Longrider

Thus goes the headline in today’s Groan.

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

Am I surprised by this revelation? Am I buggery. CCTV was always going to be a placebo, a comfort blanket for the hard of thinking and terminally gullible. It makes a certain portion of the population feel safe; it doesn’t actually make them safe, though.

The first and most obvious reason being that the clued up criminals will simply move their base of operations to an area devoid of CCTV. This leaves the more empty headed variety to carry out their nefarious activities under the watchful eye of the CCTV operators. But, even then, it still isn’t working… Why might that be, then? What about all this fantastic face recognition technology? And what about all those cop shows where someone says “enhance that, please” and a pin-sharp image of the suspect is displayed neatly on-screen?

Ah, ain’t fiction wonderful. They can do all sorts of things in fictional TV land – travel through time and space, speak English to aliens and be immediately understood, solve crimes with DNA alone and, importantly, enhance an image that is so dreadfully low resolution that all you should get is a few unrecognisable pixels – but, hey presto! we get a razor sharp picture of the perp with not a pixel out of place. The reality is somewhat more mundane. The reality is that a low resolution image cannot be enhanced because it doesn’t have enough information in the image to enhance. And, frankly, facial recognition is a pile of poo.

So, there you have it, the entirely predictable being announced. The surveillance state has wasted millions on piss-poor technology that achieves bugger all. The low tech solution would be to spend that money on police officers patrolling the streets, but that, presumably, isn’t sexy enough.

Reading on through the article, though, they want to utilise the technology anyway – quelle surprise.

The warning comes from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard as the force launches a series of initiatives to try to boost conviction rates using CCTV evidence. They include:

· A new database of images which is expected to use technology developed by the sports advertising industry to track and identify offenders.

· Putting images of suspects in muggings, rape and robbery cases out on the internet from next month.

· Building a national CCTV database, incorporating pictures of convicted offenders as well as unidentified suspects. The plans for this have been drawn up, but are on hold while the technology required to carry out automated searches is refined.

They also complain that the use of images in court cases has a poor record. Well, given the poor quality of the images, I suspect that a decent defence counsel would drive the proverbial coach and four though it. And, what is it with these people who think that national databases are going to do what good old fashioned policing won’t? Sure, if you have a decent image of your suspect, it will help – but go back to the original point; they are not decent images. They are, frankly, barely recognisable. You have only to see what they put out on news items and Crime Stoppers to get a feel for the poor quality of the pictures CCTV produces. They are little better than photofits.

Why do I get the feeling that the police are looking to make their lives easier rather than making a proper effort to secure safe convictions?

Seumas Milne in comment is free:

But it’s also clear that the kind of progressive coalition and policies that Livingstone favoured - on transport, housing, privatisation and redistribution - are a good deal more popular with voters than the rudderless triangulation currently on offer from Gordon Brown.

Having been trounced because they steal from those who earn and give it to those who don’t, or piss it up the wall on special interest minorities and quangos, because they snoop and pry into our private lives, bully and fine us for petty misdemeanours – because, frankly, they are poisonous bastards, the way back is…

…more of the fucking same?!?

Fuck me, but they are thick.

I notice, too, that Milne is trying the same misanthropic and patronising tack displayed so admirably by Neil Harding and blaming the press. No, you thick fuck, people are not so stupid as to vote on the basis of a headline – they voted the way they did because the Labour party has treated them like shit.

Jesus, but the so called progressive left in this country is a monster to behold. They didn’t get it wrong – the voters, blinded by the evil press barons got it wrong. Listen, chaps; you got it wrong. The voters rejected your candidates. Some genuine introspection – should you be sufficiently intellectually honest  – will provide you with an answer. Don’t blame the press, don’t blame the electorate, don’t blame “posh” people. Blame yourselves, for there is no one else.

A little over a decade ago, following the landslide Labour victory, I knew that this day would come. It was inevitable that sooner or later, the party in power would pall with the electorate – they always do. Of course, at that time, I was unaware just how deeply authoritarian that party would prove to be. So, I did wonder how I would feel, come this day. Would I, I wondered, feel much like Neil Harding does this morning?

Ah, no. Partly because I realise that this is a good day for democracy. We, the electorate, (or at least those of you who voted yesterday), reminded those in power that that power is borrowed, not a grant of right. And, I realise that one party in power for too long becomes corrupted and complacent, indolent with power.

So, even apart from my subsequent divorce from Labour, I would still have been pragmatic about the results of this week’s elections. I don’t hold a torch for the Tories, but their victories are right and proper. A sea change is occurring and it looks like we are set for a change of administration in Westminster in a couple of years – and that, too, is right and proper. We are not a one party state and it is good to remind the politicians that they are on borrowed time.

