Labour’s Law and Order
Labour has changed the law, and free-born Englishmen and women can no longer walk a few hundred paces down the Queen’s pavement to Downing Street to protest at the closure of their local hospitals.
This government seems to suffer from a kind of schizophrenia in its approach to the Criminal Justice System
I want them to worry about the whereabouts of these thugs and creeps, and on that matter they showed a profound indifference
Labour’s law – just squawk loudly and take no action
It was when the policeman coughed quietly at my shoulder and said that I was breaking the law that I knew the game was up. When you get to my stage in life, you cease to get that thrill out of being arrested. I had to turn and face the throng, who were trying to march with me from College Green, Westminster, to Downing Street. Sorry, folks, I was forced to announce.
About turn! Labour has changed the law, and free-born Englishmen and women can no longer walk a few hundred paces down the Queen’s pavement to Downing Street to protest at the closure of their local hospitals.
Actually, I had to bawl the message at the top of my lungs, because Labour’s new measures against civil protest mean that you cannot use a loudhailer. As we all saw at the Labour Party conference, you can’t heckle a cabinet minister any more without the risk of being arrested under section 44 of some swingeing new anti-heckler act.
You can’t smoke in public. You can’t legally hunt foxes, in the way that people have been doing in this country for hundreds of years. Naturally, I lack the courage to smack my own children, but anyone who is forced to that regrettable expedient will find that new laws proscribe any chastisement that leaves bruising or discoloration.
If you try to stop an inspector pushing his way unexpected into your kindergarten, you face a fine of £2,500. You can have your DNA held on a government database, and very shortly you will no longer be able to apply for a new passport without being obliged to fork out vast sums for an ID card. You can’t replace your own window in your own home without some kind of inspection, and you certainly can’t change a switch in the kitchen.
You can’t put a union flag on your locker without the risk that you will be prosecuted for racial discrimination. You can be extradited to the United States without any prima facie evidence that you have committed a crime at all, let alone in America. You can lose your driving licence for a collection of comparatively trivial speeding offences, provided that they have all been recorded on camera.
You can’t say anything that might be construed as inspiring “religious hatred”, even though the Koran is full of stuff that plainly falls into that category. You can’t “glorify” terrorism, even though there are plenty of people in this country who have just celebrated the anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916. You can’t even say that a police horse is “gay” without being arrested and prosecuted for homophobia.
And yet, if you are a foreign criminal, and you are convicted of a very serious offence such as murder or rape, you can serve your time in a British jail and then just melt back into the landscape to re-offend, even though the courts may have specifically ordered that you be considered for deportation.
Anyone looking at Charles Clarke yesterday, and listening to his tragic statement, will have been baffled above all by the inconsistency. This government seems to suffer from a kind of schizophrenia in its approach to the Criminal Justice System. On the one hand it seems to be ostentatiously tyrannical, and never happier than when criminalising some course of human conduct.
In the past eight years, Labour has created between 700 and 1,000 new criminal offences, and the jails are now so full that prisoners are bunking up in police cells and being shuttled around the country. Which makes it all the more incredible that in this basic matter of protecting the public the Home Office should act with this ineffable apathy. How can it be?
How can such unbelievable lassitude afflict a government that is supposed to be tough on crime? The answer, of course, is that the Government is not so much interested in being tough on crime, as in being seen to be tough. It is not about the results; it is not about the exact legal effect of the Bills they enact.
It is about the mood music, the reassuring psychological impact on the poor frightened voter of all this government legislation being pushed through the Commons with symphonic vigour, even if it has very little impact on criminals or terrorists.
That is why Blair humiliated Clarke, and insisted that there should be a ban on “glorifying” terrorism. He knew that it was a semantic mush; he knew that it would be impossible to enforce, or at least arbitrary in the enforcement. But he also knew that the focus groups wanted something to be done about the “preachers of hate”, and though there was already plenty of useful law on the statute book, he wanted something to show, and the miserable Clarke delivered it.
Labour continues to use ever more new legislation as a kind of rhetorical tool, a parliamentary squawk to indicate its attitudes, while totally neglecting to use and enforce the existing law. It didn’t care about the 1,023 foreign criminals who were released back into the community, because they were covered by existing legislation. These criminals couldn’t form the basis for some new headline-grabbing measure or eye-catching initiative.
Their deportation was part of the grindingly hard and tedious business of government, and yet the Home Secretary does not even know where they are, or how he or his services can hope to find them again.
