Leading article: This rampant executive must be brought under control
The power grab of the past decade urgently needs to be reversed
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Independent Minds
This has been a week to provoke uncomfortable contemplation about the sort of country we are we now living in. We have learned that the Home Secretary, aided by civil servants, grossly exaggerated the security threat posed by a leak from her department, prompting the police to arrest an opposition MP. The Government has conceded that the surveillance powers it granted to local councils have been used to spy on innocent members of the public. And yesterday it emerged that Ian Tomlinson, who was assaulted by a police officer at the G20 protests in London earlier this month died not from a heart attack but abdominal bleeding. The common imprint on each of these stories is that of the unaccountable and rampant executive arm of the British state.
Of course, the authorities should have the ability to place suspected terrorists under surveillance. But it is ludicrous that these powers were ever placed in the hands of local councils, or could be used to investigate petty offences such as littering. Of course, civil servants have a right to stop confidential information from being smuggled out of their departments. But they should call in the police to investigate only if it is truly a matter of national security. It is not the job of the police to help to shield ministers from embarrassment. Similarly, no one disputes that the police need, on occasion, to apply reasonable force against demonstrators to protect public property. But the behaviour of certain officers in the City of London two and half weeks ago was utterly indefensible. Such brutality from the rank and file must flow from a terrible failure of leadership within the police.
This twisted state of affairs – civil servants hyping security threats, the police assaulting innocent members of the public, local councils snooping on their electorates – did not arise overnight. It is a toxic consequence of years of illiberal policy-making and a growing arrogance on the part of those who govern Britain.
There has been a pernicious assumption by those in power for much of the past decade that it is reasonable to give the executive sweeping powers in the name of public security and that the civil liberties Britons have enjoyed for generations matter little. This is the thinking that has been used to justify all manner of illiberal innovations from ID cards, to the DNA database, to prolonged detention without trial for terror suspects. Jacqui Smith used this very "national security" argument to justify calling in the police over the leaked Home Office documents.
Those who warned that the executive's power grab would end in an unacceptable erosion of our freedoms have been vindicated. The Government was warned when the council surveillance Bill was going through Parliament that it was too loosely drafted and gave too much power to local authorities. Such concerns were dismissed by ministers. Only now do they admit that they got it wrong. Yet they still cling to the belief that those with executive power are more competent guardians of public freedoms than the public itself.
We need a completely new approach. Any powers granted to public authorities to protect public safety must come with strict conditions of accountability. The police, in particular, need to be brought under much tighter control.
Whichever party forms the next government needs to take back those powers that should never have been conferred. But more than this, it must expunge the mentality that says security always trumps freedom. It is time our arrogant executive was put back in its rightful place.
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Comments
Bejamin Franklin
there should never an inconsistency between liberty and security;
if we are free we ARE secure and if neither what are either worth??
tidly bit uncertain of my logic there
It seems ridiculous to think that travellers and raves were once seen as vital threats to the nation that needed special legislation to fight. It just shows how governments of all stripes work; they build up a bogeyman so that the electorate will support limits on their own freedoms in order to save them. From undemocratic unions to travellers to terrorists and feral youth, successive governents have used our fear and hate to make us all easier to rule. Think about that.
And time after time we lap it up. It'll take more than an election to fix things in our favour, as they should be given that we, not the government, are the nation. One day we'll wake up.
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/2564
inflicting this malevolent crew on us. Really what did yo expect?
Many Labour voting Independent readers share your bitter disappointment with Home Office policy making since 1997, but we don't kid ourselves that the Conservatives are great lovers of freedom. Personally, I'll be voting Lib-Dem next time around.
But that's okay...All you have to remember to do is keep purchasing your goods and pretending that your middle-class lifestyle is all you've ever wanted and you'll be fine. You can even make yourselves feel better by baiting some underclass council house residents for being poor, on the dole or poor parents (but only on news forums like this; otherwise, they might assault you). Or even better: why not pick on another scapegoat like the Muslims or asylum seekers? Don't you know that everything was fine until foreigners wanted to come in to this country, wasn't it?
By the way, just in case some moron latches on to that last comment: I was being sarcastic!
It seems that all the developments cited by the Indie have occurred under a Labour government. Will it be too much to expect the Indie to favour the Conservatives by the time of the next General Election? One senses that the words 'whichever party forms the next government' hint at that. If so, it seems an almost incredible change of view for a newspaper which has always been regarded as left of centre, and reflects the utter, catastrophic failure of the New Labour 'project.'
Lacking a formal set of checks and balances upon the power of the executive, Parliament has seen the government, possessing a large majority in the House of Commons, gather an unprecedented array of powers to itself at the expense of individual rights and civil liberties. The botched reform of the House of Lords has weakened the power of the second chamber to provide an effective alternate views or views to the Labour Party as represented in the House of Commons.