The icing on the cake is the removal of Ken Livingstone from City Hall. As for a Johnson administration in London, well, contrary to what the fatuous fuckwits like Charlie Brooker might think, I suspect that he will be a competent mayor. If you bought into the buffoonish persona presented on the television screens, then you have missed the sharp mind underneath.

He already has one sound policy before we start. Unlike his predecessor, he plans to allow motorcycles to use bus lanes in London. A policy adopted in Bristol over a decade ago and in other cities around the country since (most recently, Swindon). This has consistently demonstrated that it reduces accidents for all vulnerable road users. Ken Livingstone deliberately and cynically appeased the cycling lobby – who, despite the contrary evidence asserted that it would place them at risk – and suppressed the Tfl research findings. Those findings were consistent with other experiments – accidents decrease where the policy is applied. Johnson has stated that he will follow those the findings and allow bikes in bus lanes.

So, from a motorcyclist’s point of view; it’s a good start. Now, how about cancelling the Olympics?

Slowly, surely, inexorably, the new puritanism is enveloping this country. Trawling its way through parliament is the egregious amendment to the criminal justice bill that will outlaw the possession of “violent” pornography. This terrible bill is the consequence of a terrible crime – and as such, is a terrible reason for it to be considered in the first place. As with the dangerous dogs act and the handgun legislation, we have bad law built rashly on the back of a tragedy.

Five years ago Jane Longhurst, a teacher from Brighton, was murdered. It later emerged her killer had been compulsively accessing websites such as Club Dead and Rape Action, which contained images of women being abused and violated.

So this man liked to watch violent porn. This does not mean that violent porn leads to violent acts. This is the facile thinking of the ban-it brigade, those who claim that porn leads to rape, that violent video games lead to violent behaviour. This is a non sequitur. People who are predisposed to behave badly may well want to watch videos and pictures of acts that turn them on. It does not mean that watching such material corrupts or depraves people to the point where they will carry out acts of violence against others purely as a consequence.

Under the new rules, criminal responsibility shifts from the producer - who is responsible under the OPA - to the consumer.

And where will this lead? Another operation ore is highly likely. This from Deborah Hyde of Backlash:

“How many tens or hundreds or thousands of people are going to be dragged into a police station, have their homes turned upside down, their computers stolen and their neighbours suspecting them of all sorts?

Such “victims” won’t feel able to fight the case and will take a caution, before there are enough test cases to prove that this law is unnecessary and unworkable”

Which is pretty much what happened with operation ore – innocent people had their lives and reputations destroyed by an obsessive, puritanical state set upon prosecuting scapegoats.

While I have sympathy for Jane Longhurst’s mother’s loss, I have no sympathy whatsoever for her nasty little campaign:

Speaking from her home in Berkshire, Mrs Longhurst acknowledges that libertarians see her as “a horrible killjoy”.

Ah, yes, the old “I’m jot a killjoy, but…” argument. Yes, Mrs Longhurst, you are a killjoy, because you want to subvert the law in order to impose your sensibilities on others.

“I’m not. I do not approve of this stuff but there is room for all sorts of different people. But anything which is going to cause damage to other people needs to be stopped.”

There being no evidence that watching pornography, violent or otherwise, causes such damage to others; it is not the place of the state – nor the victims of crime – to decree what people watch or read in the privacy of their own homes.

To those who fear the legislation might criminalise people who use violent pornography as a harmless sex aid, she responds with a blunt “hard luck”.

There you have it. Mrs Longhurst is now the arbiter – with the blessing of a puritanical state – of what you may or may not watch. Don’t like it? Hard luck is the reply. Mrs Longhurst is right and you are wrong. Hard luck, tough titty. That you are a consenting adult engaging in consensual activities, watching other consenting adults engaging in consensual activities is neither here nor there to Mrs Longhurst. She doesn’t like it, she doesn’t understand why you want to do or watch it, so, hard luck. What she says, goes. Get used to it. Your life is not your own. Mrs Longhurst will tell you what is okay or not.

“There is no reason for this stuff. I can’t see why people need to see it. People say what about our human rights but where are Jane’s human rights?”

Which just goes to demonstrate how catastrophically ignorant this woman is. Her daughter was murdered by a violent criminal – this has nothing to do with the matter of human rights or freedom of speech and expression. Mrs Longhurst is confusing negative and positive liberty. In restricting the liberty to read and watch what we like, Mrs longhurst will not prevent another tragedy of the type that befell her daughter. Those who are predisposed to murder, will do so. Meanwhile, innocent people will suffer the consequences of bad law because Mrs Longhurst went on a vengeance trip enabled by people like David Blunkett.

