What do you call a country which is run by the police for the benefit of the police? Is that a ‘police state’? Yes, I think that qualifies. Surely it does?
SENIOR police officers will call this week for the DNA of everyone in Britain to be put on a national database from the moment they are born.
They believe that this would be a vital weapon in the drive to curb crime and help to solve hundreds of murders.
[From the UK Times]
Some nerve those plods have got! Assuming that nothing has been lost in the media translation, I detect not even a hint of humility. After all, they are supposed to be public servants. And what next, I wonder? ‘Police demand increase in income tax to help fight crime’? ‘Police demand greater integration with the European Union to help fight crime? ‘Police demand greater regulation of world trade in order to fight crime’?
What disturbs me here is not so much the idea of a national DNA database. Okay, that does disturb me but HMG hasn’t got the money to fund such a grand scheme so it isn’t going to happen (yet). No, the ugliness is more immediate than that; it lies in the casual assumption by police chiefs that they can simply demand such a thing and expect their will to be done without even paying lip service to the principle of democracy that most people in this country set great store by. Who died and left them boss?
The crime-solving canard has worn so thin that it is almost beyond mockery. Solving crimes is something that the UK police are not much interested in doing anymore. Population control is now their job (‘Social Management’ in NuSpeak). And as they now regard themselves to be a uniformed wing of the ruling elite, I suppose we’re going to get much more of this kind of thing from them in future.
So now we are the servants and they are the masters. How did that happen?
Whatever happened to ‘policing by consent’?
David,
Correct me if I am wrong….a British Citizen is a “Subject of the Crown”. As such that would ultimately make such “Citizen” a “Servent”. As Bobbies are employed by the Crown………..
Policing by consent is inconvenient to the police, and their employers, because it requires them to behave reasonably rather than just doing whatever the hell they like.
This morning, synchronicitously, we have a glorious example.
One of the fair’s organisers appeared on the Today programme yesterday to say that the protestors had a perfect right to do so. The delegates had state-of-the-art security and the world’s most advanced weapons to hand. So I think we can discount top arms dealers feeling threatened by placards and desultory chanting.
This is the police suppressing free speech, not in the aid of deliberate state repression, but because they are at a lose end and have nothing better to do but to use power to amuse themselves. It’s not essentially any different to the West African policeman who told the Economist’s correspondent on a Camerounian road-trip: “I have a gun. I know what the law is.” [From memory.] Or the keen amateur torturers who spring from nowhere to the assistance of the state power under every regime that can sustain them.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, indeed. But you can get there just as surely by idle skateboarding, as with the Devil driving a flame-red Ferrari.
Shaun,
I think I’m right in saying that the British police are not directly employed by the Crown. If they were then technically we would have a national or British police force and no such beast exists (although you could argue that the National Crime Squad constitutes a national police force of sorts)…
British police forces exist on a regional basis. They are also part funded by local taxation i.e. council taxes. I can’t remember their status in the British constitution but they’re definitely public servants.
Guy,
Maybe you would prefer 10,000 of these idiots from the far left fringes to go on another rampage of destruction as they have done at various Global Economic forums these past couple of years ???
On the otherhand, what would you comments be if there was another rampage, this time through London’s districts causing hundreds of thousands of Pounds worth of damage to the property of OTHERS, and the Police sat idly by untill the mob unleashed its fury ?? Hmmmm
What really annoys me about this is that, if the police were to create a voluntary DNA database, I’d probably contribute to it. It could help catch my killer in the event of my murder, it could identify my body if it was hopelessly mangled in some awful accident, which would be a great relief to my family (the identification, not the mangling), I don’t want to commit any crimes, so, overall, it’d be a plus. But no, they have to lobby for a compulsory one, and it’s not for our benefit, it’s for theirs. Dullards.
Alan,
With certain exceptions, all the Police Forces in Britian come under the Home Office, which still is a part of Her Majesty’s Government. That I would suspect, makes them an employee of the Crown.
The fact that there are various extra local taxes to help cover the cost of policing just adds weight to the general view that the government is flat broke.
I think we’re a very long way, these days, from Robert Peel’s original nine principles of policing.