The result is a uni-cameral excutive willing and able to act at will that has repeatedly ignored any appeals for restraint, the consequences of which are only now coming to be revealed to society at large.
If this is ever to change we have to stop waiting for politicians to change the system because they never will. They have climbed too far up the career ladder to make any genuine, principled change because they've become beneficiaries of the system, and especially of its weaknesses.
Change has to start with us, the little guys. We need to understand that our vote is meant to represent ourselves, our communities and our wishes, and not the political parties who run solely according to their own agendas and interests.
We've got to wake up and we've got to figure out how we're going to retake OUR Parliament.
It is likely that Ian Tomlinson died from a "kidney breaker" shot so loved once upon a time by our police, however using a hard baton instead of a rubber truncheon has a very marked and quick effect and if this is the case, it is not manslaughter but murder. I was given the ol' rubber truncheon treatment once in West End Central, I was passing blood for weeks.
As for change, the Independent can help make those changes, champion the people, fight for justice and freedom and accountability through a media campaign, lead by exampled and return to the position of the nations conscience rather than abetter of secretive and criminal governments.
It is a party without principle and ..after so long in the political wastelands before Blair.. has assumed only one overiding objective..RETAIN POWER.
To achieve this objective this party will do and say anything. It will do all neccesary to control information flows and political dissent.
rember on 9/11 day..when all normal folks were appalled by the sight before them ? NuLabour house issued an edict that 'today would be a good day to put out any bad news'. Disgusting. The sheer callowness of such thinking is disturbing.
As for the David Kelly episode..a good and decent man was hounded to suicide by Blair and his attack dog Campbell.YAnd then the justice system lets them get away with it.People forget so easily
As for the police..their new role is presevation of the state. What the Met did at the G20 was normal for them. So..why surprise now ?
Its good that you pose the question..what sort of country are we living in ?
the answer and obvious conclusion is depressing..a second rate governed by second rate immoral people whose citizens now exist to pay taxes, their kids have been committed to pay high taxes as Brown rescues his finacial friends , shut up and don't make waves.
I don't know how you can sound so certain, but you are completely wrong in this assumption and have clearly swallowed the wrong glass of propaganda.
Dr. Kelly was MURDERED, by UK State employed operatives or people working for Mossad. The sophistication of his murder almost confirms this. Below is a link to an informative article that might help you see sense. I don't normally read the UK's Daily Mail -- I was linked to this article from elsewhere -- but it does provide a large amount of the background information you (and others) will require.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-488667/W
Become a Contrarian. Keep voting incumbent politicians out of office until they show some respect for the electorate.
This is the last hope for a democratic reversal of creeping totalitarianism. So if you want peaceful change, then don't waste your vote.
What we have seen implemented in Britain, politically and economically, can be better understood if one first reads and understands the Jewish Talmud -- an evil book in itself where Orthodox Jews are taught to worship themselves; this is also THE book that all Rabbis are taught to follow. One also need to study the true history of International Banking and the meaning of money (what it is and how it is made).
The plan for total world dominance actually began in Ancient Babylon, but it entered a new chapter with the formation of the Bavarian Illuminati under Johann Adam Weishaupt. He received assistance from Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.
What we British should understand, very clearly, is that our Royal Family's House of Windsor is a child (direct descendent) of the house of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. This is an ominous connection.
Weishaupt's Illuminati (formed 1st May 1776) then corrupted the Freemasons from within and turned that organization over to their aims, which was about when the Rothschild dynasty began to bankroll their operations. If you know your history, then you will realize Europe and North America have experienced wars, mayhem, and financial catastrophe ever since (about 180 million killed in the 20th century alone).
Therefore, I would suggest the supposed wisdom in your hackneyed 'German Jew' is nothing more than a minor chapter in this long story.
And finally, the reason May Day is celebrated is not to honour the working classes! Oh my God how easily duped most of us are. May Day is the celebration of the birth of the Illuminati! That is what all the Red Flags are about. Rothschild means 'red shield' in German, hence the Red Flag.
Is the penny (pfennig) beginning to drop yet, or are you going to respond just to call me silly names?
Shortly after this odious piece, when the footage of the police assault on Mr Tomlinson was released, we were treated to Janet Street Porter's apologetics on behalf of the police who probably killed him. It beggars belief that an article about a man who died so soon after being attacked should be titled: "Ian Tomlinson was no saint but...". But what, you stupid woman? In a story that involves an assailant and a victim, Street Porter discovers that in the case of the victim, there are mitigating circumstances! Classic mainstream propaganda, designed to smear a man on behalf of the "arrogant executive" that this hypocritical editorial now tells us needs to be "put back in its rightful place".
It is time we woke up to the fact that in the ongoing diminution of our civil rights, in the creeping advance of authoritarianism in this country and in the consistent defence of the indefensible the media, and this newspaper, have more than played their part.