The British Government just marked 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by having an opposition M.P. arrested and held for hours by anti-Terror police. Just a few weeks ago they used anti-Terror legislation against the near bankrupt Icelandic State. Henry Porter in his blog in the Guardian expresses some of the deep unease that some people in Britain are feeling about erosion of democratic rights.

Quote :

How is Britain to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
With the continued development of £12bn plans to set up a vast data silo to store information on all phone calls, emails and internet connections? Another soviet style article form Jack Straw, which tells us how the inventory of freedoms has increased under Labour? Or the issue of ID cards to foreigners by a government that knows the public don't give a damn about the rights and privacy of foreigners?

Somehow we always knew that Jacqui Smith would be at the centre of this important anniversary but you have to hand it to the government: nobody had predicted that human rights and freedom in Britain would be celebrated with the arrest and fingerprinting of an opposition MP by terror police, the search of his premises, hard drives and telephones, the taking of his DNA and the attempted intimidation of his wife, Alicia.
And no one foresaw the good fortune that Green's young daughter arrived from school to find her home swarming with police. Why is it so important to the symbolism of the affair? Because her appearance allows the police to enter her name on the Merlin database which requires them to take the details of children who come to their attention when a premises is being searched.
No action by the authorities could have better revealed the decay in the chassis of parliamentary democracy. It captures everything – the seeming politicisation of the police, the unprincipled brass neck of the home secretary, the degradation and failure of the parliamentary authorities and the growing confusion in labour between the roles of the government and state.
Jacqui Smith has been busy saying that she knew nothing of the operation before it took place and that she adhered to the principle that the police should be allowed to pursue the investigation without political interference. But then under pressure she has begun to hint of a dark interior to this scandal, a conspiracy to distort the political process. She can't have it both ways. Either she did know about the operation, in which case she should resign, or she didn't, in which case she should keep quiet on the purpose of the investigation.
My guess is that she didn't have to know about the arrest: she could rely on the anti-terror chief Bob Quick to serve the government's interests because he so desperately wants Sir Ian Blair's job. And we should not forget that the home secretary has just given the police a Christmas present of 10,000 Taser guns. Labour loves a uniform – especially one that is armed.

The arrest of Green is so grave in its implications that even Labour MPs have begun to wonder who exactly is running the show. Harriet Harman, once known as a civil libertarian, David Blunkett and Denis MacShane have all protested. Incidentally, the last time I talked to MacShane – I think it was on the subject of ID cards, which he supports – he told me that the British public wanted a strong state. But not when it interferes with MPs, it seems.
Let us hope more Labour MPs find the courage to protest at the state opening of parliament for it is only MPs who have a complete understanding of the way parliament has been undermined by Labour – the threats to committee chairmen to follow every dot and comma of the government line, the frequent and cynical use of the guillotine to cut short inconvenient discussion on the business of the house, the replacement in the post of Serjeant-at-Arms of Peter Grant Perkin by Jill Pay who allowed the arrest of Green and finally the attack on sessional orders which define MPs' rights. Conservative are at this moment investigating whether they still have the right to debate the matter of Green's arrest under the sessional orders on Wednesday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2008/dec/01/damian-green-humanrights

Damien Green was not suspected of any breach of the Official Secrets Act or any endangerment of persons. His contacts and computer data were seized.
Porter says that a very serious erosion of democracy is taking place.

The British have never shrunk from using oppressive policing and removal of rights in the territory of the British Empire. Loss of Empire and decay as an industrial power seem to have turned the focus to "homeland security".

cactus flower wrote:

The British have never shrunk from using oppressive policing and removal of rights in the territory of the British Empire. Loss of Empire and decay as an industrial power seem to have turned the focus to "homeland security".

Alternatively yon greeny chap might have been suspected of some as yet unspecified nefarious activity.

cactus flower wrote:

The British Government just marked 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by having an opposition M.P. arrested and held for hours by anti-Terror police. Just a few weeks ago they used anti-Terror legislation against the near bankrupt Icelandic State.

Do you state this as a point of fact? As far as I was aware the British Government have said that this was a matter for the police and that no member of cabinet had any prior knowledge that this arrest was going to occur. I haven't seen any evidence that he was arrested by "anti-Terror police". So far as I was aware he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police service of the Greater London Area and I have not seen any report that the arrest was carried out by an anti-terrorism unit of that force. The basis for his arrest had nothing to do with terrorism, he was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office. This is an offence of some vintage, dating from common law times, which completely predates anti-terror legislation and is normally utilised to deal with misconduct by public servants such as police officers.

However, maybe you have some information that we don't, perhaps you could share it.