Despite efforts to forestall an impending revolt, it looks as though Brown is in serious trouble. So much so, that Miliband is reminding the troops that it could cost them the election when it comes. To which I can only say; keep up the good work. Not that I have confidence in the Tories’ ability to bring about competent government either, it’s just that they are marginally less awful than the current administration. There’s a fag paper in it, but that fag paper is enough justification – at least we will see if they keep their promise to repeal the Identity Cards Act 2006. That, alone, would be worth it.

While his more than well deserved all time low approval ratings are entirely his own fault, the cyclopean premier remains in denial and looks to the media for a scapegoat, as Martin Ivens notes in the Times today.

The age of deference is dead. If our masters needed further proof, then the unprecedented collapse of Gordon Brown’s approval ratings has provided it.

Quite right, too. Politicians are self-serving, snouts-in-the-trough, lying, pernicious jackanapes who treat the electorate with disdain. Why on earth should we treat these people with deference? I – and it seems I am not alone – treat them with well deserved contempt; for the nasty, thieving bastards that they are.

The prime minister’s election-that-never-was and his handling of Northern Rock were certainly clumsy. Yet John Major didn’t receive as vicious a drubbing for his much worse “crime” of presiding over the pound’s humiliating expulsion from the European exchange-rate mechanism in 1992. Brown blames the “feral beasts of the media” as Tony Blair called us in his farewell speech. The rebellion over the abolition of the 10p tax band is apparently all our fault, too.

This is the Neil Harding trick. It’s all Murdoch’s fault. Now, I certainly don’t hold a torch for Rupert Murdoch and I definitely don’t hold one for journalists, whom I hold in almost as much contempt as I do politicians; but for crying out loud, the problems that Brown and his cohorts are suffering are entirely their own doing. The media didn’t decide to make poor people poorer by removing the 10p tax band, the media are not responsible for the shambolic mismanagement of the Northern Rock collapse, the media are not responsible for the collapse of the pound against other currencies, the media did not systematically mismanage the economy over the past decade, and the media did not erode our civil liberties  – that was the Labour party and if the country censures them for it, then they can only blame themselves. Not that the arrogant cowards will, they have not the slightest understanding of the concept of taking responsibility for their actions.

There has been a sea change in opinion. A young John Simpson of the BBC got a left hook from Harold Wilson, the then prime minister, 38 years ago for daring to ask him the date of the election. Ever since that encounter, journalists have given up pleading: “Have you anything else you would like to tell the country, prime minister?” Now, after years of spin, the public has become a feral beast, too. Voters won’t tug their forelocks to prime ministers, either. That’s democracy for you.

As a sea change, it’s the right one in the right direction. We employ politicians, not the other way around, there is no reason whatsoever why we should look upon them as our betters or even our rulers. They are our servants. If there’s any forelock tugging to be done, they should be deferring to us.

It follows that politicians who come demanding more money had better watch out for the voters’ left hook instead. Taxpayers know that government wastes bank vaults of their money although the sums are too big to grasp…

Indeed so – and it is beginning to look as if the beast is awakening. Ivens goes on to mention the corrupt nature of politicians’ behaviour:

But when politicians exploit their housing allowances and put their sons on the parliamentary payroll, they really get it in the neck. People think there is little difference between a welfare cheat and an MP on the fiddle.

That’s because there isn’t one – apart from the welfare cheat feeling the full brunt of the law and the MP walking away from his “administrative error”. It is not just the fact that they lie, cheat and steal that places politicians beneath contempt; it is the sheer effrontery with which they expect to walk away scot-free from their behaviour that sticks in the craw.

So it’s not a good time for Labour to come cap in hand to the voters asking for a handout. Last week the prime minister had to tell his party’s debtors that they will get their money back later rather than sooner. The wells of loot are drying up in the wake of the cash for peerages and Labour deputy leadership scandals

Well, there are a few idiots around who still think they are worthy of support. The rest of us can see through them – and I notice in my daily travels that people are tired of the lies, of the shenanigans, of the self-serving venality, and of the contempt with which these evil slime-balls treat their employers. Brown can hold off an election until the last moment, but he has all the hallmarks of the John Major years about him; he’s a dead man walking and a humiliating and crippling defeat waits in the wings to serve judgement on a decade and a half of maladministration, lies, theft and titanic conceit.

If the Labour party goes bust, I for one, will not weep for the loss.