Tag Archives: richard branson

We shouldn’t criticize Jeremy Corbyn for finally doing a bit of reasonably clever “media”

Jeremy Corbyn is getting a bit hammered, particularly by Richard Branson, for a video of him sitting on the floor of a Virgin Train.

You can read the ins and outs of “Traingate” elsewhere.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 42 Comments

LibLink: Nick Clegg and Richard Branson: We have been losing the war on drugs for four decades. End it now.

Nick Clegg Glasgow 2014 by Liberal DemocratsIn a major keynote speech today, Nick Clegg will call for responsibility for drugs to be moved from the criminal justice system to the health care system. In that, he has the support of Richard Branson and the two men have written for the Guardian’s Comment is Free section. First of all, they show how the current system is both wasting money and failing:

 Since the “war” was declared by President Richard Nixon in 1971, we have spent over £1tn trying to eradicate drugs from our societies. Yet the criminal market continues to grow, driving unimaginable levels of profit for organised crime. We devote vast police, criminal justice and military resources to the problem, including the incarceration of people on a historically unprecedented scale.

In many parts of the world, drug violence has become endemic. As Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, visits the UK, we should remember the estimated 100,000 people killed in Mexico alone since 2006. Yet tragically, the sum total of enforcement efforts against drug supply over the past 40 years has been zero. Efforts at reducing demand have been similarly fruitless. Here in the UK, a third of adults have taken illegal drugs and the gangs are doing a roaring trade. The problem simply isn’t going away.

While other countries around the world are rethinking their approach, Britain remains stubbornly, truculently wedded to the old way, with tragic human consequences:

And yet we desperately need better solutions in this country. One in six children aged 11 to 15 is still taking drugs; 2,000 people die each year in drug-related incidents; the use of unregulated “legal highs” is rampant.

At the same time, the police are stopping and searching half a million people a year for possession of drugs, prosecutions of users are close to record levels, and prison cells are still used for people whose only crime is the possession of a substance to which they are addicted. This costs a lot of money, which could be better spent on treatment and on redoubling our efforts to disrupt supply. And it wrecks the lives of 70,000 people a year who receive a criminal record for possession and then find themselves unable to get a job.

As an investment, the war on drugs has failed to deliver any returns. If it were a business, it would have been shut down a long time ago. This is not what success looks like.

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , and | 14 Comments

Opinion: Are we being taken for a First(Group)-class ride?

As someone who has used the west coast mainline regularly for the past fifteen years (and would have done so more if the cheaper fares were more readily available), I can testify to a significant improvement in reliability and levels of service in recent years. Much of this was of course down to the £9bn and more of public investment in upgrading the line, and much was down to Virgin themselves – I carry no torch for Sir Richard but there’s little denying that Virgin trains, expensive though they undoubtedly can be, ran what became a reliable, punctual, comfortable service.

But …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 19 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Mick Taylor
    Mark Frankel is always 110% on the side of Netanyahu and the Israeli state, but his comments are not wholly wrong. I do feel angry that far too many people try ...
  • Steve Trevethan
    Might it be appropriate to promote whole nation-beneficial policies and their marketing, rather than concentrate on attacking other parties? Might it help to...
  • Ricky Treadwell
    Votes for all other parties will be up for grabs, we have to win anti-status quo voters from reform for example. To do this as can't just fire shots at unpop...
  • Christopher Haigh
    Coincidentally Tim Iredale on Politics North lad t Sunday devoted the whole programme to the way surviving coalfield communities of the South Yorkshire have bee...
  • Katie Wilson-Downie
    This is positive steps to fighting the real elephant in the room. Something that affects many but sadly we would believe it affects a minority, Such awful e...