Yep. Because, increasingly, the State is taking it upon itself to prescribe what 'everyday business' actually is.

Pull up a sandbag, but when I was a kid each and every adult in our village just assumed as a matter of course that part of their 'everyday business' was challenging misbehaving kids and unruly adults. Can you honestly say that's the case today? Quite apart from the high likelihood of a kicking, the Forces of Law and What's-that-old-fashioned-concept-again don't take kindly to people usurping their role, even when they aren't there to do it themselves.

Do you not think it in the slightest bit odd that someone raised in the liberal-democratic tradition with all the parcel of assumptions and preferences that entails can feel that the police in a totalitarian dictatorship are more supportive of their basic rights than are the ones at home? I wouldn't trust the Jing Cha to run a complex investigation, but no matter where I go - including desperately poor areas where the PLA was still fighting running battles with bandit clans into the '70s - I feel safe from robbery and violence, and so does everyone else. I wish I could say the same about the UK.

The RBS pension thing - ffs. cyclops is 'very angry' and will do 'everything' to make sure he doesnt get it.

like what?? it was YOU and YOUR cronies that encouraged the banks to behave the way they did in the first place, and while it looked like everything was going swimmingly you were quite happy to make out it was all down to your inspired stewardship of the economy. the minute it goes tits up, you try and claim it was all the fault of those nasty men in the US and nothing to do with you.

and now, with Jackboot Jacqui getting caught with not only her hand but both arms in the till, and STILL insisting everything she did was above board, you want to take this guys pension off him? fair enough, I dont agree with him getting a payoff either, but lets look at two things -

YOU were daft enough to have your ministers sign off on the deal (you knew none of this was coming of course - yeah, yeah. we believe you) giving him cash when everything was not far off hitting the wall.

your government is one of the sleaziest, most corrupt, grabbing bunch of hypocrites going. do you honestly think fred is doing anything but following the example his political masters have set?

I think the Tories are keeping their powder dry. This is the longest serving socialist government in our history, the experiment will never be repeated, you couldn't fcuk it up as much with a brewery of whisky and an Afghanistan of smack even if you tried. Labour are destined for the bin of history. I predict - god forgive me for saying it - the LIb Dems will replace them at the next election as the second party.

The down side of course is a generation will need to repay the debt!!!

That'll cost you a fine on the Ypres tour - a brewery of whisky indeed! It is of cours e adist ........

Ah fuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggg iiiiiitttttttttttt

If you try to tell someone off and they give you a kicking then there is nothing any civil liberty will do to help you in that moment in time.

Much of China I suspect (never been) is still based around a traditional structure. Women look after the family, all the men work at the local steel mill, children are expected to look after the parents. That's great for social order but has its downside in economic and social terms. Women are stuck at home, a single monolithic employer is likely to wreck the local areas when it closes (see UK mining towns) and children are wedded to looking after parents that are likely to live until there children are in their 60s and have their lives ruined.

If you want to move on from that there is a price to pay and that is the losening of the social bonds. The downside is that both families and communities fracture and there is less of a united effort to control the undesirables. The trouble with that is that the vulnerable and innocent also have no one to protect them. The natural instinct of the law is to go after those who can't protect themselves. To counter that you need to enforce a rigid system of rights that are a pain in the arrse when dealing with the guity. I've no desire to go back to the days when the plods used to see giving a kicking to the local (insert person/group without protection and vaugly associated with the offence in question here) as the answer.

I'm sure the Chinese police are good at protecting your rights, but just be greatful you're not on the wrong end of the social structure that allows it, or on the list of the local 'usual suspects'.

linky no worky

the search on the article on timesonline doesnt work either.

conspiracy!

A very well-written and perceptive article. "They" are looking to reintroduce various nefarious clauses into the Coroners and Justice Bill, such as secret inquests, which were kicked out at earlier stages. "They" won't be happy until every aspect of our lives is under scrutiny, and we can be investigated and punished according to "their" subjective opinion rather than clearly defined rights.

We're approaching a tipping point. We may have passed it, with the Damian Green affair. The question is this: will the democratic process intervene before the point of no return is reached? I hope it will and I think the Tories will roll back many of these iniquitous laws - David Davis is a constant advocate of liberties and the Tories won't survive their first party conference if they don't keep the silent and toiling middle classes happy.

