Just a quick question… two previously fully-functional political weblogs now appear to be in the hands of blog-spammers:
http://pughwatch.blogspot.com/
http://libdemmike.blogspot.com/
How has this come to be? My best guess is that the old blogs were deleted or shut down in a way that made their names available to enterprising spammers.
The Sun – Put Great back into Britain: SUN readers can take the lead in putting the Great back into Britain by reviving the lost senses of DUTY and PRIDE. A DUTY to respect those who live and work in our society. And a feeling of PRIDE and loyalty towards the nation we live in. Yesterday we launched a petition urging our MPs to cut short their 80-day summer break to pass laws vitally needed to combat terror attacks, a wave of shocking murders, radical rants and politically-correct policing. But there are many other ways our ten million readers can save Britain from bedlam. Try following the ten basic guidelines below – and YOU will be in the vanguard of a drive to rebuild our shattered spirit
And here are the highlights of those guidelines:
4. Britain is a nation at war – we can no longer worry about being labelled a “grass”. Don’t hesitate to REPORT suspicious activity or anti-social behaviour.
5. Ranting clerics are free to spit hatred thanks to the Human Rights Act, which prevents their deportation. WRITE to your MP demanding that this crazy law is repealed.
8. Security and police services face a huge challenge in overcoming the alarming new terrorist threat. Help cops by ensuring you CO-OPERATE fully if you are ever stopped and searched.
10. Soaring levels of apathy have made voting and neighbourhood initiatives unfashionable. Don’t be afraid to PARTICIPATE in them – or even launch them.
Well, there you have it. I find all of the above impossible to argue with, and so have come to a significant crossroads in my life. After years of railing against the Blair government, the Sun newspaper and its proprietor Rupert Murdoch, I finally see that there is no point pissing in the wind. I have been shown the aura of my wees.
Further, Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Wade have shamed me into action.
I plan to begin my new direction in life by launching a neighbourhood initiative designed to help our overrun police force fight the forces of terror by aiding them in their enforcement of the Serious and Organised Crimes and Police Act 2005. I urge you to participate.
STEP ONE
Go into your nearest Rymans and pick up a pack of Security Name Badges.
STEP TWO
Download and print the special card that appears to your right. Include your name in the space provided if you so wish, and then cut out and insert this card into the badge-holder.
STEP THREE
Copy then paste the following text twice into one page of an A4-sized document (in two columns) and then include two copies of this map from the Home Office (side by side) on another page/document.
Print so the text appears on one side, and the maps on the other.
Print roughly 50 copies of this document, and then cut them in half. This will give you 100 individual double-sided notices complete with map.
–
Notice of an unauthorised demonstration
We believe that you may be, or are about to be, involved in a demonstration located within an area subject to the provisions of the Serious and Organised Crimes and Police Act 2005. The map on the reverse of this leaflet clearly defines the area concerned.
The demonstration has NOT been authorised in accordance with the requirements of the Serious and Organised Crimes and Police Act 2005 if the police have not been properly notified under the Act.
The purpose of this leaflet is to notify you of these facts, and to advise you that Section 132 Serious and Organised Crimes and Police Act 2005 states that:-
Any person who –
(a) organises a demonstration in a public place in the designated area, or
(b) takes part in a demonstration in a public place in the designated area, or
(c) carries on a demonstration by himself in a public place in the designated area,
is guilty of an offence if, when the demonstration starts, authorisation for the demonstration has not been given under section 134(2) Serious and Organised Crimes and Police Act 2005.
Police may arrest any person committing an offence under Section 132 of the Act and if found guilty may be liable to a fine of up to 2500 pounds and/or a term of imprisonment of up to 51 weeks.
You are strongly advised to listen to the directions of the police and to comply with their directions and the wishes of your democratically-elected government.
–
STEP FOUR
Attach the badge to your suit pocket or lapel and patrol the designated area within Westminster and environs with your double-sided notices. Stop anyone wearing a t-shirt carrying a political statement or activist bracelet (such as ‘Make Poverty History’) and provide them with a notice, warning them that they may be in breach of the law.
If they refuse to comply with the Act or give you any difficulty, don’t hesitate to report such suspicious activity or anti-social behaviour. Call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
/instructions
I plan to begin my first patrol early next week.
Did anyone else just hear Peter Hitchins on PM on Radio 4 describing the Tories as being soft on terrorism because Boris Johnson challenged misuse of the word ‘inexplicable’?
Heh. This is great, this is. Perfect for those who pride themselve on clarity of vision.
