Big Sticks and Small Carrots

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…

It’d be even funnier if the government were not wasting huge amounts of money on a monumental disaster waiting to happen.

The good news is that “plans to force passport applicants to get an ID card have been dropped”. Did Jacqui Smith take that decision on a voluntary basis, I wonder? I only ask because Labour’s commitment to roll out ID cards “initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports” was a real lowlight in knowingly mendacious politics. How satisfying to see it fail to do anything other than highlight just how knowingly mendacious they are prepared to be.

Nevertheless, the government appear to be keen to press on with some ad hoc version of this scheme despite the fact that this half-baked version negates many of the arguments they used to justify its creation in the first place. It’s like watching a not very good and all too predictable farce. A happy ending is highly unlikely.

At the bottom of this exclusive Sun report on there’s a caption which says:

Unaware … terror mobs don’t know their words can be heard by RAF

It may not be entirely accurate.

In a situation like this, it’s hard to be sure what’s going or where the story came from.

It might be possible to make some educated guesses by observing the government’s reaction. If they launch an enquiry and attempt to prosecute the leakers for compromising an important method of intelligence gathering, that would suggest that there was a leak and that it hadn’t been orchestrated by the government. This is certainly a possibility.

If that’s the last we hear of it however, the story is likely to be a Sun invention or a government approved leak. These are also perfectly possible.

Questions, questions.

Update

Somehow, I have a feeling you’ll be able to guess what happened when I tried to take advantage of the Sun’s “Have Your Say” feature under the article. I thought I’d try some Sun language for this one:

“Unaware … terror mobs don’t know their words can be heard by RAF”

You’ve just told them!

If this story is true, the Sun has now compromised an important method of gathering intelligence on the Taliban. This can only make it even more dangerous for our troops in Afghanistan.

Shows how much the Sun really cares about our lads. Shameful.

Hours later, and with plenty of other comments published in the meantime, there’s no sign of it. I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise. It’s not like they were going to be able to defend their decision to publish this story in a fair debate, is it?

Interestingly,  given the rubbish way the Sun’s comment system works, I suspect very few people would have bothered to have read my comment even if they had published it. This heavy handed approach to criticism does suggest that they’re worried about the fragility of the echo chamber they’ve constructed to hide behind. Let’s hope they’re right about that, at least.

Now, do you think I’ll get a reply to the polite email I’ve sent asking why the moderators have a problem with my comment?

Good News!

Really.

Back in January, I wrote about the government’s consultation on “managing protest”. Part of the consultation suggested a “harmonisation” of certain powers to control protest, “harmonisation” in this case clearly being a euphemism for “increase”.

Yesterday, in the Lords, questions were asked regarding this issue. The first, from Baroness Miller (Lib Dem), provoked no real answer. The second, however, did:

Viscount Bridgeman (Conservative): My Lords, can the Minister confirm that no measures will be taken to extend the restrictive and undemocratic powers relating to protests around Parliament to other parts of the country?

Lord West of Spithead (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Security and Counter-terrorism), Home Office): My Lords, I can confirm that we do not intend to do that. I do not know the exact timelines but when we consider the matter we will have to review the 500 responses—some of which were very robust, I am glad to say, because I understand people’s feelings and emotions about this. We have no intention whatever to change and increase the rules in regard to the rest of England and Wales.

Try as I might, I can’t see any get out clauses there. “We have no intention whatever to change and increase the rules” is about as clear a statement as you’re ever likely to get from a politician. It looks as if the government has abandoned any attempt to “harmonise” these powers. The possibility even exists that the responses to the consultation may have had some bearing on this decision.

(One word of caution. Lord West has been known to have a sudden change of heart on occasion. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that he’d make such an unequivocal statement on this without being sure he knew what he was talking about.)

All we need now is for the ridiculous laws governing protests around parliament to be scrapped and it’ll be time to have a wee celebration. In Parliament Square. Without prior permission from the police.

Now wouldn’t that be something?

The other day, while considering the alternative, I was again wondering whether I could bring myself to back Labour at the next general election.

