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Does this mean Huhne’s going to be charged or not charged?

February 2nd, 2012


Telegraph

What can we read into this afternoon’s news?

In a discussion over a drink at the weekend my lawyer friend who’s had a career as a prosecutor suggested that one of the major considerations for the CPS over the Huhne case would be whether it would be possible to hold a fair trial.

This has gone on for such a long time and received a massive amount of publicity that an initial consideration would be whether it would be possible to find a jury.

The normal process is that once a charge has been made then the media are put under massive constraints not to publish anything that could be prejudicial.

So how does that fit with the DPP making a statement to camera at 10am tomorrow morning? The very process of letting it be known this afternoon that the statement will be issued tomorrow raises the ante.

Certainly the DPP will be aware that Huhne’s lawyers will be looking for anything to impede the process if a charge is made.

So I might be completely wrong but I would be put chance of a charge at no more than 40%.

Mike Smithson @MikeSmithsonOGH
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  • Anonymous

    Mr Mod,

    Somehow disqus has put one of my posts in moderation for some unknown reason. Any chance you can free it up?

  • Plato

    “Humans anthropomorphise”

    And cats certainly do the same – I have two that use the toilet perfectly, though without opposing thumbs – flushing is beyond them ;^)

  • Anonymous

     And dog lovers.  Mind you all dog lovers are fascists according to tim.

  • The Screaming Eagles

    An older conservative party member back in 1997 said the following to me about centrist John Major and the Tory Party.

    “In the past, the Tory Party was like a bird, it has a strong left wing, and a strong right wing but its brains are in the middle. These days, its arse is in the middle”

  • Anonymous

     Hasn’t changed much since has it?

  • Anonymous

    No no no – its got to be Tim, Barbara Woodhouse, Beverly Nichols and Phil Drabble.
    Lots of sausages on the menu.

  • Anonymous

    Interesting. My five would be Jane Austen, Elizabeth the 1st, Dr Johnson, Ernest Hemingway and Steven Hawking.

  • Marquee Mark

    Also known as a magpie wedding. The largest I have ever seen was over 200 birds, in Shropshire. It coincided with the most spectacular sunset I have witnessed in this country – the sky looked more like Jupiter, incredible bands of colour. One of those events that stays with you forever.

  • Plato

    “Beverly Nichols”

    Who is she/he?

  • Anonymous
  • Floater

    Thank god you never ramp eh?

    oh.

  • tim

    Provide an example, if you understand what you are posting you’ll have no problem doing that.

  • Anonymous

    Good game. Oliver Cromwell, David Attenborough, Samuel Pepys, JRR Tolkein, Cao Cao.

    I’m not sure it would be a harmonious meal.

  • Floater

    Well, some of the less bright posters needed it pointed out to them.

  • Anonymous

    I hear that a particularly joyless member of the sisterhood has objected to Top Totty beer being on sale in the Commons Bar. On hearing that,  my father in law suggested that if she’s offended she send a bloke to the bar to get her beer.

  • Plato

    200 – wow. I used to have loads of magpies but hardly see them nowadays.

    Parliament I had in the garden was about 50 birds and it lasted maybe 30 minutes one very sunny afternoon under my apple trees.

    They were mainly stood in two half circles and one or two would jump into the middle and squawk whilst the rest waved their avian order papers. They’d then stop and another couple would have a go.  Others watched from the gallery.

    I’d only heard about this on the radio a few day beforehand and couldn’t believe my eyes.

    A stunning sight. Only other *did I just see that* moment was watching a sparrowhawk intercept one of my next door neighbours doves in mid flight.

    It was like a crossbow shot – flashed across the sky, grabbed the dove, fell like a stone to the ground/torn the bird to bits. Within 60 secs it was gone and only a few sad looking white feathers were left.

  • Anonymous

    @AlanDuncan4MP; @SadiqKhan; @emmaboon; Lord Digby Jones & Brookside & Grange Hill creator Phil Redmond.

    Oh, sorry, that’s the Question Time panel.

    Never mind.

  • Anonymous

     How about Jane Austen, Herbert Austin, Austin Healey and… and… er… Austin Powers.

