Exclusive: Martha Stewart banned from Britain! Her loss -- or ours?

disillusioned and bored

This is ridiculous. Didn't we let Mike Tyson in fairly recently. Are we now saying that her type of white collar crime is less serious than rape. Bizarre.

Faceless Bureaucrat

You couldn't make it up! - I despair at the hypocrisy and general all-round 'useless-ness' of this excuse of a Government. Armed insurrection anyone?....

Verity

Mike Tyson, thousands of Islamic terrorists, OK. But Martha Stewart is a CAPITALIST! And a successful one at that. You can see how people of that type have to be kept under tight control.

Doods

The United States typically makes it very difficult for those convicted of minor drugs offences or indeed old members of the Communist Party convicted of nothing at all to enter the USA. and anyone entering the country will have noticed how hatchet-faced, humourless and (ahem) zero-tolerant they can be about it. Same difference. They have their taboos : messy, prudish, contradictory. We have ours.

With you on Mike Tyson though.

Timothy

Thank God her kind won't be coming here to push our society in the wrong direction. We don't want to make Amy Winehouse and the radical islamists think we are civilized.

Hysteria

Who knows what evil is plotted in cookery shows? .........

but is this the same "group think" that lead to the police cracking down on speeding at the expense of "real" crime - it's the easy decision - as blogged elsewhere today, Civil Servants do not get fired for doing nothing - we have a system designed to provide inertia, conflicting actions and waste.

but what to do eh? Not sure we are up for armed struggle just yet....

Danvers

To be fair a "British Government Official" is quoted in the Telegraph today saying it is "an own goal" and "a bit silly given some of the other people allowed into the country"... it would be nice if that official, or our august Madam Home Secretary did something about it and told the poor woman that she is more than welcome to come over and have a sniff around the nicer parts of Chelsea.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Martha Stewart is a criminal. We don't want criminals in this country. Not even celebrity criminals. And especially not celebrity criminals who have cashed in on their notoriety.

Bexleyite

Unbelievable who we let in (and how many) and who keep out (and how few).

Bexleyite

Erratum

we keep out

of course.

StewyLewie

Couldn't we do a swap for Jeffrey Archer

Frank Pulley

With you in all except one unfortunate assertion Andrew:
"..and it's hard to see how holding a tea and book signing session at Harrods would be "not conducive to the public good".".

Anything that is liable to put a single penny more into the pocket of that egregious Egyptian grocer is certainly not conducive to the public good. He's already cost the taxpayer a bloody fortune this year and he should be 'gated' next time he travels abroad then tries to return.

Scalett USA

Martha Stewart Was A Scapegoat for the US Justice system who were unable to put Ken Lay and other's who raped and pillaged millions of dollars from people's life savings. Yes she committed a crime, but hear in America we're still waiting to see if the "BIG BOYS' will ever serve time. Martha Stewart is a famous women who is easier to convict then the Big Thieves and that's doesn't say much for the US Justice System and my country.
Did the UK even consider that when making this decision?

Chris Bath

This whole situation illustrates two factors: -

1) The British do not believe in redemption.

If people commit a crime they should receive the relevant punishment plus rehabilitation as necessary. Then it should be over. Instead, employers and insurance companies alike issue blanket bans.

2) One rule for the working class...

The public would appear to be horrified at the thought of giving a working class 'hoodie' convicted of breaking his ASBO a chance to rebuild his life. However, crimes rooted in wealth and privilege are instantly forgotten.

I don't agree with Trumpeter Lanfried but at least it is consistent!

Neil Craig

The criminal ofense she was charged with was lying to a government official in saying she had not done something which itself turned out not to be a criminal offence.

If that is a serious offence in Britain officialdom is more firmly in the saddle than I had hoped.

Now if lying to the public were a criminal offence then all those Labour & LibDem MPs who without equivocation, promised us a referendum would be banged up.

George Holbrook

Martha Stewart, as mentioned above by Neil Craig, was convicted of obstructing justice by not talking about about a crime of which she was not accused, or acts which were shown not to have occurred. How you can lie about not doing that which you haven't done is a crime is remarkable. I had better not answer the question about my current weight any longer.

Verity

Agree with Scarlett. I suspect that if Ken Lay wanted to come to Britain, no probs, even though he makes Robert Maxwell look like a philanthropist.

I don't think Robert Maxwell robbed people of their Social Security. Ken Lane makes my blood boil.

Given this horrible government's open door policy to terrorists, "asylum seekers" and any criminal immigrant who takes a notion to come to Britain, this action smacks of the old malice - the politics of envy. Martha Stewart's a successful capitalist who built her business through her own imagination and industry. You can see why the socialists would hate her.

Oli

Brits get banned from entering the US, unless they get granted a special waiver, if they have ever even been arrested for pretty much anything.

Only fair we should do the same to Americans.

