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Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

govwaste.co.uk

61–70 of 152 posts

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#61
post #45

I wonder how many would argue that Assange should "face the music" while simultaneously arguing that Snowden shouldn't.

Assange is wanted for crimes that are unconnected with his political activism is. Everyone is human, incl Assange, everyone can make mistakes. Don't think your heros are perfect, they might not be.

[deleted]

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#62
post #45

I wonder how many would argue that Assange should "face the music" while simultaneously arguing that Snowden shouldn't.

Assange is wanted for crimes that are unconnected with his political activism is. Everyone is human, incl Assange, everyone can make mistakes. Don't think your heros are perfect, they might not be.

Oh, I'm in favour of him having a fair trial for the crimes of which he's been accused. I'm not in favour of a wham bam thank you ma'am extradition and media pillory.

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put your numbers in perspective: the cost of Julian Assange being kept in the embassy is not policing all of the UK for a day or so. That is, the cost of keeping Assange under watch is the same as what would be spent on 1 average day of policing for the entire country. If I were a UK citizen concerned about local crime rates, I'd be mildly ticked off they were spending 1 nationwide police day on some guy rather th…

What are they supposed to do? Just not enforce the law?

There are many, many laws, that if it cost £10m to catch one violator, would not be enforced (well, would not be aggressively pursued, it isn't like they'd say "no, you're fine, go about your life"). Police make priority judgements all the time about where to allocate their resources. The concern in this case is that the allocation is not being made on reasonable grounds based on the nature of the crime and normal policing priorities, but on political grounds because of who the accused person is.

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#64
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence do you have that car and property crime aren't investigated, and in which country are you talking about?

I've had two motorcycles stolen in the UK. The police gave me a crime reference number and sent out a victim support letter; that was the sum total of their apparent effort.

Well, presumably they'll also have placed the VIN (or equivalent) on their watchlist. But aside from that – what do you expect to happen in the case of a crime like that?

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put your numbers in perspective: the cost of Julian Assange being kept in the embassy is not policing all of the UK for a day or so. That is, the cost of keeping Assange under watch is the same as what would be spent on 1 average day of policing for the entire country. If I were a UK citizen concerned about local crime rates, I'd be mildly ticked off they were spending 1 nationwide police day on some guy rather th…

What are they supposed to do? Just not enforce the law?

[deleted]

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put your numbers in perspective: the cost of Julian Assange being kept in the embassy is not policing all of the UK for a day or so. That is, the cost of keeping Assange under watch is the same as what would be spent on 1 average day of policing for the entire country. If I were a UK citizen concerned about local crime rates, I'd be mildly ticked off they were spending 1 nationwide police day on some guy rather th…

What are they supposed to do? Just not enforce the law?

It is absolutely unthinkable for UK Government not to prosecute sexual crimes, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_paedophile_dossier

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put your numbers in perspective: the cost of Julian Assange being kept in the embassy is not policing all of the UK for a day or so. That is, the cost of keeping Assange under watch is the same as what would be spent on 1 average day of policing for the entire country. If I were a UK citizen concerned about local crime rates, I'd be mildly ticked off they were spending 1 nationwide police day on some guy rather th…

What are they supposed to do? Just not enforce the law?

[deleted]

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (not that the evidence is terribly substantive...) What evidence do you want/expect to see? Genuinely intrigued as so what burden of proof is deemed necessary in this situation.

The burden of proof is always on the prosecutor - they have to prove you guilty, not the other way around.

Sorry, my point wasn't clear. What evidence would be needed for 'social consensus' to see this as a 'valid' trial and not some made up charge?

Part of me thinks that if this was a made up charge to get him to the USA, they would want to ensure they had solid evidence to prosecute.

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#70
post #15

Whenever big numbers are thrown around, there is a need to put them in perspective. However, I don't think "number of meals" or "teachers hired" are good or relevant perspectives. The UK police budget is about £3.5 billion. So this expense is about 0.3% of that. The UK budget is about £700 trillion, if I remember correctly. So this expense is about 0.0000014% of that.

If the UK population is 64 million [1] and the annual national policing budget is 3.5 billion, that's a per person budget of £54 per year. So £10,000,000 on one accused person is the equivalent of the annual policing budget of 185,000 people. Spent on one person yet to be trialled. You'd have to say this is a disproportional response. Why? [1] https://www.google.com.au/search?q=uk+population

That's not a reasonable argument, though. You can't generalise police spending over the population because criminals make up a relatively small proportion.

Is it a disproportionate response then to spend £10m on one guy? The fact that he's not been tried yet is irrelevant – there's a warrant for his arrest, and for a pretty serious crime. I struggle to see what the alternative would be.

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