British Justice…

Remember that most of the members of the Labour government who have been responsible for framing legislation are barristers. Which is to say if they don’t know about perverse laws, who the fuck does? So they can only have done this on purpose.

From Constantly Furious:

Paul Clarke of Reigate can tell you.

Mr Clarke found a discarded shotgun and – rather than blagging a bank, or shootin’ up some boyz in da ‘hood – decided that he should hand it in at the local police station.

After all, possession of an unlicensed firearm is an offence, innit?

Oh yes. It is. But, unfortunately for Paul, it’s a ‘Strict Liability’ offence. Remember them? No excuses.

So, when Mr Clarke arrived at the local nick – having had the courtesy to ‘phone ahead to announce his intention – was he offered a cup of tea and the thanks of several beaming Bobbies?

Was he fuck. He was promptly arrested, and thrown into a cell.

When the case came to court, was he given an apology for the misunderstanding and sent away, without a stain on his character?
Was he fuck. ‘Strict Liability’, see?

The judge, directing the Jury, sealed his fate, saying,

"This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge.

The Jury, not really knowing what the fuck was going on, and probably slightly disappointed that this was not really like on the telly at all, took a scant 20 minutes to go along with the Judge’s direction, and find the poor sod Guilty. Guilty. For fuck’s sake.
So, will the judge now unravel this mess, and sentence Mr Clarke to something proportionate and tolerable: "you will be taken from this place and given a cup of tea and your cab fare home" ?

Will he fuck. He can’t, even if he wants to.

There’s a minimum sentence for the crime of possessing a firearm. A mere judge can’t be trusted to know what’s appropriate, so he’s given guidelines from on high.

So – and here comes the sit down and brace yourself bit – when Paul Clarke is sentenced, on December the 11th, he must be sent to prison for a minimum of five years. Five fucking years. Five years in prison, for doing what pretty much every last single fucking one of us would have done in the circumstances.

Holy crap. The number of ways you can have your life fucked up at random is just ever-growing. This is another reason that mandatory minimums are grossly unjust and a politician’s knee jerk ‘seen to be doing something’ response.

But remember, as I said at the start, that many of those political kneejerkers are high fucking practitioners of law. Jesus fuckiing wept.

AJ

Ready for a masterclass in weasel words? Watch Dave…

So, the Lisbon Treaty has now been ratified by all 27 countries after the Czech Republic signed this afternoon. It could be law by 1st December 2009.

The BBC is sucking a big – huge blue – veined euroboner. I’m about to vomit in my pot-noodle.

Whatever Dave promises us tomorrow, it’ll boil it down to this: The Tories can’t do anything now. They won’t have a referendum (Hague confirmed this to the BBC earlier). They’ll not be able to repatriate any powers – and even if they did, we’d still be losing sovereignty, power, independence and democratic accountability on aggregate.

I mean. Whether it ends up being the BlairCunt or not, an APPOINTED PRESIDENT for fucks sake? Even Afghanistan puts on at least a charade of holding an election. As does Iran.

Can you say democratic deficit?

Nothing Cameron can offer us could even come close to holding a referendum – even if it is symbolic.

Tory strategists wail that in the midst of difficult cost-cutting measures, the referendum would be used by the public to kick the government in the teeth. Well perhaps. If they were to hold off for 12 months. They can’t swing the axe overnight, but they could hold a referendum within 30 days of coming to power, before the vote could be tainted by anti-government feeling.

But they won’t do it.

Not voting Conservative in 2010. May never vote for them again as things stand.

AJ

UPDATE: MEPs will get more powers from this. Perfect timing for Nazi Nick then…

1 Crime, 1 Detection. Stats recorded…

Via Hambush.. err Ambush Predator…

Morgan, 31, was arrested and taken from his home in handcuffs at the weekend after his family’s order with their local pizza parlour in Loughor, near Swansea, arrived minus two burgers.

He is due to make a first appearance at Swansea Magistrates’ Court, in south Wales, next Monday.

…

A dispute is alleged to have started after an order of food with a local pizza parlour arrived without the, no doubt, tasty hamburgers.