Yesterday, I noticed that the government had introduced some new guidelines on language to be used when talking about terrorism. This less aggressive approach is eminently sensible from a counter-terrorism point of view, a victory of evidence based decision making over emotional “gut feeling” policies.

Those who support the counter-productive language of the “war” on terror will undoubtedly misrepresent or misunderstand this change and seek to make political capital by claiming that the government has “gone soft” on terrorists. Again, it’s a “gut feeling” argument but it is one we know to be very effective. As such, it is actually a brave move to make this change and not something which would have happened in Blair’s day.

The tiniest glimmer of hope began to consider whether it might one day be able to exist in this world.

And then along came Caroline Flint. The tiniest glimmer of hope began to consider whether it ought just to embrace pessimism and be done with it.

Flint’s proposal, as announced, is Margaret Thatcher on steroids. What will happen to those who’ve been evicted from their council houses? Will their new homeless status make them more employable? Will they still get NHS treatment when they catch pneumonia or will that also be conditional on a “commitment contract”?

Of course, the announced proposal is highly unlikely to ever see the light of day. Conservative MP Grant Shapps (if it really is Grant Shapps, I hope the Guardian checked) rightly notes that it is almost certainly unworkable in practice.

But that doesn’t matter to Flint. She’s more than happy to pander to prejudices and perpetuate the bizarre notion that living on a sink estate is like an endless all expenses paid trip to Disneyland. It is highly unlikely that anyone who believes that has even visited such an estate, never mind lived in one, but what are facts when the media has an angle to peddle? Flint certainly isn’t going to stand up for the facts when there are easier way to electioneer. She seems more interested in giving Paul Dacre oral plea.. (that’s enough - ed.)

There is a serious question here as to what society should or can do about those who are able but unwilling to work, no question about it, but this is no way to conduct that debate.

Back in October 2007, Gordon Brown announced a review of the laws governing demonstrations in the area around parliament. He said:

While balancing the need for public order with the right to public dissent, I think it right – in consultation with the Metropolitan Police, Parliament, the Mayor of London, Westminster City Council and liberties groups – to change the laws that now restrict the right to demonstrate in Parliament Square.

Anyone even slightly familiar with ‘politician speak’ will have spotted that this is not much of a commitment. Nevertheless, before the “change” in the law, a public consultation was duly established and the deadline for replies is 17th January. Further information can be found courtesy of the repeal SOCPA website.

I’d like to draw your attention to the first two questions in the consultation paper. They are not, in fact, concerned with restrictions on demonstrations in the “designated area” around parliament; their scope is somewhat larger than that. Here they are:

1. The Government believes peaceful protest is a vital part of a democratic society, and that the police should have powers to manage public assemblies and processions to respond to the potential for disorder. Should the powers generally in relation to marches and assemblies be the same?
2. Do you agree that the conditions that can be imposed on assemblies and marches should be harmonised?

Has your internal alarm gone off yet? It should be wailing like a banshee.

First of all, remember that these questions relate to the whole country*, not just the designated area. Here’s a quick summary of the powers the police currently have to control marches.

Organisers must give six days advance notice to the police.

Organisers must specify “the date when it is intended to hold the procession, the time when it is intended to start it, its proposed route, and the name and address of the person (or one of the persons) proposing to organise it”.

The senior police officer, if he “reasonably believes” the march may may result in “serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community” or “reasonably believes” that “the purpose of the persons organising it is the intimidation of others with a view to compelling them not to do an act they have a right to do, or do an act they have a right not to do”, can impose wide ranging conditions on the march.

If the senior police officer “reasonably believes” that the imposition of conditions would not prevent serious public disorder, he can apply to the relevant council to prohibit a march. (In London, the application is made directly to the Home Secretary.)

The laws on assembly (two or more persons in a public place in the open air) are not quite so far reaching. Yet.

Outside the “designated area” the law does not require that the police are given six days notice of an assembly.

The senior police officer may impose limited conditions on these static demonstrations if he “reasonably believes” all that stuff as above about “serious public disorder” etc..

The authorities currently do not have the power to prohibit static demonstrations.