Check them all out, it’s a hoot. From my reading the British Police service is currently breaking all nine, particularly principles two, three, four, and most of all, seven. And as for principle nine on police efficiency, I’d give the British police, out of one hundred, a current efficiency rating of three. And that’s being generous. ‘Coz that’s the kinda guy, I am! 🙂
Principle seven? It’s a joke. I shall write to my MP! 😉
Shaun:
If the protestors attacked people or property I would expect the police to intervene, and I am happy for them to have the power to do so. If you approve what’s happening at Excel, however, because demonstrators are being arrested, actually for no reason, but implicitly on the grounds that they disagree with the current policy on arms dealing and conceivably might support illegal action, then you have no room to object if you are arrested because posting a comment to Samizdata implies you might support private ownership of handguns.
Actually, I would quite like the police to have the obligation to protect the property and safety of citizens at large. They don’t.
As the original article implies, police powers are used at the convenience of the police.
Sean,
Police powers come under the Home Office. Though the present government is trying to nationalise them–and has recently extended to the whole country the jurisdiction of the MoD police, Atomic Energy Authority police, and Transport police–the local constabularies are still, as yet, under local police authorities.
Apologies for mis-spalling Shaun the second time. Preview, preview, preview!
Guy,
I retain my RIGHT and OBLIGATION to defend “my property,family and person” and do not wish to be bothered even contemplating handing over any such abilities to the state.
However, for you poor unfortunates in Britian, it is illegal, as Mr Martin found out, to do so.
Therefore it has become an obligation of the state to defend the people, both citizen and non, against the transgressions of others.
In that capacity, we have found at the Armaments Trade Show being held in the Docklands, the Police are removing “peacefull protesters” from the area surrounding the tradeshow.
The police are apprently using recently enacted laws under the Terrorism Act to do this roundup.
I would bet good money that the Police suspect, based on results from “peacefull” demonstrations in recent years by these peices of human debris, you referred to them as hippys, that the outcome would be far from peacefull.
In an effort to maintain law and order around a legal tradeshow, and in the interests of all concerned, the police clearly have deceided to “nip it in the bud”. On this occasion they would be getting my full support !
Let us also be realistic here, these radical fringe groups are becoming more violent as less and less people pay any attention to their drival !!
Sean, your quotes round “peaceful protesters” are disingenuous, as until now the protests have been peaceful, & in this country we work on the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”. Your clear disdain for the protesters & their opinions is colouring your sense of justice, & allowing you to support bullshit repressive policing. If the protesters were supporting a cause you cared about, I suspect your opinion would be rather different.
(furthermore, can I add, you’re pretty wrong about the whole “fringe group” thing; you’d find quite widespread support at least over here in the UK for protests against arms fairs that invite delightful regimes like Libya & Syria to come & sample the latest armaments.)
Shaun,
One of the problems with liberty and freedom is that it applies to everybody, not just yourself and the people you happen to agree with.
Freedom to protest is very important regardless of weather it is by “right minded people” or “human debris”.
Shaun Borke,
From the spelling perhaps you are Kodiak in disguise?
Anyway I am astonished that anyone posting here (apart, perhaps, from the afore-mentioned) claims to be in favour of the police “nipping it in the bud”.
So, when you are arrested because you look as if you might be the sort of person who would be planning to break the speed limit some time, I won’t be protesting. They were just nipping it in the bud.
In an effort to maintain law and order around a legal tradeshow,
Would you, for example, in the late 80’s have agreed to protests around these trade shows ont he grounds that Iraq attended this type of even and openly bought things?
How about the torture instruments we openly sell to Saudi Arabia that often get used on our own citizens?
Wonder if the new dude coming from the States, namely Boston, MA, will make a difference in how things are done ??
Andrew,
Between your comments on my comments and your spelling of my surname, I guess you cannot read.
I would expect Kodiak to be fighting me tooth and nail as his “brothers in arms” are being escorted away for their own protection.
Okay, Dave. I’ll bite. What torture instruments?
I Googled “torture instruments” and “Saudi” and what I got was a report about British-made handcuffs and a British-made drill being used to bore holes in people’s bones. Presumably, they were standard handcuffs and it wasn’t a specially made drilling-holes-in-bones-for-torture-purposes drill.
So…is that pretty much the whole story?