Once upon a time when people behaved like this they lost their head. This is not going down at all well in middle England. You don't sent police into Westminster! Middle England does not want either ID cards or a strong state.

What should happen now is that Jacqui Smith and Jill Pay should resign mediately and the matter by investigated with a view to disciplinary measures. Politically it would be a sound move for Brown to insist on their resignations etc. That won't happen and we will get the usual pile of fudge.

This is another sign that New Labour needs to go. What is it about left wing governments and police states? It seems if you want oppressed vote left. A government with no real vision of where it wants to go or what it wants to do. It is, and that is all the justification they have.

Real shame that someone like David Davis was not the leader of the opposition instead of another Blair clone.

johnfás wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

The British Government just marked 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by having an opposition M.P. arrested and held for hours by anti-Terror police. Just a few weeks ago they used anti-Terror legislation against the near bankrupt Icelandic State.

Do you state this as a point of fact? As far as I was aware the British Government have said that this was a matter for the police and that no member of cabinet had any prior knowledge that this arrest was going to occur. I haven't seen any evidence that he was arrested by "anti-Terror police". So far as I was aware he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police service of the Greater London Area and I have not seen any report that the arrest was carried out by an anti-terrorism unit of that force. The basis for his arrest had nothing to do with terrorism, he was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office. This is an offence of some vintage, dating from common law times, which completely predates anti-terror legislation and is normally utilised to deal with misconduct by public servants such as police officers.

However, maybe you have some information that we don't, perhaps you could share it.

Daily Telegraph any good? Every account I have seen confirms it was counter-terrorism police who arrested him and who searched his office in Westminster and his constituency office.

The reason for arrest was that he had received documents from a Home Office "whistleblower" that contained information politically embarrassing to the Government.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3532133/Tory-minister-Damian-Green-arrested-under-the-Official-Secrets-Acts.html

I'm going to cheat here a little and paste what I posted on another site yesterday about this, apologies in advance, but saves effort:

This is becoming a massive political storm in Britain, and rightly so. It deserves much greater attention here also.

The Lib Dems have rowed in behind the Tories in attacking what
happened, and many Labour backbenchers have openly done the same, not
just on the left (Denis McShane, for example). Harriet Harman this
morning expressed concern, while the Government are anxious to distance
themselves, knowing they are on to a loser if they don't. A serious
question is this. If the Met Police informed both the Speaker of the
Commons (they can't set foot in Parliament without permission), and the
Mayor of London, Boris Johnson (who was placed in the invidious
position of thinking it was crazy but having to keep his mouth shut),
why did they not inform the Home Secretary, as is claimed by the
Government? If they didn't, weren't they conducting a solo run, without
having informed the relevant Minister? And, worse, what if they did?
That would bring down the Government.

At the heart of all this, of course, is illegal immigration. The
Government have been severely embarassed by the leaks. For example, the
Home Office, of all places, has been shown to be employing several
illegal immigrants, while one was even a Ministerial driver. The claim
is that the leaks represent some kind of national security issue, yet
the employment of unvetted immigrant staff at the Home Office seems
less of concern. So why did the Met take off on such a controversial
course of action with such zeal? The answer is that the relationship
between the Met and the New Labour project is unhealthily close, with
several senior police officers, including the ex-chief Ian Blair,
either openly supporting, or owing their positions to, the New Labour
Government. The Met has become a political weapon, and has lost all
sense of objectivity. Only now, because of the sheer strength of
hostility from all sides of political opinion to what they have done,
have they begun to run for cover. In any democratic society, this is
disturbing to say the least.

Expect this to run and run. The Tories smell blood, and they're right to do so.

Squire alluded to an incursion into the Commons that ended in tears a few hundred years ago. Parliamentary privilege is there as a safeguard for democracy when the nicety of the law is in the way. The idea of locking up and grilling an M.P. for hours on end, and searching his office, is incendiary.

cactus flower wrote:

Squire alluded to an incursion into the Commons that ended in tears a few hundred years ago. Parliamentary privilege is there as a safeguard for democracy when the nicety of the law is in the way. The idea of locking up and grilling an M.P. for hours on end, and searching his office, is incendiary.

Indeed, to say the least. The Met have run for cover now, there's not a hope in hell that this will ever go further, particularly as every impartial observer knows, and says openly, that this was politically-inspired payback for the Ian Blair fuss after Jean-Charles de Menezes. Expect a hiatus, then the issue to be quietly dropped a couple of months from now. The Tories won't let this lie, though, and nor should they. It's symptomatic of a Government with a Messianic complex who are so completely out of touch that they honestly believe that they can, and are entitled to, get away with anything. The Tories are now routinely sweeping their offices for bugs, and I don't believe that is an over-reaction or a publicity stunt, 'New' Labour have long been in Nixon territory. They are sorely in need of a bad kicking, nemesis after years of hubris.