If I was to ask in which direction you think the government wants to move in order to “harmonise” these powers, I’d just be being facetious. A relaxation of the laws on the control of processions is clearly not what they are after. No, the sweet harmony they want to play is to introduce wide ranging new powers to control demonstrations throughout the country. If they succeed, many of the absurdities of the current SOCPA laws regarding demonstrations in the “designated area” would apply much more widely. “Harmonisation” would mean that two Amnesty International volunteers trying to raise awareness and attract new members on your local high street on a Saturday afternoon would have to give the police six days notice of their intentions.

The government probably does intend to make some small adjustments to the SOCPA restrictions. A minor relaxation of the outrageously heavy handed SOCPA regulations might just interest the media enough to distract them from the government’s sweeping new controls. “Brown Champions Freedom” will be the entirely inaccurate message the government will be hoping to sell.

All the details on the public consultation are here and you can email submissions so there’s still time to have your say. (Not much mind. The consultation closes on the 17th.) If you’ve never taken part in a public consultation, I recommend you do it now. You know, while it’s still legal for you to express your opinion at all…

* To be entirely honest, I’ve not managed to work out whether this includes Scotland. I believe it does but don’t quote me on that. At the very least, it covers England and Wales.

Gordon Brown made his last major public appearance before the Christmas break at his monthly press conference earlier today.

Although it annoys me immensely that politics has become so shallow and trivial, this needs to be said: Gordon Brown should NOT smile in public. Ever.

To see Brown switch on and off that smile, if you can even call it a smile, is an unsettling and slightly frightening experience. I can imagine children all over the country scurrying behind the sofa in terror after catching a glimpse of the PM’s unique rictus on the Six O’Clock News. Either that, or they’ll be expecting Doctor Who to appear and unmask the alien imposter and rescue the real PM.

For the sake of the children if for no other reason, please don’t smile Gordon.

Anyway, Brown’s line today is that:

Many of the things that have been written about for the last few weeks would be forgotten quickly

Is it just me or is that very dangerous attitude to express publicly? It may be a cliché but isn’t it possible that this could be looked back on as his Jim Callaghan moment? Crisis, what crisis?

Brown didn’t say those exact words, of course, but neither did Callaghan. It woz the Sun whot spun it. It’ll be interesting to see how the Sun report Brown’s comments tomorrow.

On the plus side for Brown, for all the economic worries, the doom-mongering and the opportunistic spin from the Tories, the UK in 2007 is nothing like the UK in 1978-79. They had proper great big disastrous crises in those days. (And when we got home, our father would slice us in two with a bread knife. If we we’re lucky!)

All the same, Brown’s words, particularly with regard to the huge data loss and the economy, could come back to haunt him.

No blogging tomorrow as I’ll be down in that London protesting against Christmas (with permission from the Metropoliticians).

Man flu! Bah! Sniff, cough, splutter…

Fortunately, this decision by the Metropolitan Police doesn’t really need much in the way of comment. You just need to sit and think about it for a moment.

If you wanted to support Christmas by organising a counter-demonstration against our demonstration, would you need permission for that?

If you were really, really cynical, you could build a brilliant conspiracy out HMRC’s astonishing behaviour.

The lost discs contain an enormous amount of information which would be useful to identity thieves . The information on the discs is password protected but not encrypted so it really isn’t very secure at all. (If the Conservatives had been in power, the password would probably be 1234 but that’s by the way.) The government have created what is essentially a Holy Grail for organised criminals and identify fraudsters. The difference being that these discs definitely do exist, of course.

If they do fall into the wrong hands, it’s almost certainly going to lead an increase in identity spoofing and other identity related crimes.

And if identity related crimes are on the increase, well, that’ll just confirm the need for the government to implement it’s secure and infallible National Identity Register and ID Card scheme…

In reality, the idea that this was in any way intentional is a non-starter. You only needed to see Alistair Darling’s face as he addressed the House to know that. In fact, I have marked this with the introduction of a new post category - “Incompetence”. Incompetence on a really extraordinary scale was what this undoubtedly was.

If in due course we did see an increase in identity related crimes because of this however, who would really be surprised if the government argued that this was a clear sign that we should trust them with even more of our own personal details?