Mr. Carr is right. But police forces in the UK have been implementing which laws they wish to uphold and which elements of local society (not “community”, please) they feel like oppressing, in increasingly dictatorial and bizarre ways in recent years.
Clearly, they see their mission as effecting social change, not upholding laws passed by Parliament.
A fine case in point is the idiotic self-publicist Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable for North Wales, who wages a vicious and well-publicised war against motorists, while presiding over a miserable six per cent detection rate for burglary. Prior to this anti-motoring crusader’s arrival, that detection rate stood at 46.4%.
The self-righteous swaggering of Brunstrom make him seem like some figure out of a banana republic – but no, he is simply a typical representative of the elite class of uber-plods which believes it has role beyond that of mere policing.
The cause? In this case it is the fast-tracking of ‘officer class’ bobbies with qualifications pulled from the never-ending roll of toilet paper degrees from our Left-dominated universities.
The cure? Ultimately, privatising the few British universities still worthy of the name and either closing the remainder, or letting them revert to their former role of teaching typing skills and plumbing.
And, of course, leaving the policing to hard-bitten, footsore rozzers, who have worked their laborious ways up from the bottom.
Mommabear… who’s the “new dude”?
(sorry if i’ve not been paying attention & this has been all over the news!)
A_t,
It is one thing to say “innocent until proven guilty”, but when, as a group, you have established a pattern of being guilty, there is a much higher probability that the offence will be repeated.
I have yet to detect “wide spread support” for protests against Froggieland, Russia, China, North Korea et al who continue to supply various rouge countries with armaments…….especially from the far left fringe groups !!
A_t: Boston Police Commisioner Paul Evans. There’s been a dramatic reduction in local crime on his watch…but, then, there’s been a dramatic reduction in crime all across the US, so I’m not sure how much he had to do with it.
Nonetheless, if I get mugged because you guys’ve snagged my top cop, I’ll be cranky.
S Weasel, look up BAe Systems Electro Shock batons.
The government of the day has maintained they weren’t sold to Saudi, that didn’t stop a few thousand of them turning up in police stations.
There are plenty of other similar examples of stuff we’re quite happy to sell to various regimes over the years, including Iraq.
Dave,
On selling to Iraq……NO……but to understand the logic behind that answer you have to be able to think “outside the box”.
Thinking “outside the box”?
I understand the logic, its the hypocracy that leaves me a little non-plussed. You seem to be making a distinction between types of protect, that somehow the protests who are protesting “sensible” things are somehow alright and the ones protesting “silly” things are “human debris”.
I don’t make any such distinctions, they have a right to protest these sales. JUst like, for example, many of the serious anti-war protesters had spent the previous 30 or so years taking part in anti-Saddam protests.
That’s “outside the box” too.
Dave,
Hmm….hypocracy ???
Where were the far left fringe groups when the current president of Froggieland signed up Saddam to his Nuclear weapons manufacturing plant ??
Where are the far left fringe groups today as Russia openly sells nuclear manufacturing and Breeder Reactor equipment to Iran as Iran openly crushes student dissent against the Mad Mullahs ??
Where would you like to go next ???
Thirty years worth of anti-Saddam protests? How’d I miss that?
The government denies providing electroshock devices to the Saudis, the Export Control Bill makes it illegal to do so. Certainly, the government could be providing such devices secretly, but even if true it’s a far cry from the “openly sell” you initially claimed. As for “plenty of other similar examples” – surely it’s not too much to ask for them?
Of course, you can’t possibly stop torture by stopping the sale of particular devices. The human mind is ingenious in cruelty, and devices of torture can be manufactured from the most innocuous materials. The only way to stop torture is to stop regimes that condone its use.
Shaun,
Where were the far left fringe groups when the current president of Froggieland signed up Saddam to his Nuclear weapons manufacturing plant ??
As I recall the key enivronmental groups protested that stuff, ditto the Iranians.
Of course, where were our governments? I recall Mrs Thatcher and President Regan roundly condemning the Israelis for destroying the reactor. Because Saddam was our “friend”.
You seem to think the “left” is some monolithic organisation. It’s not in my albeit limited experience of it. Certainly the key environmental groups are against it and naturally certain governments, but other governments like, for example, the British, are trying to do business with Iran.
One of the things that really annoys me about the current situation is the idea that there was any anti-Iraq/Iran etc… protest about civil rights abuses and the like before the last few years.
