City’s hottest event is cool and green

The coolest place to be in Nottingham today on the hottest day of the year was surely the Green Festival in the Arboretum.

Sitting on the grass in the city’s most beautiful park, sun blazing, jazz playing from the bandstand, surrounded by concerned, committed, caring eco-friendly people… it’s hard to see how a summer Sunday afternoon could get any better.

From the vegan and vegetarian food (even a ‘normal’ burger van that had converted to veggie burgers for the day), through the plants, clothes, low-energy lightbulbs, buddhist information, juggling uni-cyclist and pedal-powered smoothy maker to the bamboo and cardboard coffins of the Co-operative Funeral Service, everywhere you looked there was inspiration, encouragement and support with generous helpings of gregarious banter and laughter thrown in for good measure.

When the world seems obsessed with war, greedy bankers, corrupt politicians and the apparently never-ending pursuit of wealth as a route to happiness, events like this remind you of what is really important in life and how perilously close we are to losing it all unless we start doing lots of things very differently.

A brilliant life-affirming, sun-tanning, veggie burger-scoffing, chill out day in a perfect setting. Thanks to everyone who made it possible.

Democratic dilemma

Someone once said that we get the politicians we deserve. It’s obviously true that we get the politicians we vote for and that we can remove them by the same process. That’s democracy… and, leaving aside the debate over proportional representation and other possible reforms of the voting system,  most people think it’s the best method of electing a government and the best political system to live under.

I make these observations only because I’ve been reading some excellent analysis of the BNP on fellow Nottingham blog Bent Society which confirms the very obvious racist intentions of the party and shows their leader Nick Griffin for the fascist extremist he is. All of which you would hope would help people to see beyond their pseudo-respectable patriotic image and discourage anyone from voting for them… wouldn’t you?

That’s what I thought… and then it suddenly struck me that that’s exactly why people vote for the BNP. Their supporters are under no illusion about the party or its leader. They vote for them because they are racists.

Which is scary… and makes you wonder about democracy in general and our political system in particular, if the BNP can be a ‘legitimate’ political party with some chance of gaining seats in the forthcoming European or local elections. I just hope there are still enough decent people in this county – and that they make the effort to vote next week - to ensure that the BNP don’t get a foot in the door in any part of Nottinghamshire.

Child crime figures are alarming

The BBC reports that East Midlands police forces have interviewed over 200 children aged 10 and under  in relation to crimes ranging from burglary to sexual assault over the last 12 months.

In Derbyshire, 62 children were questioned about arson and robberies during 2008 and in Leicestershire, a child aged three was among 36 children questioned over incidents of criminal damage.

The BBC doesn’t give the total number for Nottinghamshire but reports that 11 children were questioned about violence against a person; the youngest being just four years old. Assuming the total figure of around 200 to be accurate – and subtracting the reported Derbyshire and Leicestershire figures – this suggests that these 11 teeny thugs might be amongst around 100 children under 10 formally questioned by the police in Nottinghamshire.

But the actual figures almost don’t matter. The point is that it seems more children are starting to show criminal tendencies or to get involved in real crime at a younger and younger age. And, according to criminologist James Treadwell, those that start at this early age very often go on to become persistent and serial offenders in later life. Even more problematic – especially for the police – is the fact that children aged 10 and under cannot be held legally responsible for their actions, so all the police can do is, in effect, give them a good telling off.

As usual in such scenarios, one has to question the parenting of these children. The Government has talked many times about ways to get errant parents to be more responsible for their children and, in the case of children under 10, this surely has to be a target for any future action. Parents of children this young cannot use the excuse sometimes put forward by parents of teenage criminal, that they are out of their control. Any parent of a four-year-old questioned over violence against the person, should have to answer some very searching questions about their abilities, their sense of responsibility and their own behaviour.

And these parents should also be given as much support as possible (in whatever form that needs to be offered) to prevent their children becoming the criminals of the future. These tiny tot tearaways must be a prime target for Nottingham’s much-vaunted early intervention strategy.

Tragic shooting death in USA

MSN reports this morning that a two-year-old boy has died after being accidentally shot by his three-year-old sister in California.

 A very sad postscript to my recent blogs on gun crime.

This could only happen in a country where it’s seen as OK to have a loaded handgun under your bed.

God forbid that the UK should ever find itself in such an appalling position.

Gun crime: How bad are things really?

Having got a significant number of hits on yesterday’s post about the recent Lace Market shooting, I thought I’d have a look at where Nottingham now stands in the UK gun crime statistics and how we compare with the rest of the world. The result of both is good news for us Robin Hood-ites.

Nottingham’s recent rate of gun crime (to 2008) is only marginally above the national average – and less than half the rate of Manchester and London. Manchester has made great strides recently in shaking off its ‘Gunchester’ epithet (in the same way that we seem to have shaken off ‘Shottingham’, I hope) with a combination of pro-active policing and community action. The capital, as ever, continues to be top of the pops where gun crime and firearm-related deaths are concerned.

But how bad are things really in this country? Recent statistics seem very hard to come by but, from all the lists I found that indicate where England and Wales are in the league table of gun-related deaths (Scotland and NI are recorded separately for some reason), we are not even in the top 20.

Heading the list of ‘developed’ countries (Gross National Income per capita over $15,000) was the USA (although, in one list, Northern Ireland recorded more gun-related homicides and only came third to the US because of fewer suicides). Countries like Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, France and Austria recorded more people killed with guns per 100,000 people in the population than the UK.

However, even the US figures (around 10 or 11 per 100,000; England and Wales is less than 1 per 100,000) pale into insignificance against figures from some of the ‘developing’ countries:  Brazil – 14 deaths per 100,000; Guatemala – 18; Colombia – 51 and South Africa – 74.

So Nottingham has one of the lowest gun-related homicide rates of major UK cities in a country that has one of the lowest rates in the developed world. This doesn’t mean we should be complacent about even one violent death… but it does keep things in perspective.