Offensive Behaviour at Football Act cave in.

[Baxter Parp]

Translation: you dared criticise the SNP, you will be first against the wall come the glorious day if you don't cease and desist. What does any of this have to do with the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act? Still waiting for a critique of why it did something useful that couldn't have just as easily been achieved with the pre-existing BoTP legislation.

Pre existing legislation wasn't working.

[LongTimeLurker]

...because it wasn't being applied properly not because it didn't provide the levers needed to deal with the issue.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Yes, let's magically make one of Scots law's most infamously fungible crimes perfectly applied to the population, especially in football stadia where polis are outnumbered a hundred to one. This is plainly a practical approach.

The argument that the particular circumstances of football stadia can be better dealt with by bespoke legislation specifically tailored for the purpose than by generic breach of the peace laws is a good one.

In practice it depends on how good that tailoring is.

As far as I can see it's not much better than the off the peg alternative

Although it's coming up to its first real test so I may revise that opinion

Edited May 28, 2016 by topcat(The most tip top)

[NotThePars]

LTL hasn't shifted the goalposts he's left the stadium and started playing a completely different sport.

[Glenconner]

We shall overcome........

[Baxter Parp]

LongTimeLurker, on 28 May 2016 - 10:15, said:

...because it wasn't being applied properly not because it didn't provide the levers needed to deal with the issue.

And it would now because...?

[LongTimeLurker]

And it would now because...?

 

Different policing and stewarding methods have subsequently been used that would have worked just as easily with BoTP. Do I really need to keep repeating myself?

[Baxter Parp]

LongTimeLurker, on 28 May 2016 - 13:38, said:

Different policing and stewarding methods have subsequently been used that would have worked just as easily with BoTP. Do I really need to keep repeating myself?

Pish.

[Baxter Parp]

Essential Reading:

 

http://wingsoverscotland.com/amongst-the-bears/

[LongTimeLurker]

Pish.

 

Thanks for that insightful analysis. For decades the police turned a blind eye to chanting from football supporters up and down the country (I'm talking aggressive and abusive chants here not positive stuff to support their team) that was clearly a BoTP, but the police turned a blind eye. In more recent times the approach has been that even if several thousand fans can't be stopped from doing that a few can be picked out and charged and over time people will think twice about joining in. That can be done just as easily with BoTP as with either McConnell or MacAskill's legislation. Now because the SNP fell just short of an overall majority, the Holyrood elite will tie themselves in knots over this issue once again and unless one of the opposition parties backs down they will no doubt come up with yet another piece of superfluous legislation. At the same time, contrary to what SNP hacks wanted to imply on inward investment, all is not rosy on the economy:

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-36331419

 

But it's the job creation figures that are more striking. In the first quarter of this year, compared with the last quarter of 2015, the Labour Market Survey suggests there were about 97,000 new jobs across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In the same period, Scotland lost 53,000 jobs.

Since the first quarter of last year, the rest of the UK has seen employment growth of 454,000. If Scotland were performing like the rest of the UK, it should have nearly 10% of those. Instead, it lost 45,000 jobs over the year.

 

There are other things that our politicians could more usefully be doing with that legislative time, just as there were better things that could have been done with all the energy that went into the so called National Conversation and the Referendum when independence was far from being the settled will of the Scottish electorate and a "No thanks" was always likely to be the ultimate answer.

[Baxter Parp]

Thanks for that insightful analysis. For decades the police turned a blind eye to chanting from football supporters up and down the country (I'm talking aggressive and abusive chants here not positive stuff to support their team) that was clearly a BoTP, but the police turned a blind eye. In more recent times the approach has been that even if several thousand fans can't be stopped from doing that a few can be picked out and charged and over time people will think twice about joining in. That can be done just as easily with BoTP as with either McConnell or MacAskill's legislation. Now because the SNP fell just short of an overall majority, the Holyrood elite will tie themselves in knots over this issue once again and unless one of the opposition parties backs down they will no doubt come up with yet another piece of superfluous legislation. At the same time, contrary to what SNP hacks wanted to imply on inward investment, all is not rosy on the economy:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-36331419

But it's the job creation figures that are more striking. In the first quarter of this year, compared with the last quarter of 2015, the Labour Market Survey suggests there were about 97,000 new jobs across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In the same period, Scotland lost 53,000 jobs.