See also: George W. Bush singing Imagine (NSFW audio intro)
Today, Page 3 girl Nikkala (23, from Middlesex) is ‘appalled MPs are swanning off on holiday while fanatics plot against Britain and thugs terrorise the streets’… She says: “Everyone needs a break but 80 days is daft. The police are overrun. They desperately need new laws to help them. MPs should cut short their hols before it is too late.”
Strange… the police didn’t seem overrun on Monday when enforcing one of the new laws Rebekah Nikkala seems so keen on.
A victory of sorts over at the Anne Milton weblog. My local MP wasn’t promoting her advice surgeries. I made an issue of it. She responded with urgency bordering on the desperate.
Now all that remains is for the regular team of ‘impartial’ contributors to start bitching and moaning about how this disproves every point raised during the short campaign.
Guardian – Suspect’s tale of travel and torture: A former London schoolboy accused of being a dedicated al-Qaida terrorist has given the first full account of the interrogation and alleged torture endured by so-called ghost detainees held at secret prisons around the world. For two and a half years US authorities moved Benyam Mohammed around a series of prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, before he was sent to Guantanamo Bay in September last year… In an statement given to his newly appointed lawyer, Mohammed has given an account of how he was tortured for more than two years after being questioned by US and British officials who he believes were from the FBI and MI6. As well as being beaten and subjected to loud music for long periods, he claims his genitals were sliced with scalpels.
Take particular note of this: In all the 18 months I was there, I never went outside. I never saw the sun, not even once. I never saw any human being except the guards and my tormentors, unless you count the pictures they showed me.
Ring any bells?
Abu Ghraib: Why you should care: Before the Nazis started gassing Jews and other ‘undesirables’, they shot them. In large numbers. But bullets were expensive and manpower cost money. The Nazis also found that this practice had a distinctly negative effect on the troops doing the shooting. That’s why they got high-tech and used selected prisoners to do most of the dirty work. Fast forward to the 21st century. Abu Ghraib and other US-run prisons in Iraq. Thanks to the wonders of technology, soldiers operating under the direction of the CIA (and British intelligence operatives) could torture a few detainees and show the results to many as a softener.
Gawd bless those men in blue for enforcing an unenforceable law… or at the very least making a very good show of things.
Who’d be in the army these days, eh? Or the police force, for that matter. What a thankless bloody task that is.
Think about it. With Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Charles Clarke off on holiday (crisis or no crisis, these men deserve time with their families, damn it) who’s in charge of home affairs? Hazel Blears, that’s who.
And if the shit really hits the fan, who’s in charge? John Prescott, that’s who.
Now, you can say what you like about Blair, Straw and Clarke, but they know how to stifle dissent – or at least how to make a convincing ‘tut tut tut’ noise when others go too far on such matters – but Blears and Prescott couldn’t organise a shitfight in a sewer.
Yesterday, as 300 or so people gathered in Parliament Square either as part of Brian Haw’s demonstration or in open defiance of the very new, mostly secret and generally stupid law banning spontaneous protest at the heart of our democracy, the police handed out flyers warning us that:
“We believe that you may be, or are about to be, involved in a demonstration located within an area subject to the provisions of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. The map on the reverse of this leaflet clearly defines the area concerned.”
So, without reading further, I turned to the map – and then discovered that people could not keep and read this notice without being willing accomplices to a violation of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:
Yes, the police had lifted their map entirely from StreetMap, which is; a copyright work. © BTex Ltd 1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004. The lack of any notation suggested the work had been lifted without permission. (You can read the non-offending side of this document via a close-up here.)
Here’s where it first gets interesting:
1) I did the same thing myself:
2) Doesn’t my map look familiar? Yes, yes it does. The police did *exactly* the same thing that I was forced to do. Even though the Home Office released their official map two weeks ago while suggesting that it had always been available to the public.
Now, I’m man enough to admit my wrong-doing. If BTex Ltd wish me to withdraw my version of their map from Teh Interwebs, I will do so.
But I’m not a police force using a copyrighted image without permission with the intention of enforcing a law with it, now am I?
I’m also not a police force with instructions provided by the Home Office and sent forth with a map that’s so poorly executed (by the Home Office) or so poorly publicised (by the Home Office) that even those ‘in the know’ can’t find it or see fit to use it.
On the face of it all, it would appear that Bloggerheads.com – while admittedly (and reluctantly) being in violation of copyright – has been doing a superior job to that of the Home Office in its interpretation and publication of area-sensitive legislation.
