The Met must stop spinning its actions
by Guy Aitchison and Andy May
The Metropolitan Police Authority met yesterday for the first time since the policing of the G20 protests. Defend Peaceful Protest put its questions directly to Boris Johnson. The Met were represented by acting deputy commissioner Tim Godwin (standing in for Sir Paul Stephenson) and temporary assistant commissioner Chris Allison.
The good news is that the MPA, which is made up of 11 independent members and 12 London Assembly members, were largely supportive of the protestors’ rights and had critical things to say about the G20 policing – see Anna Bragga on OK for a full report. The bad news is that we were not satisfied with the Met’s response which, when not actively misleading, amounted to “we’re conducting an enquiry, so we’re not going to answer any of your questions yet.”
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Why go on marches?
I posted a piece at the Guardian CiF about the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Blair Peach and this has prompted some discussion about the parallels with the recent death of Ian Tomlinson. One of the points discussed in the comments is how should both the police and fellow protestors behave towards a ‘hardcore of people who’d turn up just for the ruck?’
I do not have a short answer to that, but it got me thinking about the type of demonstrations that I have gone on down the years and also about what the point of going on a march really is.
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Our campaign to Defend Peaceful Protest launches
Guest post by Guy Aitchison and Andy May
Tomorrow morning the Metropolitan Police Authority meets for the first time since the policing of the G20 protests. We will be there along with other members of a new campaign group, Defend Peaceful Protest, to question the Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson on how he plans to ensure the kind of brutal and intimidatory police tactics used in the City on April 1st, which resulted in the death of one man, hundreds of assaults and the systematic violation of the rights of thousands to peaceful protest and assembly, aren’t repeated.
We now have had confirmation that the Chief Executive of the MPA will receive the following questions submitted by us:
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A wake-up call for the left
With the New Labour project almost over, we can be comfortable with two assumptions: the Tories are coming to power; the left will descend into civil war over future political direction. So I want to draw the battle lines as early as possible, and this is part of that. The question could be posed in many different ways, but this may be the simplest: What has been the left’s main problem over the last decade?
For me, it is the failure to illustrate an easily identifiable vision for the future beyond tired old platitudes, and build mass movements on those ideas. It is the failure to build wide-ranging popular coalitions that aren’t hijacked by the SWP hard-left. It is the failure to build organisational capacity and, more importantly, harness the energy of the people.
What do I mean by that?
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Police: several levels of ‘culpability’
Having gone truncheons to tasers in a generation, I also have to wonder what purpose the current Police Service has been built for?
It looks like we have been built to violently confront and overcome people. I am not saying that is our mindset, but it is without doubt what we are equipped to do. Once people get over the quasi military kit, we are mostly approachable and pleasant people, it’s just that we dress like Imperial Stormtroopers.
– NightJack, Winner of the Orwell Prize for Blogs, 2009
The last week I’ve been pulling apart the Climate Camp Legal Team report and collating the data into a structured analysis over on my blog. As of today, this is what we know: the rioting police forces were systematically hiding their identities to avoid accountability. There was a coherent policy of abusing the statute book as if it were a catalogue of ways to harass specific individuals and groups. The TSG paramilitaries were directed to use the assault on Climate Camp as an opportunity to punish dissenters. And there was a comprehensive and systematic effort to suppress and destroy evidence of criminal activity by officers of the law.
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Call to scrap ID cards, Trident
In the Observer today:
The climbdown came as Stephen Byers, a former cabinet minister, called on Brown to scrap ID cards and the replacement of the Trident missile programme because of the recession, warning that it would be a “fraud on the electorate” if all the parties were not open about cutbacks needed to balance Britain’s books.
…
Byers has long supported both identity cards and the nuclear deterrent but said he could not justify to vulnerable constituents the respective £5bn and £70bn bills when basic public services were threatened by the economic crisis.
via Tom Miller.
Torture: does it actually work?
In the current debate over the Bush administration’s use of torture, most of the discussion has been around the moral and ethical dilemmas involved, with the strongest argument in favour being the infamous ‘ticking bomb’ scenario.