Mr Morgan claims it was agreed the group should wait for the rest of the order, he told the South Wales Evening Post.

A dispute is alleged to have started with a delivery man who came to the house later, and £15 compensation was eventually paid out, he claims.

What follows remains unclear, however police visited the address later that evening and arrested Mr Morgan on suspicion of robbery.

He was taken to Swansea Central police station where he was questioned about the incident and held overnight.

A South Wales Police spokesman confirmed that a 31-year-old man was arrested on Saturday evening and has since been charged with causing criminal damage to food valued at £5.

See the title of the post and go ask any of the blogging coppers if I’m wrong.

Looking forward to hearing the outcome of this. If I had the day off, I’d go sit in the public gallery to hear the judge… lol.

AJ

Conservatives won’t give us smoking ban reprieve…

At least, that’s what they seem to be saying this week, as Dick Puddlecote chronicles…

Fortunately, the Tories are acutely aware that 52 pubs per week are closing, considering the fact that two thirds of Tories voted against the smoking ban that killed them. A party that wishes to enhance property rights, personal responsibility and defend the business owner’s freedom to be self-determinant, are definitely going to do something about it, aren’t they?
Course they fucking are – not.

"Mr Simmonds [Tory shadow minister for health] agreed with Mr Clark that the smoking ban is merely pushing the problem into people’s homes or onto the streets, but said it is a law that no Government would overthrow."

Staggering, ain’t it?

It should be staggering, but I’m not in the slightest bit surprised. Smokers have lost the battle, and the Tories are going to pick up, and run with, the righteous playbook in attacking drinkers. Not problem drinkers or antisocial drinkers. Well, actually, yes antisocial drinkers. Know why? Because denormalisation is succeeding in reframing all drinkers as antisocial.

I’m absolutely not going to be voting Tory at the next election.

AJ

Another victim of our terrifying extradition treaty with the USA…

I only discovered this chap, hence his sorry story, because he started to follow me on Twatter.

I give you Brian Howes (follow Brian on Twatter…)

Couple faces extradition over chemical sales

US jail threat to Scots family

By Craig Robertson

A SCOTS mum facing extradition to the US still doesn’t know when her fate will be decided — despite being due to give birth in just 10 days.

Mum-of-four Kerry Howes, who has been diagnosed with severe depression and post traumatic stress disorder, appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh on Friday but a hearing date was not set.

It means the 31-year-old faces a home birth without knowing if she will soon be taken 5000 miles away and thrown into jail.

Up to 98 years

Kerry and husband Brian (45) from Bo’ness face up to 98 years in an Arizona jail if found guilty of exporting chemicals US authorities claim were used to make the drug crystal meth.

The couple ran a legal chemical business — Lab Chemicals International — until targeted by undercover agents posing as buyers after a tip-off by one American citizen.

They accused Brian and Kerry of selling iodine and red phosphorus in the knowledge they would be used to manufacture the highly addictive drug. The couple maintain they were simply selling chemicals to be used in amateur pyrotechnics.

Red phosphorous is perfectly legal in the UK but strictly regulated in the US.

“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Brian told The Sunday Post. “We sold chemicals online to be used in fireworks, some as medication for animals and for sheep dip. We sold them everywhere except where they were embargoed.

Registered

“We were registered with the Special Branch and the Home Office. Central Scotland Police visited us regularly and we would ask if there was anything on the site we shouldn’t be selling and they always said no. Also we only dealt in credit card sales so all transactions were traceable.

“They even asked us to report any Muslim names among the people buying from us and we agreed to do that. Then the next thing we know we face extradition to the US without any evidence against us whatsoever.”

Brian and Kerry spent 214 days in separate prisons without charge last year, he in Saughton and she in Cornton Vale.

The couple were eventually released on bail but only after Brian went on a 30-day hunger strike to prevent the children being put into care.

That episode has left him with minor brain damage. Kerry has been left depressed at the prospect of losing her children — Denni (11), Bethaney (10), Ellie (6) and Leela (3).

One-sided treaty

The couple are victims of the one-sided post-September 11 extradition treaty which allows UK citizens to be forced to the US to stand trial. It allows Britons to be extradited without prima facie evidence of criminality.