Any even mild perusal of “lefty” bodies reports like Amnesty International will show you that there is. When I see Ms. Rice on TV saying something like “we now know Saddam was worse than we thought” I am astounded.
Nothing has come to light that we haven’t know since before the first gulf war, that didn’t stop us wanting to do business with him.
Thirty years worth of anti-Saddam protests? How’d I miss that?
I have no idea. I recal walking past one in London in the 80’s. Its just they were by fringe politicians protesting against a forward looking secular Arab state which we could do business with.
Anti-Iraq protest goes back a long long long way, there were huge ones after he killed all those kurds, but, of course, that was an internal security matter.
Yes, the government said we didn’t see the batons, yet the company did and explained to the dispatches team how they managed to avoid going through the export license program.
Companies selling stuff though shell companies? Never! I’m shocked! 😉
Again, that’s hardly “openly sell”. And, of course, electroshock batons are not intended for use as torture devices, however conveniently they can be put to such use.
Sean, you miss the point with the French & Russians… if the French or Russians wish to protest against their own governments, fine…. but it doesn’t seem to me to be the place of UK citizens (who represent the vast majority of protesters @ the arms fair) to do so. Demonstrating against *your own* government in your own country is a legitimate activity, & using “anti-terrorist” legislation to stop it is a clear abuse of power, & confirmation of many people suspicions about said legislation.
S Weasel, its a fine line when we show off this stuff at Western Trade Shows to governments we can’t opennly sell to but then end up selling anyway. I suppose its the difference between what is legal and what is right.
The armaments fete is an interesting case. On the one hand, yes, the massed ranks of socialists, self-styled anarchists, ‘greens’, peaceniks and their Guardian-reading supporters do have a perfect right to protest.
Then again, they do *not* have a perfect right to trash other people’s private property, deface buildings, loot, attack and intimidate workers and disrupt people’s business – which has become their familiar modus operandi in recent years.
The police simply cannot ignore history – and if they did so would be roundly, and justifiably, castigated. They have to work on the assumption that criminal activity is very possible and they must take steps to prevent it.
No doubt the Left will accuse them of leaping to the defence of the capitalist arms industry. No doubt the Right will be wondering why they didn’t use the protesters to demonstrate the wonderful efficacy of British-made small arms.
Meanwhile, I wonder how the Dave O’Neills and A_ts of this world would be reacting if it were their business activities which were being threatened by baying hordes of the intellectually undead (be they from Left or Right)?
My guess is that poor old PC Plod would be being summoned to sort it out – and pretty damn pronto.
Dave,
It is an article of leftist faith not to protest human rights abuses by leftist States !!
You are astounded when Condi says that Saddam was worse than we thought ?? Pray tell, what do you say then when the President of Froggieland says that Saddam was never a threat ????
Clearly you do not understand why the British government wanted to do business with Iran.
A squadron of unknown Russian combat aircraft of very recent vintage, buried in the desert beside an air force base is nothing new ?? How many mass graves would count as nothing new ??? How many mobile chemical factories would count as nothing new ??
The leftists of course try to ignore these findings as they are primarily Anti-American.
Going back to my original comment…..the police are rounding up these far left fringe groups because they have a HISTORY of causing riots and damaging property at these protests!! And the only reason they are turning up is more than likely because of a strong American presence and their own moral failures.
G Cooper, there is this niggly problem I have with police officers taking action because they think you are going to do something before you actually do it.
If protestors do something other than protest you can do something, you cannot arrest people before the fact on the suspicion of a crime they have not yet committed.
I can believe anybody who reads a libertarian biased blog would even countenance that sort of behaviour from the police.
Shaun,
It is an article of leftist faith not to protest human rights abuses by leftist States !!
It is? You’d better tell Tony Benn, he’s been protesting abuses of human rights by even left wing states for decades.
You are astounded when Condi says that Saddam was worse than we thought ?? Pray tell, what do you say then when the President of Froggieland says that Saddam was never a threat ????
Threat to whom? I take that to mean he was not a direct threat to France. Unless you know something I don’t, I’d say that was right. Based on current evidence being presented to the Hutton Enquiry the Chief of Staff to the British Prime Minister who had seen all the intelligence material concluded the same thing.