In the absence of the above there are two main flashpoints - the election and ID cards. It is conceivable, albeit remote, that "they" could suspend the election or call for some sort of national unity government. If that ever happened (unlikely but "they" will have thought of it) then we'll see mass protests and a (mostly) peaceful overthrow of the illegitimate government. If "they" somehow win the election (without rigging it) then the next battleground would be ID cards although I can't see how "they"could be re-elected unless there was some sort of mass conversion to Neu Arbeit and all its values (drugging the water supply?)

I was planning on attending the Glasgow liberty convention, but work got in the way and my company are making me go to the rugby and drink alcohol with clients tomorrow. There will be plenty more outlets for opposition as the months pass....

Try Here.

strange site but cheers!

That’s rather missing the point. If someone attempts to give out a kicking for being told off in the PRC, the teller-off will be perfectly entitled to respond in kind and should they win out the legal system will be on their side 100%. The loser will have brought it on themselves in official eyes for having started the fight. How many times have their British counterparts been branded ‘vigilantes’ and prosecuted?


That’s not the case at all, I’m afraid, but not relevant to the substance of this thread. PM to follow.


None of which addresses the point of the UKs official effort being directed at monitoring and controlling their own population in a manner traditionally associated with totalitarian regimes.


And that’s where we’re going wrong here in the UK. The habitual criminals can protect themselves from much official attention simply by being much harder to prosecute than ordinary folk who make a one-off slip.


My in-law are “on the wrong end of the social structure” if you want to call it that and I have a good many friends and colleagues in the PRC. If they’re united in one criticism of the west it’s that our legal system has no respect for the victim. I find it increasingly hard to defend it against that charge.

Hmm

good article, but I must admit some of those laws are very good and useful pieces of law.

The Protection from Harassment acts prevents stalkers from stalking, or ex partners from harassing their exes.

The Anti social behaviour act also gives powers to shut down crack houses which are causing misery in otherwise nice areas.

but the rest of it is true.

Agreed, though they better start talking soon, the euro elections are in 3 months, libdem and ZanuLab will be fighting it out for 2nd place, but the libs will only snatch 2nd with a Troy landslide and good tactical voting.

As for the debt, chances are if inflation flatlines the BoE will simply print money and buy chunks of it from HMG, if only to keep inflation from going negative, which would really f**k things up (can you imagine trying to cut the minimum wage, it would make the poll tax riots look like a teddybears picnic)

I wonder how much Blair's pension is worth.

Jack Straw says yer wrong....

Then begins his article by telling you how we have more freedom than asylum seekers and muslims.

What an utter, utter cnut.

I'm sure if he bothered to ask any of his English constituents he'd get a different answer. 'We can vote them out' hardly explains why power has been handed to an unelected EU.

As for Labour's achievements, what the hell does he think they are? A ruined economy, failing education and the emasculation of the armed services are not achievements.

The only thing they've achieved is having new Labours collective snouts in the trough at our expense.

This elegant and powerful prose has now been removed from the 'Times online website'.

It has also been 'scrubbed' from Google Cache

I reproduce it here protected under Article 10(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1953 as incorporated under section 1(1)(a) Human Rights Act 1998.

Those who care about these things might like to copy it and email it to everyone in their address book with a request that it be similarly passed on. It is generally polite to attribute the work to the author.


"Are such things done on Albion’s shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don’t know who you are

You’re mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don’t want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation’s dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don’t mind if we are. They don’t think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as:

the Protection from Harassment Act (1997),
the Crime and Disorder Act (1998),
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000),
the Terrorism Act (2000),
the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001),
the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001),
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002),
the Criminal Justice Act (2003),
the Extradition Act (2003),
the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003),
the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004),
the Civil Contingencies Act (2004),
the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005),
the Inquiries Act (2005),
the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005),

not to mention a host of pending legislation such as

the Identity Cards Bill,
the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum

Pray what reason did the Times have for removing this article?

Reading the comments under Jack Straws article is fun, not one positive that I could find.

I found one - we can vote them out at the next Election - and we will!

Didn't you mean "persecuted"?

What a chilling message.

It ought to be put on the front page of the next Conservative and LibDem manifestos