Lord Heseltine gets five points?

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Cyril Haearn
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

I think we need Mr Heseltine now, remember how he wielded the mace once in the House of Commons?

I think he has some alternative views about leaving the EU
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Cunobelin
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by Cunobelin »

pwa wrote:It's a bit of a non-story for me. Heseltine made the kind of mistake that any of us could have made. A miscalculation. He accepts responsibility and regrets the injuries to the cyclist. He has made his apologies. Presumably his insurance providers will be dealing with a compensation claim. The law has punished him.

For me the punishment is adequate. It is for a moment of incompetent driving rather than deliberately law breaking, reckless driving. All drivers make mistakes. You, me, everyone. Even the best drivers make errors and regret them. That's what this looks like to me.

If we choose to look back to the dim and distant past, I'm sure Heseltine was once prosecuted for driving much too fast on a motorway. That was the sort of deliberate offence that I'd be less forgiving of.



Except he is a two faced Tory, and therefore cannot be reasonable, have acted responsibly in the matter........ that would only be the case if it was a Labour Politician. Harriet Harman crashing into a parked car whilst on a mobile phone..... perfectly reasonable
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tykeboy2003
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by tykeboy2003 »

PH wrote:Can't win with the Tories, Tebbit tells you to get on your bike, Heseltine knocks you off.


You beat me to it...
Bonefishblues
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by Bonefishblues »

Cyril Haearn wrote:I think we need Mr Heseltine now, remember how he wielded the mace once in the House of Commons?

I think he has some alternative views about leaving the EU

Yeah, agree, but can someone please call him a taxi?
reohn2
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by reohn2 »

Bonefishblues wrote:
Cyril Haearn wrote:I think we need Mr Heseltine now, remember how he wielded the mace once in the House of Commons?

I think he has some alternative views about leaving the EU

Yeah, agree, but can someone please call him a taxi?

Uber?
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sapperadam
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by sapperadam »

reohn2 wrote:Whilst I agree,my point is you can't tailor the law to excuse someone from breaking it if they're of previous good character,only increase the penalties for consistent offending and that the bar is set too low for either IMHO,hence the bad and dangerous driving I see daily.


But if you increase penalties for consistent offending then you are tailoring the law to excuse someone from breaking it if they're of good previous character. They achieve exactly the same thing. Set penalty for an offence, apply discount if they are of good character/first offence or other mitigating circumstances. Commited offence once or twice before, no discount. Consistently offending - applying aggravating factor to increase penalty.

However, while I do agree that the bar for offending is too low at the moment. I think it is more a case of the inalienable fact of the cornerstones of our law system; "Innocent until proven guilty" and the test of guilt, "beyond reasonable doubt. For many minor offences, the law should be changed to the less stringent test of guilt, "balance of probabilities". In the context of driving offences, I think that we would find more people being convicted if this was the case - where would you draw the line between the two tests? I don't the answer to that, but there would have to be a point, say for arguments sake, a penalty of more than five years in prison is to be given, then the stricter test is to be given. You could have juries returning two verdicts say, Guilty on balance but Not Guilty beyond reasonable doubt and if this is the case, then a lower sentence would then be applied. This would mean people who currently get away with next to nothing being punished. I'm sure there are holes that could be picked up in this but these are just my thoughts.
reohn2
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by reohn2 »

sapperadam wrote:
reohn2 wrote:Whilst I agree,my point is you can't tailor the law to excuse someone from breaking it if they're of previous good character,only increase the penalties for consistent offending and that the bar is set too low for either IMHO,hence the bad and dangerous driving I see daily.


But if you increase penalties for consistent offending then you are tailoring the law to excuse someone from breaking it if they're of good previous character. They achieve exactly the same thing. Set penalty for an offence, apply discount if they are of good character/first offence or other mitigating circumstances. Commited offence once or twice before, no discount. Consistently offending - applying aggravating factor to increase penalty.

