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Showing posts from September, 2014

COMPASSIONATE POLITICS - WAS THIS A EUREKA MOMENT?

Even the Daily Mail was shocked. Perhaps that "even" is unwarranted. The Mail speaks for instinctive human responses, whether they are compassionate or cruel. In this case the parents of cancer patient Ashya King, who had withdrawn him from treatment in a hospital in Southampton, were imprisoned in Spain at the behest of British prosecutors, leaving the five-year old to fend for himself in a Malaga hospital. A petition to have them released rapidly garnered nearly a quarter of a million signatures, a campaign which deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was quick to support . The prime minister himself was reported to have weighed in , and police and the Crown Prosecution Service soon back-pedalled. By Tuesday night, the parents had been released  and were travelling from Madrid to be reunited with their son. Despite the bland formulation of the CPS spokesman, that "there is insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction for any criminal offence", it i