Ian Hamilton QC

By Ian Hamilton

The greatest revolution the world has ever known was driven by three words. They were Liberty: Equality: Fraternity. They are the most powerful words the human mind has ever produced. The Emperor Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, the Admiral Lord Nelson and all the kings’ men tried to put humpty dumpty together again. They failed. The cracks still show. Yet when we vote to change our government no one will mention these words. They are too dangerous to entrust to a people. That is why voting will change nothing.

Of the three words the greatest is equality. There is no liberty in poverty. There is no fraternity between rich and poor. Under Labour the gap between rich and poor grows wider. Wider still and wider will it grow under the waiting millionaires. These are the alternatives faced by the English voters. They are not alternatives. A vote in England is a vote for nothing.

Here in Scotland there is hope. I live fifty miles from the Rest and Be Thankful. It is a main road. Suddenly a landslide may engulf it as it has done before. Just as quickly a landslide will engulf the constant poverty that is on offer from the south. The seeping of water has worn away a hillside and the seeping of ideas has made independence inevitable. Let them sneer at our banks. They were international banks, governed by international rules, until they failed. Then suddenly they became Scottish banks. You Scots will be the same, they say. You will fail, they say. And we forget about liberty, and equality and fraternity and believe them.

Yet to the north of us Iceland is still Iceland even if its bank failed. Troubled Ireland is still Ireland and it doesn’t seek to rejoin the United Kingdom. Across the North Sea in Scandinavia income has been successfully redistributed; the poor are only relatively poor and the rich are no more than comfortably off. Here we have bankers on millions and the aged on a hundred pounds a week. I would sooner throw a bomb than vote for that.

Change comes suddenly. In January 1789 Versailles seemed invincible. In January 1989 the Berlin Wall and the tyrannies behind it were permanent. By the end of each year Versailles was an empty shell and Cecescau and his like were dead. Soon Scotland will come into its own again. It will bring liberty, equality, fraternity to our people and be an example to the world.

Now I sit, an old man, watching the world go by. I keep waiting for the hillside to give way. Nothing can stop a hillside when it starts to slip. Nothing can stop the power of an idea when its turn comes round again.

Liberty, equality, fraternity. That is the idea. We can bring it to Scotland. We can bring it back to the world. 

by Ian Hamilton

In the piece below Romeplebian makes a comment and misses the point. He thinks that a single mother who gets away with £10,000 of Social Security money should be punished. presumably by the jail. Here is my reply.

The rich get very rich. Romeplebian’s take home pay is only a tiny fraction of the wages of wealth. So is the sum the single mother obtained from Social Security. The wages of wealth increase. The wages of poverty shrink. Every financial crisis is a means of redistributing any savings the poor may have to the rich. If you have no savings, Romeplebian, even that which you earn will be taken from you in greater taxes and, when it suits the bankers, in periods of unemployment. Your job won’t give you an eight million bonus, but it will give you heavier taxation which will go to the rich. Wait for it trickling down. Wait for pigs to fly. You and the single mother are brother and sister under the skin.

Single mothers and Romeplebian have no hope of sharing in the wealth of this wonderful country. Their only hope is the lottery. That gives them a one in fifteen million chance of joining in the riches around us. The Roman slaves had a better chance of freedom. It was called manumission. Manumission and the lottery have the same purpose. To give hope to the hopeless. Some hope!

Where has the decency of Old Labour gone? Where is the left wing? Where are the Mick MaGaheys, the Willie Gallahers? Where are the sons of those who went to Spain to fight for us all? Where are the people to cry down the rich from the rooftops; the rich who get so rich they have to hide in gated communities, while a wee lassie is jailed for taking a teaspoonful out of a reservoir? Where is hope?

As for Sheriff Dickhead. I satirise him. I don’t blame him. I was a sheriff once. Then I realised I was there to do society’s dirty work. I was so often on the side of the person in the dock that I went back to defending them. They are not all bad. Some, like the single mother just want a little more for their kids. If a banker gets bonuses in millions. If MPs can get ‘expenses’ in thousands and hundreds of thousands who are we to say that this girl was wrong? Throw the first stone if you must, Romeplebian but make sure you miss.

I declare myself on the side of the disposessed. In my dying years I know that whatever talents I had have failed both them and me.

“PS

NO ONE HAS ASKED ME WHAT THE SINGLE MUM’S SENTENCE SHOULD BE.

IT SHOULD BE ONE YEAR’S PROBATION WITH A CONDITION THAT SHE TAKE LESSONS ON HOW TO MANAGE HER FINANCES FROM HER MP. ”

By Ian Hamilton

I read in a local paper how Sheriff Dickhead dealt with a teenage mother of two. She had got away with £11,000 from Social Security.

