EU scare stories now coming thick and fast

Earlier today Richard explained over at his EU Referendum dominion that:

A little while ago, we identified a three-legged europhile strategy – “renegotiation-reform-scare”. The three legs are intended to blunt calls for a referendum or blur and confuse the issues so that any result is indecisive. And Van Rompuy is doing the scare bit for us.

It’s not just Van Rompuy doing the scaring, now Viviane Reding has weighed in with a EUroscare of her own concerning a British opt-out from EU crime and policing laws, including the European Arrest Warrant (EAW).

La Reding says in an interview given to the Barclay Beano:

“Do you want criminals and paedophiles running around freely on the streets, is that really in the United Kingdom’s interest? It is crazy.”

The meme is clear, without the EU there will be no law and order in Britain, which therefore cannot survive without the EU. This laugh-out-loud fallacy is presented as a reality by a true believer who is desperate to see the EU become a United States of Europe. Reding clearly fails to recognise it is law from Europe incorporated into this country’s legal system that keeps criminals and paedophiles running around freely on our streets on the spurious basis of protecting their human rights.

The fact Reding cites British police forces as desperate to keep some of the EU’s proposed powers should be reason enough for us to be gravely suspicious of the package.  But the real issue here is that the EU crime and policing package dispenses with protections that are essential in a society where people must be considered innocent unless proven guilty.  The package does not require police in other EU states to present any evidence that there is a case to answer before this country’s citizens can be put into custody and shipped overseas without any recourse.

No doubt the BBC will faithfully report the EU viewpoint on this and perhaps pull in a EUphile Lib Dem to explain why we absolutely must opt-in to EU crime and policing laws, while doing the bare minimum to provide a platform for the opposing viewpoint.

If they were minded to impartial coverage they should give a platform to Michael Turner and Jason McGoldrick, who have been convicted of fraud in Hungary only in the last month having been whisked off and detained for four months in a judicial process that began in 2009 with the processing of a questionable extradition under the terms of a European Arrest Warrant.

Reality bites for Tory fairytale EU renegotiation option

Here’s one in the eye for David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Open Europe, the Daily Mail, Telegraph and a host of other EUphile fantasists who keep presenting the British people with a fake and non-existant option of renegotiating a ‘looser relationship’ with the EU…

We have been saying this for years.  Now the EU home affairs commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, has reminded the Tory fronts that other EU states would be able to block the UK from accessing the powers it might choose to opt back in to, a clear diplomatic message that power has been ceded to the EU and it will decide what goes.  Malmström is quoted in the Financial Times:

“Negotiations haven’t started yet as we don’t know what the UK wants to opt out of but, of course, we will have to analyse their choices with our legal experts because, of these 136 laws, many are very connected.”

In typical Tory fashion, denial was the immediate response.  With clear parallels to the false statements from the government about Starbucks and the tax rules it should be following, Tory MP, Dominic Raab, said Britain had “every right” to cherry-pick which laws it wanted:

“The commissioner is quite wrong to insist we give Brussels democratic control in order to engage in operational law enforcement co-operation,” the MP added. “It is that kind of arrogance that corrodes public confidence in the EU.”

The problem for Raab is that Brussels already has control.  The UK signed a variety of treaties against the wishes of the British people and it is another fairytale for Raab to pretend the UK has control in areas it has given up.  In the same way Danny Alexander is trying to channel public anger at Starbucks for acting lawfully and within the rules, because he doesn’t like the outcome, Raab is trying to shift the public focus on the EU acting lawfully and within the rules the UK political class agreed to, because he doesn’t like the outcome.

As Malmström has explained, any decision concerning the UK’s opt-in choices would not be up to her but would have to be agreed by all other member states. Them’s the rules, whether Raab, Cameron, Johnson, Open Europe et al like it or not.  Those are the treaties they have to accept to remain members of the EU.

The only reality is this, if the UK wants to determine laws and regulations for itself then it needs to be a sovereign, independent nation state.  It is not, and never can be all the while it remains a member of the EU.  Membership is incompatible with the vision Cameron & co are painting, and their vision is not possible within the structures they are determined to remain a part of.

Solution?  Invoke Article 50 by stating the UK intends to leave the EU.  The UK would regain full control of its ow affairs, while forcing the EU to the negotiating table to thrash out agreements on free trade, movement of people and capital and the other matters essential to protecting our economic interests.

 

English law again shows itself to be a complete ass

In the Mail on Sunday is a story concerning two adults from a family from Eastbourne.  It is thought they have taken an overdose, possibly as a suicide attempt.  The facts are not yet known, as such the media is in full speculation mode.

The point to note here is their names have not been used in the story because their daughter cannot be named for legal reasons.

This is because the daughter ran away to France with her married schoolteacher.  The teacher, who has been charged with child abduction, the girl herself and her parents all became household names earlier this year as a result of the manhunt, with their photographs splashed all over the television and newspapers.

To name them in this blog post would be breaking the law.  If the media named them it would be breaking the law.  This despite the names and photographs of all the actors in this sad piece still being instantly accessible on the internet.

So what we have is a courtroom constructed fantasy that the identity of the child – and by extension her family – can now be kept secret to protect her.  It takes a special kind of stupidity, or a complete detachment from reality, for the courts to think a genie can be put back in the bottle by banning the publication of the girl’s name – and by extension her family – in this way after saturation media coverage of all concerned.

Where is the justice?

Following on from our post about people being imprisoned for giving offence to others online and through nasty messages written on clothing, this story from Northamptonshire underlines how crimes of violence are being ignored as prosecutors seek to clamp down on what people think and say.

