Sunday, November 30, 2008

Police State?

I see that new labour has acheived its aim in arresting a tory MP a toatl police state.



Posted by Anonymous to swanageview at 1:31
Posted by at

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps we should go back to the Thatcher years when life was oh so sweet...loadsa money and cut and run! Oh and the state was very benign in its administration of the poll tax too - seem to remember more than a few being arrested in connection with that too.

30/11/08 7:38 pm
Anonymous said...

"... Home Secretary Jacqui Smith defended the right of police to arrest Mr Green, dismissing suggestions from MPs of all sides that he was being pursued just for doing his job.

She insisted that officers were investigating a "systematic series of leaks" and it would be wrong for politicians to intervene.

Ms Smith told BBC One's Andrew Marr programme: "There have been a lot of charges thrown around here - the idea that, you know, this is Stalinism, this is a police state.

"In my book, Stalinism and a police state happens when ministers direct and interfere with specific investigations that the police are carrying out.

'Not good enough'

"I have been very clear that in my view the police should have operational independence, they should be able to pursue those investigations in the way in which their professional judgment suggests.

"I do not know what evidence they are looking at - neither do any of the other people who are commenting."

Source: BBC

Are MP's allowed to do things that'd get the rest of us arrested?

We'll see.

30/11/08 7:49 pm
Anonymous said...

Typical lets start the thatcher blaming aspect, this arrest has been condemnd by mp's of all parties it stinks of an attempt by new labour to silence its critics, gordon and his crew are a disgrace to this country,so in your opinion it was wrong to expose the things that green did ? I think not. this will have a huge impact on how people view new labour and hopefully it will mean a trouncing in the polls.

30/11/08 10:02 pm
Anonymous said...

What has this got to do with Swanage? Can we keep to matters relevant to the town and not go off on tangents please.

30/11/08 11:09 pm
Anonymous said...

To be honest this blog needs a kick up the backside otherwise it will die, but I do think that incidents like this affect us all, so perhaps it does have an impact on swanage, or shall we wait until you have something important to say?

1/12/08 2:58 pm
Anonymous said...

The person who is sensitive to references to the Thatcher regime would rather we ignored the assaults on civil liberty that occurred under her. Cast your mind back, Civil servants at GCHQ were forbidden to be members of trade unions because of the stupid fantasy that TUs were all agents of Moscow. The right of strikers to picket was whittled away to the point that one judge described as the right to attend in small numbers and keep out of everybody's way. It is to the continuing shame of "new" labour that these and other attacks on liberty were not speedily reversed when they entered office.

What do we see now? Precisely the people who applauded these attacks reacting in mock horror when a member of the opposition is suspected of trying to get a civil servant who happens to be an active member of his party to leak government documents and be it noted documents that merely embarrass the government, not ones that point to anything unlawful in their actions. Did these people complain about the abuse of free speech when Thatcher used the Official Secrets Act against former members of intelligence services who wanted to publish their memoirs and uncover the incompetence of those organisations? Not a word, not a bloody word.

1/12/08 6:23 pm
Anonymous said...

Well said 6.23.

Some people have very short memories.

1/12/08 11:40 pm
Anonymous said...

A spokesperson for the Amalgamated Society of Mole Growers and Leak Cultivators said "This is an unwarranted attack on the customs and practices our members in the political industry have been following for generations. My members are enraged at the suggestion that they are subject to the same laws as ordinary people and may well take industrial action and refuse to pass any more laws until the matter has reached a satisfactory resolution"

3/12/08 6:50 pm
Anonymous said...

Smile.

4/12/08 7:23 pm
Anonymous said...

What will be in the next thrilling instalment? Will Mr Speaker have to walk the plank? If he does it will be the first instance of the sharks being on deck prodding their victim towards Davy Jone's locker. Seems a shame as by all accounts he is a decent sort of cove.

4/12/08 10:07 pm
Anonymous said...

Methinks that petards and hoisting may come into the equation.

Under section 18 of the something and something act of 1984 the Police have the right to search the place where the person who was arrested is or has recently been.

'84 - who was in power?

'08 - who didn't think it necessary to repeal the law?

I just wonder why the media are generally supporting the right of MP's to have illegally gained info - protecting their 'informed sources'?

6/12/08 6:11 pm
Anonymous said...

This is all good knockabout fun but getting back to the original posting the remarkable allegation liberty is under attack because of ministers wanting to stop leaks which suggest that ministers are not doing enough to take away the liberty of non-EU citizens to live here. If the leaks related to over zealous attempts to keep people out of the country I could understand it but they are the exact opposite - namely that there is too much liberty and freedom being exercised by those who want to live here.

6/12/08 7:49 pm
Anonymous said...

This about the UK being a Police State.

It certainly is heading that way, but the MP's make the laws, the Police use them.

So aren't they, the Police, just doing their job well?

7/12/08 10:49 am
Anonymous said...

The irony in this case is that it rapidly became apparent that far from being a police state, which is generaly regarded as being one in which the rulers use the police to stamp on opposition, what we saw here was a police force completely out of control blundering around with an ineptitude matched only by Boris Johnson's contibution to the sorry saga. Perhaps he is angling for honorary membership of the Leak Growers Association.

The supporters of search powers generally always point out that if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. They would have to accept that must also apply to MPs. Just to make sure we can trust them why not have the cops check through their files for time to time so we know they are not giving way to temptation and stretching the law. Judging by some of the remarks about councils on various blogs there would be total support for extending this to councillors as well.

7/12/08 12:11 pm
Anonymous said...

Just a thought, but, as you say, a Police State uses it's Police to stamp out the opposition, then surely your idea of using the Police to keep a check on our - ha! - politicians makes you the Head of a Police State!

I'll vote for you, go on, please, let me!

Nope, that wouldn't work, cuz then you'd be a politician and the Police could ....

OK, when's the revolution?

I wonder if that's one of those weasle words that get 'flagged' to our guys 'n' gals in the anti-terrorist units?

If so - Hi.

7/12/08 4:11 pm
Anonymous said...

MPs are supposed to be there for our benefit. Apart from obvious cases involving individuals or security its hard to see how this would suffer if their files were open to public inspection.

7/12/08 5:49 pm
Anonymous said...

I must confess I am still chuckling at the original posting. Its the lovely idea of new labour throwing tory MPs in the clanger so they can get on with propping up the banks and privatising bits of the government service to say nothing of squeezing the disabled and single parents. All these vicious socialist policies none of us ever realised were socialist. Back in the real world, what aspects of new labour policies would the Cameronites drop? The minimum wage? Child Tax credits? Can't be that little unpleasantness in Iraq as they were in favour of it.

7/12/08 8:54 pm
Anonymous said...

As for some time, the only originality is in the Lib Dems.

But that'll all be subsumed.

Get used to one size fits all.

7/12/08 9:58 pm
Anonymous said...

Whoa, toys out of the pram!

The Gov't have just won a vote about the investigation of this by 23 votes.

The Lib Dems and the Tories take their ball and run away, bottom lips a blubbing.

I'm sure the LD's will agree, but are the Tories now about to demand proportional representation?

Oh, democracy!

Mind you of course, I 'spose that if you say that as the original MP put his principles above the law, then The Greenies who invaded the airport today did the right thing.

Couldn't you?

8/12/08 11:12 pm
Anonymous said...

Hello...anybody there? Have you all been dragged off to the lubyanka? Have you had the midnight knock on the door from the Chekists?

10/12/08 10:36 pm

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