And you’ve not even mentioned that curiously unaccountable, yet awfully powerful body ACPO, yet…

New Labour is so frightened of being accused of being “soft” on crime or terrorism that it will say “yes” to just about any suggestion from the Police, and I suspect that the Police keep on making these suggestions just to see how far they can go.

Firstly, what Guano said.

Secondly, New Labour (like most governments) has a problem with the politics of dissent, if not more so because of its centralised ‘on-message’ culture

Thirdly, the government is terrified of a(nother) terrorist outrage on its watch.

Fourthly, Blair always had the idea that whatever he did was right, and that little legal niceties – such as habeas corpus – were just inconveniences to delivering the firm ka-pow of justice.

Lastly, given the number of ex-leftists in the senior ranks of New Labour, I’m not remotely surprised they pulled the ladder up after them, and set the dogs on everybody else.

Oops, only the ‘ex’ was meant to be in italics

Why is it, then, that a government many of whose members were similarly socialised should be so keen to give them even more power, even though they know this will be misused?

A question I have been asking myself since ’97. I voted Labour that year – I won’t go intot he full text but I was over joyed that “we” had won.

I sincerely don’t know how anyone at all can say that those in government now are left-wing, liberal, and – to bejeebus, are socialists.

The biggest problem politically, is that with the Blair and Brown governments you have a situation where the right can say “Look – that is how the left, socialists, govern!” They [Blair and Brown] have put the left-wing cause back eons!

Go back in the careers of Blunket, Straw, to the days of the miners strike. It is truly depressing to see the difference in those people now – I’ll bet John Smith turns in his grave.

Even the international community has condemned the UK (and the US).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7892387.stm

Does this mean that the next time there is an anti Israel march of thousands of Muslims, throwing objects at the police and shouting ” cowards ” ” run you bastards ” and “fucking kuffar ” ,
that we won,t be able to see it.
Hey wait a minute…this law could have hidden conseqeunces.

‘The biggest problem politically, is that with the Blair and Brown governments you have a situation where the right can say “Look – that is how the left, socialists, govern!” They [Blair and Brown] have put the left-wing cause back eons!

Go back in the careers of Blunket, Straw, to the days of the miners strike. It is truly depressing to see the difference in those people now – I’ll bet John Smith turns in his grave.’

Much as I would love to get some ideological carping in, it really isn’t anything much to do with socialists or even the individual politicians. The nature of politics itself is to turn the most powerful officials against their own principles, whatever they happen to be. Powerful people naturally come to elide their own interest with the public interest (“If I win, everyone wins!) and that in the end comes to justify all manner of expediency until you get this.

I suppose the other problem is a variation on the problem of health and safety regulation. A bureaucracy gets blamed for every faulty good or service allowed on the market, but will never get blamed for having so retarded a market place that it no longer offers innovative products (you never see the innovations that never happen, so you never think to blame someone for not having them). Similarly, a politicians will certainly get it in the neck for every terrorist atrocity that takes place. They are less likely to be personally held responsible every time a individual from a dispossessed minority ends up detained for a couple of months, or if a known troublemaker ends up in prison for a few years from photographing a policeman.

It makes me laugh when I hear the Right going on about the powers of unions. The most powerful union in this country is the Police Federation. Neither political parties will take on the police. (except when a pompous Tory front bencher gets held in a police station for 8 hours with out charge.)

It is almost as though changing govt does not matter, the politicians just keep giving more and more power to the police. Each power or weapon the police get we are told they will only use that power in exceptional circumstances. Yet within a few months the outrages emerge. Only a couple of months ago an 80 year old man in an old people Home was tazered by the police in north Wales. And the police claimed, in their usual, syrupy George Orwell language , that the old man was tazered for his own protection.

This govt has contained the policies of Michael Howard in giving more and more power to the Police. Howard’s solution to all the wrongful conviction that were being overturned in the 1990s was to let the Police destroy evidence earlier so that the miscarriage would never come to light. The Police have learned over the last 30 years that they are untouchable. The number of people who have died in police custody has reason alarmingly and the number of innocent people shot dead by the police is appalling. But no officers are ever disciplined never mind brought to justice.

The real reason the police don’t want people filming them is because people have filmed the police behaving badly. So as usual, the police complain ,and the politicians bend over. Of course the police are able to carry on filming the public. Because if you do anything wrong the police want it as evidence. But not the other way round now. Of course, the other people to blame are the right wing tabloids who are basically the propaganda arm of the police force and just love the idea of a police state.

Great Britain is heading towards a police state and it is up to the public to rise up and say no.
You are giving up your rights at a rapid pace and risk losing all your civil liberties. Not even the media will be able to take photos of legitamate stories. Police abuse, corruption and misuse of authority will be common place as police will be protected.
There is also no basis in fact that terrorists even take photos. The London bombers never took photos. It doesn’t take a brain scientist to know that the trains are crowded during rush hour.
You must stand up for your rights. This is yet another step in the wrong direction of civil liberities that are enjoyed in the United States with no ill effects.
Todd Maisel
Director, Region 2, National Press Photographers Association

Good post. We’ll be discussing the Police and how they can be brought back under control at the Convention on Modern Liberty:
http://www.modernliberty.net/programme/morning-sessions/the-police

David Starkey just confirmed.

I’ve never understood why bombing a train is a good idea from the terrorists point of view in any case: underground trains are out of sight so useless as a ‘spectacle’ (the most memorable images of 7/7 are from the bus attack) while the easiest way to destroy an overground train is to park a truck on a crossing.

Shatterface, I use the Tube and I saw relatively very few fellow travellers in the days following 7/7 – some people were too afraid to use it.

Shatterface:

The reality is that it would be extremely easy to cause frequent and mass terror when thinking of how unsecured our train lines (and even train stations) are. But they haven’t once been targeted since the subway attacks (which are notably harder to achieve, as you say). Terrorists in Spain and India have regularly attacked trains in the past, yet here it doesn’t happen.

Could it possibly be, shock horror, that terrorists just really aren’t as active in this country as people would want us to believe?

Also a truck on a crossing could easily be painted as an accident. A bomb is rather harder to spin away.

This is not just a UK problem. The UK is just following orders from the neo cons in America. (thanks for nothing Blair, and New Labour) Within days of 9/11 the authorities put forward the Patriot act. There is no way in hell that the patriot act could have been drawn up in such a short time. It was already there, sitting on the shelf just waiting for an opportunity to be rammed into law. 9/11 was the perfect excuse the authorities needed to push it on to the statute. Look at the law Blair passed allowing America to extradite British citizens to America without any evidence that would stand up in a British court. When the bill went through parliament, hardly anyone noticed that the spelling on the front of the bill was in American spelling. And then, as soon as this so called essential piece of anti terrorism law was in place it was used to extradite British Bankers.

The powerful, and rich do not want a democracy , they want a fascist state. With the collapse of Communism, and the apathy of voters they see the chance to remove many of the freedoms people take for granted. The fact that this agenda is being helped ,and pushed by a Labour govt just shows how rotten the whole system is.

Article quoted in Daily Telegraph. Dame Stella Rimmington is quoted as saying we are in danger of Police Sate. Jaqui Smith vs stella Rimmington on civil liberties- unbelievable . Personally I think Peter Cook is not dead , he is alive and well and running the Labour Party.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4643415/Spy-chief-We-risk-a-police-state.html

There does seem to be a bit of a narrative shift, all since Obama started sorting his country’s shit out. It’s encouraging.

Politicians don’t run the country, in the same way that the people in the Air Wick adverts didn’t invent air fresheners. Politicians are idealistic, naive people – then they get elected and absorb the culture of the real people in control.