But wait… it gets better:
The police ran out of warning flyers!
Maybe…
Y’see, they ‘ran out’ about 5 minutes after I advised Superintendent Malcolm Simpson of the small copyright problem and then advised the crowd of the problem via the ‘open mic’ megaphone. But they were back on the case about 10 minutes later, after a *very* speedy copy-run… or a quick phone call to head office.
Either way, we wuz Warned. There were already plenty of ‘nice’ policemen in the square, plus two mini-buses full of ‘do the jobbers’ doing laps… and another four mini-buses on stand-by in Great College Street. (So many police and not enough warning flyers… what gives?)
In this glorious tension-filled lull, I approached the ‘open mic’ megaphone yet again.
Whether or not you accept that I’ve been an active member of Brian Haw’s protest since May 15, 2003 (see bottom photo) there was no denying that – by taking a ballpoint pen and showing the crowd how to apply it to a piece of paper with a certain amount of pressure and manoeuvre that pen in such a way as to make a clearly recognisable smiley-face – I had organised and taken part in a completely different (and totally unauthorised) demonstration.
I did this in full view of dozens of police officers (and their cameras), the media (and their cameras) and about 300 witnesses (and their cameras).
Even though this was in direct violation of the new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005:
Any person who-
(a) organises a demonstration in a public place in the designated area, or
(b) takes part in a demonstration in a public place in the designated area, or
(c) carries on a demonstration by himself in a public place in the designated area,
is guilty of an offence if, when the demonstration starts, authorisation for the demonstration has not been given under section 131(2)
(Note – In case you missed the significance of this, I was demonstrating the correct use of a ballpoint pen. In clear violation of the new act, which appears to have been drafted by a 7-year-old.)
But no-one arrested me.
Instead they chose to arrest an elderly woman. And then about 4 other people. But not under the new legislation, it would appear.
No, I have the sneaking suspicion that these people were threatened with arrests under the new law, but actually arrested for resisting arrest, verbal assault, littering, or the usual nonsense.
Why do I think this?
Because I approached Superintendent Malcolm Simpson (image, right, via) and asked if arrests were being made under the new law. Actually, a journalist beat me to it by about two seconds, but he was informed that he should contact the press office.
But I had the same question. And I pressed him on it.
Those of us assembled – whether we had taken part in copyright infringement or not – had a right to know if arrests were being made for this ‘offence’. Remember that their official warning in the form of a leaflet read:
“We believe that you *may* be, or are *about* to be, involved in a demonstration located within an area subject to the provisions of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.”
Were we so involved? Had that time come?
Were these arrests being made under this new legislation?
His answer? I’ll give it to you verbatim:
“What do you think?”
Now, please remember that this man is a Superintendent in charge of police, not school prefects or cub scouts. Your general officer of the law may get away with snarky and disingenuous comments like this, but a superintendent?
I asked again, and was rewarded with the Ignore side of his face.
This is what has me thinking that yesterday’s arrests were a bluff. A few ‘show’ arrests on any pretext available that would allow the police – who appeared to be operating on uncertain ground and/or with poor instructions – to scatter the crowd and discourage others without actually putting the new law on the line.
But I guess for the official poop, we’ll all have to wait until morning.
See also:
http://kittykittykillkill.blogspot.com/2005/08/exclusion-zone-protest-2-we-hold-you.html
http://danielhg.blogspot.com/2005/08/ive-lost-right-to-protest-peacefully.html
http://gnusoftheworld.blogspot.com/2005/08/demonstration-of-impotence.html
News links:
BBC – Arrests over Parliament demo ban
Guardian – Activists clash with police over ban on protests
Guardian – Five arrested during Westminster free speech protest
Take particular note of the new line from the Home Office, that; “the new laws simply put static protests on the same footing as processions, for which police also need to be notified.”
Well, I guess we can expect to see this law applied nationwide sometime soon, then.
Please also note that the police did not arrest Lauren Booth (Cherie’s sister) or Jeremy Corbyn MP… even though Jeremy was using the megaphone when the first arrests were made.
