GETTY - STOCK IMAGE False rape allegations are hardly ever prosecuted

FREE now and never miss the top politics stories again. SUBSCRIBE Invalid email Sign up fornow and never miss the top politics stories again. We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

The Rochdale child abuse scandal arose from the fear of inflaming racial tensions, the perpetrators being nine Asian men. Ethnicity should never have played any part in the police investigation. Justice is blind: she does not see black, Asian or white. She sees, or rather should see, only victims and wrongdoers. Rochdale may be the most dramatic illustration but one-sided justice where race is involved crops up time and again. I still feel anger at the case, many years ago, of a young soldier who was prosecuted for insulting a Muslim. The Muslim admitted in court that he had begun the quarrel with racist abuse at the soldier but only the latter was prosecuted.

Justice surely decrees that it should have been neither or both in the dock. Similarly politics has governed the attitudes of police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to violations of the 1967 Abortion Act. Even when doctors were caught pre-signing forms in bulk there was no prosecution. Indeed there was not even a fitness to practise hearing despite a blatant breach of the law. Now it is rape which has been politicised with the playing field tilted at an ever steeper angle against the accused and false allegations hardly ever prosecuted. Readers may remember Alexander Economou, who was falsely accused of rape. The police decided at an early stage that no action should be taken against him but failed utterly to follow through his own complaint of false allegation. So he began a private prosecution and only then did the CPS start taking it seriously. He also complained about the police and a subsequent report which upheld his complaint and which he has made available to me, contains some very strong indications of police reluctance to take action against those who wreck lives with lies.

GETTY - STOCK IMAGE Alexander Economou complained about the police and subsequent report

The policeman investigating the case sought to explain the inaction thus: “It’s a brave step for somebody to suggest that a rape victim is making up an allegation…” It then gets worse as he later observes: “It is a dangerous precedent to set if we start accusing any rape victim of making up an allegation…” Worse still comes the admission of a political approach: “If we were to have assisted with prosecuting the victim we would undermine the work we achieve in encouraging victims to come forward and report… We would be sending out the wrong message…” Note the use of the word “victim” even where there was no crime but that is the least of it. This is a clear and unequivocal admission that the police simply do not want to pursue those who lie because it sends out “the wrong message”. So much for justice. This very week we have seen an experienced judge rapped over the knuckles for daring to question the wisdom of bringing rape accusations to court when there is no evidence to convict beyond all reasonable doubt. Sadly this policeman’s account of a one-sided approach to justice is both credible and true. -----------------------

Why should not the royals invite their personal friends to tea? And why should not a proud mum or dad put the event on social media? There is of course no reason at all unless the friends are the Beckhams, which guarantees a flood of abuse about “privilege” and “showing off”. Rot. Happy birthday, Harper, and never mind the rude people. They’re just jealous. ----------------------- Government legal advisers suggest we should be able to make our wills via text or email. Presumably they are trying to make more work for lawyers, for who else will benefit from the myriad disputes which will follow? A signature is verifiable. A thumb on a key is not. -----------------------

GETTY TfL is proposing to ban the term 'ladies and gentlemen' from its annoucements

It would have made a good April fool but it seems Transport for London is utterly serious in proposing to ban the term “ladies and gentlemen” from its announcements for fear of upsetting transgender people. Then along comes the Advertising Standards Authority saying it will ban stereotypes such as women doing the housework and men the DIY. Is there really such a shortage of serious things to worry about? ----------------------- A woman playing Doctor Who? Whatever next? K-nina? Daleks in dresses? But then I gave up not long after Tom Baker anyway. Still if Glenda Jackson can play King Lear brilliantly we had better give the Ms a chance. -----------------------

Politicians as you've never seen them before Mon, June 12, 2017 A cheeky young Boris Johnson and David Cameron as a teenager the world's politicians as you've never seen them before. Play slideshow IG/Getty 1 of 13 British politician Boris Johnson

The Government is considering a crackdown on abuse and hatred directed at politicians. Oh, be careful. Please be very careful. There is already perfectly good law to deal with serious threats and certainly with violence but I need a lot of convincing that the police have the time to go investigating just because posters are defaced or politicians are called rude names. I do not think I have ever fought a campaign in which some of my posters were not defaced and, yes, I have had swastikas painted on them and sieg heils when addressing the populace from my campaign vehicle. Were I Jewish that would be racist but instead it was merely rude and childish and so what? One female candidate was abused as fat and ugly. I wish I had a penny for every time I have been called that. Bluntly, if you cannot stand the heat then get out of the kitchen. Bad manners, even appalling bad manners, should not be criminal offences. People have wished cancer on me and posted excrement through the door of my constituency office. Shocking, yes, but worth a call to the constabulary? No. It is a matter of proportionality and the law on hatred has no good record on that. I recall with amusement a scene from one of Mrs Henry Wood’s books in which a candidate is ducked in the village pond. Family tradition has it that my grandfather once chased the Liberal candidate down Saltash High Street waving a stick. I am glad the political trail no longer involves those hazards, though I did once have a stone thrown through the open window of my old Morris Minor in the 1979 campaign, which mercifully missed both my passenger and me. Having “Tory scum” scrawled on election posters, though, is too trivial to bother any serious candidate. We do not want snowflakes for candidates let alone for MPs and the police have better things to do than follow up on name-calling. -----------------------

GETTY - STOCK IMAGE A Jewish school has been criticised for not teaching about transgenderism and gay marriage