Random Fact of the Week

Taking Liberties is released on June the 8th 2007.

The first publication of George Orwell's 1984 was on the 8th June 1949.

Go Figure.

The Police State We're In...

Tony Blair has taken a curious approach to the accusations that Britain is drifting towards a Police State, by announcing radically more draconian powers for the Police - powers that not even the police want. At present the police have section 44 powers that enable the police to detain and search whoever they want without any reasonable suspicion. The test case that went to the House of Lords showed that the Police can use these powers arbitrarily and do not have to ever say why they stopped someone - even if it's because they don't like the colour of their skin. The most famous misuse of these poweres was to stop 82 year old Walter Wolfgang from re-entering the Labour Party conference in 2005. Several members of the Taking Liberties team have earned their section 44 wings during the making of the film. Thousands of peaceful protesters have been stopped demonstrating and a massively disproportionate number of Muslim men have been hassled using these powers. In all over 100,000 people have been detained using section 44 in the past 7 years.

The number of terrorists caught? None.

So what does our Tony do? Announce he wants to extend these powers. As this announcement was with the usual tough rhetoric in the Murdoch Press, there's precious little policy detail (this normally gets improvised the night before the bill goes through parliament) but it seems that the police will soon be able to:
-Stop anyone in the street without there being suspicion of a crime.
-Demand to know your name, DOB and address, and see identification.
-Demand to know where you have been and where you are going.
Refusal to comply with any of the above would result in a £5000 fine.

Sounds like a recipe for national harmony, apart from:

1) New Labour repeatedly said, when introducing ID Cards, that they would never be demanded on the spot to create a "papers please!" society.
2) The people who are most likely to be unfairly treated under these powers would be young Muslim men.
3) The Police don't want these powers. Several senior police officers told the Guardian that these new powers are not needed, have not been asked for, and will only make the terrorist problem worse.
4) Even senior New Labour Figures are publicly rubbishing the idea. Peter Hain said that these powers will only serve to radicilise people even further and could end up being the British Equivalent of Guantanamo Bay.

But apart from these little niggles, sounds like a great idea.

Tony says ta-ta to Torture and signs an Oil Deal

Blair's grand farewell just keeps on getting more and more classy. As part of his whistle stop "Giz a Job!" tour to mark the end of his reign, he has spent 5 days mincing round Africa to try and boost his value as an after dinner speaker. Journalists wanting to get on board Tony's Jet (Already nicknamed "Vanity Blair") were being told to stump up £1800 if they wanted to fly with his highness. Most of the Broadsheet Journalists have balked at this, but there is a large delegation from Men's Vogue on board the flight to cover Blair's every move..

The trip has neatly avoided anywhere that has gone to shit during Blair's reign, which is sadly most of the continent, but Blair made sure that he touched down in Libya to spend a few hours with his best pal, Colonel Gadaffi. Despite Libya's horrendous and ongoing human rights record, the nutty Colonel will always have a special place in Blair's heart. New Labour is still doing it's very best to send various unfortunates back to Libya to be Tortured (including Omar deghayes), and Blair is still maintaining that - thanks to his soothing influence - Gadaffi is no longer a bloodthirsty despot, but a cuddly amiable despot who wouldn't hurt a fly. And the fact that BP are signing a multi billion dollar deal with the man is neither here nor there...

Goldsmith Refuses to Publish Iraq Torture Advice

Anyone have a feeling of Deja Vu? Goldsmith's secret filing cabinet must be fit to bursting. Not only is he having to hide away:
-The advice he gave on the Iraq War.
-The Reasons why he dropped the BAE Fraud enquiry.
-Why he still hasn't properly excused himself from any decision making role in the cash for peerages affair.
But poor of Lord "Fag Packet" Goldsmith is now having to hide away the advice he gave about the use of Torture in Iraq by British Soldiers. This all stems from legal advice issued by the flexible Attorney General on whether the Human Rights Act (and in particular the ban on torture) applies when British Soldiers are dealing with Iraqi Civilians. This comes after a spate of incidents where British Soldiers have been blatantly mistreating and torturing Iraqis, which seems to have stemmed from the fact that they were not given clear instructions that hooding and being forced in the stress position is completely illegal. Goldsmith denies that he gave advice that would lead to Torture, but - strangely - is still refusing to publish the advice to put himself in the clear. He's almost certainly going to need a bigger filing cabinet.

