The Denis MacShane Prize 415


This is a genuine offer. I will pay £100 to any person who can provide a convincing reason why Denis MacShane’s expense fiddling, involving his creating false invoices, was not a criminal offence. Your argument does not have to be unanswerable – merely respectable. Up to three prizes will be given, for the three first and not essentially the same convincing arguments.

This competition specifically is open to employees of the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service; we would love to know their reasoning. It baffles me. I confess I can think of no single circumstance in this case that would prevent MacShane being convicted for theft and fraud. What is the answer?

Denis MacShane is a criminal. If he wants to try his chances with a jury, the libel courts are open to him and I am here.


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415 thoughts on “The Denis MacShane Prize

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  • Phil

    Jemand 7 Nov, 2012 – 4:54 am
    “It must be possible to bring MacShane to justice. Public demonstrations?…Setting up a blog devoted exclusively to this issue?”

    You are clearly experienced in confronting criminality. I can hear MI5 lines buzzing in terror.

  • Phil

    Jemand 7 Nov, 2012 – 4:54 am
    “It must be possible to bring MacShane to justice. Public demonstrations?…Setting up a blog devoted exclusively to this issue?”

    You are clearly experienced in confronting criminality. I can hear MI5 lines buzzing in terror.

    Now that’s sarcasm in mock replay.

  • Jemand

    @Phil – 7 Nov, 2012 – 9:03 am


    You are clearly experienced in confronting criminality. I can hear MI5 lines buzzing in terror.

    Now that’s sarcasm in mock replay.

    Ok, well what about letting his car tyres down early in the morning? Or a prank phone call in the middle of the night? An angry Christmas card?

  • Jemand

    John Goss – 7 Nov, 2012 – 10:28 am


    O/T but important. When I learnt about the police tasering to death a Brazilian student in Sydney I thought of poor Jean Charles de Menezes.

    They also shot dead a mentally ill person who was self-harming. His dad called the cops or ambulance service in desperation, hoping that they could/would stop him. There was an attempted coverup afterwards. Throughout the ordeal for the father, the cops never acknowledged him, never apologised, never expressed regrets. They treated him as if he were a disinterested onlooker.

    http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/03/01/3443486.htm
    http://express.whereilive.com.au/news/story/officer-lied-about-shooting-commission-is-told/

  • Villager

    Phil

    ” Now that’s sarcasm in mock replay.”

    LOL. Thats the only worthwhile thing i’ve read this morning.

  • technicolour

    oh, hello, Jemand, and thanks for reposting my paragraph. I was worrying that it might get lost!

    “My view is that we do need to understand crime”. Oh good! Can thoroughly recommend Oscar Wilde’s essay “The Soul of a Man under Socialism”.

    But perhaps you’ve read it? In case you haven’t, I’m thinking particularly of this bit:

    “a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime. It obviously follows that the more punishment is inflicted the more crime is produced, and most modern legislation has clearly recognised this, and has made it its task to diminish punishment as far as it thinks it can. Wherever it has really diminished it the results have always been extremely good. The less punishment the less crime. When there is no punishment at all, crime will either cease to exist, or, if it occurs, will be treated by physicians as a very distressing form of dementia, to be cured by care and kindness.

    Enjoy!

    http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/wilde_soul.html

  • Jemand

    @Technicolour

    I’m not sure that Irish poets in 19th C. can help us divine an answer to this problem, especially one who thinks that punishment is the true origin of crime. I thought greed and a contempt for society accounted for a good slice – Come on down Denis MacShane!

    @John Goss

    The police seem to attract a certain type of person. Indeed, our society creates structures that attracts “certain” types of people. We would hardly expect to find a would-be cop applying for a job as a scientist or hairdresser. The potentially violent nature of the job has some appeal for people who want to hurt or stand over others with impunity. Maybe it’s the same mentality as for gangsters but lacking a certain entrepreneurial flare – a bit like the public sector vs the private sector.

