From: Tony Blair To: Henry Porter Subject: Liberty
Dear Henry Porter,
Frankly it’s difficult to know where to start, given the mishmash of misunderstanding, gross exaggeration and things that are just plain wrong. A few explanatory facts might help.
I can’t wait.
You say I have ‘pared down our liberty at an astonishing rate’, then list a whole lot of fundamental rights, as if these had all been drastically curtailed. We are proposing that the right to trial by jury be changed in one set of circumstances: highly complex serious fraud cases. The reason is simple. The cases last for months, sometimes years – they are incredibly difficult for juries for time and complexity reasons; it is over 30 years since Lord Roskill recommended the change because otherwise such cases often collapse at huge expense and the guilty go free. The estimated number of cases per year is around 20, out of a total of 40,000 jury trials.
“Defenders of this practice say it is justified if a single murderer is prosecuted.” indeed. Then the same is also true about trial by jury. If even one person’s rights are reduced, then it is not worth it. Indeed, if one persons rights are infringed the entire society is damaged. To justify murder by saying “only 20 people out of the millions of living britons will be murdered, so it OK” is a mark of this Nazi inspired, venal gang of bloodsoaked murderers.
The right to silence was already restricted by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (Sections 34-38), which enables a court, if it wishes and in certain circumstances, to draw an adverse inference from a defendant’s failure to answer questions on any charge. The only change introduced by this Government was to clarify (in the light of subsequent case law) the circumstances under which inferences can be drawn from silence in cases where the charge is one of causing the death of a child or vulnerable adult. This again is in a tiny number of cases.
“We are already half way up your ass, we just pushed it in all the way; what is your problem with that?” Honestly, if this is the quality of Bliars thought we can begin to assume that he is not really in control, and is just going along with a flow pushed by people in the background.
You say people can only have blank placards outside Parliament and can’t protest. Go and look at the placards of those camped outside Parliament – they are most certainly not blank and usually contain words not entirely favourable to your correspondent. Outside Downing Street, virtually every day there are protests of one sort or another.
The one man who is camped there can only be there because he started his protest BEFORE the new legislation came into force. A person was arrested for simply reading out a list of people. inside your own devils gathering a man was arested for heckling, and the terrrorism act was the pretext. You are a LIAR and a destroyer of liberty Tony Bliar, and everyone knows it!
It’s correct that, again in a small number of cases, we have introduced unusual restrictions to combat terrorists. There are 12 control orders in place. But we did suffer the death by terrorism of over 50 of our citizens last July. In common with virtually every major nation in the world, we are tightening our restrictions but there are, in every case, elaborate mechanisms of scrutiny and oversight.
First of all, over 40,000 people have been arrested using the terrorism act. That is totally unnaceptable. Secondly, even if the terrorists killed 50,000 people, that is no reason to dismantle this nation. MILLIONS of men gave their lives to protect Britian and its way of life. That you think you have the right to throw away this countries rights because 50 people were killed by a random act by unafiliated and deranged students shows your complete and utter insane state of mind. What other nations may or may not do, this is BRITAIN and BRITIAN LEADS it does not FOLLOW. Especially into the abyss that you are trying to drag it. The Soviet Union had internal passports; did that mean that everywhere should also have them? This sort of ‘reasoning’ is beneath contempt.
And, of course, the reason why even these types of restrictions can end up in our courts and be struck down, is that this Government gave British citizens for the first time ever the power to challenge Executive action or legislation, through the incorporation of the European Convention.
Indeed! wonder if this means that we can strike down the ID cards bill? Shall we try?
We enter the realm of fantasy with your and others’ strictures on the Regulatory Reform Bill. This legislation is proposed for a straight-forward reason. Much regulation becomes redundant over time. It’s a real problem for business. It costs money and causes hassle, often in circumstances far removed from its original purpose. The problem is that if it is in primary legislation then only by formal Act of Parliament can it be changed. In a busy schedule where usually the legislation is very arcane, it can take years, if ever, for necessary change to occur.
The proposal is that in circumstances closely defined and expressly where it doesn’t interfere with people’s basic rights, ministers can propose removing the regulation by order. But before this can actually happen, first the order is subject to public consultation; second, it is scrutinised by independent committees of both houses of parliament; third, there is then a debate before the order is passed in Parliament, which can naturally refuse to accept it. To describe this as the ‘abolition of Parliamentary democracy’ – as some critics have – is more than a little far-fetched.
