What is the job of an Opposition MP? To hold the government to account. And this applies double to a shadow minister. So why was Damian Green arrested - and arrested under counter-terrorism laws?
His supposed crime is “aiding and abetting misconduct in public office,” by which we can translate into English as “receiving leaks from civil servants”. But it’s not like this is (a) a new thing, or (b) that only civil servants leak - after all, the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top…
On being released after being held for nine hours, Damian Green said:
I emphatically deny I have done anything wrong.
I have many times made public information that the Government wanted to keep secret - information that the public has a right to know.
In a democracy, opposition politicians have a duty to hold the Government to account. I was elected to the House of Commons precisely to do that and I certainly intend to continue doing so.
No-one who believes in parliamentary democracy can agree with this arrest. It’s not like he has been involved releasing information that we don’t have a right to know. The BBC has a list of the relevant leaks:
The November 2007 revelation that the home secretary knew the Security Industry Authority had granted licences to 5,000 illegal workers, but decided not to publicise it.
The February 2008 news that an illegal immigrant had been employed as a cleaner in the House of Commons.
A whips’ list of potential Labour rebels in the vote on plans to increase the pre-charge terror detention limit to 42 days.
A letter from the home secretary warning that a recession could lead to a rise in crime.
Exciting stuff, huh? A terrorist could have made really good use of that information! Not.
What does make no sense is the government denial that either Gordon Brown or Jacqui Smith - the Home Secretary - had any prior knowledge of the arrest, even though dvance warning was given to David Cameron, Boris Johnson and both the Speaker and Serjeant at Arms of the House of Commons. So they thought to tell all these people, but not the Home Secretary or Prime Minister of the arrest of a senior MP? Rubbish.
David Cameron is standing behind Damian Green, because he has done nothing wrong. His arrest for receiving leaked information is the hallmark of a police state. He’s not a terrorist, he’s a politician. And he was doing his job.
Boris Johnson’s plan is unworkable. Why? It’s very simple. The blueprint says:
Working with the police, the Probation Service, the Parole Board and London Councils, we want to use our powers to compel attendance at these organisations by those who need it…
Scout troops and Army Cadet Squads are the kind of gangs we like.
And quite rightly the reply from the Scout Association is:
The bottom line for us is that we want to work with young people, whatever their background. But forcing them to join just isn’t what we are about.
Precisely. As Scout leaders, we do not want any young person in our Troop who does not want to be there. That ruins it for those who do want to be there.
It is the young people who have problems who need and benefit from Scouts most, but force is not the way we work. We have had some very troubled and troublesome Scouts who, because they chose to be there, have developed so well that they are a credit to the Troop. They’re not perfect - they’re teenagers, and we don’t expect or necessarily want them to be.
If any form of coercion is involved, the Scout Association will not be. Scout leaders are entirely volunteers, and we do not want to deal with that sort of thing - especially when there are plenty of young people who want to be in scouting but can’t due to a lack of leaders. They are our priority, not the ones who don’t want to be Scouts.
It is nice that Boris has deemed Scouts “the kind of gangs [he] likes”, but we’re not the solution to all of London’s ills. We can only help those who want help. Scouting is accessible to anyone and everyone, but not through compulsion.
The saying “lies, damn lies, and statistics” has never run truer than now, with the Home Secretaries statement that a 22% rise in violent crime - such as serious assault, murder, attempted murder and manslaughter - still means that crime is going down.
Why and how can Jacqui Smith make this claim? Because, apparently, “police forces across England and Wales have been under-recording serious violent crime for at least a decade”. Which is precisely what we the people have been saying.
Yet it’s just an exercise in paper-shuffling, as what has happened was
the result of new guidance given to police in April on how they define and record the crime of “GBH with intent”.
Previously, and for at least ten years, many forces had recorded that crime under a lesser category if no “grievous bodily harm” had been incurred, whereas the question of intent should have taken priority.
To pour more cold water on the claim that crime is falling:
If it had not been for the guidance… the 13 forces which had submitted estimates said that they would only have seen a 5-per cent year-on-year increase in GBH with intent.
So violent crime is up anyway. Just by a smaller amount.
One question that isn’t answered is the obvious one: why aren’t the same designations used by all police forces? Surely that would have been the intelligent way to do it…
Can we now trust any statistics published by the government? The answer is simple: even less than before. Unfortunately, sometimes their is no choice.
Eight minutes per hour. Eight out of sixty. 13.8%.
Home Office data for the 43 police forces in England and Wales show that just 3.8 per cent of police time was spent on patrol in 2007-08.
It means that in a typical 12-hour shift worked by an officer, an average of only one hour and 39 minutes is spent on the beat.
Time spent on patrol has fallen in recent years. In 2004-5 it accounted for 15.2 per cent of police time, but the figure declined steadily to a low-point of just 13.2 per cent in 2006-7, before recovering very slightly last year. (The Telegraph)
Absolutely ridiculous. Our police service should not be so hampered by red tape and paperwork that they spend such a ridiculously low amount of their time actually walking the beat and actively protecting us.
They must be freed of paperwork, of which filling out paperwork related to incidents taking up about 50% of their time*. When paperwork is this important to a policeman’s time, one can but fear for our safety.
* 64% of a policeman’s time is spent on “frontline duties”, which includes paperwork relating to a incident. And 13.8% of their time is spent on patrol. You do the maths.
All frontline policemen are to be issued with Taser stun guns to confront and disable suspects. These fire a 50,000 volt charge though the body, disabling anyone who gets hit. Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, said:
Taser is making a real difference on our streets, not only keeping the public safe but also protecting our police officers. I am committed to giving our police the weapons they need to get crime off our streets.