What provides society with the greater protection?  Prosecuting offensive people for what they think and say resulting in them being jailed, or refusing to prosecute a thug who has committed a violent assault resulting in physical injury and leaving him at liberty on our streets?

These things don’t happen without an agenda at play behind the scenes.  As James Higham, in the comments on the previous post rightly says, ‘thin edge of the wedge all right’.

Rather than celebrate the jailing of people who have done nothing but offended others with sentiments (not incitement to violence or crime) however disgusting, we should be very concerned about how speech is being criminalised.

 

Reprehensible, abhorrent, dispicable… criminal?

After being convicted and imprisoned for four months at Minshull Street Crown Court, what he daubed on his T-shirt was described by police as ‘morally reprehensible‘.  No one denies what Barry Thew wrote and then paraded around Radcliffe was grossly offensive.  Many people will agree his actions were appalling, odious even.

This follows on from the jailing for three months of Matthew Woods for ‘abhorrent’ and ‘dispicable‘ comments made about missing children Madeleine McCann and April Jones, after he pleaded guilty in court.

But in jailing Thew for ‘a public order offence’ and Woods for ‘sending a message or other matter that is grossly offensive by means of a public electronic communications network’, the powers that be have gone too in criminalising expressions and viewpoints that, while disgusting and probably demonstrating severely warped minds, incite neither violence nor any other crime.

Quietly over the years the constraints on speech that were designed to prevent incitement to engage in criminal actions have been altered to fold in words that offend.  No matter how much outrage and upset we feel about the views and comments people like Thew and Woods decide to spew forth, what we are seeing is increasing restriction and a disturbing erosion of an individual’s freedom of expression.

While in itself this erosion may seem like no bad thing in the case of Thew and Woods, we should be feeling real concern about how further restrictions and erosions may be applied in order to criminalise normal and necessary dissent against the authorities, or even a supposed consensus view on an issue.

These two episodes show we do not have a free society where no one has the right to not be offended, but an increasingly authoritarian and paternalist society where periodical fits of morality – that phrase to beautifully turned by Thomas Macauley to describe the ridiculousness of the public getting on its high horse to exhibit virtue – among members of the public are seized upon by ‘the powers that be’ to further curtail essential rights and freedoms.

Sending these grotesque specimens to prison for what they have thought and said, when people convicted of offences against the person such as assault, or who kill people through poor or dangerous driving, are allowed to retain their liberty should be sounding warning bells.  The State is more concerned about going after people for their thoughts than going after those who commit harmful and criminal acts.  It’s an injustice.  But it is also a very real danger.

Director of Public Prosecutions perverting the course of justice?

Is it possible that the Guardian frames the law in this country?  Many people would rightly laugh at such a question.

But it appears, from the weight of circumstantial evidence that exists, that the Guardian’s journalists are capable – or at the very least have an expectation – of using their close relationships with people in the highest echelons of the legal establishment to subvert the course of justice for their own ends.

A case in point is kindly provided by the Guardian’s David Leigh, who with typical arrogance, argued before the Leveson Inquiry that the law regarding ‘phone hacking’ should not apply to him for his admitted instance of criminal activity because he believes it was in the public interest. The look on his face as he spoke suggested a confidence that other people opening admitting a crime in public just do not have. As the Daily Mail reported, Leigh argued:

I like to think that if the incident I have described came to the attentions of the DPP [Director of Public Prosecutions], and I was asked about it, the DPP would conclude that there was no public interest in seeking to prosecute me or another person for doing something like that. That is a backstop that the law has to stop it making an ass of itself.

Ordinarily this would seem a quite staggering assertion to make. Particularly as there is no public interest immunity from prosecution for that criminal offence.  But Leigh’s circumstances are anything but ordinary. Leigh appears to feel in a strong enough position to effectively challenge the DPP to prosecute him. And that is because of his close ties to the man this blog has previously identified as the Guardian’s Angel, the DPP himself, Keir Starmer.

Unlike the vast majority of the population, there is more than a hint that Leigh enjoys protection and preferential treatment reserved for good friends and colleagues who inhabit the same ideological, activist plane on the distant left of the political spectrum.

In our Guardian’s Angel post we showed how Keir Starmer’s career had been nurtured by his close friend and mentor, the activist left wing lawyer Geoffrey Robertson.  We reminded readers of Robertson’s direct involvement as contributor to the Guardian and its legal counsel in court actions.  We also established the clear conflict of interest Starmer has personally as a former contributor to the Guardian and also its legal counsel in court actions.  What we did not show was the professional links between Robertson/Starmer axis and Leigh.

Many people do not realise that David Leigh (then at the Observer) actually worked as an aide to Geoffrey Robertson during the Neil Hamilton sleaze action.  This was explained in Leigh’s co-authored book ‘Sleaze’ shown in extract below:

Then of course there Robertson’s fawning adoration of Leigh in his book ‘The Justice Game’ shown in extract below:

Taken in the round it can be of little surprise that this very cosy network of friends and allies working in a mutally supportive manner to further their aims.

Interestingly, in media reports from the Leveson Inquiry, there was no mention of Leigh’s involvement in other criminal activities concerning the infamous Benji ‘the binman’ Pell, which show the same contempt for the law exhibited in his phone hacking and ‘blagging’ behaviour.

The focus now turns once again to Director of Public Prosecutions Starmer.  Arrests are being made as journalists suspected of being involved in the commissioning of phone hacking are pursued by the Met Police’s Operation Weeting investigation team.  Here, in the shape of David Leigh, the Weeting investigation has a journalist who has openly admitted personally hacking the messages on a mobile phone.  It’s an open and shut case.

