How far a Police State?

Garp · How far a Police State?

Has our "democracy" reached rock bottom yet, or do we still have further to plunge? I suspect, that with a General Election on the horizon, new depths of sleaze, brutality, leaks and skulduggery are to be exposed from all sides. This is not an election that I look forward to. At a time when the country needs strong policy and leadership, we are instead delivered mind games, sleaze and underhandedness from the very centre of government. The focus from mainstream parties is clearly not on policy and solutions, but on how best to discredit the other side.

If only there were a viable alternative to the tarnished mainstream political options we currently have to choose from. Perhaps it is time for proportional representation, and a system whereby MP’s from all sides are forced to work together, or risk losing their jobs. Or perhaps our politicians are no longer able to behave in a manner appropriate to their standing in public office, and that some of us have expectations from these people that they cannot deliver.

This week has proved that the politicisation of the Civil Service, an organisation that is publicly funded and meant to "serve" is clearly incapable of acting with intergrity and impartiality. Is it even capable of serving public interest, when Whitehall is no longer the centre of public service, but a base for toady hand ringing sycophants and political wannabees?

In just 7 days we have seen and read about the mechanics and personnel involved in the Downing Street sleaze machine. A team handpicked and overseen by Brown. We have waited a week for Brown to apologise to nation, let alone to the people that his team fabricated and circulated lies about.

We have seen instances of police brutality leading to one death, and another with a female victim being assaulted. An opposition MP has been cleared by the CPS of any wrongdoing following a raid on his parliamentary offices (an act unprecedented since we became a democracy) and many have argued that, as an opposition MP, he had a public duty to do exactly as he did.

And in the news today, local councils are using CCTV footage “big brother” style, to spy on members of the public, and to bring charges for such serious offences as putting a wheelie bin out on the wrong day.

Sometimes it is hard to remember where we are meant to be. In a police state more akin to Moscow 1930’s style, or in a free thinking and democratic UK?

Nicked the article below from a rag on’t net somewhere

Police who arrested the Conservative frontbencher Damian Green trawled his private e-mails looking for information on Britain’s leading civil liberties campaigner.

Officers from Scotland Yard’s antiterrorism squad searched the computer seized from his parliamentary office using the key words “Shami Chakrabarti” – even though the Liberty director had nothing to do with the leaking of Home Office documents that prompted the investigation.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Green warned that his arrest and the raids on his Commons office and homes smacked of a “police state”. The Tory immigration spokesman said that Ms Chakrabarti’s name had been one of the keywords used to go through e-mails and computer documents going back several years.

“This feels to me like a fishing expedition on somebody who embarrasses the government of the day,” he said. “That’s very disturbing.”

The revelation will fuel claims that Mr Green’s arrest, and the police investigation into Home Office leaks, were politically motivated.

Ms Chakrabarti said she had never been approached by the police as part of their inquiry and was alarmed to learn that her name had been used as a key search word. “I think this raises very serious questions about just how politicised, even McCarthyite, this operation was,” she said.

The Government was accused last year of trying to “smear” the Liberty director after Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, said that she had “late-night, hand-wringing, heart-melting phone calls” with David Davis, the former Shadow Home Secretary who resigned over the 42-day detention row.

This week the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, threw out the case against Mr Green, who was accused of encouraging a Home Office civil servant, Christopher Galley, to hand over confidential documents. Mr Green said serious questions remained about the handling of the case by the police and the Government. “This was the first time since we became a democracy that an opposition MP had been arrested for political work,” he said. “Arresting opposition politicians is something you associate with police states. We should be very vigilant that we don’t take steps towards that and this was quite a significant step towards it.” Mr Green said he found it surprising that the police had not informed the Home Secretary that they were about to arrest a Shadow frontbencher. “I have spoken to former senior ministers of both parties and everyone says, ‘Of course we would have been told’ ” he said.

Jacqui Smith, who has insisted that she did not know about the arrest in advance, is facing Tory calls to make a statement on the case when Parliament returns after the Easter recess this week. Mr Green stopped short of calling for the Home Secretary to resign but said: “It’s clear that the Home Office is not well run, which in the end is her responsibility.”

Mr Green also criticised Bob Quick, the former head of Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad, saying: “You can’t generalise but there are policemen who have got too close to the Government of the day.”

He was pleased that Mr Quick, who authorised his arrest, had resigned on another matter this month. “I thought that he shouldn’t be in charge of the anti-terror squad because the day they arrested me was the day of the Mumbai bombings. Al-Qaeda might have been trying to do a worldwide spectacular. It did seem to me that to have 25 of the anti-terror squad going through my bank statements and my bed was not what the head of the anti-terror squad should have wanted.”

Mr Green highlighted a series of failings in the police investigation, revealing that officers surrounded the wrong house in his constituency until he took them to his home.

The MP added that it was wrong for the House of Commons authorities to allow the police to search his parliamentary office without a warrant. “There never was and never would be any threat to national security from me,” he said. “If I received information that I thought was a threat to national security, of course I wouldn’t put it in the public domain.”

Police searches of his homes left him feeling as if he had been burgled, he said. Officers rifled through his love letters to his wife and reduced his 15-year-old daughter to tears. His wife, Alicia Collinson, said that the officers had told her that they would have taken a sledgehammer to the door if she hadn’t been at home. “The whole place feels tainted,” she said. “They went through the most personal things. They took photographs as they were working their way through the house. Every so often I find myself doing something and thinking ‘They have pictures of this now.’ ”

She told the Daily Mail that officers leafed through her daughter’s recorder music book. “What on earth they thought they would find . . . It was like being burgled and having to watch.”

Scotland Yard refused to comment last night on Mr Green’s remarks.

raveydavey

These are worrying times and that for sure.

raveydavey

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/16/police-delete-tourist-photos

You genuinely couldn't make it up. How the hell have we allowed things to get to this point?

eddiesleftfoot

raveydavey

http://www.statebook.co.uk/

Shocked

Garp

What is that? A spoof? I hope so Shocked

raveydavey

It shows just how much information is held on you, and every one of us by the 'powers that be'.

ArmleyWhite

It will get worse as well. We are heading, like an excocet towards a royal naval vesel to the one world order and a state people only think can happen in books (1984)

Eddie is bang on about this country being dumbed down. It's all happening for a reason. To make you all so apathetic that when the final control comes you'll not even notice it untill it's all to late.

There are those that rubbish such claims rememebr the words of the great Benjamin Franklin

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"

Also remember, for those of you happy to sit and watch total bolox on the tele, safe and secure in your "castles" pouring greif over non entities.

"When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered"

raveydavey

Is this really where we are heading? Have we learned nothing?

ArmleyWhite