Longrider

I said yesterday that reports of Charles Clarke rethinking his controversial suspension of habeas corpus was, perhaps, premature. Seems I was right. Not that I take any pleasure in it. Indeed, he plans to press ahead - this is part of the New Labour pledge to control our borders. He told Sky News:

“What I said in the House of Commons was that we would be introducing a regime of control orders, up to and including the ability to restrict people on the premises they live, and that is what we will be doing.”

There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon, however. The Tories are finally getting some moral fibre and springing (if a little creakily) to the defence of our cherished liberties alongside the Liberal Democrats. This means that should they follow through, (and work together) a defeat in the Lords is highly possible.

Liberty are outspoken in their condemnation of the proposals and along with other critics (including myself) believe that the government should prosecute and try suspects if they have sufficient evidence. If they don’t have the evidence then they have no right to detain. That someone might commit an offence is just not good enough. Any of us could find ourselves on the wrong side of the party in power and at the whim of the Home Secretary be detained because we might pose a threat to national security with no recourse to the evidence against us. The government’s argument is that putting the evidence before the courts will compromise agents in the field. Fine, hold the proceedings in camera. They argue too, that evidence such as telephone bugging is not admissible evidence. Okay, if they can dispose of habeas corpus at the drop of a hat, can they not amend evidence requirements? Of course they can - however, doing so would mean that political dissidents cannot be detained at the whim of politicians.

Cynical? Moi?
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Over at his blog Big John is having a go at the burying of an inconvenient story by releasing (leaking) “good news” - the marriage announcement of Charles Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker-Bowles. I want to take a sideways look at the thing.

Now as a staunch republican, I really couldn’t give a hoot what they do - and believe me all the hyperbole about what the nation thinks and the constitutional ramifications make me want to heave. Does it matter if one or either of the couple is a divorcee? It seems that the sanctimonious Church of England thinks so. Excuse me, but a little history lesson is in order here. The Church of England exists because a monarch decided to defy the church of Rome and get a divorce. Yes, the whole rotten corrupt edifice is built on divorce. Henry VIII was a divorcee and it was okay for him. Mind you, he also murdered two of his consorts but I’m not suggesting that’s okay.

Hypocrisy abounds here and it leaves a foul odour in its wake. It still lingers from the nineteen thirties’ abdication crisis and the nineteen fifties when Princess Margaret wanted to Marry Group Captain Townsend whereupon the same stuffy nonsense was regurgitated. Personal happiness was sacrificed in the name of “duty”. What duty - what exactly do these people do that is so dutiful? And what do they do that requires them to live by such ridiculous codes of conduct? Certainly morality doesn’t come into it as extramarital affairs abound and seem to be accepted. Indeed, it is almost obligatory for Princes of Wales to cast their wild oats far and wide - at least if history is accurate. If that is so, then marriage to a divorcee is certainly not an issue.

Then there’s the nonsense about what Camilla will be called - not princess of Wales, but Duchess of Cornwall. Not Queen, but Princess Consort. So what? Should we care? I watched people being interviewed on the BBC News last night and between bouts of nausea, I heard one woman insist that Charles remain single because that is what is right. Is it? Okay, he screwed up. Certainly the Royal family treated his first wife badly, but how would staying single make any difference and whose business is it anyway other than theirs? Which of us has not done or said things which we now deeply regret? Which of us is so pure we can cast judgement?

How many of us made errors of judgement in our youth? For Charles, it was going to sea without marrying Camilla. Had he followed his heart then a great deal of heartbreak would have been avoided - and, indeed, this discussion. Now, thirty years later, they choose to do what they intended to do all those years ago. And why not?

If this country was a republic, it wouldn’t even be an issue - now there’s a thought.

It seems Charles Clarke has been forced to rethink his plans for house arrest of suspected terrorists following concerns from the security services, if this Telegraph piece is to be believed.

Deciding for the moment not to derogate from Article 5 of the European Convention on Human rights, Mr Clarke, along with other ministers

…has been taken aback by the outcry over the plans since they were announced in the Commons last month

It says something for the state of affairs that anyone should be taken aback by such outcry. We are, after all talking about habeas corpus, a principle that has existed in English law since 1309. A principle that is being brushed aside on the whim of a politician in the most cynical manner in the name of the war on terror. Well, that’s the excuse. That there is no war on terror and that there is no worldwide network of terrorists is neither here nor there to the power hungry control freaks who would tag us as belongings of the state and use surveillance to exert more control and award themselves more power.

I would like to think our disreputable Home Secretary will rethink all of his authoritarian agenda - but I’m not that fanciful. I suspect that the rethink of house arrest is merely a pause in proceedings, nothing more.

I was brought up Old Labour. My maternal grandfather was a staunch union man and proud of it and as soon as I was old enough to be politically aware, I followed in his footsteps. Like him, I believe in a fair, just and socially aware society that looks after those less fortunate, giving them a helping hand when they fall. A society that also gives room for entrepreneurs to flourish and create wealth that will enrich us all.

This was a man I never met. My mother filled in the gaps for me, telling me how like him in character I was - including the stubborn willfulness in adversity. Robert Spalding died relatively young having suffered the rigours of the icy seas as a merchant seaman on the Murmansk convoys during World War II. Surviving being torpedoed, his health suffered and he succumbed to chest infections in his early fifties. It is to the courage and sacrifice of his generation who fought and died for their country that we owe the society we live in today.