So where is the arrest and where is the Crown Prosecution Service action?  As the police and CPS are aware there is no public interest defence for the action Leigh has confessed to.  So what is holding them back?

Could it be that with these evident conflicts of interest and biases, Leigh’s former colleague and ideological soulmate who currently occupies the office with DPP on the door, has got Leigh’s back?  Could it be that to protect a former colleague and ally Keir Starmer is perverting the course of justice?

Time for IPCC to investigate The Guardian and David Leigh’s police sources

Back to business then.  Throughout the ‘phone hacking scandal’ there was a constant and unscrutinised theme… The Guardian newspaper was accessing or being given access to information no one else but the police had about the investigation, to break new stories and run exclusives.

Update: 18 Aug – And so the Guardian’s police scoops continue…

A story this weekend show the seriousness of such behaviour, with the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigating a claim that an officer on the Milly Dowler murder case gave information to the News of the World newspaper.  If it is right for the IPCC to investigate an officer feeding information to the News of the World, then surely the IPCC should also turn its attention to the raft of stories published in the Guardian that appear to have originated with police sources.

These were not discoveries, these were pieces of information supplied to Guardian journalists verbally or in documents.  When it happened, the names of two reporters in particular from David Leigh’s Guardian team working the story were nearly always on display, Nick Davies and Amelia Hill. Surely when the key recipents of the information are known it should be easier to identify the person feeding them the information.  Taking just a five day period in the timeline there were a huge number of stories published, but some are worthy of particular attention as they demonstrate the likelihood of a Guardian-friendly police mole.

For example, on 4 July, The Guardian broke the story which proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, that Milly Dowler’s voicemails had been accessed and some deleted by private investigators.  The Guardian journalists said they had seen paperwork detailing how the News of the World set about getting the personal details of the Dowlers and then accessing Milly’s mailbox. However, the information itself was contained in the 11,000 pages of notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire that was in the possession of detectives from Operation Weeting. So how did the Guardian see them?

Just one day later the Guardian revealed that police were turning their attention to examine every high-profile case involving the murder, abduction or attack on any child since 2001 in response to the Dowler revelation. Again there was nothing in the public domain about the police’s intentions. So how did the Guardian know this with enough certainty to print it as fact?  The piece included the information that the name “Greg” appeared in the corner of notes taken by Mulcaire which was believed to be a reference to the News of the World’s former assistant news editor Greg Miskiw (arrested earlier this month).  As the documents have been in Metropolitan Police hands since 2006, how do they know this?

Two days later came the next big coup for the Guardian, with the revelation that Andy Coulson had been told by police that he would be arrested on the Friday morning over suspicions that he knew about, or had direct involvement in, the hacking of mobile phones during his editorship of the News of the World. Now it’s conceivable Coulson told someone he knew about the impending arrest and that they tipped off David Leigh’s chums at the Guardian.

But how likely is it that the police will have told Coulson the other revelation in the article, that a second arrest was also to be made in the next few days of a former senior journalist at the paper? Clearly the information came from elsewhere as the Guardian stated it knew the identity of the second suspect but was withholding the name to avoid prejudicing the police investigation. Someone told them and it wasn’t Coulson’s camp, because that would have clearly undermined the police’s intention to make the second arrest.

Then a day further on the Guardian published the story that police were investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard’s inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal. The first reasonable assumption was that a News International insider tipped off the paper.

But that idea is dispelled by the additional colour the Guardian boasted about in its piece, namely that according to legal sources close to the police inquiry, a senior executive is believed to have deleted “massive quantities” of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a fraction to be disclosed. The legal entity that works with the police is of course the Crown Prosecution Service.  So is there a CPS mole feeding information to the Guardian as well as a highly placed police source?

Well its possible the idea of a police mole could be challenged as mere coincidence.  But the idea of coincidence falls away very quickly when one looks outside the phone hacking saga to an entirely unrelated story that again throws up all sorts of unanswered questions about how the Guardian gets its information.  This one concerns the concerted attempt to successfully identify by name, occupation and hometown an anonymous blogger who was critical of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) over the Climategate affair.  That link is to the full story on the Climate Audit blog.

The author of the Air Vent blog, “Jeff Id” had until that time been anonymous. As the article explains, his registration at WordPress was anonymous and his gmail account was anonymous.  To Jeff’s knowledge, there was no public information that would enable anyone to identify him.  So how is it that David Leigh at the Guardian managed to identify Jeff Id as “Patrick Condon, aeronautical engineer” from Illinois and locate his telephone number too?  As the piece on Climate Audit explains:

A few days before the article, Leigh had telephoned Jeff. Jeff asked Leigh how he had located him; Leigh refused to say. Jeff expressly asked Leigh not to disclose his personal information, which were then not on the public record. Leigh disregarded the request and then proceeded to “out” him as collateral damage in their smear of Paul Dennis [employee at UEA].

A couple of weeks earlier, Jeff had been asked to answer a questionnaire by the UK counter-terrorism officer investigating the release of the emails and tree ring data. The policeman had contacted Jeff at his gmail address as “Jeff Id”. In addition to inquiring about his views on climate change, the questionnaire asked his name and address. Jeff answered the questionnaire (as did I and many Climate Audit readers). To Jeff’s knowledge and recollection, that was the only disclosure of his identity that could have led to Leigh identifying him.