    What makes me even more angry tho’ is the institutional resistance to justice. We can well expect a stupid cop to do the wrong thing, but then having to deal with a systematic obstruction of justice by many self-interested people is something even more serious.

  • technicolour

    “I thought greed and a contempt for society accounted for a good slice” – which is why Wilde suggests a fundamental change in society. Perhaps it was a mistake to post an extract. Have you read the whole piece?

  • Abe Rene

    Here’s a reason for believing that Denis McShane has committed no crime: as you yourself said, the Metropolitan Police have said they are not investigating him. Therefore they have no evidence against him that would stand up in court, therefore he is innocent, Q.E.D.

    But I will excuse you the payment of £100 on the grounds that you are poor by your own testimony, and have heavy responsibilities for the welfare of other people. 🙂

  • Dreoilin

    Komodo says,

    “Somehow, I don’t think this survivalist is the same Dreoilin…

    http://dreoilin.wordpress.com/
    Self reliance & Personal responsibility”

    Would you care to explain? You think I should be taking MORE personal responsiblity? For what?

    No, I’m not a “survivalist”, I’m a survivor – by the skin of my teeth.
    And if you Google me again, you might find this
    http://www.dreoilin.ie/

    and that’s not me either.

  • technicolour

    NB “I’m not sure that Irish poets in 19th C. can help us divine an answer to this problem” – obviously, if you don’t actually read them, no. Not sure if it’s the Irishness, the poetry, or the century which is the problem, nor how an answer can be ‘divined’, either?

    Cheery wave to the girl from school who joined the police because she wanted to help the community. I wonder if she’s now on the child care front line, seeing these graphic horrors close up, trying her best, and struggling against underfunding and politics on top of it.

    Dreoilin, quite – how weird was that?

  • nevermind

    We are also worried about this ‘institutional resistance to justice’ here in Norfolk. Today the EDP received three concerned letters re: the probity of an army colonel who kept voters in the dark over his extracurricular activities with Csok cz.

    Further, this morning, for the first time since the seasonal vacillations over US politics has wiped away the broadcasting brief the BBC, we heard of the police and crime commissioners election in 8 days time. They are not working for us!

    This wholly unpopular election of a US style PCC will not attract more than 15% of the electorate, a farce, but that does not matter much, unpopular celebrity’s might have problems of getting on BBC TV, but never politicians, they can pretend as much as they like, swagger their fishy ideas, However unpopular of without mandate, and as long as they come from the US, these ideas are transmitted, such abuse of the broadcasting brief should not be allowed to happen.

    Call it off now!

  • Dreoilin

    Where did I read recently that the Americanisation of the UK is very deliberate? Was it here somewhere?

    And did you find anything worth reporting from Google, Komodo?

  • Jemand

    @Mary re youtube galloway vs halfon

    What a ripper example of the establishment diluting the crimes of their friends, having a soft shoe on one side of the fence and a hard shoe on the other. Apparently, the good works (political works, that is) mitigates the wrongs one does – unless you’re a thieving looter in riotous london. Let this be good advice to those scummy thieves, vicious rapists and murderers out there – do some regular charity work and you will get praise lavished on you. Maybe, you won’t even get charged.

  • Mary

    Aw shucks!

    9 November 2012 Last updated at 10:29 Share this pageEmail Print Share this page

    Denis MacShane in expenses apology to Rotherham

    Denis MacShane apologised for the damage he had done to the reputation of Rotherham

    Ex-Labour minister Denis MacShane has apologised to the people of Rotherham after quitting as the town’s MP because he wrongfully claimed expenses.

    “I have let this wonderful town, its terrific people and my constituency down so very badly,” he wrote in a letter to the Yorkshire Post newspaper.

    Mr MacShane stepped down a week ago after a Parliamentary committee found he had submitted 19 false invoices.

    /..
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-20265470

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