However, while I do agree that the bar for offending is too low at the moment. I think it is more a case of the inalienable fact of the cornerstones of our law system; "Innocent until proven guilty" and the test of guilt, "beyond reasonable doubt. For many minor offences, the law should be changed to the less stringent test of guilt, "balance of probabilities". In the context of driving offences, I think that we would find more people being convicted if this was the case - where would you draw the line between the two tests? I don't the answer to that, but there would have to be a point, say for arguments sake, a penalty of more than five years in prison is to be given, then the stricter test is to be given. You could have juries returning two verdicts say, Guilty on balance but Not Guilty beyond reasonable doubt and if this is the case, then a lower sentence would then be applied. This would mean people who currently get away with next to nothing being punished. I'm sure there are holes that could be picked up in this but these are just my thoughts.


My point was that there has to be a starting point(penalty/rehab) for offending, if someone admits the offence and expresses his/her remorse and is willing to be rehabilitated,then the base penalty applies,contrast that with a flat denial,no remorse and not guilty plea and the full weight of the law should be applied if they're found guilty similarly,,and so with serial offenders.

The problem I see so often is slick lawyers working the system but it comes at a price for them that can afford it.
I'm not saying it was so in this casd but the media is littered with the rich and famous getting off very lightly for repeat offending time and again.
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by Username »

pwa wrote:I Even the best drivers make errors and regret them.


That's true that is!

Ayrton Senna: He crashed and died. And he was an F1 champion! Drivers dont come much better than that.
Michael Schumacher: Again, an F1 champion but was severely injured after crashing while skiing.
Richard Hammond: Crashed at about 300mph. This was due to a blowout tho. More recently he did screw up while driving some supercar and wasnt quite so badly injured this time.
The Stig: Even The Stig makes a booboo. Some say that a switch on his left leg turned him on, causing something else to jam the throttle wide open, and that he may have been trying to signal extra terrestrials at the time. All we know is he's called The Stig. (he may actually be called Steve tho).
Bonefishblues
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by Bonefishblues »

It is widely understood that Senna's death was not caused by driver error.
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Cunobelin
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by Cunobelin »

Username wrote:
pwa wrote:I Even the best drivers make errors and regret them.


That's true that is!

Ayrton Senna: He crashed and died. And he was an F1 champion! Drivers dont come much better than that.
Michael Schumacher: Again, an F1 champion but was severely injured after crashing while skiing.
Richard Hammond: Crashed at about 300mph. This was due to a blowout tho. More recently he did screw up while driving some supercar and wasnt quite so badly injured this time.
The Stig: Even The Stig makes a booboo. Some say that a switch on his left leg turned him on, causing something else to jam the throttle wide open, and that he may have been trying to signal extra terrestrials at the time. All we know is he's called The Stig. (he may actually be called Steve tho).



The Top Gear cowboys had a reputation for trashing cars and cashing them due to bad driving

It was well known in the industry that if you got a car to review after them, it would be delivered on a flatbed and undriveable

Under no stretch of the imagination can they be held up as examples of good or competent drivers
Tangled Metal
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by Tangled Metal »

But their services to the highway should be honoured for an the caravans they took out.

Hey Heseltine is a tory so let's go far left about it and say he's a tory so should be strung up. I mean in many ways the habits of the far left are similar to the habits of the far right when it comes to human rights.

Made a mistake, law reacted and he got the punished by the law according to the law. If the law is wrong (because he's a tory) then lobby to get the law changed. Simple as that!
pwa
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by pwa »

Tangled Metal wrote:But their services to the highway should be honoured for an the caravans they took out.

Hey Heseltine is a tory so let's go far left about it and say he's a tory so should be strung up. I mean in many ways the habits of the far left are similar to the habits of the far right when it comes to human rights.

Made a mistake, law reacted and he got the punished by the law according to the law. If the law is wrong (because he's a tory) then lobby to get the law changed. Simple as that!


I think he did get punished but not as much as some might have preferred. My take on it was that he made a small mistake that had unfortunate consequences, and whilst his mistake should not have happened, it was a human thing that any driver will do once in a while. He admitted the mistake and expressed regret. That doesn't exonerate him, but puts it in perspective.
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Re: Lord Heseltine gets five points?

Post by Vorpal »

No one else seems to have noted
He stopped at the scene, going to the injured man’s aid and then called the emergency services – facts which were noted by the judge when sentencing.


So did he get 'credit' for obeying the law after the crash? :roll: Do so many drivers leave the scene that it is necessary to note that this one did not?!?
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