Leigh’s article also quotes from an email from Paul Dennis to me, which Leigh ascribed to “police files”.

So what we have here is the team of Guardian journalists who work under David Leigh, apparently being provided with information by the police (and possibly the CPS) about the investigation into phone hacking – something Leigh himself admits he has also done – and Leigh in his own journalistic capacity being able to access information about private individuals collected by police as part of a criminal investigation into alleged computer hacking of the servers at UEA.  Only a fool would accept this as coincidence, and besides, the comments thread to this post from Bishop Hill reminds readers of various other aspects of David Leigh’s behaviour and questionable methods.

Unsurprisingly, despite requests from ‘Jeff Id’ (Patrick Condon), the Guardian (via its Environment Editor Damian Carrington – remember him?) refuses to explain how it obtained his personal information.  All Carrington will say in the replies, which can be read in the Climate Audit article, is that the Guardian did nothing illegal.  No doubt if the paper is challenged about how they came by the information concerning the ‘phone hacking’ inquiry it will say the same. What is good for the News of the World goose should also be good for the hypocritical Guardian gander.

But it is clear there is a case to answer and as the Guardian will not come clean the Independent Police Complaints Commission needs to use its powers to uncover the truth the Guardian is trying to hide.  It’s time for people to put pressure on the IPCC to do its job.

Rioters without a cause

It is not a protest.  There is no cause, ideology or grievance.  The acts we are witnessing are completely and utterly without justification.  As many commentators have rightly said, what we have seen in recent days and what is happening again tonight is just criminal behaviour.

As usual the talking heads such as Marc Wadsworth and Darcus Howe spill onto our TV screen and our airwaves to tell us why the behaviour we are witnessing is the fault of anyone and anything but those black youths who make up the majority of those carrying out the violent and criminal acts. Socialist politicians emerge to make political capital out of the events – always careful to sidestep culpability for their role in creating the conditions that have bred this generation of thugs.

What we are seeing is the product of the gang culture that has been allowed to develop and impose itself in a number of towns and cities.  These feckless, selfish, grubbing morons have grown up worshipping at the altar of gang culture and drug culture, with a chip on their shoulder the size of a planet, with aggressive claims that the world owes them something.

Not only are they togged up in the latest designer labels and £130 trainers, while sporting iPhones and BlackBerrys and gold jewellry, they have grown up being told by handwringing apologists that they are not responsible for their own actions.

Whenever they do wrong it’s always the fault of their ‘environment’, or ‘society’, or ‘lack of opportunities’ or a ‘failure of government’. The worse their behaviour, the more the sociologists fawn over them and say we aren’t putting enough ‘resources’ into their areas and that we are to blame for the supposedly understandable consequences.

We are not to blame.  The blame lays squarely on the shoulders of those who choose – who choose – to carry out criminal acts.  There are plenty of youngsters from identical backgrounds who shun the gangs and choose to make something of their lives.  They show commitment and they work their way out of their situation to make a better life for themselves.  They should be applauded.  If they can make it, there is no reason others cannot do so too. But the others don’t because they would rather have everything handed to them on a plate, or steal it from others, because they don’t want to make the effort.

I for one am sick of people excusing the behaviour of these thugs, who can generally be found on sink estates – carrying drink and drugs and selling drugs on to make some easy money – hanging around in groups attempting to intimidate people and demanding ‘respect’.   They have to demand it because they do nothing to earn it.  They are the antithesis to respectability and they themselves respect nothing, particularly not society’s norms or authority.

Until these feral beasts learn they alone are responsible for their behaviour and until the consequences for their wrongful actions are made severe this kind of lawlessness will continue on some scale or other.

By the same token, we need the police to revert to being a fair, honest and respectful police force – i.e. not polluted and corrupted by political correctness and quasi politician senior officers – instead of being uniformed social workers.  We also need the courts to hand down proper punishments to those who commit crime and make an effort to deter others from making the same bad decisions.  We also need more prison places to uncrowd the system and make proper rehabilitation possible to reduce reoffending.

What is the common thread in all this?  The politicians.

It is their policies that have allowed this subclass to develop, and their policies that have made it possible for this subclass to continue receiving substantial handouts for doing nothing productive with their lives.  The political class has cultivated this problem and refused to correct it.  The politicians must pay a price for what they have allowed to happen and the law abiding majority of this country must now hold them to account.

Cleveland Police tells Officers to stop night vehicle patrols

Just over one week ago in the north east of England, it was announced that Cleveland Police, like other forces around the country, would reduce the number of its officers in an effort to meet a cut in government funding.

Cleveland Police Authority said that to meet its 20% funding cut the force’s officer establishment would reduce from 1,727 to 1,572 over the next 12 months with another reduction of 75 to follow the year after. The number of PCSOs would also reduce from 197 to 182.

The reported measures to meet the cut in funding, chosen by Cleveland’s policing authority, include savings on overtime, Bank Holiday staffing, reduction in staff posts in the police executive and authority and reduced expenditure on uniforms.  But news arriving at Mind Towers concerns a cost saving measure that has not been shared with the public and is likely to cause anger in the county.

For word reaches us that the Chief Constable has instructed rank and file police officers in Cleveland to cease night time patrolling in police cars.  We are told the instruction to officers on night shift is to stay in the station or find somewhere outdoors to park up and spend their time doing paperwork, and that Officers have been told to only respond to major emergency calls.  The reason?  To reduce police vehicle fuel costs.

Our source tells us the mood among Officers is one of incredulity given that night is the prime opportunity for the commission of crimes and removing the deterrent of night time police patrols will result in more crimes being committed and more money, time and effort being spent on detection.  Response times are expected to suffer, particularly in rural areas.