This is a government that is in the process of setting up an insane Common Agricultural Policy-style database of every child in the country. That’s right: hundreds of millions of pounds are to be spent on a register of the details of millions of blameless, innocent unthreatened children, because the Children’s Lobby wants it, and the Government is keen to push out an initiative called “Every Child Matters”.
There surely, is all the evidence you need that the Government is in the last stages of schizophrenia. They insist on knowing the whereabouts of all our children, up to the age of 18, while 1,000 criminals roam free. I don’t want them worrying about where to find my children; I want them to worry about the whereabouts of these thugs and creeps, and on that matter they showed a profound indifference.
171 Comments
Thank you. Indeed, who would question the metatarsils of an MP? Has the press no shame?
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and the most hilarious tackle ever:
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It is if you work for Prescott.
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That tackle has made my week!!
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Raincoaster : You paint a grisly picture : The Fat Pie Adonis using his head to ball . Ugh!
Kieron :
That is precisely what The Fat Controller said when he was in flagrante with whatsherface.
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‘Conservative leader David Cameron said it was a “personal” matter but “he looks like a damn fool”.’ Now was that pants-down Prezza he was referring to – or bonking Boris?
And yes, Boris’s great tackle – at least that’s what someone at the Times Higher is alleged to have said…
Let’s face up to it, you can slag off Prezza for letting his libido do the walking – but let’s not forget others are prone to the same folly.
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Not entirely relevant to this thread but your tackle last night made my life. I haven’t laughed so hard in years, Thanks Boris!!
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I think Prezza’s problem is a bit more of a problem for the citizens of the UK in that he was availing himself of one or more government-employee hose monkeys on the taxpayer’s dime. And also that ridiculous picture of “the happy family” that came out on the weekend.
And he kept the office door open…a man like that deserves to be outed. The poor ones who had to answer phones and type while THAT was going on in the background…ew.
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Clarification.
I would suggest that “Sea and Cake”‘s reference to ‘laughing at Boris’s tackle’ was in reference to Mr Johnson’s appearance in a football match, not a sleazy colloquialism.
Keep it up chaps, we have almost hijacked this thread.
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Oh lord, I’m inadvertently giving the News of the World about all they need for a Bozza cover story.
I’ll be more careful when analysing Johnson’s tackle in future….
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Oh no, not again!!
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Yes, the happy family man charade: as if politicians who’ve fooled around – and yet have young children at home – don’t play that trick… Now, who could I be thinking of?
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Matters could hardly get more personal than than they were in The DPM’s office, excepting for the added frisson of the possibility of being caught at it with the door ajar.
Highly public then , I would have thought.
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That’s the great thing about blogs. You can beat the mainstream press to the punch.
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I learned everything I know about editing from the Mirror by the way.
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OT: Boris playing football!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWIUp19bBoA
Lets start a petition for him to replace Rooney!
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Thanks, Paddy! It KILLS me that I didn’t know about this thing–I was at the B&Q behind Madejski Stadium while this was going on. Just think–I could’ve been watching that glorious moment of sport live instead of purchasing cable ties from a a woman in an orange smock. . .
Hooray for Youtube!
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amazing tackle was watching it with several politically apathetic friends at the pub. following the tackle they pledged to vote Conservative today
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Hi Vicus
You are a serious angel for suggesting this.
The charity is Red Cross and am asking the organisers (alice [Email address: alice #AT# toastevents.com - replace #AT# with @ ]) how to get it to them
M.
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Hi Melissa
Just thought it would be good to have a specific Boris contribution from all of his fans (and me) after his efforts last night. If there is not a way of doing this, then I can give you the links for the Bobby Moore Fund and the Red Cross donations page for those who want to contribute after seeing his efforts last night.
Is there any chance of his tackling Jack Straw in the Commons using the same technique?
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Boris can tackle me anytime!
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Vicus, there’s a problem with your second suggestion: One of the biggest problems with politicians is that there are so few with any balls to speak of. Boris can’t hit an invisible target.
This is probably of no interest to anyone but moi, but my blog entry on Boris is the #2 most popular on the blog today, trailing the streaming eagle camera by three lengths but still well ahead of porn stars who find god and Shakespeare. FYI.
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Lady Catherina de Luxemburger – he probably has already…
Have you seen he’s written a follow up to his last novel? It’s called 23 Virgins – it was going to be 72 Virgins Part II, but they’d all spent an evening at the Spectator party…
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I’m not sure whether that’s going to half or double your chances of getting an invite to the next one…do let us know.
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I’ve been once – I’m afraid the pace is far too hot for me and I wouldn’t go back again. Let me tell you, they could teach the keeper of the Seraglio a thing or two..