But in fact these arguments and make-believe situations are irrelevent if torture doesn’t work in the first place. On my own blog I argue for evidence-based policy, and in my first piece for Liberal Conspiracy I want to explore the evidence for torture, because if those who advocate it can’t prove that it works, then they have already lost the debate.
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Ian Tomlinson: 3rd post-mortem and a cover-up
Sky News is reporting a big development today:
Newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, who was shoved onto the pavement by a policeman during the G20 protests, suffered a head injury before he died. A photograph obtained by Sky News suggests strongly that the injury was the result of the alleged assault by the officer, who has been suspended and questioned on suspicion of manslaughter. The picture shows what appears to be large bruising on the right of Mr Tomlinson’s forehead.
That came after attempts yesterday to muzzle Channel 4 News:
New footage of the moments leading up to the death of Mr Tomlinson will be shown today after the IPCC failed in its attempt to block it being broadcast by Channel 4 News. It tried to secure a court order when it emerged that the programme planned to broadcast a frame-by-frame analysis of the film, but a judge refused to grant the injunction. An IPCC spokeswoman said it believed the footage “would potentially damage” its investigation.
Potentially damaging to who? The IPCC, for doing such a poor job at investigating Tomlinson’s death, perhaps? There are more developments today, with Britain’s top cop saying that officers who conceal ID would face the sack.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson unbelievably says that, “there are large sections of the media that are currently engaged in a very unbalanced orgy of cop bashing.” — you mean the ones that were reporting that the police were being attacked by ‘bricks’?? Perhaps it’s too much to expect the Mayor to stand up for Londoners instead of the police.
Whatever happened to the terrorist plot?
A guest post by Pagar
There has been little on the blogosphere regarding the proposed deportation of the North West “terror suspects” and, in passing, it would be interesting to hear views on why this is. So what occurred?
There are two possibilities.
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An open letter to the Evening Standard
Guest post by Guy Aitchison of Our Kingdom
I received an email yesterday from the Evening Standard Letters page asking me to comment on Sir Paul Stephenson’s response to the fallout from the G20 protests and the article in the Guardian by former Met commander David Gilbertson blaming a systemic crisis of leadership in the force for police violence.
I took the opportunity to point out the remarkable shift in editorial policy at the Standard in the short number of weeks since the protests. So far there has been almost no self-reflection by the media on their pernicious role in hyping up the prospect of violence in the run up to the G20 and then uncritially reporting, and, in the case of the Standard it seems, exaggerating the police’s version of events in ways that smeared protesters.
Here’s the letter anyway.
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Police, Camera, Action
David at Minority Report offers some words of warning, regarding the slow trickle of citizen generated footage of alleged brutality at the G20 protests earlier this month:
Reconstructing events by using any number of restricted viewpoints is no replacement for vital missing facts. If I present you with a black box that contains a photo I made of a scene, I’ll happily let you make as many pin holes as you like – you will still struggle to make out whats going on. Especially if I choose the image.
Different circumstances, but I felt this way after Saddam Hussein was executed. There is a real danger in allowing snippets of grainy amateur footage to act as the definitive account of an event. The result in this case has been yet another trial by media, only this time the police seem to be on the receiving end. In reality, we have no way of knowing precisely what killed Ian Tomlinson, and the account of the Nicky Fisher assault makes me uneasy (although admittedly this feeling is entirely based on her sightly spaced-out media interviews). continue reading… »
More damning police revelations (updated)
- Yesterday Channel 4 had the explosive revelations that the Independent Police Complaints Commission was barred from the first post mortem examination carried out on Ian Tomlinson. The Liberal Democrats are demanding a full independent inquiry into whether there was a deliberate police cover up.
- Guardian: IPCC chief slams tactics of G20 police.
Also: how the image of UK police took a beating
- BBC: New video shows G20 protest clash. A new video released by demonstrators (video below) shows a police officer beating a man in the head with a riot shield at the London G20 protest earlier this month.
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Event: Public talk on Bill of Rights
Justice Minister Michael Wills MP gives his first public speech on Tuesday 21 April, 1-2pm, for the British Institute of Human Rights, since the publication of the Government’s Green Paper on Rights and Responsibilities.
