Britain - Land Of The Ever Less Free

The Telegraph reports:

Up to 600,000 people each year who apply for their first passports will have to attend an interview under a scheme announced yesterday by the Home Office.

It is ever clearer that the government regards itself as master, and we all live on sufferance. Travel is a privilege, and the passport is not supplied to clear the way and help us travel, but as a means of control.

The purpose behind ID cards is the creation of a unified national database - principally for the surveillance and control of British nationals (the 26 million transient foreigners annually are not to be subject to it, thereby negating many of the supposed reasons for having it).

Now the government announces all adult passports issued for the first time will require an interview from 2006, at one of 70 centres around the country. This means travel, and travel expense, and time off work, and time waiting for interview, and time being interviewed, and time being processed and approved. And being subject and beholden to some self-important official, and whatever personal questions he chooses to ask. An intrusion into one's life and privacy.

All for our own good, of course. I don't think so.

What the government announcement is really saying is that it is setting up the system by which, when the ID cards come along, we will all have to go along for "interviews" to get our passports, whether for the first time or not.

Britain becomes less attractive by the day, and, so long as they subscribe to this evil, it is another reason the Tories will not get my vote. Time for the 1952 Committee.

Right Not To Be Offended?

We have just seen a play close in Birmingham because Sikh protesters used violence, and the forces of law and government lacked the will to defend free speech, which if it is to mean anything means allowing people to offend others.

I think Mark Steyn has it right when (discussing mainly USA examples) he says:

The elevation of the right not to be offended into the bedrock principle of democratic society will, in the end, tear it apart.

If this is a consequence of the creation of a multicultural society, it is a heavy price to pay.

Government To Risk Coaching Witnesses

The Government is hell bent on dismantling the traditional safeguards of the criminal justice system. It now wants to let prosecution lawyers interview prosecution witnesses - a practice currently prohibited because of the risk of the prosecution coaching its witnesses, and tainting their evidence.

A particular motivation seems to be the Damilola Tayor case, where a young witness proved unreliable. In other words, the Government is keen that child and other vulnerable witnesses be interviewed before trial.

Yet it is child and other vulnerable witnesses in a trial that are at especial risk of being used by others; are most at risk of being coached; and pose special problems in being interviewed. See relevant article on child interviews.

Defence lawyers would be excluded from these interviews, further reducing confidence in the proposed system.

To compound the problem the Government is saying there is no need for these interviews to be recorded by video or audio, and that only written notes need be made.

In other words, there will be no record of the interview independent of the prosecution; no possibility of evaluating the effect of the interview on the witness; and no possibility of assessing the prosecutor's use of the interview. And of course, the prosecution have a career interest in successful prosecutions.

Liberty has already submitted cogent criticism of the proposals, which were floated at least a year ago.

Hard cases make bad law.

Straw Repudiates Law Lords' Decision

It is ironic that Jack Straw invokes the special immigration appeals tribunal to support his case:

Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The people concerned have a right of appeal to a special immigration appeals tribunal, which is chaired by a high court judge, and on each of the cases of the people currently detained the decision to certify them as requiring detention was approved by that court.

Because as the BBC reports:

When the men were first held, they took their cases to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).

The commission ruled on 30 July, 2002 that the anti-terror act unjustifiably discriminated against foreign nationals as British people could not be held in the same way.

The Court of Appeal felt bound to overrule the Commission: hence the House of Lords judgment.

EU's Preponderance Is "Dangerous Timebomb"

The EU says the "Big Four" auditors are too powerful and dominant, and should be broken up.

I say, the EU's preponderance is itself a dangerous timebomb, and it should be broken up into separate nation states, each with their own autonomous government, and accountable through national parliaments to their own people.

"Can independence be preserved"? At the moment, and as envisaged by its proposed constitution, the EU is not democratically accountable, and keeps usurping the role of national governments. The EU does not have a democratic government - it is run by a cabal of heads of state and officials. The people of Europe are unable to throw out the EU government, and their national politicians are powerless to decide any of the ever growing range of matters over which the EU has competency.

The latest evidence is that the EU is costing its members 12% of GNP - over £100 billion a year in Britain alone - in adhering to the EU's regulations. EU competitiveness report (pdf).

The EU is currently putting in place structures to support foreign and military policies, including a foreign minister, military expeditionary forces, and Galileo a satellite system.

Internally, the EU is constructing centralised police, justice and surveillance systems and institutions.

Can Man Really Control The Weather?

The Scotsman reports research suggesting the world is 0.44C warmer in 2004 than the average for 1961 - 1990, and that the last decade has seen 9 of the 10 warmest years since 1861 when global records began.