The report didn’t say if she was a deserted spouse. Dickhead didn’t care. He treated her as one who had given way to her beastly lusts. (Even as a schoolboy Sheriff Dickhead never wanked.)

‘This is a fraud on the public,’ said Sheriff Dickhead. ‘I take the most serious view of this conduct.’

It is not a fraud on the public. It is not a fraud on the vast army of unemployed who pay no taxes. It is not a fraud on those who live in poverty. It is a fraud only on the rich…..some of the rich. The more taxes you pay the more you contribute to the fraud fund. Sheriff Dickhead with his wage five times the national average would feel it sorely.

Cry it not in Chichester! Publish it not in Kent! I have sympathy for a wee lassie who manages to get a little extra for her children. I would do what I could to help her.

The newspaper report told how Dickhead continued the case for Social Enquiry Reports.

‘You needn’t think you’re getting away with a soft option like Community Service,’ said Dickhead oblivious to what it would be like for a mother of two to do Community Service. I expect she was bound for Cornton Vale.

As the frightened young woman went away Sheriff Dickhead said,

‘There is too much of this sort of thing going on. People guilty of such crimes can expect no mercy in this court.’

And then he went home for his tea.

By Ian Hamilton QC

A blogger has been charged with breach of the peace in relation to emails he sent to Mike Russell a member of the government. Beyond these bare facts I make no comment as the matter may be sub judice.

(This is an absurdity. The case will never go before a jury and it is plain daft to think that any sheriff will be influenced by anything I write in my blog. However I fear our absurd laws of contempt. I make it clear that I comment only on the process of the law. I do not comment on the case.)

I saw this coming. A few months back I wrote about it. Here’s what I said.

“There is no better way for the government, any government, to silence its critics such as this blog than by directing the Lord Advocate to prosecute one of us for almost any crime you care to name. The cost of the defence and the worry of it would be enough to silence most of us. Do not close your mind. We live in dangerous times.”

Here is the danger simply stated.

Who advises the government on matters of law?…………………….The Lord Advocate

Who brings prosecutions in this country?……………………..……….The Lord Advocate

Who employs the Lord Advocate?………………………………………The Government*

Who pays the Lord Advocate…………………………………………….The Government

Who can sack the Lord Advocate?……………………………………….The Government*

Who can find a nice job for the Lord Advocate if she is sacked?…………The Government

Who stands between us and the arbitrary authority of the Government?……The Lord Advocate if you believe in fairies.

How can the Lord Advocate protect us? By being totally independent of the Government as I have suggested should be the case elsewhere in this blog.

How does she protect us? By telling any Government minister who comes to her with a trivial complaint to go and chase himself.

How likely is she to do this if she relies on the Government for her job? Your answer is as good as mine but one thing is clear. No one should be put in the position of having the whole weight of the law in their hands to protect their employers or any one of them. The very least she should have is security of tenure.

You will note how carefully I have framed every word in this article. In a free society I shouldn’t have to. I should be free to criticize any officer of government who wields power. I therefore affirm the following:

In the whole matter:-

Elish Angiolini the Lord Advocate smells as sweetly as the perfume she buys across the counter in Boots the Chemists.

Mike Russell the Minister smells as sweetly as his aftershave and I will bring any girl who has ever kissed him to testify to this.

It’s the system that stinks.

*Subject to ratification by Parliament

CAUTION

The first comment to this posting raises a criticism of Elish Angolini the present Lord Advocate.

I should be grateful if those posting comments would remember that the Lord Advocate, despite her title, is an employee of the Government, not a member. It is not for her to solve the mystery of her job description which baffles us all. Kenny MacAskill, the Minister of Justice is the person responsible to the electorate for defining her position, not Elish Angiolini whom I feel is often unfairly blamed for making the best of an impossible position.

The position holds many anomolies. For example if Westminster and Scotland should be involved in litigation who represents whom? If Westminster wishes a search warrant, as Mrs Thatcher did in the Spycatcher case, would Westminster expect the Lord Advocate of Scotland to act? If Westminster believes that someone, for example myself, should be prosecuted for suborning soldiers from fighting in England’s wars and the Lord Advocate refuses to prosecute what remedy does Westminster have?

In all these matters the Advocate General is powerless, but Kenny MacAskill is not. It is for him to define the Lord Advocate’s duties and to seek amending legislation if necesary yet he remains silent.

Please respect Elish. To attack her is unfair and if she is personally attacked I may have to remove the comment which would be a pity as this is an interesting and important subject.