Herbert Thornton

A remarkable phenomenon of the past half century has been the readiness of legislators to attack what they view as social wrongs by enacting bad laws.

The U.S. law under which Martha Stewart (and Conrad Black) were convicted was designed to entrap organised crime figures on the flimsiest and most absurd of pretexts. It worked very effectively, but so long as the entrapped figures were Mafia Dons and suchlike, the general reaction was that it served them right.

But the sad fact is that envy drives many people to view great wealth and Organised Crime as synonymous, and prosecutorial zealots in the U.S. have discovered that it makes it very easy to entrap highly successful business people too.

Martha Stewart was, in effect, sent to prison for failing to confess to a crime she hadn't committed. Conrad Black moved his own records (of which the prosecution already had full copies) from premises in Canada that he was vacating and no longer had the right to use for their storage, to other premises in Canada where he was entitled to store them. For doing this he was convicted and is now in prison on the pretext that moving them constituted "obstruction of justice" in the U.S.

Bad laws enacted for social purposes are of course not confined to the U.S.. Canada's so-called "Human Rights" Acts and the Commissions and Tribunals created by them are one horrible example, and in Britain there are similar phenomena - exemplified by the recent case in Britain where a tribunal recently awarded several thousand pounds "compensation" to an obnoxious young Muslim woman who claimed that she had a right to be given employment in a hair dressing salon despite her obvious unsuitability for the job.

Verity

Oli - You are so far off the target. America retains an integrity that slutty Britain abandoned when the socialists slithered in.

Here's what the commentators on Little Green Footballs, a strong conservative site, if you don't know of it, have posted about this. I believe our credit for fighting WWII has run out.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30419_Britain_Foils_Plot_to_Deliver_Tasty_Recipes_Lively_Home_Decoration_Concepts/comments/#ctop

Oli - the United States has standards.

Verity

Oli says: "Brits get banned from entering the US, unless they get granted a special waiver, if they have ever even been arrested for pretty much anything.

"Only fair we should do the same to Americans."

Agreed. The mighty British market (less the hundreds of thousands on "welfare", who spend their taxpayer unwillingly-contribruted charity on beer, scratch cards, plasma TV and mini-pole dancing outfits for their eight-year old daughters by whomever, not upmarket designer homeware, is easily a match for the 300m American market. It may be worth around 40m.

So why would we want an American into to Britain who creates wealth through sales? Push-up bras for 11-year old children and mini-poles for pre-teen pole dancing [were] on sale at Tesco before storms of parents objected. What more could you want?

To hell with designer cookware (I have no dog in this hunt as I can't cook), towels, floor tiles, etc. She's too smart. Let's ban her!

Fergus Pickering

Verity, I worry for you.If you can't cook how do you eat? I HOPE rich chaps take you out to restaurants.

Frank Pulley

Fergus

Unlike you to miss the implicit quotation marks in Verity's last paragraph. Delicious sarcasm, dear boy. You must always read Verity's posts carefully and if she cooks up her food the way she cooks up her commentary, I'm sure she prepares many a Cordon Bleu feast.

Verity

Frank Pulley - I'm most obliged for your elegant defence, but actually,I can't cook. Never seemed to get my head around the concept. The other day, in some doubt, I called a friend and asked if sardines, garlic and spaghetti might work. (She said no. Don't even think about it.)

Hey

Oh no, mass murdering members of the Communist Party - all of whom are guilty of genocide just like members of the Nazi party and should be dancing the spandau ballet just the same - are people who should be allowed into the US? I thought that I was reading The Spectator and not The Morning Star!

Ms. Stewart was railroaded - there are only the recollections of a government agent to "prove" that she lied to investigators who nevertheless decided that no crime was committed except for misstatements to them. Total bollocks, but then if the leftist media brays for blood the prosecutors will find it.

Fergus Pickering

Sardines, garlic and spaghetti - Good God! You must have been reading of the exploits of the great William Brown.

Frank Pulley

Verity

Heh, heh, heh ...

Not even this? ...

http://mexicanfood.about.com/

If not, what HAVE you been doin' South of the Border? (Apart from keeping us informed and entertained, of course)?

Verity

Fergus Pickering - In my own defence, I was persuaded by the strong reaction of the friend I had called that this was not a good idea.

Frank Pulley - I can't cook Mexican food, either. Also, it's not something you would want to eat day after day. Fortunately, thanks to NAFTA, all the big cities have several Wal-Marts.

Mike Davies

Seeing the government admit to scoring an own goal and making a mistake.Wouldn't it be refreshing for them to reverse their decision, let her in - and give Andrew the chance to get out of the house for a night.

Verity

Too bad Obama doesn't know Ms Stewart personally. He could throw her under the bus.

Frank Pulley

I once got called to an old lady who was still under a bus, in two large pieces. I've never used it as a metaphor since then.

Will Staeton

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Marthastewart/