If the world really is getting warmer, is it down to Man or natural causes (such as sunspots)?

The University of Bern thinks it really is getting warmer.

The Max Plank Institute thinks its down to natural causes.
Stanford isn't sure.

If the world really is getting warmer, is that a bad thing?

The US NCPA reckons cutting emissions is very expensive, and unlikely to make much difference.

The Canadians agree.

So if the world really is getting warmer, is it easier to adapt to that or to attempt to control the weather? Personally, I would go with adapting to it.

Britain's Muslim Question

Britain is increasingly dominated by the Muslim question.

The seemingly perpetual 'War on Terror', a war against Muslim 'extremists', throws up questions of freedom, discrimination, and the rule of law: for example, the anti terror measures, including detention without trial, the Civil Contingencies Act, draconian asset confiscation powers in the Proceeds of Crime Act, and now ID cards.

The Muslim question raises fears about how to keep the large immigrant Muslim populations in the UK and other Western countries onside, to prevent them becoming disaffected, and an enemy within, while at the same time avoiding them becoming the subject of resentment: because either possibility could lead to civil unrest. The government wants to introduce an offence of incitement to religious hatred mainly as a sop to the Muslims, but also partly to suppress discontent with them.

Other EU countries have discovered their own problems with immigrant populations, including Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Spain. With Turkey's possible entry to the EU, they are wary of adding fuel to what may prove a fire.

Government Contempt For Rule Of Law

The Law Lords have ruled that the law used to detain foreign terrorist suspects without trial conflicts with the Human Rights Act, is discriminatory, and incompatible with the rule of law.


The BBC reports:

Detaining foreign terrorist suspects without trial breaks human rights laws, the UK's highest court has ruled.


In a blow to the government's anti-terror measures, the House of Lords ruled by an eight to one majority in favour of appeals by nine detainees.


The Law Lords said the measures were incompatible with European human rights laws, but Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the men would remain in prison.


He said the measures would "remain in force" until the law was reviewed.


Most of the men are being held indefinitely in Belmarsh prison, south London.

Law Lords ruling in full (382kb pdf file)


The Government has known all along the anti-terrorist measures are a violation of established principles of English law, including habeas corpus, which has applied to Englishman and foreigner alike.


The problem is that the Government has contempt for legal restraints on its actions, and for the idea of due process.


Ever since the Government came to power it has been trying to throw off the yoke of the traditional principles of criminal law and due process in favour of flexible administrative powers and penalties:

• So we have anti terrorist measures which allow potentially indefinite detention, without trial or cause, on the basis of suspicion;
• We have the Proceeds of Crime Act, which allows the confiscation of money and other assets from people, on the basis of suspicion and without at any point having to secure a conviction (even following an acquittal), and where the onus is then on the victim of the confiscation to prove their right to the assets;
• The Proceeds of Crime Act also turns professional advisers and others into secret state informers, as they are obliged to report in secret any suspicion they may have that their client may hold assets wrongfully (including, for example, trivial amounts of unpaid tax);
• We have ASBOs - which enable the courts (on the basis of hearsay and a civil burden of proof) to restrain people from doing virtually anything or visiting anywhere, for potentially indefinite durations, in cases where they may not even have committed an offence. Breach of an ASBO is a criminal offence carrying a penalty of up to 5 years in prison, and effectively allows the authorities to invent new crimes tailored to individual people.

Should Juries Be Challenged?

The UK Government is looking at whether jury verdicts should be open to challenge on the basis of prejudice, after the House of Lords considered the conviction of a Pakistani where a juror afterwards alleged the other jurors had been racially prejudiced.

But that is a risk for anyone in a trial: that the jury will pick on some irrelevant detail or use poor reasoning in arriving at their verdict.

The main safeguard is surely that the courts heed the jury members who do not fall into the trap and refuse to convict. Traditionally, all jury members had to reach agreement for a guilty verdict, but the risk of a wrongful conviction is much increased now that majority verdicts are allowed.

If people are concerned about prejudice in the juryroom, the answer is to revert to the requirement of a unanimity for a guilty verdict.

That is far preferable to opening up juries to "investigations", which would challenge their independence and finality, essential if juries are to be able to stand up to pressure and (in time) possible intimidation from the state, and act as the safeguard of last resort against bad law.

If someone is found guilty in the face of the evidence, there is always the possibility of an appeal, doubtless helped along by the misgivings of the trial judge.

The other reason not to countenance opening up the jury's proceedings after the event is that the state will use it as a device, not so much to ensure wrongful convictions are quashed, but as a way to secure convictions after acquittals. And the fear of losing more cases is the principal reason there will be no return to the requirement for unanimity in guilty verdicts.