Mr Polanski is necessary,” she said. “That’s for them to decide. Switzerland is simply a state where the police functions and where we treat all people in the same way.”
Two must-read blog-posts
Iain Brodie Brown favours cutting Vince some slack on the Mansion tax:
I realise that there are a lot of bruised egos out there who thought they ought to be consulted. I suspect quite a few of them would have been happy to launch their own initiative without widespread consultation. … Jo Grimond who regularly tops polls as the best Liberal Leader was not adverse to confronting the party with a policy announcement.
Caron is less than impressed at Gordon Brown’s plans for teenage mums:
Brown’s idea s a shameful, desperate play for the Daily Mail vote. I hope that enough Labour MPs have the backbone to make sure that it never becomes a reality.
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9 Comments
Polanski didn’t “have sex with a 13 year old”. He drugged, raped, and anally raped a thirteen year old girl, and when it looked like the judge wasn’t going to go for his statutory rape plea bargain because of the brutality of the attack, he fled to another country. However, don’t take my word for it. Read her testimony, and then see if you think it still deserves such an innocuous description: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskicover1.html
I note that whoever posted this doesn’t have the balls to do it under their own name, but I am bloody disgusted that even LDV is joining in the airbrushing of what this man did.
The political question about Roman Polanski isn’t whether he is guilty (he is, and plead guilty at his trial) but over two further things:
1) He was originally offered a plea bargain by the prosecution and entered his guilty plea on that basis. The plea bargain was then not accepted by the judge, and there’s been a long-running debate about whether there was any misconduct.
2) He’s been in Europe for 32 years and hasn’t been arrested so far. Why now? Why is this an arbitrary decision and not automatic? It’s a process question rather than a guilt question.
It’s pretty hard to see him as the victim, although he can probably justifiably claim that something weird happened in his original trial. For the rest of us, I think we would like to know why he’s been treated in such an odd way by both the US legal system and various European governments, sometimes in his favour and sometimes against. It’s a pretty weird situation that needs some explaining.
I agree completely, Rob. So why describe it as “having sex with”? Call it what it is.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate and say that there’s no need to describe sex with a 13-year-old as rape since, by definition, a 13-year-old can’t give proper consent. But yeah, it is a weak description.
Actually, having done some checking, the original charges of rape were dismissed (as part of the plea bargain) and he plead guilty to lesser charges of ‘unlawful sex with a minor’, so maybe there is a need to make a distinction after all. On a purely technical level, he’s never been found guilty of rape, though it’s not clear to me why anyone would make a distinction between the two (maybe they don’t do this any more?).
Jennie – you might also add this Salon piece, too: “Reminder: Roman Polanski raped a child” http://bit.ly/Sa0X0
The only “sinister victimisation” here is what Polanski did to that girl.
A lot of the reporting I’ve read of the Polanski case is (at least from a legal standpoint) horribly confused, contradictory and hard to follow.
However my understanding of it is that he was charged with rape but pleaded guilty to a (much) lesser offence. He then fled the USA before sentence. There is then some confusion about whether there had actually been a plea bargain or not.
Therefore it seems to me that there are two possible grounds for extradition:
1) As a convicted/confessed offender in order to be sentenced and to serve that sentence.
2) To actually stand trial for the more serious offence (to which he has not admitted). There are issues around that regarding the length of time since the charges which might be an issue in extradition hearings.
The rest are allegations (albeit IMO pretty persuasive ones). The testimony referenced above is just that though – it’s not been found by a court to be the fact.
Added to which all of this case is looking at the laws of 1977 through the prism of 2009. IIRC child pornography was still legal in at least one EEC country at that time. Given the evidence above I’m pretty certain a plea bargain for a non-custodial sentence wouldn’t even be considered today.
None of which detracts from the fact that Polanski is a pretty major sleaze (and IMO not a particularly great director either). There are some pretty embarrassing defences of him bouncing around.
There is a rumour from the LA Times that the sudden extradition request to Switzerland – where Polanski has a home – was prompted by the actions of Polanski’s own lawyers. Apparently as part of their LA court filings last month, in which they requested that all charges against him to be dropped, they said that the LA district attorney’s office had never sought to have him extradited, claiming that the DA’s office did not want to have to deal with allegations of judicial misconduct in the original case.
This prompted the DA’s office to look for an opportunity to arrest the director and after hearing he was due to attend a film festival in Zurich, they contacted Swiss legal officers to launch an extradition.
The HBO documentary ‘Wanted and Desired’ covered the case at some length, and I can only say everyone involved is to some extent a victim of the Hollywood syndrome where fame has a toxic influence.
The girl’s parents encouraged her to cosy up to Polanski in his ivory tower, while the Judge in the case harboured personal feelings about the world he could see around him – he was bitter that he didn’t get the respect or attention he felt his position deserved and wanted to join the celebrity circle with whom he socialised.
Now as Polanski feels his time on the stage is drawing to a close he wants to pick up the accolades he feels he deserves, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he wants to serve a sentence in exchange for being free to make an acceptance speech or two to provide his vindication and sign off his career in style.
Either way this is just a big old drama which functions as a morality tale for our times, and somebody definitely deserves an oscar for it.