As for your other issues: 1. The Russian fighter aircraft were new? Where was that reported?
2. The Mass Graves are nothing new for anybody who has paid any attention to what Iraqi asylum seekers have been saying since the late 1970’s. He killed a few thousand Kurds with chemical weapons and the US government of the day vetoed a bill put to congress to impose sanctions…
3. What mobile chemical factories are these? You may have failed to see the retractions of those reports.
Perhaps the full report due next month will have something new and interesting but I’m not going to hold my breath.
the police are rounding up these far left fringe groups because they have a HISTORY of causing riots and damaging property at these protests!!
You cannot and should not arrest people on this basis. Liberty comes at a price, but its worth paying.
A-t,
A quick Google shows many fringe leftist sites on the Continent are trying to gather up support for protests at the arms fair…..I would then expect to see a bunch of foreigneers arrested and charged at this protest…..unless this early action by the police gives them cold feet.
An angry mob of 10,000 running wild causing all sorts of damage and mayhem just because they dont like a particular trade show is just terrorism plain and simple.
It would then be reasonable for the police to use the Terrorism Act to control this lot.
From the paperwork I saw a few months back, this fair is open to all manufactures from around the world….
Returning to the DNA database ISTM totally counterproductive to make it a compulsory database with every British resident’s DNA on it.
At the moment a criminal might try to fool investigators by leaving someone else’s DNA at the scene of a crime. Problem is unless they know that person has their DNA on the database there’s no guarantee the investigators will know who’s DNA it is and they may therefore pay attention to other evidence that might well point to the real perp.
However if a criminal can be certain the DNA will be matched to an entry in the database, he can be more confident of succesfully distracting investigators and will thus use this trick more confidentally and more often. This will reduce the evidential value of DNA and lead to more innocent people being fingered for crimes they didn’t commit whilst making it easier for the crims to get away with it.
Moreover if a criminal is certain he is NOT on the database (suppose he’s somehow escaped the requirement or is an immigrant or has bribed the maintainers of the database to wipe his record or has an exemption) then sprinkling other people’s DNA around the crime scene will be even more effective still…
Thus, I suspect that rather than improving crime detection, a universal DNA database will lead to more miscarriages of justice, an overreliance on DNA evidence and more abuses of the system.
Finally note what the Scottish Police Federation had to say about plans for all new recruits to submit their DNA to the database…
James
hmm… so now terrorism stretches to riots etc.
That’s good to know. I always thought it was about murderous bastards who set out to frighten & kill people. Who’s with me in the War Against Riots then? come on!
i think you’ll find you’re the “fringe” opinion on this one, if you check who’s rapped the police’s knuckles over this use of anti-terrorist legislation
Supporting authoritarianism such as this has no place on a site that purports to be libertarian.
Tony Benn “protesting abuses of human rights by even left wing states”
More like Dictator sycophant. I’m sure he’s sorry he didn’t have the chance to lick Stalins bottom.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2726831.stm
He stood in protests outside the Iraqi embassy after the Kurdish gassings too.
Didn’t Ted Heath like Mao?
Lots of people like dictators, there must be something about them.
yeah, & no doubt by extension Baroness Thatcher might’ve liked to lick Hitler’s bottom, given her affection for the excreable (tho’ yes, less than saddam, if we’re going to get into degrees of evil!) General Pinochet.
I’m not suggesting she really would’ve; it’s about as ridiculous as your suggestion.
Dave O’Neill asks:
“Didn’t Ted Heath like Mao?”
What on earth is supposed to be our reaction this this strange enquiry?
Surprise that a statist, Leftist authoritarian who sold the British people to the EEC approved of a fellow dictator?
G Cooper, just that generalisms about groups of people are invariably wrong.
Mrs Thatcher had a thing for Augusto Pinochet and so forth. The ability to deal with dictators and seemingly not have a problem with their actions at home goes back a long way.
Ronald Reagan thought Saddam Hussein ought to have a nuclear power station and condemned the Israeli’s for blowing it up.
sold the British people to the EEC
I was quite young at the time, but I do recal that the British People got to vote on that one.
That you might not agree with them isn’t relevent.
I allways thought there was a vote on the “common market”.
We seem to have got a lemon state instead i.e. the EUSSR.