Revealing comments from a witness: Not one to normally criticize the Met, I found the police presence intimidating (I counted at least 5 clusters of moody police photographers) and aggressive. One passer by/tourist (provacateur?) seemed to take pleasure in shouting at us that we were “stupid” and that the police were “here to help” whilst we were conveying our disgust at the way that 5 fully grown male officers were dragging a peaceful lady to their van. I overheard one officer say that “we’ve got 3” when asked how many arrests they had made followed by “we need 6” worried me, like they had a target. When asked for the name of the Police station that the “perpetrators” had been taken to, the police gave 3 different names, one example of their smug disrespect for these good people. The sheer number and expense of the police operation amazed me: 2 Helicopters, 7 Police Vans, 4 “prison wagons” for arrests and just way too many police officers. Such a waste of resources, yet I am sure that they (and other clones) will say that it’s our fault, keeping them from “real” policing like catching terrorists. Funny how they never seem low on manpower for these kind of things.
A target? That would be an interesting thing to confirm. Oh, and ‘nick p’ forgot to mention the manned video camera atop Westminster that filmed the entire event from start to finish (see pic at right).
UPDATE – Following a convincing campaign by The Sun, I’ve had a change of heart:
Let’s put GREAT back into BRITAIN – you can do your bit!
Exclusion zone protest Monday August 1st
Assembly at 2pm on Monday August 1 outside Parliament.
I have 250 A3 posters that I plan to share out. I couldn’t get past my the original design (right), which I feel has a lovely dual message.
Do not give up. Plan to attend, and then get off your arse and attend.
Please.
Still wavering? Then consider the following (heads-up via rhetorically speaking):
Guardian – Westminster war protester wins right to stay: The court ruled that legislation being brought in to control demonstrations around the Houses of Parliament did not apply to 56-year-old Mr Haw. The new rules state that, from August 1, anyone wanting to demonstrate in the area must have authorisation from the police “when the demonstration starts”. Lawyers for Mr Haw pointed out that his demonstration had actually “started” four years ago and therefore he did not have to apply for authorisation.
This is good news, but Brian Haw’s victory does nothing to help the rest of us (well, not much… see below). If the Blair government do anything so outlandish that it prompts immediate protest, from Monday the police will have the legal right to shut down any such protest at the very seat of our slowly dwindling democracy and arrest anyone they damn well please, just for being there.
And that’s the real point of this stupid law. It may have been sold to willing MPs who (if they are human) feel pangs of guilt every time they have to pass Haw’s encampment, but what this is really about is stifling dissent.
An incident like the one I outline above would come dangerously close to what happened in Uzbekistan.
Think I’m being alarmist? Then consider Karimov’s justification for shooting protestors (he claimed they were terrorist extremists) and watch closely over the next few days. See how many messages you’re fed about protestors being extremists and/or an extremist element among the protestors. Consider that peaceful protestors in this country have been stopped, searched and detained under anti-terrorism legislation.
I’m not saying I’m up for 8 bullets in the back on Monday, but I am saying that this law is a big step in the wrong direction on a *very* slippery slope.
Only you can help to reverse the decision and/or make the public more aware of this law (that was very cleverly slipped out late one Friday afternoon).
And there is hope.
Many MPs meekly accepted the proposal because they wanted to be rid of Brian Haw. Some did not consider the full implications of the law and/or the extent to which Charles Clarke would exploit it.
Now, things are different. They might be convinced to challenge the law.
You can help.
Find out where your MP stands (if you can; mine is sunning herself on a beach in Cyprus somewhere) and make your views known.
Then come along on Monday.
If the turnout is poor, Blair will have been sent the message that he is slowly but surely beating the country into submission.
I repeat: Do not give up. Plan to attend, and then get off your arse and attend.
Oh, and do tell your friends. Democracy loves company.
I hope to see you there.
UPDATE – On the day, I’ll probably be too busy contributing to the event to document it. If anyone with a notepad or digital camera wishes to come along and snap/jot away, then please get in touch via email so we can arrange a full thingie.
UPDATE 2 – My eldest son (9 going on 15) has been bugging me for a while about this kind of thing. He wishes to attend a protest. School holidays or not, I have *serious* doubts about bringing him to this one… because the police will do what they are told to do, and my name’s been on their subversive terrorist list for a long time. Tough call. Made even tougher by the police/media who will claim that I’m using him as a human shield. If I allow him to come (and that’s a *BIG* if) we will have to back off pretty early as the police work to marginalise the protestors. Tough, tough call. Do I include/teach him, or leave him at home and work to protect him? (Please note, RWCs, that the aforementioned teaching involves pointing out the precious lovelies pushing copies of the Socialist Worker.)
UPDATE 2a – He’s not going.
UPDATE 3 – *That* said, if you have any doubts about your own personal safety on Monday, all you need to remember is tanks at Heathrow. Ask yourself some serious questions about fear… and if your government is willingly using that fear against you.
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