Foiled! Lords veto Coalition bid to make being ‘annoying’ an arrestable offence

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Act, annoy, annoyance, Anti-Social, antisocial behaviour, arrest, ASBO, awful legislation, Behaviour, bill, cannabis, civil, Coalition, concession, Conservative, crime, criminalise, Democrat, freedom of speech, government, harassment, health, house, imprecise, injunction, IPNA, Lib Dem, Liberal, liberty, lobbying, Lord Blair, Lord Dear, Lord Faulks, Lord Justice Sedley, Lords, loud, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, music, nuisance, order, Parliament, Patrick Cormack, peer, people, police, policing, political, politics, Prevent, protest, setback, social care, Tories, Tory, transparency, upset, vague, Vox Political, window dressing

The Conservative-led Coalition government has suffered a major setback in its plan for an oppressive law to criminalise any behaviour that may be deemed a nuisance or annoyance.

The Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill was intended to allow police the power to arrest any group in a public place who constables believe may upset someone. It was rejected by 306 votes to 178, after peers on all sides of the House condemned the proposal as one that would eliminate carol-singing and street preaching, bell-ringing and – of course – political protests.

It seems the Lords are more interested than our would-be tyrants in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Cabinet in the basic assumption of British law – that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

The politics.co.uk website, reporting the government’s defeat, said the new law would have introduced Injunctions to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance (IPNAs) to replace Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs).

It explained: “Whereas an Asbo can only be granted if a person or group is causing or threatening to cause ‘harassment, alarm or distress’ to someone else, an Ipna could be approved merely if a judge believes the behaviour in question is ‘capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person’.

“Opinion could have been swayed by a mistake from Lord Faulks, the Tory peer widely expected to shortly become a minister who was asked to give an example of the sort of behaviour which might be captured by the bill.

“He described a group of youths who repeatedly gathered at a specific location, smoking cannabis and playing loud music in a way representing ‘a day-by-day harassment of individuals’.

“That triggered consternation in the chamber as peers challenged him over the word ‘harassment’ – a higher bar than the ‘nuisance or annoyance’ threshold he was arguing in favour of.

“‘I find it difficult to accept a Conservative-led government is prepared to introduce this lower threshold in the bill,’ Tory backbencher Patrick Cormack said.

“‘We are sinking to a lower threshold and in the process many people may have their civil liberties taken away from them.'”

It is the judgement of the general public that this is precisely the intention.

Peers repeatedly quoted Lord Justice Sedley’s ruling in a 1997 high court case, when he declared: “Freedom to only speak inoffensively is not worth having.”

It is interesting to note that the government tried a well-used tactic – making a minor concession over the definition of ‘annoyance’ before the debate took place, in order to win the day. This has served the Coalition well in the past, particularly during the fight over the Health and Social Care Act, in which claims were made about GPs’ role in commissioning services, about the future role of the Health Secretary, and about the promotion of private health organisations over NHS providers.

But today the Lords were not fooled and dismissed the change in agreement with the claim of civil liberties group Liberty, which said – in words that may also be applied to the claims about the Health Act – that they were “a little bit of window dressing” and “nothing substantial has changed“.

A further concession, changing the proposal for an IPNA to be granted only if it is “just and convenient to do so” into one for it to be granted if it targets conduct which could be “reasonably expected to cause nuisance or annoyance” was torpedoed by Lord Dear, who rightly dismissed it as “vague and imprecise“.

That is a criticism that has also been levelled at that other instrument of repression, the Transparency of Lobbying Bill. Lord Blair, the former Metropolitan police commissioner, invited comparison between the two when he described the Antisocial Behaviour Bill in the same terms previously applied to the Lobbying Bill: “This is a piece of absolutely awful legislation.”

The defeat means the Bill will return to the House of Commons, where MPs will have to reconsider their approach to freedom of speech, under the scrutiny of a general public that is now much more aware of the threat to it than when the Bill was first passed by our allegedly democratic representatives.

With a general election only 16 months away, every MP must know that every decision they make could affect their chances in 2015.

We must judge them on their actions.

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History Repeats Itself, or The Decline and Fall of the Tory Empire

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avoidance, civil, Conservative, corporation, David Cameron, economy, fall, George Osborne, government, haven, Justice, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, multinational, NHS, people, police, politics, prison, public services, Roman Empire, Rome, security, sell, service, sold, tax, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

A possible future: The city of London is sacked by barbarian hordes. As a priest watches from the steps of St Paul’s, a burly Brixtonian drags David Cameron away from his wife Samantha. Or is it the fall of Rome?