It seems that Durham Constabulary have also issued similar instructions.  FOI requests have been placed with both forces accordingly.  The question is whether this is a nationwide instruction by Chief Police Officers who are putting costs before policing.  Perhaps it would be appropriate for Cleveland to change their motto to ‘Putting Costs First’.

David Chaytor jailed for 18 months

It is a great pleasure to see that the former Labour MP for Bury, David Chaytor, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. Justice sometimes works after all.

Chaytor pleaded guilty to three counts of false accounting – in which he stole around £20,000 from the taxpayer. He was prosecuted under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 after making claims for IT consultancy work he was never charged for and for renting two homes which were owned by him and his mother.

He was one of four parliamentarians – the others being Jim Devine, Elliot Morley and Lord Hanningfield – who fought tooth and nail to avoid prosecution in the Courts by claiming parliamentary privilege. They had hoped to be treated differently to everyone else in society, as if they were above the law, and as a result only get a slap on the wrist from parliamentary authorities for criminal offences.

Now Chaytor has been sent down after pleading guilty, the others must be feeling very worried indeed. We can look forward with relish to seeing what happens to the other defendants who deny wrongdoing but nevertheless treated our money as their own.

What say you now Cameron, you lying hypocrite?

It is bad enough that a politician says what voters want to hear in an attempt to secure power for themselves, before reneging on that promise which in reality he had no intention of keeping.

It is quite another to go so far as sending a personal letter to the grieving father of child killed under the wheels of a car, promising to change the law so the illegal immigrant who had no right to be here and was already banned from driving in any case, could be deported – and break that pledge. That is cold, cynical and reprehensible.

But that is David Cameron for you.

Being bound by the Human Rights Act, which idiotically and uniquely in Europe incorporates all the case law from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg thanks to the morons in the previous Labour government, Britain is unable to expel from these shores repeat offenders who are here illegally.

Cameron promised to scrap the HRA and replace it with a Bill of Rights, but by January this year as this blog pointed out, Cameron had achieved his headline and started quietly executing a U-turn (link includes Cameron’s speech about the HRA and pledge to scrap it) to preserve the EU’s domination over this country. Then shortly after winning the General Election the Tories showed they were nothing but a lying bunch of useless handwringing charlatans when HRA was again used in the case of Abid Naseer and Theresa May said the government would not appeal. Read it and weep – or better still feel sheer hatred for these lying bastards.

Aso Mohammed Ibrahim has no right to be in this country. It should not matter a damn that since arriving here his only achievement – apart from being a useless recidivist and leaching off the taxpayer – is having managed to produce two offspring that supposedly mean he has a ‘right’ to stay here for a family life. It is an perversion of justice that this criminal scum remains here offending against society. But Cameron knew that when he pledged to scrap the HRA and he knows it even now as he turns a blind eye to the injustice of the HRA and this appalling case and waits for Andy Coulson to spin him a plausible line to edge him out of trouble.

The comments of the bereaved father, Paul Houston, should make Cameron ashamed. Whether Cameron is capable of feeling shame is another matter altogether:

‘He needs to take a long, hard look at himself and make the right decision for this country because as it stands the Human Rights Act is on the side of criminals, terrorists and thieves against law-abiding citizens.

‘He wrote to me to say he would bring in the British Bill of Rights but that appears to have been put in the back burner because of the Coalition.

‘I don’t want to see this matter sidelined. I think it needs to be placed very firmly on the agenda again. If he has got the courage of his convictions that is what he will do.

‘The law does need to be changed so that it properly represents everyone – not just this awful minority who ruin people’s lives.’

So, what say you now Cameron, you two faced, lying hypocrite? What weasel words and excuses will you spew forth, or will you just hide like the craven, chinless wonder we know you to be?

Reaching the end of the line

Last week’s post here, ‘The Rules of the Game Have Changed‘ sparked the most debate yet seen on this blog.

The reluctant and deeply saddening acceptance, that if democratic means and lawful protest continue to fail to make the political class accept the will of the people we should be prepared, as an absolutely last resort to take direct action, has now been echoed in a hard hitting piece by lawful rebellion practitioner, Captain Ranty.

There is undoubtedly a sea change taking place in this country. Among people I speak with and commenters on this blog patience is wearing thin at the political class’ arrogant and self serving refusal to put our our interests first, in the manner they are duty bound to do. If they will not relinquish then we will need to take power back.

It is profoundly depressing, but people who have respected the law all their lives are reaching the end of the line and recognising that by playing by the rules the politicians have put in place we are unlikely to achieve the necessary change. The politicians bear sole responsibility for this. As Captain Ranty puts it, we are ‘stupid no more’. One can only hope that it never comes to direct action. But if it does, many people who have resolutely disagreed with direct action in the past are now saying they will take it as a last resort.

The rules of the game have changed

In some ways it pains me to write this because recent weeks have resulted in a huge transformation in my thinking that still leaves me feeling somewhat uncomfortable.

All my life I have advocated nothing but lawful, peaceful protest.  Growing up I had faith in the structures that have long been positioned as offering stability, reassurance and comfort to the people. Slowly the scales have gradually fallen from my eyes and the reality has come into sharp relief. Peaceful protest is noble, decent, responsible, conformist and utterly futile. The fact is it is treated with contempt by the political class as while it gives people the illusion of involvement in the political process, the politicians can ignore the wishes of the people and press ahead with their own agenda.