I do not believe that Tasers can make our streets safer. They give the police an extra weapon, yes, and one that is non-lethal. But the widespread roll-out of such weapons - for they are indeed weapons - encourages criminals to get them, or an equivalent, in order to maintain the status quo with the police.
What is wrong with the police having as their standard weapon what effectively amounts to a stick? All frontline officers do not require use of tasers. The more weapons the police have, the more criminals require in order break the law “safely” - and so more innocent people [and policemen] are wounded or die.
A leaked Home Office letter declares that crime will rise due to the credit crunch, which at first appeared to be downplayed as “just a draft”. But then they changed their tune and deemed it “blindingly obvious”.
All this would have received far less press coverage had it not been for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alastair Darling, declaring that Britain was facing the worst economic downturn for sixty years. Not the sort of thing that the Chancellor should be saying. Rather, he should be trying to do what he can to fix it, to prevent the downturn, not just prophesying it. All such talk will due is ensure that we get an recession.
As this leaked document came out at exactly the right time it almost seems like some sort of set-up in order for Labour to show that they are “prepared” or something. Well, it would if it wasn’t such a monumentally stupid plan.
However, if it is “blindingly obvious” that crime would rise with an economic downturn, why were they trying to tell us only just over a month ago that crime is ‘actually’ falling? Only one or the other of these can be true. Either economic problems = more crime or crime is falling. The Home Office can’t believe both. Unless it’s a schizophrenic government department.
Personally, I’m with the riot predictors. But to prevent it from breasking out, the Home Office really needs to pull it’s fingers out and get real police on the street.
First they brought in the “plastic plod”, with little training and even fewer powers to put “a police presence” on the streets and save money at the same time.
Yet that failed. And yet they wonder why.
So they decided to go even cheaper, with civilian police. No, not special constables, who plenty of training and powers, but people whose only qualification is the fact that they have a little red, white and black badge which reads “Community Safety Scheme Accredited” in tiny letters.
They have no training, and their powers are limited to being able to:
issue fines for truancy, rowdiness, graffiti, dog-fouling and riding a bike on a pavement
take cigarettes and alcohol from teenagers
direct traffic, and
ensure abandoned vehicles are removed.
This is just asking for trouble and for confrontations. If one of these 1,406 “accredited persons” with their ickle badge tried to issue me with a fine, they’d get told in no uncertain terms where they could shove it.
What we need is actual police on the streets. Policemen and women on the streets promote a feeling of safety. Policing on the cheap does nothing except alienate people from the law.
999 should only be called in an emergency. Yet some, it appears, are more interested in a little bit of amusement for themselves:
A judge has hit out at his “astonishingly limited” sentencing powers after he was unable to jail a teenager whose hoax 999 call led to a woman’s death.
Ian Paterson, 17, called the fire brigade on June 29 because he was “bored”, and reported a fake warehouse fire “for a laugh”. (The Telegraph)
Unfortunately, on the way to this non-existent fire, a fire engine collided with a car, killing one person and seriously injuring her daughter.
Anyone who dials 999 for a non-emergency risks the life of other people immediately. The most simple example being being that emergency vehicles are taken from real emergencies to respond to hoaxes - with the strong possiblity that deaths occur.
The punishments for hoax calling the emergency services should be far higher. It isn’t an innocent little prank, but a mighty dangerous one. And that must be reflected in the punishments for hoax callers.
Over the decade since that tough on crime supremo took over, police recorded crime is up 7% (1997-98 to 2007-08). And when you probe beneath the totals, crimes of violence turn out to be up much MUCH more…
What’s that? Ah yes, of course - we’re not allowed to make that comparison because during the last ten years, the Home Office changed its counting rules for recorded crime not once, but twice. Twice. Is it any wonder nobody trusts the stats? (Burning our money)
Measuring crime stats is imprecise anyway - and always underestimates the level of crime because it is simply recorded crime that makes these statistics.
There is always the “dark figure” of crime, the crimes that are not reported to the police for various reasons - such as fear of reprisals from the criminals and concern over whether the police could or would bother to do anything about it. And with the way that the police appear to do so little about it at the moment - appearing to be more concerned with thought crime - the dark figure is inevitably huge.
To add to this is the lack of respect that is now given to the police by many sections of society, as exampled by this story:
Two police officers were attacked by a mob in south London after they asked a 15-year-old girl to pick up her litter.
One officer was dragged to the ground and kicked while the other was bitten by a girl who jumped on his back. (BBC)
How can it be claimed that crime is truly down when police officers are being attacked in this way?
11th June 2008 will be remembered. As the day when our elected representatives decided to remove our freedoms.
As strong as it may sound, our freedoms have died today. Because now we can be held for 42 days without charge if “terrorism” is mentioned as a reason. And we get £42,000 compensation if then released without charge. Scant compensation for such a breach of our human rights.
There is no case for 42 days. There has been no demand for it from the security services - and even if there had been, that doesn’t mean that we should give it to them. If other countries - including the US - believe that a third or less of that time is necessary, why are we going so far? What possible need is there?
ConservativeHome has never been more wrong than when it supported this bill.
should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. For they have, as Tony Benn put it [probably the first and last time I will ever agree with him] repealed the Magna Carta.
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The saying “lies, damn lies, and statistics” has never run truer than now, with the Home Secretaries statement that a 
Quiz time!
All frontline policemen are to be 
A leaked Home Office letter 
First they brought in the “plastic plod”, with little training and even fewer powers to put “a police presence” on the streets and save money at the same time.
999 should only be called in an emergency. Yet some, it appears, are more interested in a little bit of amusement for themselves:
11th June 2008 will be remembered. As the day when our elected representatives decided to remove our freedoms.