“We’re being extradited on false information and none of it can be challenged,” said Brian.

The couple’s cases are now being considered separately and Kerry returned to the High Court in Edinburgh on Friday. She met with a new advocate and new medical reports were called for.

“No date was set, not even for a preliminary hearing,” explained Brian. “The judges said they were unhappy that our cases are being dealt with separately.

Refused

“My case is scheduled for May 26 to 29 and Kerry’s will not be set until after that. If I win, she wins automatically, that has been made clear. If I lose then she will go into court after that.”

The couple have been refused application to have their bail conditions changed to allow both of them to attend hospital for the birth of the baby.

Brian’s curfew insists he is at home from 8 pm to 8 am and both must sign on at their local police station three times a day. As a result they feel they have no option but to go for a home birth.

The extradition was formally approved by Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill. A Justice spokesman said they could not comment subject to the appeal to the High Court.

I’m just fucking dumbstruck.

For more coverage, get over to Brian’s blog – he, his wife and their children deserve the support of every UK citizen.

Never ever forget what Labour have given away of ours. To the EU. To the USA. Where Blair and Brown get gongs and honours to say nothing of sinecures.

AJ

Doug on Drugs…

“Old fucks have nothing to do, but judge you and vote.”

AJ

Freedom…

Prompted by a couple of posts by Jackart…

AJ

Worth having a look at what Patricia Hewitt has said about drugs…

AJ

Summary detention…

Via Henry North London, I learn that:

The government plans to rush through measures allowing people with suspected mental health issues to be quickly detained because of fears over staff shortages in any forthcoming swine flu outbreak, it has been revealed.

The temporary changes to the Mental Health Act, as laid out in an unusually short consultation lasting just one month, would mean it would only take one doctor, rather than two, to have a person sectioned and put on medication without their consent.

The measures could have a serious effect on the thousands of patients with psychiatric issues who currently live outside state care, meaning many could be detained against their will on the word of just one health professional.

Okay then… opening the door to locking up ‘enemies of the state’ as mentally ill. Not at all like communist Russia then.

AJ

In other piss-boilers

Ambush Predator: Coppers wildly overstep their remit once again…

Today’s ‘WTF?!?’ Story…

South Yorkshire Police apparently have enough time on their hands to wander the streets, peeking in car windows and, if there are any items on display, doing this:

If any items are on show, the officer will record it, along with the car registration number, to help identify the car owner. Using the DVLA’s MOT database, they will then be able to find out who are the car’s insurers.
The forms will then be sent out to insurance companies – which will either lead to people’s premiums rocketing or their policies being cancelled.

I’m speechless…

Letters from a Tory: Again, we must account for ourselves before the state, or we are non-persons liable to sanction…

Vetting scheme for adults gets even worse

From the Telegraph:

Adults who look after friends’ children on a regular basis are being forced to register with Ofsted under new legislation.  They must complete a criminal record check, learn first aid, take a childcare course and even follow Labour’s “nappy curriculum” for under-fives. …It comes just weeks after it emerged that parents giving lifts to other children face prosecution if they fail to register with the Government’s vetting and barring scheme, a new anti-paedophile database.  Dr Richard House, senior lecturer in psychotherapy at Roehampton University, and founder of the Open EYE campaign group, said: “In any ‘couldn’t-make-it-up’ league table, this latest Government incursion into family life surely has to come very near the top.  It beggars belief that Ofsted is now telling parents that a private co-operative arrangement whereby friends choose to take care of each others’ children is against the law. It appears that the stealthy nationalisation of childcare is now proceeding at full throttle.”

Read On…

More on that from the Faily Dail:

Mothers are banned from looking after each other’s children

Two working mothers have been banned from looking after each other’s toddlers because they are not registered childminders.

The close friends’ private arrangement had let them both return to part-time jobs at the same company.

However, a whistleblower reported them to the education watchdog Ofsted and it found their informal deal broke the law.

This was because little-known rules say friends cannot gain a ‘reward’ by looking after a child for more than two hours outside the child’s home without agreeing to a number of checks including one from the Criminal Records Bureau.