They may kick up, but the Conservatives never minded the bugging of foreign politicians in the UK. If in power, I don't doubt that they would avail of all the technology going.

cactus flower wrote:

They may kick up, but the Conservatives never minded the bugging of foreign politicians in the UK. If in power, I don't doubt that they would avail of all the technology going.

Yes indeed, they were just as capable of attacks on civil liberties and of hubris, I well remember the Miners' Strike of 1984-5 and the agent-provocateurs, plus the army dressed in police uniforms. But I also remember the outcry, back in the bad old days, over the seven day detention without trial, which we Irish in Britain lived in fear of (I was constantly afraid as a kid of the knock on the door and my parents disappearing for a week). Labour (Labour ffs!) are now attempting yet again to get 42 days! And ID cards. It's there turn now to be taught a very big lesson on hubris...

toxic avenger wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

They may kick up, but the Conservatives never minded the bugging of foreign politicians in the UK. If in power, I don't doubt that they would avail of all the technology going.

Yes indeed, they were just as capable of attacks on civil liberties and of hubris, I well remember the Miners' Strike of 1984-5 and the agent-provocateurs, plus the army dressed in police uniforms. But I also remember the outcry, back in the bad old days, over the seven day detention without trial, which we Irish in Britain lived in fear of (I was constantly afraid as a kid of the knock on the door and my parents disappearing for a week). Labour (Labour ffs!) are now attempting yet again to get 42 days! And ID cards. It's there turn now to be taught a very big lesson on hubris...

It was the greatest shame that common cause was not made then, there was plenty of scope for it - Thatcher was hated by half the country.
Things are different now. The British economy is 20% banking. Their industry is foreign owned. The colonies have gone. They only have their own people to turn on now.

cactus flower wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

They may kick up, but the Conservatives never minded the bugging of foreign politicians in the UK. If in power, I don't doubt that they would avail of all the technology going.

Yes indeed, they were just as capable of attacks on civil liberties and of hubris, I well remember the Miners' Strike of 1984-5 and the agent-provocateurs, plus the army dressed in police uniforms. But I also remember the outcry, back in the bad old days, over the seven day detention without trial, which we Irish in Britain lived in fear of (I was constantly afraid as a kid of the knock on the door and my parents disappearing for a week). Labour (Labour ffs!) are now attempting yet again to get 42 days! And ID cards. It's there turn now to be taught a very big lesson on hubris...

It was the greatest shame that common cause was not made then, there was plenty of scope for it - Thatcher was hated by half the country.
Things are different now. The British economy is 20% banking. Their industry is foreign owned. The colonies have gone. They only have their own people to turn on now.

A band called 'The Beat' (a truly great band) had a B-Side to their
single 'Best Friend' which was called 'Stand Down Margaret'. I think I
wore that record out, though I still have it. Fantastic song...

toxic avenger wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

They may kick up, but the Conservatives never minded the bugging of foreign politicians in the UK. If in power, I don't doubt that they would avail of all the technology going.

Yes indeed, they were just as capable of attacks on civil liberties and of hubris, I well remember the Miners' Strike of 1984-5 and the agent-provocateurs, plus the army dressed in police uniforms. But I also remember the outcry, back in the bad old days, over the seven day detention without trial, which we Irish in Britain lived in fear of (I was constantly afraid as a kid of the knock on the door and my parents disappearing for a week). Labour (Labour ffs!) are now attempting yet again to get 42 days! And ID cards. It's there turn now to be taught a very big lesson on hubris...

Detention of Irish people in those days was unbelievable - over decades thousands of Irish people were held for hours and days at a time - businessmen on their way to meetings and so forth. Not a single terrorist conviction ever resulted from all of this - the only successful charges ever brought were for things like benefit fraud among a tiny proportion of those detained. The media in both countries were shockingly silent about all of this. Plus, and we only discovered this AFTER it was stopped, all phonecalls to and from Ireland were routed through a special monitoring centre at GCHQ and routinely listened to.

Anti-terror legislation is all bullshit in any case because all of the stuff it is allegedly aimed at is already illegal! The police/government had all the power they need to deal with anyone caught or suspected of terrorist offences. The only thing it accomplishes is to reduce the government to terrorists themselves - resulting in atrocious micarriages of justice as - we all know only too well.

http://gregbarns.com/articles40.html

The article above omits to mention that although charges were brought against 14% of the people detained only a very small fraction were successful.

