> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Hypocrisy Reeks - URL: https://goodoil.news/the-hypocrisy-reeks/ - Published: 2026-11-10T00:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-10T00:29:59.000Z - Description: Burnham and rape. - Author: Reproduced with permission - Tags: UK Politics, Crime, Justice System [**Hottentot**](https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/article/burnham-and-rape?ref=goodoil.news) *Hottentot is a right clever bastard. A very actuary for a leading underwriter.* Andy Burnham’s sudden enthusiasm for higher rape conviction rates is selective, opportunistic and corrosive of basic justice. In the aftermath of Russell Brand’s conviction, the prime minister has spoken of the need to get the conviction rate up, to examine how rape trials are conducted so that women do not feel they are the ones on trial, and to encourage more reporting. He will look closely at suggestions from senior police officers and has refused to rule out changes to the law. The stated aim is support for victims and better outcomes. The framing, however, treats the number of convictions itself as the measure of success. That is moral hazard dressed as compassion. English criminal law rests on a deliberate and civilising premise: the accused is innocent until the prosecution proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The standard is high precisely because the alternative is a state error that destroys lives. Rape is a uniquely serious offence and the trauma it causes is real. But none of that justifies diluting the burden of proof, restricting legitimate testing of credibility, or treating the complainant’s experience of the process as the decisive test of justice. Every other grave crime demands the same rigorous process. Special pleading for one category creates a two-tier system in which the truth-seeking function of the trial is subordinated to a political target. Burnham’s language slides easily into the idea that low conviction rates are primarily a failure of the system rather than a reflection of the inherent difficulty of proving many historical or contested allegations to the criminal standard. Improving the quality of investigations, reducing delays, supporting genuine victims through the process and ensuring fair trials are all legitimate goals. Turning the conviction rate itself into a policy objective is not. It creates institutional pressure to charge weaker cases, to limit defence rights and to treat acquittals as systemic failure rather than the correct outcome when the evidence does not meet the threshold. That pressure has already produced miscarriages elsewhere. It will do so again. The same politician now demanding structural change around rape trials spent years as mayor of Greater Manchester in a region with a documented history of catastrophic failure to protect vulnerable girls from organised sexual exploitation. Independent reviews he commissioned after 2017 confirmed serious strategic and systemic failures by police and children’s services in the preceding years. Children known to be at risk were failed. Operations were closed prematurely. Suspects were not pursued with the necessary vigour. Victims were too often treated as problems rather than children in need of protection. Networks in which men of predominantly Pakistani heritage featured prominently among the offenders were a sensitive political fact that institutions were slow to confront openly for fear of community tensions or accusations of racism. Burnham’s defenders point to the reviews he ordered and the later arrests and culture change. That is fair as far as it goes. It does not erase the years of institutional reluctance that preceded them, nor does it transform the man who inherited and then managed the political fallout into an unimpeachable champion of the vulnerable. The scale of past abandonment of mainly white working-class girls remains a permanent stain on him and the institutions he led. Consistency would require the same forensic intensity applied to every pattern of offending, regardless of the perpetrator’s background or the media narrative of the moment. The political class that for years preferred euphemism and community cohesion over blunt description of the rape gang phenomenon now discovers sudden urgency about rape convictions when the defendant is a celebrity who has moved away from left-wing fashionability. Russell Brand has been convicted of rape and sexual assault. The jury heard the evidence and reached its verdict. That is the system working as designed. Brand was once courted by parts of the left, including figures who found his anti-establishment posturing useful. Burnham himself posted supportive comments about Brand in 2014 when the comedian was under media pressure over other matters. Brand’s later turn toward conservative and Christian positions changed the temperature around him. Allegations that had not produced criminal proceedings for years became high-profile once the political picture shifted. The court process is not a witch hunt simply because the timing is convenient for some commentators – a conviction after trial is evidence tested in public. But the sudden intensity of coverage, the moral certainty of commentators who once ignored or minimised similar patterns elsewhere, and the readiness of politicians to use the case as a platform for broader process changes do invite legitimate scepticism about selective enthusiasm. If the principle is that historical allegations of serious sexual crime must be pursued without fear or favour, apply it evenly. If the principle is that complainants must be believed and the process rebalanced to deliver higher conviction rates, then the same standard should have been applied with equal energy to the organised exploitation of children in northern towns for years before it became politically safer to do so. The record shows it was not. The oldest safeguard against tyranny is the refusal to treat accusation as proof. Every expansion of special rules for sexual offences – restrictions on questioning, presumptions about complainant behaviour and institutional targets for success – chips at that safeguard. Burnham’s rhetoric treats the low conviction rate as self-evidently a scandal requiring structural remedy. Sometimes low rates reflect under-reporting and poor investigation. Sometimes they reflect the correct application of a high standard of proof to cases that cannot meet it. A serious justice system distinguishes the two. A political campaign for more convictions does not. The proper response to rape is better policing, faster charging decisions where the evidence exists, proper support for witnesses, and trials that test the evidence fairly. The improper response is to redefine fairness as whatever produces the desired statistical outcome. Burnham’s current posture risks the latter. It is consistent with a broader political habit of discovering moral urgency only when the targets are convenient and the media weather is favourable. The girls failed by institutions in Greater Manchester deserved better than institutional hesitation. Defendants in rape trials deserve the same rigorous process as everyone else. Neither group is served by politicians who treat justice as a mood. This article was originally published by the [Free Speech Backlash](https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/article/burnham-and-rape?ref=goodoil.news).