UK Establishment: Stupid Buggers
You know that the government’s obsession with collecting data, controlling people and ensuring that New Britain is the most surveilled upon state in the world has gone too far when it leads to the possibility of terrorists and rapists and paedophiles being put back on the streets.
It has happened before, of course, when Charles Clarke was Home Secretary and thousands of prisoners were released to continue their crime sprees in Britain because it was too much bother to deport them, even though that was a condition of their release. John Reid failed to correct this government sponsored crime licence, but these were essentially errors of incompetence. The machinery of state grinding to a halt because nobody could be bothered to fill in the forms and post the letters.
In comparison, the apparatus of New Britain’s banana republic junta of politicians, police and any other penpushing jobsworths is a well-oiled machine.
To put you in the picture of how lowly in the establishment’s administrative food chain you can be and still have the authority to spy on other citizens, The Guardian offers this:
The commissioner’s [interception of communications commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy] report is as loud a wake-up call as this country has ever had about the creeping growth of modern big brother methods. He details how surveillance powers have been handed not just to MI5, GCHQ and the police but also to Revenue and Customs, the fire service, the prisons, the food standards authorities, the environment agency, health service trusts, the Post Office and councils. In all, he says, nearly 800 different bodies have access powers of some sort over our communications. More than 250,000 requests were made in the first nine months of 2007: an astonishing thousand new snoops every day of the year.
So, if you thought it was just mighty ministers and senior police who could open your letters and listen to your telephone calls and then only if you were a seriously suspicious terrorist suspect, forget it. The trolley collector at Tesco is probably scanning your emails this minute.
All of which might be fine if you subscribe to the view that this is needed to fight The War on Terror and you are convinced that any threat the government concocts is worth losing your freedoms over, but would you be happy if it meant real criminal being released from jail?
After it emerged that counter-terrorism officers probably secretly recorded MP Sadiq Khan’s conversations with a constituent - terrorist suspect Babar Ahmad - in the Buckinghamshire prison of Woodhill in 2005 and 2006, it has been claimed that prisoners’ conversations, perhaps with their legal representatives, are routinely bugged.
The problem is, this obsession with monitoring everything everyone does, whether they are still wandering the streets apparently freely or when they are imprisoned, could have severe legal implications, always assuming that New Briatin will remain governed by the due process of recognisable laws for a year or two yet.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw has so far mumbled and bluffed and obfuscated his way through this minefield with all the adroitness of a bull in a china shop.
The BBC has this:
Shadow home secretary David Davis said he was writing to the Justice Secretary Jack Straw demanding a full-scale investigation and said ministers must have been aware.
“It is inconceivable that this action has taken place without ministerial approval,” he said.
“Whilst there can be reasons for eavesdropping on legal meetings, it is such a serious infringement of people’s rights that there has to be a very good reason.
“It can put the trial at risk which means that serious crimes may go unpunished.”
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said if the latest allegations were true, fundamental legal procedures have been breached.
“We need an immediate inquiry into exactly what is going on.
“If that confirms these allegations, I think it’s the most astonishing and foolish policy that is going to prove to be totally counterproductive and quite calamitous.”
‘Furious reaction’
Senior British lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC said if the claims were true, they could lead to violent offenders being released.
“The end result… is that these cases will have to be brought back to court and in my view the courts will react with such fury as a matter of principle, those whose conversations were bugged will have to be let out,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay said: “The only surprise I have is that people are surprised.
“I and others have tried to draw attention to the abuse of powers by senior police officers over recent years, often only to be mocked.
“In my view this indefensible situation arises from the cocktail of supine ministers and the total absence of any Parliamentary oversight of the security and intelligence services.”
One of the tricks which Nazi Germany used to keep the people cowed and terrified was to ensure that everyone, from children upwards, was informing on everyone else.
Expect the government and police to set up phone lines for you to do the same.
Oh, that one is already covered, apparently.
Official: MPs Would Rob Taxpayers Blind, Given The Chance
The leeches and bloodsuckers who make up the assortment of otherwise unemployable has-beens and no-hopers of the mother of all Parliaments cannot be trusted with knowing how much their pilfering allowances might be, for fear that they would not be able to control their own lust for money, it has been revealed by one of their own number.
Commons finance chief Andrew Walker, in refusing to say what an MP could spend on one item an still get away with it, said: “My concern is that if we say the maximum price it will become the going rate.”
It is quite possible, therefore, that the tin of baked beans which MPs can buy with public money could, despite being available for between about 15 and 55 new pennies in a variety of shops, be claimed for to the tune of £249.99, as MPs are not required to submit a receipt for items valued at below 250 squid.
How many times a week can MPs make these spurious claims for non-existent expenditure at just below 250 pounds sterling? Nobody seems to have asked and probably nobody knows, but Andrew Walker admits that a system of oversight, checks and balances is not actually there at all.
“You don’t check they have actually spent the money on what they say they have spent it on - you just check the paper trail.”
We all know that MPs are not the cleverest people around, but perhaps somebody needs to tell this particular incompetent that if there is no need to offer a receipt, the paper trail goes pretty cold before it even starts.
But you knew that they are not really interested in controlling their own fleecing of the taxpayer, didn’t you? Whatever enquiry Michael Martin and his mates set in motion, you can be sure that it will conclude that everything is above board and satisfactory, but also noticing - quelle surprise! - that MPs are actually severely underpaid and need extra buckets of taxpayer swag to soften their arduous lives.
Keep Eurozone Blair-Free
If you subscribe to the view that Tony Blair’s whole life has been nothing more than a desperate attempt to make people love him, it is, of course, both a monumental and abject failure.