Although the mothers never paid each other, their job-sharing deal was judged to be a ‘reward’. Campaigners fear thousands of working families could be innocently breaking the rules by relying on close friends for informal childcare.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216220/Mothers-banned-looking-children.html#ixzz0SDkJz8Qm

Boatang & Demetriou: Police say “anti-social behaviour’s not our problem”…

Crime and the ever-extending tentacles of the state

According to the Telegraph, a senior cop has popped up at the Inquest of the deaths of Fiona Pilkington and Francecca Hardwick (a mother and daughter who tragically killed themselves following a campaign of terror by scum bags) and said that anti-social behaviour has nothing to do with the police.

At the inquest into the pair’s deaths yesterday, Superintendent Steve Harrod, head of criminal justice at Leicestershire Police, acknowledged that the criminal justice system was set up to avoid sending juveniles to prison.
He said police officers were only allowed to issue warnings to young troublemakers unless their behaviour was judged to be serious.

"I’m not sure if people know but low-level anti-social behaviour is mainly the responsibility of the council"

Well, don’t shoot the messenger. What he is saying is disgusting, but it’s not particularly his fault and he is right. Because indeed, the terrorism of society and the low level crime that blights estates and communities up and down the country is no longer in the domain of the judiciary.

Because the state, along with everything else near it’s grasp, has snapped up and entwined the issue of juvenile delinquency and anti social crime and terror within its clammy tentacles.

Read On..

Rantin Rab: Scottish Airport Police demand to see passports of English domestic travellers.

It appears that Strathclyde’s finest have decided to, or have been told to, check the passports of passengers arriving at Prestwick Airport.

Passengers on domestic flights, that is.

Just what business it is of the police to be checking passports is anyone’s guess. Checking the passports of international passengers is the job of the UKBA.

So why are they checking passports and what happens to those who refuse to play their stupid game? It’s not an offence to travel without a valid passport on a domestic flight.

In my opinion they powers that be are just testing our ‘compliance threshold’. If the sheeple happily play along with this, what’s next?

More on this in the Times:

English travellers to Scotland ‘need’ passports

English passengers making internal flights to Scottish airports are being asked to show their passports when they land, police have confirmed.

Officers are carrying out routine identity checks on domestic flights under terrorism legislation. This can mean forcing passengers to show passports or other photographic identification.

Those arriving on international flights are required to go through passport control, but domestic passengers are usually checked for photographic ID before boarding their plane.

The checks came to light after shadow home secretary Chris Grayling was asked to produce his documents when he arrived at Glasgow Prestwick airport on an internal flight.

…

The Terrorism Act 2000 gives police forces the power to stop anyone for identification checks, which can include showing a passport. Strathclyde Police, which covers Prestwick, 30 miles south west of the city centre, said its officers use the legislation “proportionately”.

A force spokesman said: “’Police officers, similar to other Border and Law Enforcement Agencies, operate at UK Air and Sea Ports in furtherance of their role of protecting our communities.

"As part of their duties, police require to establish the identity of persons present at or transiting through a port and, in recognition of this, legislation is provided for that purpose.

Well then.. the next time my firm want me to travel north of the border, I’m going to tell them to go fuck themselves.

Time to go shoot golf balls at the cat.

I fucking hate what these cunts have done to my country, my life, my liberty and my sanity.

AJ

Are we still autonomous beings?

I wonder because I’m struggling, after reading this to think of an area of life where the government hasn’t encroached, invaded, inveigled or legislated its way into, directly or via quangos and fake charities.

Genetic disease patients may lose privacy rights to protect families

New guidance for Britain’s 150,000 practising doctors could remove the right to confidentiality from patients with inherited diseases.

When a patient is found to have a genetic disease, such as certain forms of cancer, doctors will be obliged to inform relatives about potential risks to their health, the General Medical Council (GMC) says.

errrm… do fucking WHAT?

Who’s genome is it anyway? It’s mine you cunts. Not yours, not the state’s, not my parents’ or siblings’.

It isn’t even worth getting into arguing the nuances of the scheme. The above statement draws a line under it for me. My genome, my decision.