Ian

By Ian Hamilton

There is no limit to the shame of this English Parliament. Its silly procedures and outdated traditions are a scunner to the whole United Kingdom. It’s fit only for the seventeenth century for which it was created. It has lost control of itself. Most of its Honourable Members are crooks. It has found no way to punish their corruption or to recover the proceeds of crime from these Honourable Gangsters.

Worse! It has taken us into war. I err when I use the word war. We are not at war. This government merely sends our troops into other states hitherto recognised by us. Their orders? Take what you can when convenient. What is being done in our name is as feckless as it is illegal. It alienates the whole of Islam.

I take a lesson from history. When Hitler declared war on the USA the leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States met in a warship off Newfoundland. After discussions they issued a statement. It is a noble document. It is known to history as The Atlantic Charter. It sets out the war aims of the Allies. Its terms still stand as a statement of international human decency. In the middle of last century politicians could speak for us all.

Compare that with today. We have no statement of war aims. We are not even at war. Our leaders, uncontrolled by parliament, send out our soldiers ill-equipped and with no apparent aims except conquest. Conquest we all know to be illegal and impossible. The Taliban are a religion. They can be infiltrated. They can never be defeated. They are not Islam yet it must seem to millions that the west is on a new Crusade against Islam.

At home the Government cannot protect their actions from people like me who declare that the troops should be suborned into disobedience. Ill equipped, led by generals who don’t know for what they fight, they die brave, needless, roadside deaths. It is not enough to mourn. We must also condemn the politicians who send them.

The politicians look after themselves. They get rich quick. For example Alastair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a fortune swopping his nominated home. The Faculty of Advocates, the professional body to which both Darling and I belonged and to which I still belong, started an enquiry into his personal finances. Rather than face it Darling resigned. No reasonable company would employ an ex-lawyer to a position of trust knowing he had resigned from his profession pending an enquiry into his personal finances. Such a person is in charge of the nation’s exchequer. I would laugh if I didn’t lament.

I lament the descent of the United Kingdom Parliament into this  moral abyss. It’s time we left.

By Ian Hamilton QC

The former Head of the Armed Forces in Scotland, Major General Andrew Mackay, warned that the MoD was “institutionally incapable” of succeeding in the region (Afghanistan) because it had failed to adapt the realities of 21st century conflict.

The above quotation is taken from a recent SNP Press release. It misses the point. The point is that no Scottish soldier should be in Afghanistan. Indeed no British soldier should be there.

I assert this principle:-

A democratic country can only go to war when there is a clear mandate from the people to do so. Without such a mandate any instructions to our armed forces to take life is a war crime of which the Government is guilty.

The Government which sent our soldiers to war was elected by only 35% of those voting. The total electorate is much greater. Probably less than one in ten of us want to see this bloodshed in Afghanistan. We do not know the exact figure. The Government has made no attempt to ascertain from the people if it has a mandate to take life in Afghanistan. It clearly had no mandate for Iraq. In time Blair will be prosecuted as a war criminal for Iraq. It is about Afghanistan that we are now concerned.

I want to make a clear distinction here between the squadie who bears the brunt of our illegal assault on the people of Afghanistan. It is he who dies. It is he who sees his mates blown limbless. I have nothing but respect for them. Were I a citizen of Wootton Bassett I too would stand in daily homage to the dead as they are brought home.

But the leaders of the common soldiers are different. We have no clear war aims. We have no clear exit strategy. We know we are supporting an illegal government there. We know that the most likely war aim is to increase the profits of American business and of the arms manufacturers of the whole western world, including the jackals of British industry.

These are our war aims and they are illegal. It is a crime to pursue them. Anyone carrying commissioned rank must know this. Such a person should be reminded that it is not a defence to claim that his actions are in obedience to superior orders. Every officer in the armed forces should be persuaded to disobey the commands of their own immediate superiors. They should be warned that they are guilty of a war crime if they embark their men in aircraft bound for Afghanistan or train them for warfare in that theatre. To warn them they are committing a crime is the duty of us all.

Why are none of our politicians saying what I have just written?

I will tell you why. To say so risks the jail. It is a crime against the law of the land to attempt to suborn members of the armed forces from carrying out the lawful orders of their superiors. But these orders must be lawful. I assert that to order soldiers to take action in an illegal war is not a lawful order. That is my defence.

If I have committed a crime I challenge the Lord Advocate to prosecute me. I don’t think she will. It would mean proving that the Afghan War is a legal war. I don’t believe for a moment that she can prove this or will even try.

But I may be wrong………………………………………

Watch this space………………………………………….

By Ian Hamilton

Medicine has created human slugs. Silent in granny and grampa hutches the elderly lie. Drugs prescribed by unscrupulous doctors keep them breathing. It’s breath that pays. Quality of life isn’t a consideration. The owners of the hutches are paid for the live ones just as the doctors are paid for the living on their list. Death cancels all. Life is preserved by underpaid care workers too busy to give the love they undoubtedly have. There’s money in it but not for them. The doctors and home owners take all.

