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There is a gap that is rarely acknowledged between the nominal powers of officialdom and their actual powers in practice. Unless we are vigilant, and the rules are tightly drawn powers will be (not may be, will be) used for broader purposes than those for which they are granted. What’s more ways will be found to use the leverage of one power to enhance another. New police powers do not merely add to the force of those that already exist, they multiply and magnify them.
Last night an example of systematic police intimidation was proudly displayed as PR for the police on the most popular British TV channel (ITV1, not the BBC).
The program (“Inside Crime”) was one of those encouraging people to assist with current investigations and appealing for witnesses to various murders and robberies. Fine. I don’t think I have a problem with that: seems like a genuine public service. But of a 25 minute programme something like a fifteen minute segment was devoted to cameras accompanying police in Dartford as they “cracked down” on drugs and illegal working on one evening.
A sergeant swaggered around in a head mic proudly demonstrating how new technology allows the detection of traces of cocaine in pub lavatories. It was then revealed that “with the cooperation of landlords and managers” that night everybody wishing to enter a pub or club in the centre of Dartford had to submit to police swabbing their hands for drugs as a condition of entry. Those who tested postive were then formally searched under “reasonable suspicion”.
The swabbing itself didn’t count as a search because it was “voluntary”. Thus is the law perverted by those who are supposed to uphold it. The programme was silent on what happened to those who got as far as the entrance to a bar but refused the entry procedure. I’d be interested to know.
→ Continue reading: The power wedge
Please explain to me why there is even any question regarding the facts surrounding the death of Jean Charles de Menezes? I would be amazed if almost every inch of his final journey was not caught on the omnipresent CCTV cameras that disfigure London’s streets. Was anything we were told born out by the evidence? It should be quite easy to check.
Clearly the Metropolitan Police is in the midst of a massive crisis in which the most fundamental question needs to be asked: “Can the police be trusted not to recklessly slaughter people who are just going about their lawful business?”
Only complete transparency over the process and the facts leading up to the shooting can even begin repair the damage to Metropolitan Police credibility. As things stand, a rational observer would have to conclude the Metropolitan Police is run by incompetents and liars. Was being in charge of the ‘Diversity Directorate’ the proper background for Cressida Dick to be put in charge of such work?
And then when John Wadham, the chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission says “The Metropolitan Police Service initially resisted us taking on the investigation, but we overcame that”, but Sir Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitan Police replies that is untrue, well someone is lying then. Is it the head of the Met or the Head of the IPCC? At this point the credibility of the British Establishment is approaching the credibility levels of a ZANU-PF press release.
Release all CCTV footage showing the fatal journey of Jean Charles de Menezes as clearly the words of the police as to what happened are now worthless. If this is not done, one could be forgiven for thinking the reason the state so loves CCTV is only to detect crimes which are not committed by agents of the state. One law for them and another for us?
Release the footage because the ‘official line’ is now as credible as a Comical Ali war report from Iraq.
It could always be worse!
It is hard for someone like me to tell how serious this plan for a completely silent aircraft is. This in particular made me dubious:
Environmental campaigners and people living on flight paths have already welcomed the campaign to build the jet.
“Campaign”? That makes me think that this design is as much politics as technology, a suspicion that is confirmed when I look at the website of the Silent Aircraft Initiative, which is the organisation that is promoting this scheme.
The initiative aims to improve competitiveness in the UK aerospace sector by changing the way research is undertaken, through extensive collaboration with a much wider franchise of stakeholders than ever before. By embracing this larger community, the Silent Aircraft Initiative seeks to produce a truly optimised concept design that contributes to the prosperity of the UK in an environmentally sustainable way.
Well, I suppose it could work. But it all smells to me a bit like a rerun of Concorde, in its very early stage, the stage when they were hustling up public money and political support. There is the same obsessive pursuit of one popular variable, in this case silence, to replace Concorde’s equally narrow focus – with insufficient subsequent regard for either economy or cacophony – on speed. The thing even looks rather like Concorde.
I can find no mention of how extremely inconvenient maintaining this new contraption would surely be, what with the engines being on the top.
Comments anyone? Is this a serious scheme, or just kite flying? Or is it serious, but only at a very early stage? And is that BBC report wrong only in implying that the thing is nearly ready to be built?
Do all generic aircraft designs in their early stages have to be political, one way or another – either paid for wholly by a government or by governments in secret, or else “campaigned” for, out there in the public realm?
What do you do when you have driven your economy off a cliff? Why, you raise taxes.
Zimbabwe’s finance minister has imposed a string of tax rises to bridge a huge spending shortfall and the effects of drought and slum clearances.
A tax on drinks and cigarettes has been increased by 50% and mobile phone airtime will also be subjected to a 22.5% tax, Herbert Murerwa said.
Zimbabwe is beset with shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency, and rampant unemployment and inflation.
An opposition MP said the extra budget showed that the government was “broke”.
The title is a forgivable slur on King Canute who recognised the natural limits of kingship. With reference to ZANU-PF, it is perhaps more acceptable to use the diminutive of his name, which is, of course, Cnut.
No longer are hearing aids just for people suffering from defective hearing. This article in Wired, the U.S. technology and futurism magazine, says manufacturers are now producing aids that even someone with “perfect” hearing can use to enhance the experience of certain sounds. An example of how a medical technology ended up becoming almost a luxury product like coloured contact lenses.
