IF YOU'VE GOT NOTHING TO HIDE DON'T READ THIS

There is a silly argument always used when seeking to attack privacy as part of the current culture of surveillance and the steady and unrelenting attack on our civil liberties, it goes along the lines of ‘if you've got nothing to hide what are you afraid of?’ My response to this is that if you have got nothing to hide, nothing you would prefer to keep private, you have led a shallow and wholly insubstantial life. P G Wodehouse once reflected if you sent the following telegram to a random group of individuals: - ‘All is discovered. Flee,’ nine out of ten would pack up and leave the country.

It is the stuff of life, it is what we do, it comes in a package marked ‘the human condition,’ we make mistakes, do things we are ashamed off, hold discreditable thoughts; we lust, we envy and stoop to low cunning. When Jesus said “Let him without sin cast the first stone,” for once, at least, he knew what he was talking about.

And still the assault on civil liberties goes on, this time undertaken by those who only a few years ago were presenting themselves as the protectors of ancient British liberties.

However do not expect a robust defence of liberty from the left, the dismal record of the Labour party respecting civil liberties represents a truly appalling indictment. The best defence of civil liberties has been left to David Davis the backbench Tory MP, a man whose views on many other things I would strongly disagree, he is however that rare breed, a truly principled politician.

Someone called Professor Anthony Glees has been doing the rounds of the television and radio studios seeking to promote the case for making further encroachments on our liberties by scaremongering about the Jubilee and Olympics. What he fails to inform you is that no legislation could possibly make its way onto the statute book before either of these events.

A couple of weeks back a young man was sent to prison for some moronic remarks he made on Facebook about the footballer Patrice Muamba, remarks that were greeted with dismay and rejected even by his own followers, no one was injured, threatened or intimidated, still he got time. The silence of those on the left faced by this grotesque assault on basic liberties was deafening. To find a defence of such liberties one needs to go to the pages of The Spectator not The New Statesman.

I have vivid memories of the 1970’s and well remember the trials of members of the IRA, ETA, of the Red Army Faction and the Red Brigades. All such ‘left’ and nationalist groups contained more than their fair share of psychopaths and general all round fruitcakes, still what I do remember is their contempt for the system that brought them to justice, their refusal to recognise the courts or make appeals to the legal niceties of bourgeois society. How this contrasts with the pathetic whinging of the likes of Abu Hamsa desperately clutching at any straw provided by the Kaffir justice he so openly affects to despise.

Having visited this page I would be grateful for your feedback, either tick one of the boxes below or make a comment via the comments button.

Popular posts from this blog

NESRINE MALIK AND THE UNSUNG VIRTUES OF HYPOCRISY

Image
As I write this a 27 year old woman, Mariam Ibrahim, has just had a baby in a Sudanese prison, ‘the condition of the mother and baby is not known as Ibrahim's lawyer and her husband, a US citizen, had been denied access to her. Omdurman women's prison has a basic clinic, where the child is thought to have been born. Ibrahim has been shackled since being imprisoned.’ [1]   Mariam also has an 18 month old child who is also being held in prison with her. The ‘crime’ for which she is imprisoned is apostasy, for which she has received the death sentence. She has also been sentenced to 100 lashes, for the additional crime of having sex with her Christian husband. Although she has been a lifelong Christian her father was a Muslim, Sudanese sharia law forbids women to marry outside the Muslim faith, men needless to say can do as they please in these matters. Mariam Ibrahim and her husband.  Nineteen countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 12 of those countries
Read more

INTERVIEW WITH TOM VAGUE

Image
Tom Vague At the top end of All Saints Road there is a refuge, an enclave in which a local Bohemian culture retains a foothold, this is the Book & kitchen , a café/bookshop with adjoining terrace. Here the bustle of the nearby market gives way to conversation, conversation in the presence of images of the recent, and not so recent, past. The past of an area that has contributed so much to the life and culture of the city. I was there to meet local historian Mr Tom Vague a man intimately familiar with so much of this history. What Tom doesn’t know about the recent history of the area probably is not worth knowing. With Tom’s energy and effort Colville Community Forum, supported by City Living Local Life, recently held a gathering at The Book and Kitchen to celebrate this rich history. February 16 6-9 Pm, with Film Screening and Readings Exhibition February 16-26 2016. Featuring 30 Classic Westway Photographs and Posters. This represents one of a number of initiatives of t
Read more

VOLINE AND TROTSKY

Волин и Троцкого A Footnote in Russian History In April 1917 the Russian anarchist revolutionary Voline* and Leon Trotsky were both stranded in New York as the Russian revolution broke out in Petrograd , inevitably coming into contact with one another. Voline stated that he felt that the Bolsheviks, given their ruthlessness and single minded determination, would ultimately come to power. They would then begin eliminating their opponents, amongst whom of course were the anarchists; this persecution would end with the Bolsheviks shooting the anarchists “like partridges.” Trotsky was dismissive, they might have their differences but they were comrades in arms, they had different interpretations of the revolutionary process but shared the same goals. It was nonsense to speak of Bolsheviks shooting revolutionary comrades, “we are socialists, comrade Voline! So we are not your enemies….” [1] In December of 1919, whilst gravely wounded Voline was captured by the Bolshe
Read more