Doctors in this country are out of fucking control.

AJ

If you’re not depressed now…

You will be, once you’ve read John Demetriou’s post about what has happened to this country.

Can people not see what is happening here? The State has the upper hand. We are all being made into their bitches. Why? Because, by virtue of us being the law abiding citizens who want to get along and get by without fuss, we are easy meat. We pay up when told to pay up, we get into our hutches and eat and drink what we’re told, and when. We are told what and how to consume, what is acceptable and what is not, and what is safe and what isn’t.

Read the whole thing. And weep. Or rant. Or go put a rocket up your MP’s arse (a NASA colonoscopy as I call that at work).

AJ

500,000 email & phone records snooped on last year…

A dour and deeply depressed doff of the flat cap to Old Holborn for this from the Tellygiraffe:

A request to snoop on public every 60 secs

Councils, police and other public bodies are seeking access to people’s private telephone and email records almost 1,400 times a day, new figures have disclosed.

The authorities made more than 500,000 requests for confidential communications data last year, equivalent to spying on one in every 78 adults, leading to claims that Britain had “sleepwalked into a surveillance society”.

An official report also disclosed that hundreds of errors had been made in these “interception” operations, with the wrong phone numbers or emails being monitored.

The figures will fuel concerns over the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act by public bodies.

The Act gives authorities – including councils, the police and intelligence agencies – the power to request access to confidential communications data, including lists of telephone numbers dialled and email addresses to which messages have been sent.

Councils have been accused of using the powers, which were originally intended to tackle terrorism and organised crime, for trivial matters such as littering and dog fouling. Only last month, it emerged that councils and other official bodies had used hidden tracking devices to spy on members of the public.

Read on.. or don’t, if you want your blood pressure to remain stable.

And what will Spameron do about any of this? Roll any of it back? Will he fuck. He’s still the heir to Blair, remember.

AJ

Watching the bansturbators and the pub-killers…

Excellent work from The Filthy Smoker over at DKs place.

From The Scotsman:

The economic hangover of the smoking ban and the effects of the recession have both been blamed for fewer people going to pubs, but it is clear the supermarkets and a growing culture of drinking at home are the real cause for the decline.

Oh, for the love of…

Alright then, one more time. There is not a growing culture of drinking at home because the supermarkets are selling more alcohol. There is a growing culture of drinking at home because of the smoking ban which, in turn, has led to the supermarkets selling more alcohol. People who drink at home tend to buy their alcohol from supermarkets. Not pubs. Supermarkets not pubs. Horse then cart. Do you see how that works?

Do click through and read the rest of this most splendid taking apart of the righteous.

AJ

Tom Harris: Funny Man

Lest the comment I’ve just posted on his blog doesn’t get past moderation, here it is:

UPDATE: Terribly bad form of me not to tip my hat toward Leg-iron at Old Holborn’s place.

UPDATE 2: I see Obo is poking him. Nice work, Mr The Clown :-)

UPDATE 3: Lol.. it doesn’t matter if he approves the comment… this post has left a pingback. :o)

Fascism and the Labour Party…

Via Obo, I happened upon this very useful insight from Raedwald:

Stories bubbling around the papers are suggesting Ed Balls sees himself as Labour’s heir to Nye Bevan. Bevan, of course, was highly supportive of his fellow Labour MP and Minister, Oswald Mosley. Had Mosley remained in the Labour party, his strident support of National Socialist ideas could have driven the party, with the useful support of those such as Nye Bevan, in a very different direction to that in which Atlee took it.

Mosley, as Labour member for Smethwick and Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster in MacDonald’s 1929 government, formulated much Labour policy that remains on the agenda of leftists such as Ed Balls today. Dick Crossman in 1961 described Mosley’s plans for the party as "Brilliant … a whole generation ahead of Labour thinking"; amongst other measures, he advocated nationalisation of industry and the banks, and a massive scheme of public works and public spending to tackle unemployment. Both are measures with which neither Bevan nor his self-identified successor Balls would quibble – and both measures were used with some temporary success by Labour’s German counterpart National Socialists during the 1930s.