Not in the sense of being a tragic, heroic struggle played out on a stage of vast scale, but just a petty waste of everybody’s time - and, of course, a great many lives lost in an attempt to bolster the mental instabilities of a fundamentally small and inconsequential person, suffering from simple delusions of grandeur.
The sigh of relief when Blair finally left office was only saved from being deafening by the fact that the process took so long that everyone had given up holding their breath.
Off he went to perform a non-job to perpetuate the pretence of being a statesman and then the overriding love of money appeared as if it would finally take over as expected. Everyone thought that the world would be a safer place if he and his cronies simply thrust their snouts in the trough and we could be rid of the spectacle of a grinning imbecile at the helm of anything more significant than a pedallo.
Then he saw the job of Emperor of Europe advertised and obviously, lacking any sense of his own catalogue of incapabilities and probably thinking that his mate God would want him to take the job, he starts making overtures to secure it, despite the fact that nobody else thinks he should be in charge of anything beyond an end of pier whelk stall.
In The Guardian, Malcolm Rifkind said this:
Ultimately, however, the question is whether Blair is the appropriate person to do the job. The answer to that has to be no. At the time of the Iraq war, he divided Europe in a way not seen for 40 years. His foolish decision to side so unequivocally with George W Bush has damaged his own credibility across Europe to such an extent that he would find it difficult to forge a consensus on political issues or to speak on Europe’s behalf.
Blair’s own political record on Europe is hardly covered in glory. He came to office promising to put Britain at the heart of Europe. He left office with Britain no closer to Europe’s heart that when he began.
Which pretty much covers the whole of Blair’s record in office: empty promises, spin, sound, fury and artificial nonsense. Except, of course, in the case of war, where his achievements in getting millions of people killed are beyond doubt, but where the purported aim of bringing about a better regime has been a total failure.
Despite the fact that the Blair legacy for New Britain is nothing but eroded freedoms and a government dominated by a class of avaricous idiot never before seen in politics, there are some chaps who are helping you to have your voice heard with regard to whether Blair should be allowed to play any part in Europe’s forthcoming top job.
Stop Blair! is brought to you by The European Tribune and you can sign a petition if you agree with what they have to say about the grinning tea-boy who got promoted way beyond his level of abilities, which is this:
We, European citizens of all origins and of all political persuasions, wish to express our total opposition to the nomination of Tony Blair to the Presidency of the European Council.
The Treaty of Lisbon provides for the new post of President of the European Council, to be elected by the Council for a mandate, renewable once only, of two and a half years. Under the terms of the Treaty: “The President of the European Council shall chair it and drive forward its work” and “shall ensure the preparation and continuity of the work of the European Council”. Further, “The President of the European Council shall, at his level and in that capacity, ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy”.
The future President of the European Council will therefore have a key role in determining the policies of the European Union and its relations with the rest of the world. This first Council Presidency will also have a major symbolic weight for both citizens of the European Union and for the image of the Union in the rest of the world. In this perspective, we believe it is essential that the first president embodies the spirit and values of the European project.
For some time now, increasingly insistent news reports have made evident a wish, in some quarters, to see Tony Blair appointed the first President of the European Council. This appointment, were it to take place, would be in total contradiction with the values professed by the European project.
In violation of international law, Tony Blair committed his country to a war in Iraq that a large majority of European citizens opposed. This war has claimed hundreds of thousands of victims and displaced millions of refugees. It has been a major factor in today’s profound destabilisation of the Middle East, and has weakened world security. In order to lead his country into war, Mr Blair made systematic use of fabricated evidence and the manipulation of information. His role in the Iraq war would weigh heavily on the image of the Union in the world, should he in fact be named its president.
The steps taken by Tony Blair’s government, and his complicity with the Bush administration in the illegal programme of “extraordinary renditions”, have led to an unprecedented decline in civil liberties. This is in contradiction with the terms of the European Convention of Human Rights, which is an integral part of the treaty.
The European Charter of Fundamental Rights formalises the founding values of the European project and is one of the pillars of the new treaty. Tony Blair fought its inclusion in the Treaty of Lisbon, and eventually managed to secure an exemption for the UK.
Rather than move European integration forward, the former British Prime Minister set a series of so-called red lines during the Lisbon negotiations, with the intent of blocking any progress in social issues and tax harmonisation, as well as common defence and foreign policy.
Furthermore, it seems unthinkable that the first President of the European Council should be the former head of a government that kept its country out of two key elements of the construction of Europe: the Schengen area of free movement of people and the Euro zone.
At a time when one of the priorities of the European institutions is to reconnect with its citizens, we believe it is essential that the President of the European Council should be a person with whom a majority of citizens can identify, rather than one rejected by a majority. Therefore, we declare our total opposition to this nomination.
- Treaty of Lisbon, Article 1, point 16, inserting Article 9 B into the Treaty on European Union, points 5 and 6 (2007/C 306/17, 18)
- Blair sets out EU treaty demands, BBC, June 2007
- Table 6 in FT/Harris poll, June 2007
-
Recent Posts
-
About and Stuff
At the moment it is about wondering whether this is really such a good idea after all.
Site Podcasts 
Audio RSS Feed
-
Popular Tags
anti-terror laws banking bankrupt britain Business catastrophe conspiracy corporatism corruption crime and punishment cyber crime data loss data loss scandal deception delusions disasters dodgy deals failure fiasco freedom free markets george bush gordon brown government Home Office human rights hypocrisy ID cards idiocy imbeciles incompetence Jacqui Smith jobs for the boys lies market forces money New Britain New Labour NHS politicians scandal stupidity tony blair untrustworthiness War on Terror