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Why the left should argue for a small state
David Semple thinks the left should join American tea parties, which protest against high taxes. I think I agree. The desire to shrink the state should be a leftist aim. I say so for four reasons.
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Tomlinson’s death not heart attack
This is breaking (and major) news.
A new post mortem says Ian Tomlinson died from an abdominal haemorrhage not a heart attack after contact with police during the G20 protests.
The statement from the City of London Coroners Court overturns the initial assessment that the newspaper seller died of natural causes.
Update: Guardian – Tomlinson officer faces manslaughter quiz
Update 2:
- NUJ considers legal action over photographers
- G20 officer quizzed after death
- G20 victim ‘died from haemorrhage’
- Disturbing parallels with Charles De Menzes
From Hillsborough to Bishopsgate – how policing has changed
In 1992, when I was at a boarding school in Africa, one of my teachers was a remarkable, quiet, and thoughtful man in his late 30s: let’s call him Mr. Albert. He’d been a career policeman in the north of England until he’d recently been driven to leave the Force, and (indeed) England entirely. That summer, a young Scouser came to join the staff at the school for some months. He was a burly, loud-laughing lad and a hell of a footballer: let’s call him Robert. They were the only two young single men teaching at the school so they were allocated a flat together within the staff housing system.
I came upon Robert sitting under a tree crying. I was young enough that it hit me very hard; adults don’t usually do that without a good reason, but he wouldn’t talk to me. I went to find his room-mate to ask what was wrong and he was crying too. They had just had a conversation in which they realised that Robert had lost a toe and two friends at Hillsborough and Albert had been part of the thin blue line.
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Rightwing response to police brutality
In a rare example of agreement on an issue – I fully agree with what Graeme Archer has said on CentreRight about the latest incident, and earlier ones. He writes a list of recommendations I’d endorse and I believe should be pushed by all fair-minded people on the matter.
Update: Graeme responds below (caught by spam filter earlier)
Police ‘action and tactics’ investigated
The IPCC have sent us this press release today.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is to independently investigate the incident connected to the G20 demonstrations involving a sergeant of the Metropolitan Police Service Territorial Support Group apparently striking a woman.
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New footage of police brutality uncovered
Now, The Times has some incriminating footage:
The Metropolitan Police is examining new footage of alleged violence by a police officer at the G20 demonstrations earlier this month. Video material and still photographs appear to show an officer swiping at a woman with the back of his hand before drawing an extendable baton and striking her on the legs. Scotland Yard said the actions of the officer in the video raised “immediate concerns”. The Met said that it would identify the officer in the footage urgently and was “in the process of referring the incident to the IPCC”.
More at the BBC.
Update: The officer has now been suspended. (h/t Will)
And that would be the same IPCC that kept changing its story.
Mark Pack:
First the IPCC said CCTV footage relating to Ian Tomlinson being hit by police was given to them by Channel 4. Then the IPCC said actually there were no CCTV cameras covering the incident. Then the IPCC said actually, yes there were cameras but none of them were working. And today the IPCC brings us its fourth version: “The police watchdog has said its chairman [Nick Hardwick] was wrong to say there was no CCTV footage of an alleged police assault at the G20 protests”
So eventually the IPCC did turn up CCTV footage which wasn’t available for earlier some reason.
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Statebook: because knowledge is power
How much data is held about you by government? Who can get hold of it? What else do they want to know about? And what do we need to do to stop it?
There are a growing number of large government databases. You’re on them. You probably don’t know who might look at that information, how safe the data is or if the databases themselves might contravene your rights.
That’s why Open Rights Group has launched a new spoof Statebook tries to show, based on the JRRT / FIPR Database State report.
Above all though, we want you to act: the next big project, Intercept Modernisation (IMP), will be on the cards in the next few months, will further threaten your rights. IMP is about amassing even more of your communications data, and making it easier to access and analyse– possibly by placing the data in one enormous state database of your email traffic, phone calls, VIP and Facebook messages.
The tide is turning on civil liberties: across the political spectrum, people have had enough. Clause 152 showed enormous public concern, and the government backed down. Visit the site, and take a first step to stop more snooping on the internet by emailing your MP.
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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