Will Balls, like Bevan and Mosley before him, seek to take Labour in a more leftish and State Authoritarian direction than it wants to go? And will he survive it? Mosley left to form his own New (Labour) Party, and Bevan and his Bevanites failed to turn Attlee, and Gaitskill eventually saw him off in 1955. It’s fascinating to think that had Mosley remained in the Labour Party, it could be sporting today a rather different symbol to that of the red rose …

A useful analogue to the startling comparisons that can be drawn between the inter-War US Democrats and the Nazis…

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin’s Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler’s political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers’ Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

http://ray-dox.blogspot.com/2006/05/american-roots-of-fascism-american.html

AJ

Nothing to add to this….

From LPUK blog:

Why the ID Database won’t be secure

By RobW

To those of you out there who think the ID Database will be a good thing I would like to point you at this story…

A GLASGOW council worker was sacked and another resigned after they were caught snooping into the core database of the Government’s Identity Card scheme.

The two Glasgow staff were caught snooping on people in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Customer Information Systems (CIS) database, which includes among its 85 million records the personal details about everyone in the UK, and which the Identity and Passport Service plans to use as the foundation of the national ID scheme.

"A member of staff tried to access stuff about famous figures," said a spokesman for Glasgow City Council. He said the DWP alerted the council about the breach. He refused to name the celebrity or say how the council dealt with the matter.

Now let’s just make one thing clear to people. If the government builds a great big super database your data will NOT be SECURE.

And no amount of magic fairy-dust technology will change this.

The greatest threat to all data security are the people who have access to it. If you can’t trust them you’re screwed.

And there is no point in the state building a super database unless a lot of its employees have access to it. Otherwise how will it help them control us?

So the question you must ask yourself is, how many perverts and weirdos does the state employ?

Sweet dreams…

AJ

Advisory speed limits to be lowered

There’s a piece in today’s Sunday Times, which goes as follows:

Road speed limit cut to 50mph

THE government is to cut the national speed limit from 60mph to 50mph on most of Britain’s roads, enforced by a new generation of average speed cameras.

Now, first of all, let me dispense with the necessary pedantry by saying that the National Speed Limit is 70MPH. The NSL specific to single carriageways (no central refuge) is 60MPH. Anyway, on with the show.

Devil’s Kitchen deals with the whole thing quite nicely, with supporting material from The Englishman.

I’ve talked previously about the advisory nature of speed limits. Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools (Douglas Bader).

My perspective allows me to see a couple of benefits to these plans.

Let us assume, first of all, that these all singing and all dancing cameras are sometimes some or all of:

(i) dummies (due to cost)
(ii) malfunctioning (due to vandalism or maintenance fail)
(iii) impaired by poor weather (which they are)
(iv) baffled by improperly spaced number plates (they rely on OCR)
(v) incorrectly positioned (pointing to the sky)
(vi) illegally placed (kerching for Nick Freeman)
(vii) delayed for years due to technology fail (couldn’t happen here – could it?)

This immediately cuts down their usefulness, which is good news. Nonetheless, Joe Numpty will just do what he does now in the SPECS covered areas of the motorway network – sit with his speedo 1MPH below the posted limit (effectively 10% below it).

I know there’s at least one benefit of this. Many counties have unilaterally reduced many roads from 60MPH to 50 or 40 over the last 10 communist muesli-munching years. The result is this: Overtaking is easier. Unless you have a very fast car, a muppet tootling along at 56 in a 60 is more difficult to overtake quickly and safely than one doing 46 on the same road.

A thought, though, on the coming ‘consultation process’ from DK:

The 50mph proposal will be laid out in a consultation document to be published in the early summer.

Oh, right. Yes, I think that we know what kind fucking consultation document that will be, don’t we? Yes, it will be like the recent smoking one, highlighted by my colleague, in which the opinions of those who oppose the proposals will disappear into thin air whilst the responses that will count will be those of fake charities—such as Brake (£70,991 from taxpayers) and Living Streets (67% state-funded)—who support the government proposals.

AJ

Jack Straw: “Water is dry, snow is hot and I’m not a lying cunt…”

And Britain isn’t turning into a police state.

This cunt knows no bounds of ludicrousness.

