Friday, May 05, 2006
Snorting At Charlie
I see that Charles Clarke has been sacked.
Bang bang, we shot you down, bang bang!
What's that sound I hear? Is it bells pealing? People rejoicing? I think so.
Yes, this is really happening outside my window.*
Being genuinely serious, I don't think I've been this happy for quite a while. I'm going on a big night out tonight, which no doubt Mr Clarke would hate too, the joyless puritan, and seeing his career in tatters is a vicarious pleasure I just can't help having.
Let's think about his record, shall we?
1) Pushed the identity card bill throught Parliament, which is Officially The Worst Idea Anyone Has Ever Had, Ever. Not only does the Bill set out to collate at least 50 fields of data upon every adult citizen of Britain, to be accessed at the touch of a key, this data will be retained long after people have died. It is absurdly overcomplicated, unproven technology that will put people's lives and finances at risk while the flaws are ironed out of the system. Worst of all, it is an insidious attempt to complete the surveillance state by a man who is the true heir of Bentham.
2) Wanted to silence justifiable criticism of religion. His record was a constant attempt to curb the right to free speech.
3) Was involved in pushing a bill - still not dead - that would allow S&M pornographers to be imprisoned for up to 3 years for staging consensual images.
4) Has been behind 'control orders' on suspected terrorists, that don't require the CPS to actually prove that anyone is guilty of anything, or even really suspected of anything. Despite the fact that these control orders were deemed illegal under Labour's own Human Rights Act, the control orders are still in place.
5) Decided to cut the amount that people wrongfully convicted of crimes they didn't commit receive in compensation. He started this awesomely illiberal and breathtakingly inhuman proceedure in order to save a paltry £5 million, less than the taxpayer's subsidy for the Commons tearoom.
6) Oversaw a system in which over 1000 violent foreign offenders who should have been deported were allowed loose into the community, over a quarter of those after he had been alerted to the problem, and kept this information to himself. It has subsequently emerged that one of those released, Mustaf Jama, who has now fled the country, is wanted in connection with the murder of policewoman Sharon Beshinevsky, and another, Caliph Ali Asmar, is currently in questionning over charges of stabbing a man and raping a fifteen year old girl. Unbelievably, the day the scandal broke, Mr Clarke wrote the following:
'However, as democracy has advanced so powerfully across the world, other rights become important too. The right to go to work safely on the tube. The right not to be killed by someone who has served his sentence for violent crime but remains dangerous.'
What a delicious sense of irony the man had.
Of course, the new Home Secretary is bezzie mates with a man on the run from the police. I was going to make some snarky comment about it being our politicians who should rightly be on the run from the police, but instead I've actually decided that perhaps Mr Reid's rather shady compatriots might give him a healthy lack of respect for ideas like Identity Cards.
Fat chance.
Fat chancer.
*Don't be so fucking stupid.
Bang bang, we shot you down, bang bang!
What's that sound I hear? Is it bells pealing? People rejoicing? I think so.
Yes, this is really happening outside my window.*
Being genuinely serious, I don't think I've been this happy for quite a while. I'm going on a big night out tonight, which no doubt Mr Clarke would hate too, the joyless puritan, and seeing his career in tatters is a vicarious pleasure I just can't help having.
Let's think about his record, shall we?
1) Pushed the identity card bill throught Parliament, which is Officially The Worst Idea Anyone Has Ever Had, Ever. Not only does the Bill set out to collate at least 50 fields of data upon every adult citizen of Britain, to be accessed at the touch of a key, this data will be retained long after people have died. It is absurdly overcomplicated, unproven technology that will put people's lives and finances at risk while the flaws are ironed out of the system. Worst of all, it is an insidious attempt to complete the surveillance state by a man who is the true heir of Bentham.
2) Wanted to silence justifiable criticism of religion. His record was a constant attempt to curb the right to free speech.
3) Was involved in pushing a bill - still not dead - that would allow S&M pornographers to be imprisoned for up to 3 years for staging consensual images.
4) Has been behind 'control orders' on suspected terrorists, that don't require the CPS to actually prove that anyone is guilty of anything, or even really suspected of anything. Despite the fact that these control orders were deemed illegal under Labour's own Human Rights Act, the control orders are still in place.
5) Decided to cut the amount that people wrongfully convicted of crimes they didn't commit receive in compensation. He started this awesomely illiberal and breathtakingly inhuman proceedure in order to save a paltry £5 million, less than the taxpayer's subsidy for the Commons tearoom.
6) Oversaw a system in which over 1000 violent foreign offenders who should have been deported were allowed loose into the community, over a quarter of those after he had been alerted to the problem, and kept this information to himself. It has subsequently emerged that one of those released, Mustaf Jama, who has now fled the country, is wanted in connection with the murder of policewoman Sharon Beshinevsky, and another, Caliph Ali Asmar, is currently in questionning over charges of stabbing a man and raping a fifteen year old girl. Unbelievably, the day the scandal broke, Mr Clarke wrote the following:
'However, as democracy has advanced so powerfully across the world, other rights become important too. The right to go to work safely on the tube. The right not to be killed by someone who has served his sentence for violent crime but remains dangerous.'
What a delicious sense of irony the man had.
Of course, the new Home Secretary is bezzie mates with a man on the run from the police. I was going to make some snarky comment about it being our politicians who should rightly be on the run from the police, but instead I've actually decided that perhaps Mr Reid's rather shady compatriots might give him a healthy lack of respect for ideas like Identity Cards.
Fat chance.
Fat chancer.
*Don't be so fucking stupid.
Comments:
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Reid is a blank eyed psychopath. The fact he used to be a communist is neither here nor there. Mussolini was a 'socialist' before he was a fascist.
It turns out you were both right. I was, I have to say, somewhat disturbed to find out that he was an admirer of Radovan Karadzic.
This government is genuinely waaaaay beyond parody.
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This government is genuinely waaaaay beyond parody.
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