Since the first quarter of last year, the rest of the UK has seen employment growth of 454,000. If Scotland were performing like the rest of the UK, it should have nearly 10% of those. Instead, it lost 45,000 jobs over the year.

There are other things that our politicians could more usefully be doing with that legislative time, just as there were better things that could have been done with all the energy that went into the so called National Conversation and the Referendum when independence was far from being the settled will of the Scottish electorate and a "No thanks" was always likely to be the ultimate answer.

Holy f**k, utter pish. We're going through the oil cataclysm they warned us about during the referendum, chum, and the world has not ended, in fact, the result is an unemployment rate 1% above the UK average. Nice try at changing the subject though.

[The_Kincardine]

Essential Reading:

 

http://wingsoverscotland.com/amongst-the-bears/

For whom is that essential reading and how does it progress this thread?

[Mortar Bored]

For whom is that essential reading and how does it progress this thread?

I never clicked on the link, but unless it's a recipe for a really potent drink, I can see why you are sceptical, you old soak.

[strichener]

Thanks for that insightful analysis. For decades the police turned a blind eye to chanting from football supporters up and down the country (I'm talking aggressive and abusive chants here not positive stuff to support their team) that was clearly a BoTP, but the police turned a blind eye. In more recent times the approach has been that even if several thousand fans can't be stopped from doing that a few can be picked out and charged and over time people will think twice about joining in. That can be done just as easily with BoTP as with either McConnell or MacAskill's legislation. Now because the SNP fell just short of an overall majority, the Holyrood elite will tie themselves in knots over this issue once again and unless one of the opposition parties backs down they will no doubt come up with yet another piece of superfluous legislation. At the same time, contrary to what SNP hacks wanted to imply on inward investment, all is not rosy on the economy:

So we are doing fine on FDI?

[Gordon EF]

Classic 'oaksofting' from LTL. Been proved wrong with one wild statement? Just dig around for something else to change the subject.

[LongTimeLurker]

The subject of the thread is the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act. I have yet to see a convincing argument for why it provides anything that couldn't be achieved with Breach of the Peace.

[The_Kincardine]

The subject of the thread is the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act. I have yet to see a convincing argument for why it provides anything that couldn't be achieved with Breach of the Peace.

Do you mean apart from it castigating football fans?

[LongTimeLurker]

I mean in terms of being able to convict people of behaviour that always fell under BoTP but was generally ignored by the Police in years past as not being worth the effort involved in lifting somebody and taking them to court. Politicians of all stripes are prone to generating new laws for headline grabbing grandstanding reasons that are a case of reinventing the wheel in legal terms.

[The_Kincardine]

I mean in terms of being able to convict people of behaviour that always fell under BoTP but was generally ignored by the Police in years past as not being worth the effort involved in lifting somebody and taking them to court. Politicians of all stripes are prone to generating new laws for headline grabbing grandstanding reasons that are a case of reinventing the wheel in legal terms.

I'm with you on that...the failure of 'the old law' was in its implementation.  All this 'new law' has done is single out football fans and that's a nonsense.

[bob the tank]

For whom is that essential reading and how does it progress this thread?

Everybody, that's who. My family is very similar to the one mentioned in the article, and I stopped going to Ibrox when I was old enough to make the choice for myself, and started going to Sauchie Juniors one week and Alloa the next for years. I have only been to Ibrox three times since 1971 and on one of those occasions I ended up in the Southern General because of an act of hooliganism. The only times that the atmosphere at the Recs has been totally poisonous has been during the visits of, surprise, surprise Rangers and Sevco. That is why the article is essential reading. Never was a truer statement made than "There are none so blind as those who will not see. Rant over....