Our record isn’t perfect. But talk of a police state is daft

There was no golden age of liberty. Since 1997, we have done more to extend freedoms than any government before.

When people come to assess the choices available at the next election, I will stand proudly on Labour’s record, from the Lawrence inquiry, which reported 10 years ago this week, progressive legislation on race and gender, to devolution, the Human Rights Act, Freedom of Information and much more, and be ready to be judged on it. I hope that in the final reckoning even some of our harshest critics will concede that this Labour government has done more than any before it to extend liberties and to constrain government.

Speechless. Happily, CiF commenters are far from it.

An end to peaceful protest within a mile of Parliament.
ID cards.
Over 60 pieces of personal information before you can travel.
Internet monitoring.
Phone call monitoring.
The politicization of the police.
One-quarter of all the CCTV in the world.
Racist ID cards for non-EU nationals.
And you have the bare-faced cheek to say that you have extended liberties? You are a liar, Jack, and not a very good one. We want our freedom, and our country, back.

…

Also, 42 days, misuse of RIPA and lots of smaller stuff: bin laws, council snoopers, pub music, CRB check if you want to give 4 other kids a lift to a sports fixture, the smoking ban (well, pub owners should have had a choice but now a lot of them have lost their livelihood), freedom of speech, health & safety stopping traditional events if they can’t afford insurance….. it just goes on….

…

I accept your relationship with truth is somewhat estranged. I think you have allegiances to others besides the UK. If we delve back over the time of Nu labour, your name is linked with all of the policies that have alienated the majority community, and made Britain despised in the world along with USA and Israel.

Still we should be grateful, the arrogance and ignorance of this government, has woken the people up to your crimes, and if a referendum was held on whether we ought to transfer some of the cabinet to the Hague for war crimes, my guess is you would be the second one on the plane.

This government/ cabinet, needs to parade out, bow deeply and apologise for the destruction you have inflicted on UK society. Trouble is, that takes courage, nuff said.

Indeed.

AJ

Irony Board

Just a week after we heard that Gordon Brown may be offered leadership of an international regulatory body for financial services (after his bang-up job with the FSA) and Tony Blair was awarded a $1m prize for being a pretty straight kind of guy, there is more amazement today.

I predicted (perhaps tongue in cheek. perhaps not) that Harriet Hormone will be the next editor of Nuts magazine and Lord Ahmed will lead a Christian road safety charity, but I could never have come up with this:

Scottish MP blogger online for an Orwell

A Scottish MP who has established himself as Parliament’s most assiduous blogger has been named among the nominees for the Orwell Prize.

Tom Harris, Labour member for Glasgow South, has been nominated for his And Another Thing blog which, for its immediacy and wit, has become among the most widely read of political blogs, including those of long-established political commentators. It receives about 50,000 hits a month.

This is the first year that the Orwell Prize, established in 1994 to acknowledge political writing in books and journalism, has included a category for bloggers.

You remember Tom Harris, right? He’s the one who posted on he blog about the LPUK campaign-delivered copy of Orwell’s 1984, bearing the inscription, “This book is a warning, not an instruction manual”. His insight lead him to describe the book as “a rollicking good yarn, with a great plot and a very dramatic ending”.

In other words, he’s in denial or (and this is the odds on favourite being as he’s a politician) he’s never fucking read it and he’s a lying cunt.

This Tom Harris, who is up for an Orwell prize, has the following voting record:

• Voted strongly against a transparent Parliament.
• Voted a mixture of for and against introducing a smoking ban (he voted for the ban and against exemptions so far as I can tell. He was absent for the Wales vote.).
• Voted strongly for introducing ID cards.
• Voted moderately for introducing foundation hospitals.
• Voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees. (Which as a Glasgow MP do not apply to his constituents)
• Voted very strongly for Labour’s anti-terrorism laws.
• Voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
• Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war.
• Voted very strongly for replacing Trident.
• Voted very strongly for the hunting ban.
• Voted very strongly for equal gay rights.

Just last week, the former head of MI5 said that Labour Ministers have turned the country into a police state.

Old Eric must be spinning in his grave.

AJ