While we are furiously warblogging over at The Command Post, the statists at home have not been resting either. Two articles in the Telegraph, drawned by the Iraq war noises, report most worrying news. First about bailiffs allowed to break into homes.
Licensed enforcement agents will be authorised to break into people’s homes and seize property from debtors under new Government plans announced yesterday. They will also be given powers of arrest.
The article quotes a rather disturbing statement by Baroness Scotland, a minister at the Lord Chancellor’s Department:
Society wants those who owe money judgments to pay their dues but also wants to protect the vulnerable. So the system we propose will utilise the full weight of the law on those who won’t pay while at the same time safeguarding vulnerable individuals who simply can’t pay.
The second article reports on extension of police powers to keep DNA files:
Police powers to retain DNA samples and fingerprints taken from innocent people are to be extended, the Home Office announced yesterday. For the first time, they will be able to test people they arrest but do not charge and keep the DNA and the prints indefinitely.
It’s true what they say – the devil government never sleeps…
This is not different from Iraq really if you think about it… Have a gun in England and it is a major problem and can result in armed government employees kicking your door down and worse.
Having a bigger gun in Iraq means you get to have a LOAD of government employees come kick down your door – and worse!
If we expect our government to treat us in a rational, libertarian way at home should we not expect it to do the same abroad? And if it does carry out this sort of work in other countries (at my and others expense, thank you) then why should we think it will act differently at home?
I must thank De for inspiring this “left hook” argument. he truely has a considered libertarian view :0)
Seems like the war in Iraq is a good time to bury bad news on the domestic front…
As regards the extension of bailiffs powers, I have to say that I do not disapprove in principle.
Bailiffs are used to enforce privately obtained money judgments but, hitherto, enforcement has been excrutiatingly difficult without some degree of cooperation from the debtor. Unscrupulous people and fraudsters know that they can rip people off or run up debts with very little risk of having to repay the creditor provided they are evasive enough.
As a lawyer I have had first-hand experience of this and I know only too well how frustrating it can be. Millions of pounds in bona fide Judgment Debt are simply abandoned every year because of the difficulty of actually satisfying them and it is not unknown for creditors to be forced into bankruptcy as a result.
Provided it is used against people who can pay but don’t want to, then it has my approval.
This Government removed the ancient protections offered by the Usary Laws, available practically everywhere else in the world. as a side affect of its Bank of England reforms. Poor families can sell their welfare cheques, be charged 60 per cent plus interest rates and now be invaded by the bailiffs….all thanks to New Labour!
Now it is becoming clearer as to why the British people should be disarmed.Many years ago,in history lessons,I learnt about “Writs of assistance” and “Debtors Prison”.New Labour would best be described as a Technologically equipped government living in a “Medieval Fog”,lead by a “President of Europe” wannabe.
Nice to see Labour looking after the interests of the common man and protecting him from the rich and powerful, eh what?
I find both legal proposals very disturbing.
Would government be so keen on DNA records if we first required all senior officials of the government and police at national and local level to have their DNA tested and logged before any logging of anyone else could start?
I have a bailiff chasing me for a tiny amount, i cant pay because my business went bust, i’m on very little sick pay.
All i get from the bailiffs is that if i dont pay they will bring a locksmith down and break in.
Thanks Tony Blair for making the UK a more hated country by its own kind than ever before.
You have done far worse than Mrs Thatcher and she closed the mines.