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72 to begin with… then down to 23 ? Good Lord!
I know I sound like a slut, but I’m above all that honestly.
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As there appears to be no specific link on the Red Cross site for the Boris Johnson Football Hero appeal, then please follow this link to make a donation Red Cross
The other charity supported was the Bobby Moore Cancer Appeal:
Bobby Moore
(All gate receipts from the match went to these two charities).
As there is no way of mentioning Boris in your donation, then you will have to be altruistic about it and give some money anyway. Conservative voters will have to look up the definition of ‘altruistic’.
UK tax payers (I suppose that marginalises the Tories as well) please remember to use the gift aid option.
Please do it now.
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In those days The Spectator was owned by a Canadian, of course, and we all know what they’re like…
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Some of us know Canadians intimately.
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^ just to clarify, I didn’t mean all of them.
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Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti: Tempus abire tibi est, as I always have to say to my Canadian friends, though the Spectator gang beat them hands down (especially if they ask nicely)at this sort of thing…
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Ed W
That’s some good food for thought. I’m not to sure about the Brussels tunnel, now that they are planning one from Spain to Morocco one ‘chunnel’ is more than enough. I can’t help thinking that she would just kind of bounce down such a tunnel anyway rather than fall and would need one of those inflatable ‘human hamster’ balls (and get stuck in the middle anyway). Although this might be a good idea in a few respects for the Greenwich to the Antipodies Islands tunnel that Idlex proposed:
a) It will be easy to pack some food for the journey.
b) If they don’t manage to catch her at the other end and she does end up stuck in the middle we can just chuck in another politician (say Prescott) in another human hamster ball to try and get her moving again.
c) We won’t have to worry about them being dashed off the sides of the tunnel.
I still can’t get my head around imagining that anything other than them all ending up stuck in the middle, no matter how many of them we chuck down the hole. I guess it could always be fitted out with some kind of device to make sure they do all get pushed out the other end if needs be, magnets perhaps?
So if a space shuttle can stop it’s passengers burning up on re-entry would it be possible to build this tunnel so that the ‘jumpers’ don’t get burned up on their way down? Or to that matter does anyone know what’s in the middle of the Moon?
Some kind of world-wide project like that might really unite people and make people want to vote (for who gets chucked down the hole that is).
Text ‘VOTEPRESCOTT’ to ……
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Manx: So how IS old Conrad these days?
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Conrad? He’s suffering from a heart of darkness.
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Nothing new there then. Maybe if it gets really bad he could get a job at the Post.
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ATTENTION ALL!!!!
As the more perceptive of you may have noticed, this government (i use the term loosely – pathetic dictatorial corrupt a***wipes is more appropriate) have BANNED all protest within a kilometre of Parliament. Boris himself almost fell foul of this on the recent C.H.A.N.T. march.
This law was brought in to end the protest of just one man; Brian Haw.
Brian has been protesting against the Iraq war since the very outset. His presence is a constant embarrassment to Bliar, so our murdering meddling PM had a law enacted just to get rid of him.
Mr Haw appealed (and won) against this law. The government have just had this appeal overturned.
Is it any wonder that people no longer take an interest in politics when the government goes out of its way to illegitamise any opposition or protest?
I ask all readers of this post to contact their MPs at the soonest possible opportunity, protesting against the murder of democracy by this self-serving and corrupt bunch of thieving murderous war-mongering c***s who call themselves The Labour Party, our government.
I have spent my life as a peacable citizen…but give me a rifle and i will shoot that bastard Blair. Not between the eyes (they are too close together – besides, his brains are clearly in his ar*e), but somewhere that will guarantee a slow and painful death.
He steals freedoms, orders the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men women and children, and smiles whilst he does it. And we let him get away with it.
So, tell your representatives that we have a RIGHT to protest, and the seat of power should not be immune as a venue. Only a cowardly murderous liar need hide. As only a cowardly murderous liar IS hiding – in his anti-democratic protest-free zone.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!
(rant over…anyone got a large towel i can borrow to clear up all the vitriol and spittle that appears to be drenching my keyboard?)
