| Product: |
The Daily Record |
| Date: |
02/12/00 (52 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Newspaper of the Year
Disadvantages: -
Half the crime in the city is committed by the police and the army; drugs are sold by the families of top politicians and soldiers; the police and the judges can be bought; drug crazed gangs of school kids fight each other to death: that's Jakarta, Indonesia.
In many countries the drugs barons control journalists, politicians, generals, judges, and policemen through bribery and intimidation. In many countries the presidents are drugs barons.
I met an English UN worker in Haiti and we got talking about corruption. He said, "Corruption is just as bad in Britain as it is in Haiti."
"Surely not," I said.
I hoped he was wrong. I hope we are still a democracy, with honest policemen, uncorruptible judges, decent cabinet ministers and crusading journalists.
I met a Pakistani businessman on an international flight. He said, "Cricket! It's all corrupt these days."
"Not in Britain," I said.
"Come on," he chortled. "Do you think England is not corrupt?" He told me about the British cabinet minister who had done dodgy arms deals with the Arabs. He told me about the British cabinet minister whose son had sold drugs. He told me about the Kent gangster who had friends among top policemen. He told me about the top Liverpool policemen who were in the pay of a gangster......
I said, "but we've got an excellent media that exposes that sort of thing."
"The British media!" He laughed out loud. "British TV is all bread and circuses. The newspapers are mainly soft porn."
I ask you. Is our press so bad?
Today I was cheered up by reading THE DAILY RECORD, the NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR!
Here is a crusading newspaper that fights against the bad guys.
The DAILY RECORD is naming and shaming drug dealers in Scotland.
On the front page we have a photo of a granny who sells her
oin in Stirling. Others are named inside.
"In Glasgow's Ruchazie scheme, drugs are being dealt on almost every floor of a block of flats in 9 Craighouse Street," writes the DAILY RECORD.
"In Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, one of Scotland's major dealers...drives a Mercedes with the proceeds of his drug dealing. He has a foreign girlfriend and is a member of an exclusive golf club on the south side of Glasgow, where he deals openly at the 14th hole. He is also a regular dealer at a city centre nightclub..."
(An MP for an area near Eaglesham died in strange circumstances. He had been campaigning against the drug dealers.)
The Daily Record has 4 pages of this sort of stuff and there is more to come.
WAIT A MINUTE! How come none of these people are in jail?
How come that the VERY FEW who are arrested either (1) are allowed to go free because the police or other authorities messed up the proceedings OR (2) get ludicrously short jail sentences and are very soon out again acting as dealers?
In Singapore you will not find drug dealers ruling the streets, the housing estates, the schools, the prisons, the shopping malls etc. In Singapore, convicted drug dealers NEVER return to crime. In Singapore, ten year-olds can walk home safely from school. In Singapore, unlike in Britain, cabinet minister's sons don't die of drugs overdoses. In Singapore, there is zero tolerance of drugs.
BUT, Britain is not Singapore. Are we more like Jakarta? Is Glasgow part of the Third World? In Scotland the police seize only 1% of the total amount of heroin used. In Scotland 50% of young people aged 16-19 have taken drugs.
Let us hope that the DAILY RECORD will campaign to get the bad guys permanently put away. Let's hope it will campaign for reform of the police and the criminal justice system. let's hope it will campaign for 100 year jail sentences for drug dealers and corrupt
officials.
Let's hope it will campaign for random drugs testing of cabinet ministers, judges and police chiefs.
If Singapore can be safe for 10 year-olds, why can't Glasgow and London be safe for them too?
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Last comment:
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imright - 02/12/00 I think you've raised some interesting points. A well written op! |
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