My brother phoned up to inform me that he has passed his PHd and is now a Doctor. This is a terrific achievement for a man who has been on incapacity benefits, of one form or another, for much of his adult life, and will open many doors for him.

During the conversation, he mentioned some very interesting facts.

Did you know that the fall of the Roman Empire began when its richest citizens decided not to pay their taxes anymore and withdrew to their private estates? Public services were divided up and sold off, and the bulk of the tax burden was placed on the poor, who were in no position to pay up.

Neither did I.

Isn’t that similar, though, to the situation in the UK right now? Never mind all the nonsense George Osborne and David Cameron have been talking about getting tough on tax avoidance; the fact is that the richest corporations – the multinationals and those with the ability to follow their example – have been paying far less than their due for many years, sequestering the rest of their money away in foreign tax havens, well away from prying tax inspectors’ eyes.

And David Cameron made it clear as early as 2011 that he wanted to sell of as much of Britain’s public services as he possibly could, retaining only justice and the security services (although we can see that justice is also being broken up, with plans to get lawyers to bid for the privilege of providing “adequate” service to defendants). The NHS is already being carved up; parts of some police forces have been privatised; we have some private prisons. Parts of the civil service are to be sold into private ownership. The list is growing.

The whole situation mirrors that of the Fall of Rome, and begs the question: Is David Cameron trying to engineer the end of British civilisation as we know it?

Just a thought.

Enemy of the State: Chris Grayling

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access, benefit, benefits, car, Chris Grayling, civil, civil disturbance, clinical negligence, Coalition, Conservative, crime, criminal, defendant, Department for Work and Pensions, divorce, employment, family problems, government, housing problems, increase, Justice, law, legal aid, Mandatory Work Activity, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Ministry of Justice, people, Philip Hammond, politics, price competition, restrict, rule, sell, social welfare debt, Tories, Tory, undermine, violence, violent, Vox Political, work placement provider

What do you call a Justice Secretary who wants to ensure that access to the justice system is restricted to the fewest people possible – only, in fact, those who can afford it?

What do you call a Justice Secretary who is overseeing plans to ensure that legal aid in civil cases is cut by £350 billion, meaning people who need qualified advice on social welfare debt, employment, family problems, clinical negligence, divorce and housing problems will not get it? Those people may have to pursue the cases on their own behalf, clogging up the civil justice system, perhaps for years to come.

What do you call a man who, as Employment Minister, presided over a scheme of ‘Mandatory Work Activity’ for the unemployed that was worse than useless at getting them into employment but made a great deal of money for the useless ‘Work Placement Provider’ companies to whom he funnelled government money like there was no tomorrow?

You call him Chris Grayling, that’s what.

This walking, talking blight on common sense is now talking about cutting legal aid in criminal cases, eyeing up £1 billion that is currently spent on it.

He wants to sell off guilty defendants’ cars to pay their legal costs. What does he think that’s going to do? Well, let’s put it in his own language. If cutting people’s benefits is likely to “encourage” them into work, taking away a thief’s car is likely to “encourage” him to steal another. His policies will increase crime.

And he wants to introduce price competition into criminal legal aid, ensuring that the cheapest lawyers – not the best – get the work.

He calls it “working to improve the efficiency of the criminal justice system as a whole, to move towards swifter resolution of cases before the courts”.

But Supreme Court President Lord Neuberger has said the cuts already going ahead are likely to restrict access to justice. That’s not efficiency.

And Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, has spoken of similar fears that cutting legal aid might undermine the rule of law, with people resorting to violence.

The bar council has warned that the introduction of price competition is “a blunt instrument” assuring “none of the safeguards and qualities which we must expect from our justice system”.

And, as Lord Bach has pointed out, there will be no savings in the end, as the state “will eventually have to pick up the pieces when things get much worse than they need to”.

Sadly, Mr Grayling – who has no legal grounding whatsoever – will ignore this sensible advice. One can only conclude that he wants to increase criminality.

This blog has already discussed the possibility that Defence Secretary Philip Hammond wants to use the armed forces to quell any civil disturbances in the UK. Is Grayling trying to engineer such disturbances deliberately?

You read it here first.

