Playing Politics with Terror
It's a sad reflection of politics these days that whenever there's a terrorist attack or an attempted terrorist attack, certain politicians and certain organisations are quick to seize the oppertunity to either further their agenda, or to score cheap political points.
The Association of Chief Police Officers is currently lobbying the Government to grant them new powers of summary justice, alledgedly to deal with people committing acts of petty crime and so on. For reasons that should be obvious, I don't think they would be calling for this in such a public way, if there had not been a terror alert a few days ago.
Essentially they want the ability to punish low level criminals without having to go through the legal system; this seems to me to be clearly wrong, as we all know the police are certainly not infallable and we also all know that certain police officers are not above abusing the powers they have already.
While political reality means that, sadly, the Police probably will get some of what ACPO is asking for, I'm hopeful that it will stop at "some".
Meanwhile, David Cameron has won himself the dubious honour of being the first senior politician to blatently play the recent failed terrorist attacks for political points. This is what he said:
"I do not believe that our government is doing enough to fight Islamist extremists at home or to protect our security."
Does this man have no decency, does this man have no shame? Does he even have any honesty?
As a rather unpleasant terrorist atrocity which could have killed up to 5,000 people has just been stopped, largely due to the efforts of a government which he accuses of not doing enough to protect us, I think the answer to that question is a rather firm NO!
Not that that is at all suprising; what I find interesting is how a highly authoritarian agenda is hidden behind what he says is a "hard nosed defense of liberty"... Cameron throws a few crumbs to the liberal sections of the establishment by saying that he opposes ID cards and 90-day-detentions, while arguing for the use of phone-tap and etc evidence in court.
Let's think about this for a minute; while concerns over ID cards are certainly legitimate (especially over the costs) the idea that they constitute a serious threat to "liberty" is absurd, and while I have stronger concerns over 90-day-detentions, it is very unlikely that they would ever effect more than a handful of people.
The use of phone tap evidence in court, on the other hand, is something that would move us far, far further towards becoming Airstrip One than just about anything that any senior politician has seriously suggested for decades. The use of phone tap evidence collected legitimately is bad enough (and for reasons that should be fairly obvious), but the potential for abuse is just monstrous.
And finally, I couldn't help noticing this rather disturbing little thing he said as well:
"And why has so little been done to use the existing law to deal with the radicalisation that is rife within our shores?"
The blatent fear-mongering here is bad enough (and is the first thing I noticed), but his assertion that somehow the law should be used to "deal with" with radical Islamism seems a little worrying; is he suggesting banning ideologies now? (and if so, what exactly makes radical/reactionary Islam any worse than Nazism, Stalinism or Maoism? And if we, as a society, ban such ideologies, how much of the moral high ground have we lost?). Is he suggesting arresting anyone suspected of teaching/believing in such ideas?
It's possible, and probably quite likely, that he just wants to sound "Tough On Terror" and that the above from him was just a load of meaningless drivel, but I still can't help but find the assertion that someone the best way to prevent people from going into extremist politics is to use the long, crude, arm of the Law.
The Association of Chief Police Officers is currently lobbying the Government to grant them new powers of summary justice, alledgedly to deal with people committing acts of petty crime and so on. For reasons that should be obvious, I don't think they would be calling for this in such a public way, if there had not been a terror alert a few days ago.
Essentially they want the ability to punish low level criminals without having to go through the legal system; this seems to me to be clearly wrong, as we all know the police are certainly not infallable and we also all know that certain police officers are not above abusing the powers they have already.
While political reality means that, sadly, the Police probably will get some of what ACPO is asking for, I'm hopeful that it will stop at "some".
Meanwhile, David Cameron has won himself the dubious honour of being the first senior politician to blatently play the recent failed terrorist attacks for political points. This is what he said:
"I do not believe that our government is doing enough to fight Islamist extremists at home or to protect our security."
Does this man have no decency, does this man have no shame? Does he even have any honesty?
As a rather unpleasant terrorist atrocity which could have killed up to 5,000 people has just been stopped, largely due to the efforts of a government which he accuses of not doing enough to protect us, I think the answer to that question is a rather firm NO!
Not that that is at all suprising; what I find interesting is how a highly authoritarian agenda is hidden behind what he says is a "hard nosed defense of liberty"... Cameron throws a few crumbs to the liberal sections of the establishment by saying that he opposes ID cards and 90-day-detentions, while arguing for the use of phone-tap and etc evidence in court.
Let's think about this for a minute; while concerns over ID cards are certainly legitimate (especially over the costs) the idea that they constitute a serious threat to "liberty" is absurd, and while I have stronger concerns over 90-day-detentions, it is very unlikely that they would ever effect more than a handful of people.
The use of phone tap evidence in court, on the other hand, is something that would move us far, far further towards becoming Airstrip One than just about anything that any senior politician has seriously suggested for decades. The use of phone tap evidence collected legitimately is bad enough (and for reasons that should be fairly obvious), but the potential for abuse is just monstrous.
And finally, I couldn't help noticing this rather disturbing little thing he said as well:
"And why has so little been done to use the existing law to deal with the radicalisation that is rife within our shores?"
The blatent fear-mongering here is bad enough (and is the first thing I noticed), but his assertion that somehow the law should be used to "deal with" with radical Islamism seems a little worrying; is he suggesting banning ideologies now? (and if so, what exactly makes radical/reactionary Islam any worse than Nazism, Stalinism or Maoism? And if we, as a society, ban such ideologies, how much of the moral high ground have we lost?). Is he suggesting arresting anyone suspected of teaching/believing in such ideas?
It's possible, and probably quite likely, that he just wants to sound "Tough On Terror" and that the above from him was just a load of meaningless drivel, but I still can't help but find the assertion that someone the best way to prevent people from going into extremist politics is to use the long, crude, arm of the Law.
3 Comments:
A cheap and ridiculous attack on the Government. No matter what I thought of the politics of Michael Howard and co, at least they had the integrity to stand alongside the Government to defeat terror and not score cheap political points.
True, very true. I'm increasingly convinced that Cameron is just an egomaniac; all he seems to care about is getting his face in the papers.
Al, nothing new in saying Cameron is a shallow no hypocrite with no policy ideas? Good post as ever.
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