    Phew!

  • Anonymous

     Thank goodness – I had only planned on five guests!

  • http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/union_and_jacobites/the_darien_scheme/ TubOfLard

    Plato, my eclectic selection of dinner guests.

    Franz Kafka
    Mohatma Gandhi
    Sylvia Plath
    Peter Tatchell
    Kate Moss

    Wouldn’t cost me a bean as none of them eats (maybe two beans for Gandhi).

    = More food for TubOfLard

  • Anonymous

    So, four dead people and one who takes at least five minutes to respond to anything.  Could make for difficult conversation

  • Plato

    Oh the *shame*. Doh *slaps forehead*

  • Anonymous

     But if I am being serious

    Stanley Kubrick, John Wayne, Stonewall Jackson and hmm… The Duke of Wellington.

  • Anonymous

    @paulwaugh: Clegg gives strongest hint yet that David Laws will be back (prob in Cab Office role). http://t.co/g2lQNBSc

  • Marquee Mark

    I watched a peregrine giving a buzzard a real hard time this afternoon.

    I remember seeing a peregrine on the cliffs in south Devon, sat around looking bored. Then it perked up and shot off out to sea. A little while later, it returned clutching a racing pigeon, presumably released in France.

    When I had an office in The Strand, used to watch the peregrines zap into Trafalgar Square for a pigeon snack, then they would pluck and munch it on the roof tops.

  • Marquee Mark

    Marco Polo, Darwin, Bill Hicks, Machiavelli and Shakespeare (although God knows who would actually turn up….)

    Alternatively, Boudicca, Liz I, Liz II, Victoria and Mary Queen of Scots. That would be some bitch fight…..

  • Floater

    Are you listening Eddie Ballsup??

    20.52 Greek Government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis has spoken toMega television:As a country, we have reached the brink of official bankruptcy. We have been borrowing for so many years and now we have our backs to the wall, so we have difficult decisions to make.

  • http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/union_and_jacobites/the_darien_scheme/ TubOfLard

    Or alternatively I could invite

    Mick Pork
    Theuniondivvie
    MalcolmG
    IoS
    James Kelly

    Although they would all have be shackled and confined like Hannibal Lecter for my protection.

  • The Screaming Eagles

    Paywall reporting if Huhne is charged, it will be a limited reshuffle, with Jeremy Browne or Ed Davey but not Laws coming in for Huhne.

    Major reshuffle will be later on this year, probably after the May elections.

  • Marquee Mark

    Did he hint it might be as soon as tomorrow?
    ;-)

  • Anonymous

    I have nothing to say.

    Thank you.

  • The Screaming Eagles

    Guardian take on the story

    David Cameron has been making contingency plans for a limited cabinet reshuffle as the Crown Prosecution Service disclosed that it will announceon Friday whether it will charge the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, over allegations he avoided a speeding penalty.

    Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, will give his decision on Huhne, and his former wife, Vicky Pryce, in a televised announcement at 10am.

    Huhne has let it be known that if he is prosecuted he will declare his innocence but resign his cabinet post to fight the case, admitting the battle to clear his name would be too much of a distraction to continue in office.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/02/chris-huhne-speeding-penalty-energy-secretary

  • The Screaming Eagles

    Lib Dem sources insisted they had no insight into the CPS decision, but if Huhne is prosecuted, it will largely be for Clegg to tell Cameron who he would like to succeed Huhne.

  • Anonymous

    With today’s lab attack on another quasi state organisations bonus structure (Network Rail) even though they set up all the legally binding contracts, how on earth do they expect anybody half decent wanting to work in the state sector, if lab get anywhere near a sniff of power?

    They are getting more and more like a bunch of stupid trot students everyday.

  • Marquee Mark

    Dinner party from Hell?

    Gordon Brown. And a candle.

  • moses

    Re Huhne being charged or not charged will it be announced like the winners on Dancing on ice?

    TV cameras poised ready and the DPP says

    “in no particular order the next MP…… waits 30 seconds………………. (insert what you think will happen)

  • The Screaming Eagles

    Surely sat between David and Ed Miliband at a dinner party is worse? 