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Who cares about Brian Haw Haw; what did any of your elected MPs do to stop the war? Parliament is only an anti-democratic zone because MPs – Tory as well as Labour – were in agreement that they wanted to bash the Iraqis (it’s only those ghastly unreconstructed Lefties who really dissented from this and represented a true ‘opposition’ – they are the real democrats, not your snivelling little toadies from places like Folkestone and Henley…)
You drone on about democracy. This government was re-elected just a year ago; that’s democracy, having to stomach what you don’t like but being determined to vote them out next time – which will happen if the people of our great country say ‘so be it’. We had to live through 11 years of Thatcher and 5 years – god help us – of John Major. But the buggers were kicked out right enough when the time came. The same thing will happen with Labour. You call yourself a democrat but crumple up in the face of an election defeat (ie democracy in action) like a used Kllenex, and talk of reaching for the rifle. That’s the craven response of impotent anti-democratic loonies who don’t understand the system and want to hurry along their own agenda. ‘Fine words butter me no parsnips’, as John Major brilliantly put it. And neither do moronic griping weasly ones either…
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Actually, it was almost seven years of John Major. A great prime minister – if you’re a parsnip, that is.
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I disagree. Parsnips had a bad time under the Major government, losing their disability rights and being forced to go out begging on the street. It created enormous social unrest and a 7% increase in the number of so-called ‘roasting’ incidents.
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Well, they had it coming. Bloody parsnips, you know.
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Manxcat:
The MPs that voted for the war did so as they were fed altered intelligence (lies, in other words) by Bliar.
The tories WON the last general election in England, but Liebore remain in power due to ridiculous Scottish constituencies consisting of 30 or 40 drunken english-hating Scottish idiots.
And a bullet in the B*ll*cks is almost certainly the only thing that would ever get through to Bliar…
As to “who cares about Brian Haw Haw”: I’ll assume your pointless insult of his name was a typo. Or are you really the inbred idiot you appear after such a ridiculous statement?
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Psimon – you seem to think insults and crudity are an acceptable replacement for argument. But as I’ve told you before, the Tory Party leader went on record last year as saying he would have gone to war anyway, because the fact is he was as desperate to suck up to Bush as was Blair. And your man from Henley is of the same ilk. Your concern for those hundreds of thousands Blair “ordered” to be killed (that many? where’s the statistic from?) is touching. Do you think Howard and the Tories would have done anything different?
I also didn’t realise that those who sit in Parliament Square and protest against the government were beyond criticism. Some might well see any action that serves to undermine our boys in the field in times of war as treacherous… And might I add that when you look at the foul-mouthed garbage you’ve spouted here against Blair I would have to ask what’s going on in your sick mind: just think about what you’ve written. Is it meant to be funny? It’s not, I can tell you. Maybe you’re a genuine psycho, and this stuff really is a fantasy that turns around in your mind. I hope not for your sake.
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Manxcat – I think I see the point you’re making. Here’s Boris only last year:
“Yesterday the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi – formerly a fervent supporter of the war – announced that it was pulling the 3,000 Italians out, in response to the killing of an Italian security operative at the hands of American troops. I think that is sad and regrettable. Something very remarkable is happening in Baghdad, and whatever the rights and wrongs of the war, those of us who were involved in it should stay until this nascent democracy is safe.
As I poked through one of Saddam’s bunkers yesterday morning, I came across a reminder of how much has been achieved, and why it was right to do it. It was a fantastic bunker, built by the Germans, with three-ton steel doors supplied by the Swiss. There were map rooms and war rooms and huge untouched generators, machines built by Siemens of Germany and Bobinindus of Belgium, so colossal that they had defeated even the looters. There were emergency operating rooms, and places where corpses were allegedly stored.
But as we poked around with our torches, the spookiest detail we discovered concerned the security system. Saddam cared so much about his bunker, and so little about the loss of human life, that he had installed a system to combat fire. As soon as there was the risk of losing the premises, they were automatically programmed to fill with halon gas, suppressing oxygen – and killing any human being left in his creepy passages. That is the kind of man he was, and the kind of regime he ran: where people could not only be tortured and killed, but where the safety of his employees counted for nothing.
And why did they count for nothing? Because they could not vote to punish him for his madness. That is why we need to keep working to make this democracy thrive in Iraq, and that is why it is so wrong of the Italians to retire. As it happens, Mr Berlusconi was wrong in his whole handling of the rescue of Giuliana Sgrena. By paying a huge ransom to the kidnappers, he merely added incentive to the nutcases to kidnap others; he raised the risks for the hundreds of British, among others, who are struggling to help rebuild the country.
Efforts to provide water, sewers and electricity are already being hampered by the need for every Western worker to be accompanied by his or her own private security detail, composed of hugely competent Ulstermen with shades and pistols on their thighs. The security problems are not only frightening; they are frighteningly expensive. We need Western troops to remain here until the Iraqis are capable of fighting the terrorists themselves. The day may not be far off, but in the meantime I did not meet a single person here who wanted us to leave – far from it – or who regretted the change we have brought about.