War of words over work programme

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benefit, benefits, civil, Coalition, Conservative, Department for Work and Pensions, disability, disabled, DWP, Employment and Support Allowance, ESA, government, Jobseeker's Allowance, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Parliament, people, politics, servant, service, sick, social security, Sue Ryder, Tories, Tory, unemployment, Vox Political, welfare

The Department for Work and Pensions seems to love pushing the public around, but has a real problem when the public pushes back.

Don’t these people understand that they are civil servants?

The system of government is described as a mechanism by which the public elects members of Parliament to serve the interests of the majority, and MPs in turn are supported by the civil service, which is constituted to ensure that those interests are promoted and safeguarded in a practical and legal way.

When MPs get it wrong – as they clearly have in the case of mandatory work activity (MWA) – and the public makes its wishes known, it is not the place of the civil servants to subject those people to derision or to describe them in derogatory terms – even when the harshest language is used to describe the scheme.

That is free speech.

Having looked at the Sue Ryder Facebook page, I have to admit that the charity has a point when it describes “recent online lobbying using strong and emotive language” as the reason it has chosen to quit the scheme.

However I would dispute that it is withdrawing to protect staff from an online campaign of harassment, and I would want to see proof that the claims made about its volunteering practices – with regard to people on mandatory work activity – were misleading.

The simple fact is, the scheme is morally repugnant to the majority of people in this country and Sue Ryder should never have taken part in it. If the charity had stayed away, it would not have exposed itself to criticism.

Behind this lies another simple fact: Any flak taken by Sue Ryder is merely incidental to the escalating war of words between an unrepentant Department for Work and Pensions and an increasingly-embittered British Public.

This is a dialogue that has been running for many years now. It started reasonably enough but the intractability of the government department (civil servants, remember) and the misleading propaganda it purveys has provoked campaigners to increasingly strong reactions.

So perhaps Sue Ryder should put the blame where it belongs – with the Department for Work and Pensions.

The DWP is quoted by the Guardian as saying it was “deeply regrettable that a small number of people have targeted charities and subjected them to intimidation and abuse in an effort to disrupt the operation of this scheme”.

This statement is factually correct. Only a small number of people have subjected charities to intimidation and abuse.

The vast majority – and they number in the tens of thousands at the very least – have been polite. They have put their objections in writing, making reasonable arguments against mandatory work activity.

But they don’t get a mention in the DWP’s slanted appraisal of the situation.

So you see, it is the DWP’s language that is provoking and escalating hostilities. Until that organisation wakes up and remembers that it is an organ of the public will, accepts the majority view that Workfare/MWA is entirely abominable and agrees to put an end to it, the only option open to the rest of us is to find increasingly more strident terms in which to raise our objection.

My own opinion is that this goes back to the general election of 2010. Remember at the top of this article, where I said the mechanism of government is based on the principle that the public elects MPs to represent the will of the majority? In 2010, that didn’t happen.

No political party gained a majority of the vote. The Conservatives wormed their way into office by making a deal with a party that got far fewer votes than even they did. As a result, we are seeing minority-interest policies being forced upon the masses by a minority-interest party that should never have got back into government.

The only way to protest against its policies is to argue against them and to boycott those organisations that support them, and if a government department like the DWP is willing to combat this reasonable behaviour with propaganda then it must expect a savage backlash.

And so must Sue Ryder.

So let’s not have any more whining.

Conspiracy of self-interest: Gove attacks public services to boost Tory (and private) coffers

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Bain, civil, Conservative, contract, corruption, Department, disillusion, donor, education, government, John Nash, Michael Gove, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Paul Rogers, people, politics, quit, servant, Theodore Agnew, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, Whitehall

How blatant do you want your corruption today?

Education secretary Michael Gove has appointed a partner in a global management consultancy that could bid for government contracts to sit alongside two Conservative Party donors on a committee that will oversee the progress of cuts in his department.

Paul Rogers is a managing partner at Bain & Company, a US firm that could bid for contracts that are outsourced on his recommendation – creating a serious potential conflict of interest.

John Nash and his wife have given nearly £300,000 to the Conservative Party since 2006. The private equity firm he co-founded, Sovereign Capital, once owned British private schools firm Alpha Plus and special needs school operator Senad. Although no longer directly linked to Sovereign, Nash has also invested in academies, private healthcare and care homes. He has already been rewarded for his contribution, with a peerage and a job as an education minister.

Theodore Agnew is a trustee of the New Schools Network, a group run by some of Mr Gove’s closest aides, that helped start his ‘free schools’ project.

