Jack Straw may allow hubby-to-be to break curfew conditions for marriage.

Excellent and perhaps humane approaches will now be allowed for the thousands of others not allowed to attend funerals etc...

If only it was decency and not tabloid control and Max Clifford running the country.

Gordon Brown says Ripper will never be released...

Excellent - we can ignore all expert opinions, stop hiring doctors and professionals and allow tabloids to dictate policy...

It's getting obvious guys. The public will turn against you. In time...

Do we really want people who slap 12 year old criminals on their front pages, pay them money and encourage further crime to run this country?

Spot on JK! I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of this Jade Goody tabloid freak show! This could drag on all year and beyond if she manages to cling on long enough! The UK is teeming with enormously dull, unimaginative and stupid people who buy into all of this shit! That is why the tabloids have such power. From false tears for a talentless bimbo (this was the woman who didn't know that Spain was a country), to hoardes of vigilantes beating up old men in raincoats because they lived near a school.

Britain isn't Great anymore...and I fear it's too late.

So Gordon Brown-at the very centre of the Westminster System doesn't understand the concept of the seperation of powers !

This is similar to a High Court ruling that keeping a person on the "sex offendor's register" for life is an abuse of power as it provides no provision for a person who is "reformed", mandatory reporting powers are degrading etc -and it must be abandoned.

Needless to say Jacqui Smith has vowed to fight the ruling.

And the case ?..an 11 year old boy convicted of an offence, served time in juvenile detention and was about to set off on a family holiday at 14 when he was told he had to report to police about travel plans for the rest of his life

Do we really want to see a 12 year old boy who merely did what comes naturally branded as a criminal? It might be the letter of the law, but do we support that law? If not we should make it clear. This site objects to a great many wrong laws and I applaud you for that, but you seem to be a bit selective at times.

Two people of similar age had sex. I don't see that as criminal activity, just as I don't see sitting outside of Westminster with a "Down with Brown" plackard as criminal activity, yet both acts are officially a crime.

Linking with the main subject of this thread, I'd also like to see more common sense and humanity applied in legal decisions. I think we actually did see some in the decision not to prosecute Alfie Patten.

By the way, we're not allowed to talk about Alfie anymore - as decreed by the Court.

I don't think he should be prosecuted and I agree; he was doing what comes naturally. And I believe the entire attitude towards sexuality needs revising.

However, the law is the law and the media cannot have it both ways - supporting it when it suits them, breaching it when it doesn't.

The media, especially the tabloids, needs a brutal lesson in social responsibility and it is farcical that it takes a Vile Pervert to point this out.

I think her fiance should of course be able to spend the night with Jade (rather him than me); I just feel everyone in similar circumstances should be treated with decency (which rarely if ever happens and when it does the tabloids crucify them).

And Max Clifford on the News ("she doesn't have many nights left")?

I really believe he will burn in hell.

I echo The Fat Controller's feelings on the Jade Goody "freakshow". Max Clifford should be hung, drawn and quartered, slowly and painfully. It's rare I ever get vitriolic about anybody but Clifford and Jackboot Jacqui bring out the worst in me.

Jade is just one of THOUSANDS terminally ill. Do all those who are not "celebrities" carry on like Jade and Clifford? No. They live their final months or years with quiet dignity, not use the meejah to cash in big time.

What I, and I'm sure many of us here would REALLY like to know, is just how much is Clifford himself raking in out of all of this?

I tell you... I wouldn't want Clifford's karma for all the tea in China.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7901685.stm

Quiet dignity, wonderful smile (no histrionics on GMTV)... and the greatest manager England has ever had!

He's worth one zillion Jade Goody's!!

I love him too. Class act.

I'd disagree that we are "selective" although it's a good starting point for a discussion.

One of my big complaints is that the laws about sex are confusing, unworkable and mainly the result of sensatonalism and emotionalism propagated in the media and politicians reacting to the taboids-the lowest common demoninator.

The Netherlands had excellent laws on sexual activity (as only that odd country which is deeply conservative yet has fine civil rights)used to have-before EU pessure began to water them down.

It meant that a whole host of factors would be taken into account when someone underage had sex with an older person..whether there was cohersion or pressure-if it was a genuine relationship and so on. Judges had discretion on sentences and often didn't impose one at all. Social workers would examine the case and advise accordingly.

In other words the law was based on REALITY-that people will do what they want and human desires cannot be ruled by the law.

There is much nonsense based on the concept a young person canot give consent-this is rubbish as the differing ages of consent in some countries demonstrate.

Why is a 15 year old in Germany or a 13 year old in Italy, or a 14 year old in Spain or the USA state of New Mexico-a 16 year old in Australia and the UK (but both 18 years old until recently) considered to be different. One is a child in one country but can hop on a plane and be an adult within hours.

I've written to so many government Minsiters whose prtofolio covers this are to explain the concept of differing ages and why a person will be called a pedofile one day yet when the age of consent is downgraded say from 18 to 16-why they are no longer considered one. I genuinely want an explanation-none has ever replied which demonstrates they have no concept themselves.

The media perpetuates a myth that one day all crime will cease if only pliticins and the courts will "get tough" Politicians react like donkeys. Yet it's within the interests of the media for crime and sensationalism to continue-it merely means profi to them.

Which brings me to my further complaint-child abuse is rampant throughout the western world..via neglect, physical and mental abuse..and sexual but the sexual part is actually the least of real abuse cases. And this is largely ignored by governments. Yet in third world countries amongst the most poorest-families can be happy and care for their childen lovingly.