Firstly, the reason is bogus. Secondly, parilaiment, if it was doping its job properly, and as I have said on BLOGDIAL before, should be sitting and REMOVING legislation, not ADDING legislation. This bill allows parliament to ADD TO and AMEND existing legislation without oversignt, not REMOVE it wholesale. If it was there only to remove legislation it might be arguable that it could not affect rights since only the ADDITION of laws can remove rights from the person.
Next comes some vomit inducing electioneering wrapped in double tall:
When we talk of civil liberties, what about theirs, the law-abiding people; the ones who treat others with courtesy and good manners and expect the same back? Don’t theirs count for anything?
Bliar knows perfectly well that ‘civility and ‘civil liberties’ are two different things, and that he is masterfully conflating them in this piece of disgusting double talk. If there is an estate with a problem, send more police in there. Removing the rights of everyone in the UK because there are some crime hotspots is simply absurd, and he knows this, because he is not stupid.
You complain of the DNA database samples being retained. Since we allowed this, over 14,000 offences have been successfully matched to over 8,000 suspects including over 100 murders and 100 rapes – and as far as I am aware, no one is on the database for dropping litter!
There is nothing funny about this you Nazi piece of filth. Just as an 80 year old heckler was arrested using the terrorism act right in your face, this too will be done, and then what will you say?
And as for the murders and rapes that were solved, this is good, but that has nothing to do with KEEPING THE DNA OF THE INNOCENT ON RECORD. When someone is innocent of any crime, they should have no police record of ANY KIND. and the fact that the police are keeping the DNA of 24,000 INNOCENT children on file – which is child abuse – has nothing to do with the solving of the crimes you mention above. You are a devil, and not even a devil in disguise. Under your orders, 24,000 innocent british children have been VIOLATED, and that is a FACT.
You can’t deal with the levels of sophistication in today’s organised crime by traditional methods. That’s why we are giving the new agency new powers to force suspects to disclose information, to open up their accounts; to ensure that their advisers can’t conceal evidence; and to track their movements not just in Britain but abroad.
That is utter nonsense. The police have more than enough powers to detect any crime, and once again, this is no excuse for removing the rights of ALL the UK citizens. When Bliar says’ “to ensure that their advisers can’t conceal evidence” he is talking about the removal of lawer client privacy; see how he cannot even bring himself to say what he has done? Inside his insane head somewhere, he realizes just how fundamentally outrageous what he has pulled off is.
The issue of ID cards is a little different, because I think there are very good reasons of practicality why, in today’s world, people should be able to protect their identity from fraud or abuse. The figure of £10bn for the cost is ludicrous; and in any event 70 per cent of the cost is because of the move to biometric passports, happening round the western world.
People can protect themselvs from identity fraud primarily by not entering the NIR, ie refusing the ID card. The reality of this has been made crystal clear and soon, not one person in the UK will not have been informed about it. Just because the rest of the world is moving to biometric passports that doesnt mean that the UK should, and also, ‘biometric passports’ does not mean the UK NIR. The new passport standard sets a minimum level of security features which the UK is unilaterally exceeding to the most absurd of levels. Once again, a bald faced lie, from the mouth of a lying murderer!
Ultimately, for me this whole issue is not about whether we care about civil liberties, but how we care for them in the modern world. If the traditional processes were the answer to these crime and law and order problems that are an age away from Dixon of Dock Green and the stable communities of 50 years ago, then we wouldn’t be having this debate. But they’re not. They’ve failed. They are leaving the innocent unprotected and the guilty unpunished. That’s why we need them changed.
This is a total lie, and one he and his cohorts have repeated before form his liars clipboard. The innocent are unprotected because there are not enough police, not because the inadequate numbers have too few powers. This is everything to do with civil liberties, and thanks to Murder Inc, a permanent solution to this problem is around the corner, so that never again will the likes of this mass murderer will be able to single handedly destroy Britain.
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Go and read this apalling exchange yourself. Sadly, Henry Porter doesn’t know how to thread email, otherwise, he could have taken that lying sack of shit apart line by line.