Another good article here which shows how anti-terrorist stuff is really part of another agenda - i.e. the British government have been trying to extend it since 2000 - despite the peace process and cessation of armed struggle in the North and pre 9/11:

http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=26642

So we have the politicalisation of the police and the probably the cvil service added to the assumption that to be pro-government is to be pro-the interests of state and then the converse which identifies the opposition with anti-state forces.
For me these are just more symptoms of the wrongs of the current parliamentarty system.
Hopefully the new tories will break the concentration of power in Westminster when they get in.

Respvblica wrote:

So we have the politicalisation of the police and the probably the cvil service added to the assumption that to be pro-government is to be pro-the interests of state and then the converse which identifies the opposition with anti-state forces.
For me these are just more symptoms of the wrongs of the current parliamentarty system.
Hopefully the new tories will break the concentration of power in Westminster when they get in.

I would hope so. However, less than half of the UK population is actually in work, and the proportion is declining all the time. UK stats estimated (pre recession) that up to 1 MILLION British teenagers had gone missing out of the school system.

Expect crime and the police state to keep going...

expat girl wrote:

Respvblica wrote:

So we have the politicalisation of the police and the probably the cvil service added to the assumption that to be pro-government is to be pro-the interests of state and then the converse which identifies the opposition with anti-state forces.
For me these are just more symptoms of the wrongs of the current parliamentarty system.
Hopefully the new tories will break the concentration of power in Westminster when they get in.

I would hope so. However, less than half of the UK population is actually in work, and the proportion is declining all the time. UK stats estimated (pre recession) that up to 1 MILLION British teenagers had gone missing out of the school system.
Expect crime and the police state to keep going...

That's a shocking statistic expatgirl. They can't all be behind the bike shed. What on earth is going on. I know a head teacher of a school over there. I'll ask. Is it anything to do with all these gimmicky themed new schools taking over from the old style neighbourhood school?

Theres a British School beside where I work in Alicante, and it costs a bomb(7grand) to send your kids there. As I drive into work I can also see huge billboard with "quality british education".
Is that not a joke or what! Or does it say something about the spanish education system which is reportedly far far worse?

As I predicted last week, the Met are running for cover...

Quote :

The Met appears to be in headlong retreat this morning. The acting
commissioner has just appointed a chief constable to carry out an
urgent review of the handling of the arrest of Damian Green and the
Home Office mole. The question it needs to answer is how an everyday
Whitehall drama has been turned into a major constitutional crisis.

From Nick Robinson's BBC blog here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/

toxic avenger wrote:

As I predicted last week, the Met are running for cover...

Quote :

The Met appears to be in headlong retreat this morning. The acting
commissioner has just appointed a chief constable to carry out an
urgent review of the handling of the arrest of Damian Green and the
Home Office mole. The question it needs to answer is how an everyday
Whitehall drama has been turned into a major constitutional crisis.

From Nick Robinson's BBC blog here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/

I enjoyed this from it:

Quote :

I am grateful to a colleague for pointing me to the defiant words of Speaker Lenthall to Charles I in 1642.

They were uttered when the king tried to have five MPs arrested in the Commons. On his knees before the sovereign, the Speaker explained why he would not co-operate, explaining that his duty was to the House and not to the king.

May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this house is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here; and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this

How times have changed.

There are protests expected in the House today during the Queens Speech.

The only person who ever used force honorably in that place was Bernadette Devlin when she slapped the face off the Home Secretary after Bloody Sunday.

Let us not forget that the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith needs to resign as does the Sargent at Arms. One has responsibility for the police and the other acquiesced. It amazes me that anyone could be so stupid and do this, or consider it acceptable, or as some labour types including Ms Smith have been doing trying to put positive spin to make it seem right and proper. The Police action was necessary for the greater good line is utterly pathetic. This is merely digging a deeper hole, if someone in your department behaves inappropriately you don't defend you weed out and accept responsibility. She is not up to the job and has demonstrated that she has not the requisite character for the job and therefore MUST resign.

The Speaker should also be suitably outraged on behalf of the Commons. If not then another replacement is necessary. There are a few in the Met who also need to go. You have to make examples so that no one forgets in the future.

Any school child knows you don't send troops or similar into the commons, It is on a par with sending them into a Foreign Embassy. What schools did this lot go to? Probably the wonderful comprehensives. This is so unbelievably stupid that it neatly highlights the decadence of this government. They need to be replaced, but the alternative is very light weight indeed. Even the Tory Grandees blanch at the thought.

Image by blogger Bo Dore

Dennis Skinner to Black Rod at the State Opening: "Any Tory moles at the Palace?"...