Fairford Two Are Cleared

This is an unexpectedly bold move by a British Judge, that has enabled 2 peace activists to be cleared over trying to stop planes taking off from Fairford on the eve of the Iraq War. The pair were caught red handed trying to put the planes out of action, but as their defence they claimed that they were trying to stop a greater crime being committed by the illegal invasion of Iraq. This defence has been tried by numerous protesters and activists, but has, until now, been thrown out before it's heard by a jury. But with the Fairford Two the Judge allowed this defence to be presented, and the Jury found them not guilty. This is the furthest the Judiciary has gone to date in declaring the Iraq War illegal, and could be a crucial step towards bringing some of the perpetrators of the war to book. Geoff Hoon - if you're reading this - they criminal defence lawyers at takelegaladvice.com are very reasonable...

Jarvis Rocks

Jarvis said yes… well he had to really. Write a song called “c*nts are still ruling the world” and you’ve got to expect penniless film-makers banging on your door asking to use it for polemical documentaries about civil liberties. And so the great music chase is complete. Better get the film released before any of the bands change their minds…

Freedom Of Speech – US military style
Isn’t it nice that the US and Britain are exporting their democratic values to the unfortunate people of Afghanistan. The US and UK backed government is now openly arresting journalists who disagree with it. They have presumably taken the lead from US soldiers who enforce censorship among the locals at gunpoint. Recently a convoy of Marines shot and killed 10 people and wounded 33. A budding reporter managed to take some pictures of the incident, but was accosted by the marines and had his pictures deleted. A US commander later justified the deletions on the basis that “untrained” Afghans might capture “visual details that are not as they originally were.” A preliminary enquiry later found that all those killed were unarmed civilians.

Full Guardian Story

Bring out your dead – just don’t count them
Clearly embarrassed by the Iraqi body count, the US backed government in Iraq has now found a cunning way to hide this embarrassment. Stop counting and not letting anyone into the country who looks like they might have a go. Dr Latfa is a respected scientist who was barred from travelling to Iraq by the British Foreign office as he was intending to carry out a study into civilian deaths. Possibly this is an existential argument now being pushed by New Labour – if no-one actually counts dead Iraqis, are they actually dead? Discuss.

iraqi death count story


John Reid attempts to sign Memorandum of Understanding with Foxes
Well it’s the next logical stage isn’t it? While Amnesty International has a fat file showing that the fox has eaten over 300 chickens in the last year, John Reid wants to deport a chicken into the foxes den, and has strict assurances from the fox that this particular chicken will not be eaten, even though the fox signed the memorandum of understanding with the blood of the chicken it ate for lunch.

This is of course New Labour’s long running attempt to deport people back to countries where they face torture. No one knows how much public money they’ve spent trying to bypass the torture conventions, but if they keep this up then the Olympics could be in trouble. Then again if they turned trying to deport people to be tortured into an Olympic sport then John Reid and Tony Blair would be in with the chance of the gold.

On April 27th the court of appeal ruled that John Reid’s precious memorandum of understanding with Libya is not worth the paper it’s written on, so he cannot deport the 2 Libyan nationals back there. This might have something to do with the fact that:
1) Libya is still run by the bloodthirsty lunatic Colonel Gadaffi.
2) The head of Human Rights in Libya is said lunatic’s son.
This is the latest in a long line of Home Office screw ups when trying to send people back to countries where they might be tortured.

John Reid loves torture story

Mouloud Shihali (who is in the film) is in a very similar position. New Labour like to pretend that Algeria is now a land of peace and harmony and it’s perfectly safe for him to return – even though the last two people that they deported (with strict assurances that they would not be harmed) have since been banged up and their show trial is any year soon.