A society with the freedom to be who we are, go where we please and say what we wish. A country where Habeas Corpus still applies. EEEK. REWIND. It did. Until David Blunkett and Charles Clarke removed that from our unwritten constitution. So the society my grandfather went to war for is being eroded by those who inherited it. Our lives are being blighted by the ominous surveillance of CCTV cameras wherever we go, we can be detained at the pleasure of a politician without recourse to the "evidence" against us and in time, if they are successful, every move, every transaction, every tiny inconsequential piece of our lives will be subject to the scrutiny of the state. The kind of state my grandparents’ generation fought against.

I joined the Labour party because I detested what went before. I observed all that was good and caring in our society being eroded by the Thatcher government. I watched the rise of the selfish society with horror. Okay, so some things needed fixing and not everything that happened was for the worst. Union reform was necessary - war with the miners was not. Some state owned organisations should be in the private sector. I can accept the sell-off of BT and British Airways. I cannot and will not accept that the sell-off of the railways was the right decision. Against this background I returned to my roots and joined the Labour Party and actively campaigned for their election to power. May 1^st 1997 was a sweet day. That landslide victory was a wonderful experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. Sitting through the night as the counts came in I realised that I was a part of history and a new beginning. Today, that dream is in ashes. The policies being enacted by the Labour Party today are Tory policies of yesterday. No wonder Michael Howard doesn’t know which way to turn - all his best moves have been stolen from under his nose.

This morning I decided to see how my MP Roger Berry voted during the third reading of the ID cards bill. I had some hope that he would rebel - he has a history of doing so. But, no, he fell in line with the party whips and voted in favour. I cannot in all conscience support an MP who is prepared to vote for something with which I am so passionately opposed. As a Labour party member voting for an opposition party would be hypocrisy.

So, today, I did the decent thing. With a heavy heart I resigned my membership, letting both the party headquarters and Roger know what I was doing and why. I hope Robert Spalding would have been proud of me.

It seems that Snopes has identified that the Telegraph story I commented on earlier this month isn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Red faces all round…

Following Michael Howard’s decision to back the ID card proposal in principle - well, he would, given his plans back in 1996 when he was Home Secretary - the Tories decided to abstain during the third reading of the ID cards bill in the Commons because, according to shadow Home Secretary, David Davies:

“…ministers had failed to give assurances on how the scheme would work in practice.”

Okay - so why didn’t they have the courage of their convictions and vote against?

The bill now having passed its third reading in the house goes to the Lords where, according to the Prime Minister this action has paved the way for:

“Tory peers to join forces with Liberal Democrats in the Lords to kill the bill.”

I should damn well hope so - at least the Lords (outmoded and unelected as they are) have the courage to stand up to the government and block bad law. Well, sometimes, anyway.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke waded into the Tories saying:

“If in the final event, it does come to the case that we are not able to carry the legislation in this Parliamentary session, we will know quite clearly that the reason will be the decision of the opposition party, and their decision to put peace internally within their party ahead of the national interest.”

However, what Charles Clarke means by “National Interest” is not one of a free, democratic people, but one of subjects belonging to the overweening, over powerful state. One where the basic relationship between electorate and state is reversed, where we answer to them, rather than the other way around.

I am reminded here not of George Orwell’s 1984 which is often (correctly) cited in these debates, but his equally prophetic Animal Farm. In the closing scene of the book, the pigs who overthrew the humans start quarreling with the erstwhile owner of the farm over a game of cards:

No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

I look at the front benches of the House of Commons and “it is impossible to say which is which.”
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Simon Jenkins rails about the impending restoration of the Cutty Sark. He points out that the £11 million of lottery money being spent to restore the rotting hulk will turn her into a visitor attraction, or as he puts it “a learning zone.” Is there anything quite so appallingly PC than a learning zone? Sterile and emotionless, they display these magnificent machines inert and silent, shadows of their former selves among the garish assortment of entertainment and catering facilities.

Old machines that have been superceded are usually consigned to the scrapyard or left to rot away forgotten in obscurity. Some, however, are carefully preserved for the benefit of future generations by those who love the sights and sounds that evoke a bygone era. It doesn’t matter whether it is an old motorcycle exuding the aroma of Castrol R, the huffing and puffing of a steam locomotive or the graceful majesty of a tall ship such as the Cutty Sark - they move us when they move. I recall as a child walking around the Cutty Sark and she left something embedded in my psyche. I have grown up with a passion for old machines - bikes, planes, ships, steam engines; it doesn’t matter. They all represent a part of our industrial heritage and they stir me inside when I see and hear them. Like Simon Jenkins, I want to see the Cutty Sark in her full glory, rigging creaking and sails straining ahead of a trade wind, racing for the warm seas of the Indian Ocean. So why not restore her as a working training ship? That indeed would be a learning zone.

Edited to add this, because it says all that I love about the sea and tall ships:

Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

John Masefield

Michael Hammond was sentenced today for four and a half years for conning his way into Windsor (Saxe Coberg Gotha) Castle. Yup, four and a half years for blagging his way into one of the many homes of our over privileged and useless royal family. Why? Because, according to the judge,

“Quite apart from the stress and fear that must have caused those people, you created the risk of something much worse.”

Oh, yes, he could have walked in on the Queen - horror of horrors. So what exactly did this evil felon actually do? Er, he was a public nuisance. That’s it, a public nuisance and he gets four and a half years in chokey.

Meanwhile a driver involved in a high speed car chase is sent down for three years. He will serve around 18 months. Okay, so the cases are different and tried by different judges - but really…

It seems that our system puts less value on the lives of ordinary people than it does on the parasites who inhabit such places as Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. It was ever thus, of course.

It’s just a shame Robespierre and his mob of Jacobins didn’t cross the channel and sort ‘em all out. He’d have known what to do.