Having started this operation, whatever its faults, we have a moral duty to help see it through. If that means sending more British troops to make up for the Italian deficiency, we may have to do it – and there would be many brave Brits in Iraq who would agree.”
You have to say, that’s an eloquent defence of Britain’s involvement in Iraq – it seems it was a legitimate conquest in order to install democracy! This certainly doesn’t give me confidence that the Conservatives have any intention of ending our presence there. In fact, quite the opposite. It must be nice for Bliar to know he has at least one chap on his side, though… Or has Boris changed his mind yet again on this one?
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< you seem to think insults and crudity are an acceptable replacement for argument.
How did i insult you? And where did crudity REPLACE argument?
< But as I’ve told you before, the Tory Party leader went on record last year as saying he would have gone to war anyway, because the fact is he was as desperate to suck up to Bush as was Blair. And your man from Henley is of the same ilk.
And this makes it ok, does it? Fool!
< Your concern for those hundreds of thousands Blair “ordered” to be killed (that many? where’s the statistic from?) is touching. Do you think Howard and the Tories would have done anything different?
Regardless, killing people so you can steal their resources is bad, m’kay?
< I also didn’t realise that those who sit in Parliament Square and protest against the government were beyond criticism.
You didn’t criticise, you chose a pointless insult. And the main point is that protest outside parliament would only be made illegal by a government that had much to hide, surely?
< Some might well see any action that serves to undermine our boys in the field in times of war as treacherous…
I fully support “our boys”, its the thieving gits that gave the orders for them to be involved in an illegal war in the first place i have a grudge against.
< And might I add that when you look at the foul-mouthed garbage you’ve spouted here against Blair I would have to ask what’s going on in your sick mind: just think about what you’ve written. Is it meant to be funny?
The language is merely accentuating the depth of feeling i have against this dictatorial totatilitarian freedom-taker you seem to admire so much.
< It’s not, I can tell you. Maybe you’re a genuine psycho, and this stuff really is a fantasy that turns around in your mind. I hope not for your sake.
Go look up “Martin Niemoller”
/rolls eyes
/dispairs of idiots
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Psimon, please don’t descend to the level of using “Mkay” in any form. You’re above all that.
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For an idiot who thinks it’s ok to talk about shooting people in the crotch, I’d say nothing’s above ol’ Psimon. He also thinks that because I object to him talking about shooting someone in the crotch that I must be an admirer of that person (‘Fool!’ to quote Psimple Psimon).
Regardless, stealing people’s resources is bad? Go tell that to every Western government that’s trampled over Johnny Foreigner’s ghastly non-democratic country. The point is, don’t think your hero from Henley is any better than your hate figure currently residing in Downing St. Don’t you see? The Howards and Johnsons are part of the same terrible political order, whatever you might think about those affable, kind-hearted Tories .
Above all, why do you think it’s ok to send e.mails to this website that sound so violent and psychotic? Just because it’s Boris’s site does that make it all a joke? You talk about depth of feeling – but how does that sanction the kind of mad things you were saying about killing the prime minister? Does that make me a supporter of the PM? No. Does that make me someone horrified by the casual way you talk about such things? Yes. Just because it’s Blair doesn’t justify your ‘insulting, inflammatory’ language…
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My, my, looks like somebody needs a little “alone time.”
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Yes – I can think of someone who would benefit from spending a little more time alone – with his family, for example… Ah, you do remember John Major and ‘back to basics’, I presume? How I long for the return of those good old days.
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I do feel that labour are going over board with the legislations. I thought that the terrorism act, where they can lock you in your own house without a trial, was one of the worst things that could happen and would cause far more harm than the actual terrorism itself. It’s merely giving in to them, they cause the most damage not by the bombings or whatever themselves but by the fear and panic it causes thereby causing governments to harm their own citizens. However I also didn’t see the conservatives voting against it that effectively.
It’s the same with this. You’re very happy to talk about how Labour are doing so badly at all this and how they’re only doing it to get votes but are any of the other parties any better? I sense a bit of hypocrisy going on here. The pot calling the kettle black.
I commend and completely agree with your views. Clamping down on civil liberties really helps no one but those who you’re trying to stop.
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Manxcat said: ‘The Howards and Johnsons are part of the same terrible political order, whatever you might think about those affable, kind-hearted Tories.’
I reckon he/she is one of those revolutionary communist types that sends disillusioned vegetarians out into the street to sell newspapers full of articles about hypocricy.
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