Jeremy Vine right now - about rape within marriage....

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

....I'm intrigued. He started the show with an email from 'Jane', read by an actress, about how her husband rapes her regularly.

Now this seems very topical with the BNP agenda at the moment.....am I being cynical in thinking that the email from Jane probably isn't real?

I suspect it's a clever way of raising the issue, and good on whoever came up with it, it's an important issue that needs to be brought to people's attention.

But I can't help thinking if I was experiencing this, writing to Jeremy Vine wouldn't be my first port of call. What do other people think? Am I being cynical?

[Tortington]

what is the BNP agenda?

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

afai can work out, the BNP do not support the view that rape can exist within marriage - there was that one who went about being forced into sex with your husband would be like being force fed chocolate cake.....

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

can't type....

BNP candidate who went on about how being forced into sex with your husband would be like being force fed chocolate cake.....

[Tortington]

do you have a link?

[Tortington]

here found it

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

hmmm, no, I read it on another thread, sorry! Hang on, I'll go look

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

that's the one

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

the thing is, it hardly matters if the original email was real or not, as the debate is genuine and the people who have phoned in with their stories are real, afaik. so in that respect it doesn't really matter, it got people talking about a real issue.

but I just wondered what anyone else who heard it thought?

[Tortington]

he was removed in 2008 it was a blog post.

i don't think its one of their policies is it? or their agenda?

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

No it's not an official policy akaik, but there was much discussion of it in the media lately, so I wondered if someone had decided to bring the topic up and was using Jeremy Vine to stimulate a debate.

[Tortington]

i dont have a telly, but agree, it is a real issue that needs discussion.

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

tis radio, not telly - Jeremy Vine on Radio 2, not Jeremy Kyle.

[dollius]

The BNP have become too media savvy to put something like this in their manifesto.

However, if you read their White Paper on family law, it states in there that they wish to return to a "fault-based" divorce system whereby women who are adulterous (this is the example they give) will have their children removed from them.

They state in the same white paper that domestic violence is far less prevalent than is portrayed, and that when it comes to deciding child custody, child abuse and domestic violence should only be considered if "proven by a court".

It is quite clear from a reading of the whole thing, that the BNP does not regard violence by men against women to be something that should be criminalised. Even if openly they state the opposite in their canvassing.

From reading their white paper and other manifestos, I have no doubt that their agenda is to decriminalise rape within marriage.

[Tortington]

pmsl...vine - he wouldn't make shit up - i lurve him

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

thanks dollius, that's very interesting. I'm far too lazy overrun with children to go ploughing through white papers and manifestos, so it's really useful to hear from people have do take the time and trouble.

[Tortington]

i acceprt that the bnp are vile morons - but

..."child abuse and domestic violence should only be considered if "proven by a court"."

whats wrong with that statement.

surely the custody of children couldn't be considered on 'hearsay' evidence?

[LovelyTinOfSpam]

Fact is though, that raping anyone, including your wife, is illegal in this country.

Difficult to prove and terribly low conviction rates, but it is illeagl.

So what's the discussion about?

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

well that's the odd thing TinofSpam - there wasn't really a discussion. people phoned in to tell their stories, they talked to someone from a womens' support charity and someone who worked with violent men, and then it just kind of tailed off.

that's what was odd about 'Jane's' email - there was no indication of what she hoped to achieve by writing, so it never really went anywhere.

[mayorquimby]

"and that when it comes to deciding child custody, child abuse and domestic violence should only be considered if "proven by a court".
"

surely that's only good practice though. otherwise courts could become rife with hear'say and mudslinging.

[dollius]

I just mean that the BNP wants to make it more difficult for this sort of thing to count when it comes to making decisions.

At the moment, is it not the case that if social services are aware of a history of violence, they can step in to prevent children being left in the care of parents they know to be abusive even if they don't have evidence which would lead to a conviction in a court of law?

My reading of this is that the BNP wants each incident to be proven in a court before it can be referred to. Much more difficult, surely?

Sorry if I have got that wrong.

But to me, it is another way for the BNP to say that domestic violence is a myth put about by manipulative women trying to do men down, and actually it doesn't really happen.

Ie they want to make it harder for women to leave violent marriages and keep their children with them.

[SomeGuy]

I can't see why it's got anything to do with the BNP, nor why people are going on about them so much. They won two seats because Labour's vote collapsed, let them go off to Brussels and gorge themselves on foie gras and rip us off like all the other scrounging MEPs and forget about them.

Really. Ignore them. Just because Jeremy Vine is talking about something a BNP councillor got expelled for saying a couple of years ago doesn't mean it's got anything to do with the BNP

[bleh]

I don't agree SomeGuy. Just ignoring them and not making a fuss may indicate acceptance or tacit approval of them and their policies. Then, when the general election rolls around and more people abandon Labour for the BNP, people won't get what the problem is.

It's like the Martin Niemoller poem .. first they came for the communists.

[SomeGuy]

No, going on about them all the time implies that they are somehow more popular than they were a year ago. From the votes cast in the European elections this is not the case.

Lecturing people does no good at all, look what happened when the self-importants at the Guardian organised a letter writing campaign to tell people not to vote for Bush in Ohio. People don't take kindly to be lectured at by prissy middle class sorts. The Guardian is believed to have been responsible for Bush winning the state in 2004. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3981823.stm

Anyway, the BNP will not get elected at the next general election because our first past the post electoral system keeps out minor parties very well.

Don't forget that Hitler only came to power because the Weimar Republic had PR, allowing them to build from a level of votes lower than what the BNP got at this election with their members elected.

Of course Gordon Brown's busy trying to introduce PR to help the Labour party at the next election. It was of course Labour's introduction of proportional representation for European Elections (previously run using FPTP) that is entirely responsible for the BNP having 2 MEPs at the moment.

[dollius]

And, of course, even if the BNP did get into power (which would never happen), they would still have to get their policies and changes to the law past the rest of the House of Commons, and then past the Lords. Can't imagine that would happen either.

It does show how our system works well against extremists.

However, we shouldn't just ignore them, and we should carry on going on about them in order to ensure that anyone who has been duped by their new "respectable" image becomes enlightened as to what they are really all about.

[theDreadPirateRoberts]

One of the many problems with DV is that it's hard to get into court. Especially where it's not primarily physical, but emotional and/or sexual. Hard to prove to a court's satisfaction, and very often the survivors don't want to press charges so as not to prolong their ordeal.

Doesn't mean the fathers would make good candidates for resident orders.

Incidentally, was on a DV course today - their stats are being updated, but there were 29 children killed between 2001 and 2004/5 as a result of court-mandated contact with an abusive father.

That's one of the many reasons why a principle that abuse should be 'proven by a court' won't create a better home environment for children.