Consider the demonstration before the Iraq war. Consider the Countryside Alliance marches. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated their opposition to government plans and what difference did it make? Secure behind their multiple layers of security, shielded from the people from which they supposedly hail and to whom they are supposedly accountable, the political class has absolved itself of its representative responsibilities and assumed the mantle of all controlling master of the populace.

We are in a different era now where historic events have come full circle. Having moved away from brutal suppression by the militia of dissenters and protesters in centuries past, politics became representative. In the 20th century qualities such as honour and decency were more prevalent and a peaceful protest made representatives take notice and often work to address the wishes of the people. It was a democratic age. Imperfect, yes. But there was a sense of service and responsibility which extinguished the appetite for violent protest.

But increasingly the conduct of the political class has changed swiftly to one of dishonorable self interest and personal enrichment. Despite the evidence of their own eyes, people are finding it difficult to accept that the compact between them and their representatives has been shattered. There is still a sense of disbelief at the change that has taken place and a reluctance to acknowledge the new reality that we no longer have representatives but a self selecting elite that does not care about the things that matter to us. We have moved into a post democratic era.

Where we previously had a choice between competing and rival ideologies and outlooks, we now suffer the charade of elections where the only difference between those standing for office is their faces and the colour of their rosette. Consensus politics and the so called centre ground deny us any genuine alternative at the ballot box. As such nothing changes.

The Parliamentary battles we see hyped in the media between politicians are the product of partisan party politics. The main three parties are all on the same page when it comes to the major issues. Whether it is EU membership, climate change, taxation and public spending, defence, or any number of issues, the only disagreements are matters of nuance rather than substance. The wishes of the people are simply ignored until it is time to publish a tissue of lies masquerading as manifestos before the electoral charade every 4-5 years. Once the election is over, it is business as usual and the disconnect from the public is re-established. Yet millions keep kidding themselves ‘the public’ can influence what the politicians do. They kid themselves that peaceful protests will produce results despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

The student disorder of recent weeks has brought this subject to the fore. Regretably these protests were not about matters of real substance, such as our democracy, our liberty and our sovereignty. They were about a misplaced sense of entitlement and a wish to continue indulging their choices at the expense of taxpayers. The behaviour was therefore unjustified. The students positioned their protest ‘against the rich’ and the ‘establishment’. They spectacularly missed the point that they should be protesting in a targeted manner against the political class and the ruling elite. Their protest did not warrant or justify the violence we witnessed.

However I can now envisage violence being justified as a means to an end – not in order to demand money from the government, but rather demanding the restoration of democracy and representative governance. Not violence to attack the police, law and order. But rather to remove those in the ruling class who abuse the law for their own ends and subvert our country, handing it over to foreign control from underneath us without mandate or permission.

The rules of the game have changed. By making it impossible for us to remove the political clones from power through democratic elections and select a genuine alternative the political class has left the population with no option but to engage in civil disobedience and possibly direct action in order to ensure the our wishes are respected and the country is run in our interests.

Where the future of our democracy, sovereignty and liberty is threatened and peaceful protest continues to have no effect, direct action will be justified to protect and safeguard those perspectives before they are taken from us by the political class and the supranational bodies that are actively taking control of us without our consent. It is the political class that has brought us to this point and we should not feel ashamed of taking direct action where it is necessary to defend our hard won freedom, a freedom secured through the blood and sacrifice of hundreds of thousands if not millions of our countrymen over many years who forever deserve our gratitude and respect.

Copying the Swiss in deporting foreign criminals automatically

Writing in the Barclay Brother Beano, Alex Singleton observes that the independent and sovereign Swiss have voted to deport foreign criminals automatically.

‘Let’s copy them’ intones Singleton.  (Hat tip: 13th Spitfire). He goes on to rail against the ‘latte liberals at Amnesty International [who] are appalled and – revealing their utter contempt for democracy – are calling on Swiss politicians to ignore the will of the people’. But that takes us off the main point, for as Singleton explains:

The new Swiss policy is so obviously a sensible idea that we ought to copy it here. Having very high levels of immigration, and having allied ourselves with America in the fight against terrorism, we have an even bigger problem with foreign criminals. In Opposition, David Cameron promised to allow their deportation by abolishing the Human Rights Act, which makes British courts follow the European Convention on Human Rights. Now that he’s in office, he won’t do that, because it would involve leaving the European Union, which he isn’t prepared to do.

Perhaps we could if we had representatives sitting in a sovereign parliament (like the one pictured, which has far more power than Westminster) who would enact such legislation. But we don’t. Our government resides in Brussels despite the British people never having given a mandate to rule from abroad by an alien entity. Therefore Singleton’s suggestion is fatuous.  He knows we can’t copy the Swiss and won’t copy them because our political class bows down to the EU. The British people are not in control of Britain or its laws. Singleton then goes on to say:

That’s a mistake, because it leaves Britain in a wholly unsatisfactory position. We are a nation that acts as a magnet to immigrants from around the world, but we are not allowed to control which ones can remain within our borders, even when they threaten out way of life. Cameron, like Brown and Blair before him, will hope the problem of foreign criminals goes away. It won’t – and it’s the public who will be the victims.

It’s not a mistake. It is an outrage. An effective coup d’etat has been staged that David Cameron goes along with and is helping to cement. It’s all well and good saying the Swiss know how to stand up for themselves. But then, however much it frustrates them, Swiss politicians have to do what the Swiss people tell them to. That’s what is supposed to happen in a democracy. But as people are starting to realise, Britain is not a democracy. Therefore we must continue to play host to foreign criminals and extend to them all the services and support of the State at our expense.