The appointments appear to be a clear indication that UK government decisions are now made on the basis of financial gain, rather than the interests of the nation.

The committee they will join is to oversee cuts that will halve the DfE’s administration, with 1,000 job losses and the closure of six regional offices. Almost one-third of remaining staff will switch between teams working on time-limited projects.

The changes have created an atmosphere of disillusionment across Whitehall, with two-thirds of Britain’s most senior civil servants now so demoralised that they are considering quitting public service, according to a survey by the FDA union.

In other words, Gove is attacking our public services on several different fronts.

He is inflicting heavy damage on his own department’s ability to operate properly – does anyone really think expertise can be nurtured in people when they have to hop from one project to another, with deadlines hanging over them all the while?

His attack on civil service morale could create a vacuum where there is currently a large pool of expertise. How will our public services function if everybody who knows how they work has walked away in despair?

And his appointment of people with a clear financial interest in the outsourcing of Education Department responsibilities to the committee responsible for cutting it down to size makes it clear that he is trying to turn our children’s future into a fat little earner for his friends.

It is exactly what my #CleanHouseOfCommons e-petition is about. There should be a law against this.

Gove should not be allowed to give government jobs to Conservative Party donors. The decision seems clearly motivated by financial gain.

Gove should not be allowed to give a government job to a member of a firm that could benefit from his decisions. This is practically an incitement to make corrupt decisions for financial gain.

And he should not be allowed to make decisions that could weaken the British civil service. This could lead to mass outsourcing into the private sector – at huge expense – where no such move should be necessary.

The man is a disgrace to Parliament and an embarrassment to the UK.

But he’ll carry on doing exactly what he wants until YOU tell him to stop.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/44971

Sign.

Spread the word.

Raise awareness.

Before it’s too late.

UK police state moves a step closer (to your door)

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account, agreement, Amnesty, bill, civil, close material procedure, CMP, Coalition, Conservative, government, international, Justice, liberties, liberty, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, people, police, politics, public interest immunity, Reprieve, secret court, security, terrorism, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

It really was a good day to bury bad news.

As the press went into overdrive about the vote to permit gay marriage, a House of Commons committee quietly axed amendments to the Justice and Security Bill that would have made it less damaging to your freedom.

This is the controversial Bill to allow ‘secret courts’ in the UK, so cases that are potentially embarrassing to government can be held behind closed doors.

As it now stands, defendants – or claimants in civil cases – will be excluded from the hearings where their fates will be decided. They will not be allowed to know or challenge the details of the case against them and will have to be represented by a security-cleared special advocate, rather than their own lawyer.

Are alarm bells ringing in your head yet?

Apparently the Bill has been drafted in close co-operation with the security services, who have claimed other countries may stop sharing intelligence with Britain if it risks being disclosed in open court. Clearly the intention is to deal with terrorism cases but there is no necessary limit to the possibilities.

The House of Lords had amended the Bill last November after concerns were raised about the threat to civil liberties. The changes would have meant judges could only grant secret hearings – or ‘Closed Material Procedures’ (CMPs) – if other alternatives like the existing system of public interest immunity had been ruled out.

A call to permit such hearings only after balancing the government’s call for it against the ancient legal principles of open justice was also thrown out.

Secret hearings could now become the default in cases where the existing system for fairly handling sensitive material could instead have been used.

Human rights organisations Amnesty International, JUSTICE, Liberty and Reprieve have condemned the changes, which mean secret material – never disclosed to the claimant, let alone the public or the press – would routinely be used to defend serious allegations.

In other words, if this Bill becomes law, the government would be able to do anything it likes, to anyone it likes, under a veil of secrecy. It’s a clear contradiction of the Conservative Party’s own pre-election commitment to a far more open and accountable Parliament, and also of the Coalition Agreement, which stated: “The Government believes that we need to throw open the doors of public bodies, to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account.”

But don’t just take my word for it. Amnesty International UK Head of Policy and Government Affairs, Allan Hogarth, had this to say: ““If the Bill becomes law we will end up with victims of human rights violations being prevented from seeing secret evidence against them and even being prevented from talking to their own lawyers.

“It’s ludicrous and totally contrary to basic principles of open justice.”

The government says the Bill is perfectly safe because the final decision on whether to hold proceedings in secret will be up to the judge.

And we all know that they are entirely beyond reproach.

Right?