the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Once again, I am faced with a riddle that has long vexed me, and that especially at election time, seems both more pertinent and more intractable than ever. Namely, who is more culpable, the bullshitter or the person who deep down know it is bullshit, but goes along with it anyway, the bullshat.

This self-serving avoidance of reality, which I discussed here in relation to war and Israels prosecution of it, also has a domestic public policy element to it. An unwillingness to examine in any great detail claims made during an election campaign, claims that a combination of common sense and few minutes Googling would expose to be bullshit.

Yesterday it was Labours turn, as according to The Observer,  ‘Labour pledges 80 new rape courts in bid to tackle backlog crisis. Plan for specialist unit in all police forces amid manifesto drive to reduce violence against women and girls.’ It’s a fantastic proposal, as much needed as it is long overdue. As the article all too clearly explains,

‘ Between the end of 2019 and the end of 2023, Labour says, there was a 346% increase in the number of adult rape cases in the crown court backlog, leading to claims that rape was effectively being “decriminalised”.

Just 2.6% of rape cases result in a charge. Labour leader Keir Starmer has said he will halve violence against women and girls, and bring in tougher sentences for rapists, under his “missions” for government.

Last month, the National Audit Office said it no longer believed that the Ministry of Justice’s ambition to reduce the overall backlog of cases to 53,000 by March 2025 was achievable. Of the 67,573 cases awaiting trial, almost a fifth (18%) are sexual offences.

The NAO says this is partly because there has been a large increase in the number of rape cases – the number of these going to trial increased from 624 (1.6% of all cases) in 2019 to 2,786 (4.1% of all cases) in 2023. Rape cases are more complex, with a lower proportion of defendants pleading guilty, so take longer on average to hear.’

All very depressing and what’s even more depressing still is that there isn’t the remotest likelihood of this becoming a reality any time soon, because there doesn’t exist in the justice system the capacity to make it so.

First off, solicitors. The people who advise the accused of their rights when they are arrested by the police. They are also the initial point of contact with alleged victims of crime which might eventually result in that arrest. Many solicitors are leaving the profession, and those that do perform the ‘duty solicitor’ role at police stations are often very inexperienced juniors, calling into question the advice they give. But let’s imagine all of that doesn’t exist and a case goes to trial, like most of them don’t, 95% of them.

The solicitor will have instructed a barrister to either defend or prosecute the case at court. Unfortunately, there are dwindling numbers of barristers too and those that remain recently went on strike over pay. And this creates another problem, because judges are only drawn from the available pool of barristers and despite the government increasing their working age to 75, they too are leaving creating a staffing crisis and cancelled trials.

Which means that even if a rape case somehow does manage to get to trial, that trial can up to three years to happen.

It only took me a few Google searches to find out that, and I didn’t even bother with searches regarding staffing problems with the people who help make the whole court system function smoothly. Them that provide the necessary skills and perform the many tasks needed to make everything happen, the court stenographers, the clerks, the ushers, the people who oversee and then jury selection, the legal secretaries and well, you get the gist. Such people have experience, experience of how the system actually works in practice and not theory, of the little workarounds needed to ensure the smooth running of the court, and have built up informal networks to facilitate this.

We all do in whatever job we have, those little shortcuts and deals one makes to get things done. And one only develops them because experience will have taught us that we need them, to save both time and frustration.

And if I know about the problems of capacity in the legal system, then I can only imagine the scale of the problems that Labour are privy to. Which brings me back to the question I ask every election, who is worse, the bullshitter or the bullshat?