It will remain thus until the mainstream political parties are defeated or a revolution sweeps the political class into the dustbin of history. Not that we can expect Singleton to spell it out so explicitly. The political class would not like that, and that would never do.

Just who are these people serving?

I defy you to read this section of Christopher Booker’s latest report about forced adoptions and what amounts to child theft and not feel frustration at best, or raw violent anger at worst. (Hat tip: EU Referendum):

I shall give just one disturbing instance of the latest developments in a case I have been following for months. Like many others, this came to me through the Forced Adoption website, run by former councillor Ian Josephs. It involves a married couple whose five older children were seized earlier this year, subsequent to which their latest baby was torn from its mother’s arms only hours after it was born.

The bizarre story originally stated by the social workers to justify their ruthless intervention in this family’s life seems to have collapsed. At a recent court hearing, I am told, the judge seemed disposed to reunite the family as soon as possible. The baby was returned to her parents later that day. But the council asked for 21 days’ stay of execution before returning the five older children, three of whom the parents had not been allowed to see for weeks. The judge apparently agreed but insisted that an independent social worker should interview the children.

The independent social worker eventually managed to interview four of the children, apparently reporting that they all wished to be allowed to go home to their parents. But the court refused to give the parents a copy of the judge’s ruling, and on Friday they were summoned back to hear from him that he had now seemingly changed his mind and that the children did not wish to come home after all. According to the parents, they were not allowed to question the evidence on which he based his new ruling, although they were told they could appeal.

What on earth is going on here? Even from the little I am permitted to report of this case, it seems evident that something seriously odd is afoot.

But this is merely one of far too many cases where families are being heartlessly torn apart, often without the parents even being allowed to question the evidence or to speak for themselves. To hear such horror stories being dismissed as representing “less than 10 per cent” of all the cases where children are seized is simply not good enough. Each is shocking enough in its own right. But when every week brings news of a dozen more, this only confirms that we indeed have a national scandal on our hands.

This is not justice. This is enslavement by our self selecting elite. The servant believes himself to be the master and ensures the law fails to protect us. How is this a democracy when our elected representatives ignore our demands to end such travesties and we are powerless to do anything about it?  It must not be allowed to continue. There will be a reckoning.

The FitWatch Conundrum

During the course of today certain sections of the blogosphere including one of my regular favourite reads, Longrider, have been up in arms about what appears to be a disturbing example of police exceeding and misrepresenting their authority.

Without applying for, or being in possession of, a court order, an Acting Detective Inspector from the Met Police’s CO11 department requested an ISP shut down the FitWatch website because:

In connection with our criminal investigation into registration or use of the domain name set out in this letter, we hereby confirm that:

• The domain is being used to undertake criminal activities

Attempting to Pervert the Course of Justice, contrary to Common Law We hereby request [redacted] to de-host this website for a minimum period of 12 months.

The site in question, FitWatch, styles itself as standing against the activities and behaviour of police Forward Intelligence Teams. Continuing in the same manner the site’s editor(s) published advice to those people involved in violence during the student protests in London. In addition to advising students who were engaged in unlawful activity not to give themselves in and to change their appearance, the advice also recommends such individuals dispose of the clothing they were wearing to hinder identification and remove the possibility of the clothing being used as identification evidence. It is this that the police have taken exception to and used as justification for their actions as detailed below:

REASON FOR CLOSURE

This website are committing offences of attempting to pervert the Course of Justice under Common Law.

The website is providing explicit advice to offenders following a major demonstration in Central London. The demonstration was marred by violence and several subjects have already been arrested with a major police operation underway to identify and arrest further offenders.

The person controlling these websites has posted material held to be contrary to Common Law within the UK.

I hope everyone who was engaged in violence or criminal behaviour during the student protest is caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But what is written above will be deeply disturbing to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the law, for here the police are presenting as a fact something that is only alleged until a court determines otherwise.  Note that last sentence – ‘held to be contrary to Common Law‘. Held by whom? That is the commonly accepted legal language for a matter that has been put before a court and judged upon. Despite there being none, the Acting Detective Inspector has deliberately given the impression that his request has legal force. As such the ISP immediately shut down the site.

A pertinent question would be, since when did the police take over the role of the judiciary? No doubt this officer feels the end justifies the means, but where does that slippery slope end? Will blogs like this be shut down if it makes a criticism a police officer takes exception to? Will politicians or civil servants task the police with getting sites closed down if they share inconvenient or embarrassing information? Could such action be used to silence opponents of, say, EU membership? What about climate change?

Make no mistake, what FitWatch did was ill advised and leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth. They clearly want people who committed criminal acts to get away with what they did. At the very least no one could dispute they are trying to offer support and advice to people who are trying to evade justice. But it does not follow FitWatch have broken the law. The advice is no different to what a legal representative would say in a private consultation with a client and it is only the view of a police officer that such advice is illegal.

It is worrying in the extreme that police officers feel able to exceed their authority and misrepresent themselves in this way to censor speech or silence dissent. There must be consequences for this unacceptable over reach.

If true, this is an outrage

The always excellent Boiling Frog regales a story on his blog about a police murder inquiry in London. Knowing a lot of police officers I know how some stories get embellished in the canteen to play up the ‘No way!’ reaction. But anyway, read on because the tale is more than plausible.

Put yourself in the position of a CCTV camera operator. You see a fight break out on a street in broad daylight and at the same time you notice a car driving in a bus lane. Where would you focus your attention to record evidence? Read the Frog’s post for yourself to see what allegedly happened and what the consequences were.