Sounds like a winner. I suffer from a permanent mild buzz in my right ear, the results of an ear infection. It sometimes is a little hard to make out what a person is saying in a loud party gathering. With one of these new, inconspicuous aids, I could listen in to comments across the room better than Superman. Thinking about it, it might make it impossible to whisper a confidential message to anyone without fearing that a guy with one of these hearing gadgets might pick it up. Shades of Q Branch fantasy turning into reality.
On the subject of enhancing human capacities via technologies, I have ordered Ronald Bailey’s latest hymn of praise to developments in this area. Looks good from the initial reviews.
Whilst I always took the view (and still do) that summarily shooting dead someone who was reasonably thought to be a suicide bomber is an appropriate policy, even though it turned out to be a tragic mistake.
However the operative phrase is “was reasonably thought to be…”
The more facts that come out about the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, the harder it is to see how these policemen came to that dire decision. He ran from the police, we were told. He was wearing an unseasonable padded coat, we were told. He jumped the ticket barrier and ran onto the train, we were told. He was not restrained and so still posed a threat when he was shot dead, we were told. Well, given the context, like so many others I thought that although this was a terrible error, the guy clearly contributed to his own death by his behaviour.
And now it appears that all of it was just a pack of complete lies. He did not run, he did not jump the barrier (he used his tube pass!), he did not have on a padded coat and he was completely restrained when he was shot dead.
There had damn well better be a very heavy accounting for this with a lot of abruptly and dishonourably ended careers and jail sentences. For a start, just a start, the head of the Metropolitan Police should be out of a job by this time tomorrow.
Mihir Bose has a very interesting and though provoking article in the Telegraph about why many of the lessons of the American ‘melting pot’ have little resonance or even relevance to Britain.
The difference is simple but profound: America can impose a coherent historical narrative on immigrants because the countries they come from had no previous involvement with America. Settlers are able and encouraged to discard their native histories and accept the American version.
But the vast majority of non-white immigrants to Britain have come from our former colonies, and bring not only their own cultures but also their own versions of our shared history. So, in trying to construct a single coherent narrative for this island, we are faced with trying to marry two historical streams: the “home” version and the “export” version.
I am not sure I agree with the entire thrust of the article but it certainly provides considerable food for thought. Certainly I have always found it curious how, at least in my experience, race relations in Britain have been (generally) far better compared to the USA (and I only speak from my personal observations) and with far less government intervention forcing that state of affairs to be the norm, at least until quite recently. Perhaps Mihir Bose’s article contains some of the reasons underpinning that. That could be worth pondering.
It has not been a good last few days in the airline industry. Today, a passenger jet crashed in Venezuela, killing its entire passenger muster of more than 160 people. A Cypriot airliner crashed in Greece at the weekend, killing its entire passenger list and crew. And a few days previously, an Air France plane had a crash near Toronto, but fortunately all the passengers survived.
There is probably no direct connection to all this but it is a harsh reminder that, even in an age of ever-improving safety standards, air travel carries its hazards (and of course that is even before we get to the terror issue). It is also makes me aware that the skies over southern Britain, for example, are crammed with aircraft and it is still amazing that not more accidents occur than is the case. The volume of aircraft now flying to and from Heathrow’s mega-airport is extraordinary and continues to grow. The margins for error when it comes to potential collisions must be razor-thin.
You do not expect top of the range black comedy in a movie like My Girl. But they showed it for the umpteenth time on TV the other day, and I caught this line, spoken by Jaime Lee Curtis, playing a make-up artist anxious to get a job in a mortuary. Forgive me if my memory has got this a bit wrong, but the way I remember it, it went like this:
I’ll take real good care of these people, Mr Sultenfuss. They deserve it. They’re dead. All they have are their looks.
At the end of this successful search for the line, you find only the last two sentences that I searched for. But I think it helps to have the two before as well. The point is, this is a nice movie, about nice people, being nice to each other. This lady is not cracking a joke about dead people just to get a laugh. She really wants them to look their best before they make their final exits.
Cameron Carswell discusses the role of the World Trade Organization in promoting free trade.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) draws wrath from people of all sides of the political spectrum. There are those supporters of globalization who oppose it on principle, saying that while free trade is a desirable goal such an organization implies it needs to be “managed”. It makes sense to be sceptical of the idea that economic liberalism and free trade can be imposed from the top down – for an excellent and balanced view of this by Dr. Razeen Sally see here.
There are those who oppose globalization and see the WTO as advancing the very process others see it as hampering. The question is, does the WTO genuinely advance free trade (with all the associated benefits), or is it merely a vehicle for special interests and rent seeking?
There are some elements of the WTO rules which do seem at odds with the goal of free trade – Chinese clothing exports are currently limited under special WTO rules. However it could equally be argued that this was merely a practical measure to prevent further trade barriers being set up.
The WTO is designed to promote free trade but by its nature as an international organization is open to politicisation. If it is the case that trade barriers are reduced as a result of the pressure it exerts then all the better. On the other hand, unilateral moves toward freer trade are invariably good things, and it would appear that this is the most likely route for the goal of free trade, once again with China leading the way.
Samizdata editor Adriana is going to be in New York and is looking for hook up with some of the Big Apple’s blognoscenti for a ‘geek dinner’ along the lines of previous successful geekfests.
Does that sound interesting to you? Well then take a look at this wiki which has just been set up and invite yourself!
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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