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November 24, 2004
What do yobs have to do with global terror?
Tony Blair appears to have used the Queen’s Speech to ‘steal a march’ on the Tories by making Labour appear the party of law and order in the run-up to the next election. The speech contains no fewer than 32 bills which will give the government unprecedented powers to intervene in people’s lives. These bills cannot all be passed before the next election – expected to be in May 2005 – hence the suspicion that some of them are largely window-dressing. However we can be sure that at least some of them, such as the controversial proposal to introduce identity cards, will be revived in the next session of parliament, should Labour win the election.
The government justifies these new intrusive measures by referring to the spread of global terrorism and the yob culture which is disfiguring many communities – as if these things naturally go together. In fact, they are totally separate issues, demanding different policy responses.
The war on terror is so incredibly complex that it is very difficult to know what, if anything, the free nations can do effectively to protect themselves against international terrorism, whilst remaining free. It may be the case that we have to surrender some of our traditional liberties, if the intelligence we receive is credible, and not manufactured by Downing Street, like the carefully leaked story about the ‘plan’ to ‘attack’ Canary Wharf.
But the yob culture is quite different. Not only is it an indisputable reality, but we have no need of any extra measures to counter it, because we already have sufficient laws on the statute books to deal with it. Unfortunately, they are not being enforced because the police are not interested in what they call low-level crime. They prefer to concentrate on more serious crime, ignoring the evidence that graffiti, vandalism and yobbishness create the sort of threatening environment in which serious crime is more likely to take place. The Broken Windows theory of criminal behaviour has been tried, tested and proved in the USA, but in Britain we seem determined not to learn from anyone else.
David Cameron, the Conservative Party’s policy co-ordinator, has accused the government of giving us ‘a police state without the police’. It is easy to follow his argument. You never see a policeman on the beat nowadays because they are too busy tearing around in cars, sitting in the station filling in forms or hanging around the courts for trials that have to be abandoned for procedural reasons. We need more police, but we also need to have them better deployed. As long as the present culture prevails in the criminal justice system, and as long as the police remain as ineffective as they are, it gives the government the perfect excuse to introduce new measures like identity cards which erode our traditional liberties in favour of political control. To politicians of all parties, this probably seems like the ideal outcome.
Posted by at November 24, 2004 03:49 PM
Comments
But don't you realise the British are not part of the human race? Examine the British attitude to anything from sex to Continental opening hours for pubs etc. and whatever is working and can be demonstrated to cause no problem elsewhere in the world isn't appropriate for the British (according to our political Masters). Therefore the conclusion must be that the British people do not belong to the rest of the human race.
Having studied many aspects of the way the law operates in the "Arch Satan" America, there is a LOT we could learn from them, particularly when it comes to the relationship between the people (I won't use the words "citizens" or "subjects" as citizens have rights, subjects are subject to the law, regardless of how unjust) and the Government. One of the differences in the approach between America and Britain is their refreshing willingness to actually study a problem and formulate a solution which is examined critically under operational conditions. Contrast this with the arbitrary and capricious manner in which laws are passed in this country to solve "problems" which exist mainly in the fevered imaginations of the politicians. If something is seen not to be working, then clearly more of the same will achieve the result, and if it doesn't, then there wasn't enough of the more bit ...
A fundamental feature of the way the Police apply the law in this country is to concentrate on the easy cases and the more tedious and difficult the crime to investigate, just to slap an ASBO onto the perpetrators. It's a lot easier than fighting the system to prosecute known criminals.
So we'll get the identity cards (which will be easy to forge and allow criminals to operate more freely on stolen or constructed identities), more restrictions on the law abiding and if that doesn't work, then surrendering the freedoms and rights we have left will clearly work.
Or so our political "Masters" would have us believe.
Posted by: Phil at November 25, 2004 08:02 AM
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