‘In Europe, not run by Europe’ part XXVII

Dateline: House of Commons, London – 11 November 2010
Subject: Government written answer to a question from MP, Dominic Raab
Topic: EU Justice and Home Affairs

Mr Raab: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what powers the European Commission has to monitor UK compliance with those EU Justice and Home Affairs instruments to which the UK has opted in, under the provisions of the Lisbon treaty; and what jurisdiction the European Court of Justice has over such monitoring.

James Brokenshire: There are specific provisions in the treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’) to enable the European Commission to monitor UK compliance with EU Justice and Home Affairs instruments to which the UK has opted in under the provisions of the Lisbon treaty. There may also be provisions in specific instruments that provide provisions for the Commission to monitor compliance with that particular instrument.

Article 258 TFEU empowers the European Commission to deliver a reasoned opinion to a member state when it considers that the state has failed to fulfil an obligation under the treaties. This includes any obligation arising under those EU Justice and Home Affairs instruments to which the UK has opted in since the entry into the force of the treaty of Lisbon. If the member state fails to comply, the Commission may bring the matter before the Court of Justice of the European Union. In accordance with article 260 TFEU, if the Court of Justice of the European Union finds that the member state has failed to fulfil the obligation the member state shall be required to take the necessary measures to comply with the judgment.

Just another day in the utopian European Union Provinces of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and ‘The Regions’.

MPs fail in craven attempt to avoid justice over expenses

The three former Labour MPs facing criminal charges over their expenses have lost their final appeal at the Supreme Court to avoid trial.

Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Elliot Morley argued they shouldn’t be put on trial in a criminal court because their expenses are covered by parliamentary privilege. Their desperate attempt to be treated differently to other alleged criminals because they are part of the political class has underlined the ‘them and us’ sense of entitlement that pervades Parliament.

The three troughing attempted justice evaders have denied theft by false accounting in relation to their parliamentary expense claims. Thankfully in this instance the law has avoided being an ass and the Supreme Court – only surpassed in power by every cross jurisdictional court in Europe – ruled the MPs were not protected by their ludicrous claim of parliamentary privilege.

Trials will now follow at Southwark Crown Court beginning later this month. They should be open and shut cases and the three men should be hoping fellow politician Kenneth Clarke can wreck the prison system before they are invited to become guests of Her Majesty.

This case, as mentioned previously on this blog, highlights the need for a written constitution for this country. It also confirms the need for a political revolution to turf out the political class and confer real power to the British people.

The sick spectacle that is John Hirst

The only word to describe it is ‘sick’.

The Daily Politics gave airtime to the BBC’s latest curiosity, John Hirst. The so called Jailhouse Lawyer, who was nothing more than a prison plaintiff, listened to Andrew Neil describe the manner in which Hirst took an axe, put the kettle on, killed a defenceless woman with the axe, then made himself a cup of tea. Hirst then grinned broadly, laughed and thanked Neil for the graphic account.

He laughed.

The family of Hirst’s victim, Bronia Burton, should not be subjected to the sick spectacle of the mentally unstable, aggressive killer of their relative being paraded across television and radio to bask in the limelight of a stomach churning celebratory tour. Hirst’s behaviour demonstrated what a grotesque and unpleasant person he is. Nothing has changed since this profile of him published in the Guardian in 2006.

Despite 25 years in prison (after being sentenced to 15) for submitting a plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, there is no indication that John Hirst has been in any way been rehabilitated. He denies committing violent offences in prison that saw his sentence steadily increase, claiming he only served 10 additional years because he challenged their authority and demanded his ‘rights’.  The sick irony of Hirst demanding the entitlements that progressive idiots have taken upon themselves to redefine as rights – after Hirst denied Bronia Burton to a genuine human right, the right to life – should not be lost on anyone. The hypocrisy is staggering.

Hirst considers himself intelligent and learned after completing a degree while in prison and challenging the ban on prison inmates having the vote. But he was pathetically incapable of answering why prisoners such as him should be entitled to participate in the democratic process. He simply repeated over and over that prisoners should vote because it is their human right, before throwing personal insults at Andrew Neil for having the temerity to ask perfectly reasonable questions. If anything, the thoroughly revolting Hirst actually demonstrated there are people who plainly unfit to be allowed to vote and should be barred from participating in the electoral process.

The European Court of Human Rights agreed with Hirst back in 2005. But then, it would given it is largely comprised of socialist progressive placemen whose legal experience does not include training as counsel, practicing in courts and subsequently becoming judges. Many of the members of the ECHR bench are nothing more than academics who studied or taught law and have perpetuated the liberal agenda of upholding ‘rights’ for offenders while thumbing their noses at the law abiding in society who are trampled on by the bureaucracy that infests our lives. Such people should have no place handing down rulings to anyone.

The ECHR should not have legitimacy, but it has because the political classes who make up the Council of Europe signed up to be bound by its rulings in a fit of bien pensant idiocy. The ECHR should not have the competence to effectively create law. But it does because the political class did not challenge the ECHR awarding itself the ability to do so. Not for the first time the chickens are coming home to roost, but yet again the political class is sticking its head in the sand to avoid having to admit they got something wrong.

Against such a backdrop it is no surprise Hirst’s unworthy challenge successed and that he has subsequently been given a platform for his obnoxious grandstanding. After all this is declining Britain in the 21st Century, where common sense and decency are sneered at and the honest and law abiding are under continuous attack. However, at some point the people will hit back. Hard.