Ever expanding government in action (2)

From The Metro:

Violent men will be banned from their own homes to give abused partners "breathing space" under new police powers promised by Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

Domestic Violence Protection Orders, to be trialled in two areas, will apply for up to a fortnight in a bid to prevent women having to flee to emergency accommodation such as refuges. Instead they would be offered help and advice by caseworkers on the options open to them if they left the relationship - including securing a longer-term injunction...

OK, yet another gimmick from the government that dreamed up ASBO's and ABC's, so it will either never be implemented; or it will be implemented so badly that it just makes things worse etc. etc. (He knows where you live!). Moving swiftly on ...

... charity Refuge warned that the so-called "go" orders would only be effective if they were backed with sufficient funding and training of professionals...

Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, said: "These new orders will protect women from further risk of domestic violence if they are implemented effectively. We hope the Government will underpin these positive initiatives with the funding and training needed to ensure this and, in doing so, alter radically the number of women whose lives are blighted by domestic violence."

The money shot!

Refuge's 2008 accounts show that total income of £8,215,265 includes £2,431,979 "rent" which is presumably a cross charge (the charity has no signifcant property assets on its balance sheet, heck knows to whom they pay it out again. Housing associations, themselves fakecharities, perhaps?).

Out of the remaining £5,783,286; "voluntary income" was £1,128,459 (their donors include the usual suspects like Children in Need and Comic Relief, Note 3); grants for "Supporting people" or "Floating Support" was £3,541,362 (all from the local authority/borough, Note 4); "Grants for services" was £784,010 (all from other government departments or local councils, Note 5); and interest income and "other income" (unspecified) was £329,455.

So that puts Refuge squarely in the "fakecharity" corner. But they'd like a bit more cash and more power anyway, thank you very much.

Classic fakecharity gambit

The basic template for this gambit is included in this article by the BBC.

Step 1. Produce some research that even a non-expert must realise is stretching the bounds of probability:

A third of teenage girls suffer sexual abuse in a relationship and a quarter experience violence at the hands of their boyfriends, a survey suggests. Nearly 90% of 1,400 girls aged 13 to 17 had been in intimate relationships, the NSPCC and University of Bristol found. Of these, one in six said they had been pressured into sexual intercourse and one in 16 said they had been raped.

Step 2: What a coincidence! The all-seeing and all-knowing government already has plans in place to 'do something about it':

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said personal, social, health and economic studies - including relationship education - would become statutory for children of all ages by September 2011.

"Parents have a vital role to play in providing information and advice on sex and relationships," he said. "They should lead on instilling values in their children, but schools have a clear role in giving young people accurate information and developing the skills they need to make safe and responsible choices."

"Harman pushes discrimination plan"

I like that BBC headline - for she is indeed "pushing discrimination"!

This is, however, not Happy Harriet's Greatest Idea Of All Time. That dubious honour goes to her suggestion of 2002 that battered wives be allowed to give evidence anonymously!

Er ... how many seconds is it going to take the defence to work out who the accuser is...?