Where the system breaks down is when someone escapes from a ‘care home’ as the hutches are euphemistically called. I am an escapee. In my mid eighties I do all the things men do in their sixties. My biological functions may have waned a little but my social functions remain. They don’t need listing. They are there from flying aeroplanes and riding motorcycles to solving abstruse literary problems. This is thanks mainly to the pharmaceutical companies although the medical profession may have helped, when they weren’t certifying slugs as still alive for financial purposes. Modern surgery helps too.

This has created a new problem. We have an able and experienced generation of sixties to nineties with no function in society. Unthinking doctors keep too many alive. There is nothing for us to do. In the heyday of life we were all dead by seventy. Now we are still young at ninety. Last night I spoke to a professional man. He put it thus. I spent thirty years learning my trade; I spent thirty years practising it. I was forced to retire at sixty and now I’m told I’ll spend thirty years waiting for death. Ninety is a reasonable life expectancy provided you escape the drugs from the doctors in the grampa hutches, in which case you live to a hundred and ten.

In the piece written below called A Safe Pair of Lips I made a joke of the problem but it is no joke. I wasn’t interested in the trivial job I applied for. I want more. I want responsibility. I have carried it all my life and now I’m condemned to years of idleness without it. I have tried for several responsible jobs and failed. Sometimes it is just plain prejudice that has stopped me. More often it is the fear of the interviewer that I am a better man than he is and would soon have his job. This is a perfectly reasonable fear. Let the best man win. More often insurance is the barrier. So recently have octogenarians been in the responsible labour market that actuaries haven’t sufficient figures to compile tables of risk. This is a band of insurance that lies wide open. I expect to live to see it filled. I hope an exception is made for doctors. May they never be reemployed.

 Doctors should stick to their old job of killing people. Modern doctors have transgressed without thought into demography. Since they started to care for us on a forty hour week the population has soared. Every society needs its full time killers. They claim they have the right to time off like any other worker. This is the biggest confidence trick since Britain claimed to be a democracy. Doctors have no right to time off. We paid for their extremely expensive education. We kept them in hospitals and clinics while nurses taught them how to take a pulse. Having qualified at our expense one should always be available in every practice night and day to cure or to cull us.

I have argued in a full circle. If we have a doctor every time we feel ill the problem of old age will solve itself provided we deny them access to their pills.

Roll on twenty-four hour medical treatment. Roll on death.

By Ian Hamilton

Recently I applied for an assistant’s job on a minor Quango.

What astounded me was the interest the Civil Service took in me. The job was for eight hours a week and was in no way confidential. I wasn’t to be shown the stone where they hide the spare keys for Faslane. Yet I had to fill in a twenty-one page form.

Here is a question taken at random:-

Provide two examples which demonstrate your ability to meet strategic objectives through effective planning and resource management. (Their English: not mine)

Here was one from the depths of my criminal practice. I was sure I was at home.

An old woman lay dead in bed…I began….but her husband never bothered to bury her. He wrapped her in a blanket. Every time she leaked he wrapped her in another blanket. Finally he ran out of blankets. Then she leaked on the floor. When she leaked through the floor the downstairs neighbours complained.

You and I would think that anyone able to open a job application with such brio would be worth eight hours a week in any civil service. But not them.

I tried another question: This asked what sex I was. There were seven boxes opposite which I had to name my sex. My pen flowed swiftly on the first three and then slowed. Then I remembered a chap at University who was a bit odd. He went into the civil service and did rather well. So I wrote ‘transgender’. That made four although I’m damned if I know what transgenders do. (Can anyone tell me? No please don’t.) Then I tried ‘cross-dressing’ and that was five. That was me beat. To this day I can’t think what the other two can be. What two nameless things do these civil servants get up to in their tea breaks? It’s worse than the Masons. What have I been missing all my life?

At last I found a question where I fancied myself.

Please provide two examples which demonstrate your skills or knowledge gained from dealing with the media.

I make no comment that I was applying for an eight hour a week junior’s job where I would be unlikely to be holding press conferences. Mind You I quite fancied myself. However the answer was easy.

Anyone asking such a daft question could never have heard of H L Menken.

‘Never fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrell’, I quoted.

‘Never kick an editor in the balls,’ I invented.

There weeks later I got a letter saying how sorry they were that I was not to be called for interview.

I now think I know why. It was nothing to do with the questions or the answers. It was to do with me. To be a civil servant you need a safe pair of lips, and a safe pair of lips I’ve never had,