  • The Screaming Eagles

    New thread.

  • Charles

    If you have a problem with cats and horses shitting everywhere,
    spare a though for the citizens of Bangkok, where occasionally elephants
    are to be seen in the city.

    And SeanT…

  • Anonymous

    Dinner party from Hell?

    David Cameron, George Osborne, Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, and Jeremy Clarkson.

  • Anonymous

    GAY MARRIAGE BILL ADVANCES IN WASHINGTON STATE LEGISLTURE

    Yesterday the WA State Senate approved bill legalizing same sex marriage, by vote of 28 Yea, 21 Nay.  Four Republicans voted for Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6239, while three Democrats voted against the measure.

    State Senate vote was the real legislative hurdle; all observers agree proponents of gay marriage have the votes in the WA House to pass the measure and send it to Governor Christine Gregoire.  A Democrat in her last year in office, who prevously oppposed gay marriage but who recently announced her change of heart on the issue.  Plus her willingness to sign a gay marriage bill into law if one passed the legisture.

    The bill passed by the WA Senate yesterday does NOT have an emergency clause.  Meaning that while a public vote is NOT required, it can be IF at least 120,557 valid voter signatures are collected for a referendum to put the measure to a statewide vote.

    In theory, should be no problemo for opponents of gay marriage to get the signatures to put the new measure on the November 2012 ballot.  Back in 2009, anti-gays campaigning against civil partnership law almost failed to get sufficient signatures, in part because many religious conservative leaders & politicos opposed putting the issue to a vote at that time and on that issue.

    However, gay marriage is quantum leap from civil unions.  So look for social/religious conservatives to rally for petition drive this spring.

    And note that many Republican politicos like the idea of a November vote on gay marriage, as a turnout builder for their side among social esp. religious conservatives.  Which is unlikely to swing the state away from Barack Obama and into the clutches of (presumably) Mitt Romney.  Or threaten the re-election of Democratic US Sen. Maria Cantwell versus only announced Republican challenger, state senator Michael Baumgartner, who voted no against gay marriage. 

    BUT putting the measure on the ballot could indeed be VERY helpful to GOP gubernatorial nominee-presumptive Rob McKenna, currently state attorney general, with respect to goosing the Republican vote upward in places like rural Pierce County and rural Whatcom County.  In the former, part of the new 10th congressional district, that would be a plus for whomever GOPer goes up against Dennny Heck, the Democrat who ran and lost open-seat race last year in old 3rd.  Same is true in the new 1st CD where the presuptive GOP standardbearer, John Koster (himself a religious conservative) ran & lost a much closer race for US House.

    BTW, last week the WA Secretary of State’s office confirmed what everyone already knew: that the campiagn to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana in the State of Washington collected more than enough voter signatures to qualify their Initiative to the People for the November 2012 ballot.  Beyond the actual issue of pot legalization, their is expectation that presence of this measure on the statewide ballot will stimulate turnout among younger, hipper voters across the state, most especailly in Seattle (10 percent of statewide registration) and a few other funkier parts of the state such as Olympia (home of The Evergreen State College possibly the most counter-cultural state university in America today), Bellingham (with Western WA University which is also pretty hippy-dippy) and Port Townsend (quaint old sea port with more hot tubs than marriage licenses OR civil unions).

    So stay tuned!

  • Anonymous

    Have six Magpies living by my garden just now, they argue so loudly, had a Hawk come down last year and take a pigeon out, also only left feathers.  My dog mostly ignores the Magpies.  What on this planet ever happened to Sparrows?  When I wake up in this Country I very rarely hear bird song.

  • Anonymous

    Welcome to Egypt where the people have got a taste for the art of street protests.

  • Anonymous

    Dinner party from hell.

    you and tim ;-)

    It would be something out of george orwells 1984 in each ear ;-)

  • Charles

    Austin Chamberlain?

  • Anonymous

    But that cannot be so? I thought Dave and George were Bullingdon Boys, and as such would lift any party up a notch or two.

  • Anonymous

    Test

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