(Changing the subject completely, blogging might be slightly hit and run here for a few more days. That “time” has a lot to answer for, I tell you.)

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith appeared on the Today programme this morning. She tried to defend the suggestion that there is a need to increase the maximum period of detention without charge and allow suspects to continue to be questioned after charge.

Can you imagine a situation where we knew that there was a trend of growing complexity where somebody had to be released because in an exceptional case… they had come up against the buffers, they hadn’t been able to be brought to justice, where they had subsequently committed a terrorist act?

What now?

Humphrys asked her about the rather convenient timing of the head of MI5’s speech on Monday. Are we really to believe that that was a coincidence?

Smith: Um, well, yes, it was a complete coincidence.

Humphrys: It wasn’t. It was a spinning exercise, wasn’t it?

Smith: I think that’s a pretty outrageous charge to make against the independent director general of the security services…

Humphrys: Did he tell you that he was going to do it?

Smith: Yes he did tell us that he was going to do it…
Humphrys: And did you say to him perhaps the timing of this might look a bit suspicious, a bit odd?

Smith: No I didn’t. If they choose to make a speech… actually that’s a decision for them.

Humphrys: We’re not questioning his right or entitlement to make a speech, we’re talking about the timing of it. Could you not have said to him, look this is all pretty delicate stuff, politically quite apart from anything else … it might make sense if you left it for a week afterwards or something… Why that particular timing? A bit extraordinary?

Smith: John, blah blah, blah… blah, blah, blah, blah… blah, blah… blah… Frankly there are conspiracy theories and there are conspiracy theories and I really do think you’re pushing it on this one.

So that’s us told then.

Some sort of humorous summing up of the situation probably ought to go here but it just isn’t funny.

Try as I might, I can’t resist highlighting this extraordinary CiF entry by the former director of communications and press secretary at the Foreign Office, John Williams. It’s a bizarre combination of revisionism, an admission of culpability and, well, idiocy.

There’s a bit of controversy over at CiF over the Guardian’s stealthy rewriting of the sub-heading; they changed “I don’t remember anyone questioning the intelligence” to “I don’t recall my colleagues questioning the intelligence”.  The second version is the more accurate representation of what he was trying to say but it doesn’t really help his cause.

He wrote:

It’s very frustrating, as a minor participant, to have learned afterwards that that the head of MI6 felt the intelligence was being made to fit around the policy. I took the intelligence seriously. Nobody ever cast doubt on it in my presence at the time. And those last three words are crucial - at the time. Hindsight is a luxury government doesn’t have.

Nobody? At the time? Hindsight?

The Westminster bubble is clearly a much better insulator than we’d previously thought.

The admission which Williams sweetens with a little light revisionism is that the government as a whole wilfully refused to listen to the many doubts which were being expressed at the time. More than that, those of us with semi-functioning memories can recall that Blair dismissed these doubts by implying that if only we knew what he knew, if only he could give us the full picture, we’d see how ridiculous these doubts were. And didn’t we just…

Williams worked for Robin Cook, for crying out loud. You know, the Foreign Secretary who who, on the eve of war, resigned saying that “Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term”. But John doesn’t recall his “colleague” saying that. Maybe Cook never told the Foreign Office’s director of communications why he was resigning as Foreign Secretary. Maybe Williams somehow managed to avoid every single instance of the widespread media coverage of the reasons for his boss’s resignation. Or maybe… No, I’ll stop now before this goes all sweary.

Hindsight? How about using those fleshy things you’ve got on the sides of your head instead?

And what lesson can we learn from this fictional version of events as the government attempts to deal with Iran?

The dossier was a mistake. I say that not with hindsight, but having argued unsuccessfully at the time that Britain should not take on the burden of proving that a country to which we had no access was in possession of illegal weapons. It should have been for Saddam Hussein to prove that he didn’t have them.

Now, it must remain Iran’s duty to show that it is not trying to master the technology necessary to produce a nuclear weapon, not President Bush’s to assert that it is.

I’m thinking of starting a campaign to pressure Mr Williams into acknowledging the existence of the Celestial Teapot. He has, after all, failed to prove that it does not exist.