G Cooper: “The self-righteous swaggering of Brunstrom make him seem like some figure out of a banana republic[…]”
Not a new phenomenon–remember James Anderton, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester having the Sun seized and destroyed on one occasion as an indecent publication–but as the powers (and the pay) have grown, so has the swagger.
Dave O’Neill writes:
“I was quite young at the time…”
Clearly.
It has subsequently been proved that Heath lied about what was being proposed and deliberately conceacled secret agreements.
Not that I expect such an act of treason to bother confirmed Europhiles in the least.
Dave O’Neill writes:
“G Cooper, just that generalisms about groups of people are invariably wrong.”
So, presumably that includes the police, then?
Boy, when you guys go off on a tangent, you sure don’t fool around.
So, presumably that includes the police, then?
Which generalisation were you thinking of?
I’m kind of stuck on the one about arresting people before they commit a crime.
All reminds me of the Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch with Constable Savage…
It has subsequently been proved that Heath lied about what was being proposed and deliberately conceacled secret agreements.
It has? Your evidence please… you can save thread creep and email it to me if you like. It would also be interesting to postulate whether or not it would have affected the results of the referendum. Likewise, if there is a future referendum and the Europhiles win – would you accept that vote as valid or would you find another problem with it?
Dave O’Neill writes:
“It has? Your evidence please..”
Sorry to disappoint you but the evidence is quite well known – if apparently not to Europhiles.
I suggest you look at this.
The section on The Werner Report is quite unequivocal..
Heath lied. Worse, he conspired against his own country.
As for your next remark:
“Likewise, if there is a future referendum and the Europhiles win – would you accept that vote”
This is so absurd it borders on the risible. Surely, in the light of history, the proper question is: ‘If a country votes “no” how many more times will Europhiles keep forcing it back to the polls until they get the result they want?
G Cooper,
Heath lied. Worse, he conspired against his own country.
If you read it like that then you must also conclude the same about the Thatcher government and Single Market terms to which she signed us up to.
What we signed up to in the 1970’s was not what the EU is now – perhaps that should have led to another vote, however…
This is so absurd it borders on the risible.
Not really.
‘If a country votes “no” how many more times will Europhiles keep forcing it back to the polls until they get the result they want?
I wasn’t aware I made that argument nor that I supported it. To suggest that I have, or for that matter it acurately reflects my opinion is nonsense. It doesn’t, if you are interested.
If the people decide something, then it is decided until there is a material change.
There is a more complex issue here, the reasoning behind why the British do not historically go for binding referenda but instead empower parliament to take these decisions on behalf of the people. It strikes me that it is this you feel that is wrong.
As I read the polls, I doubt very much if the anti-EU vote could win a referenda on the subject. Equally, it is unlikely, at the moment that an anti-EU party could win an election.
Because of these logistical issues that I see a hell of a lot more hysteria coming from the anti-EU side than the pro-EU side of things.
Somewhat to my surprise I’m broadly in agreement with Dave O’Neill and A(underscore)T: the police appear to have acted with gross disregard to the fair application of the law and to the fundamental freedom to protest.
What sticks out a mile is that this is a crystal clear illustration of the principle that insofar as we give power to the state to do things for us, we give it power also to do things to us – after giving the police sweeping powers to suppress terrorism, supposedly, it sould surprise no-one that they promptly abuse such powers.
I know little about this “Liberty” crowd, but suspect they want merely to substitute their own brand of collectivist tyranny for the current variety; however, it’s not for the plods to second guess this and simply act like the Guatemalan Gendarmerie, or whoever, turning back busloads of people they don’t like. OTOH if I’d been one of those whose journey on the DLR had been disrupted by some fucking left-wing prat chaining herself to the train, I’d reserve the right to give her a bloody good thrashing.
Tony H, glad someone else is seeing sense 🙂
…but i think you do Liberty a disservice; the usual suspicion of anything vaguely left-leaning/left-supported blinds you to the fact that they stand alongside you on many issues, and have been actively campaigning on a number of things which have come up on Samizdata of late. Lose the “left bad” mentality & you might all find you’re somewhat less alone than you think you are, at least when it comes to some aspects of liberty anyway! Liberty don’t appear to push a larger agenda, preferring to concentrate on issues that people from across the political spectrum can agree on.