Tuesday 26th of November 2024
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defending our way of life .....

defending our way of life .....

On a warm spring day, strolling in south London, I heard demanding voices behind me. A police van disgorged a posse of six or more, who waved me aside. They surrounded a young black man who, like me, was ambling along. They appropriated him; they rifled his pockets, looked in his shoes, inspected his teeth. Their thuggery affirmed, they let him go with the barked warning there would be a next time.

For the young at the bottom of the pyramid of wealth and patronage and poverty that is modern Britain, mostly the black, the marginalised and resentful, the envious and hopeless, there is never surprise. Their relationship with authority is integral to their obsolescence as young adults. Half of all black British youth between the ages of 18 and 24 are unemployed, the result of deliberate policies since Margaret Thatcher oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in British history. Forget plasma TVs, this was panoramic looting.

Such is the truth of David Cameron's "sick society", notably its sickest, most criminal, most feral "pocket": the square mile of the City of London where, with political approval, the banks and super-rich have trashed the British economy and the lives of millions. This is fast becoming unmentionable as we succumb to propaganda once described by the American black leader Malcolm X thus: "If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing."

As they lined up to bay their class bigotry and hypocrisy in parliament, barely a handful of MPs spoke this truth. Heirs to Edmund Burke's 18th century rants against the "mob rule" of a "swinish multitude", not one referred to previous rebellions in Brixton, Tottenham and Liverpool in the 1980s when Lord Scarman reported that "complex political, social and economic factors" had caused a "disposition towards violent protest" and recommended urgent remedial action. Instead, Labour and Liberal bravehearts called for water cannon and everything draconian: among them the Labour MP Hazel Blears. Remember her notorious expenses? None made the obvious connection between the greatest inequality since records were kept, a police force that routinely abuses a section of the population and kills with impunity and a permanent state of colonial warfare with an arms trade to match: the apogee of violence.

It hardly seemed coincidental that on the day before Cameron raged against "phony human rights", NATO aircraft - which include British bombers sent by him - killed a reported 85 civilians in a peaceful Libyan town. These were people in their homes, children in their schools. Watch the BBC's man on the spot trying his best to dispute the evidence of his eyes, just as the political and media class sought to discredit the evidence of a civilian bloodbath in Iraq as epic as the Rwanda genocide. Who are the criminals?

This is not in any way to excuse the violence of the rioters, many of whom were opportunistic, mean, cruel, nihilistic and often vicious in their glee: an authentic reflection of a system of greed and self-interest to which scores of parasitic money-movers, "entrepreneurs", Murdochites, corrupt MPs and bent coppers have devoted themselves.

On 4 August, the BBC's Fiona Armstrong - aka Lady MacGregor of MacGregor - interviewed the writer Darcus Howe, who dared use the forbidden word, "insurrection".

Armstrong: "Mr. Howe, you say you are not shocked [by the riots]? Does this mean you condone what happened?"

Howe: "Of course not ... what I am concerned about is a young man Mark Duggan ... the police blew his head off."

Armstrong: "Mr. Howe, we have to wait for the official enquiry to say things like that. We don't know what happened to Mr. Duggan. We have to wait for the police report."

On 8 August, the Independent Police Complaints Commission acknowledged there was "no evidence" that Duggan had fired a shot at police. Duggan was shot in the face on 4 August by a police officer with a Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine gun - the same weapon supplied by Britain to dictatorships that use them against their own people. I saw the result in East Timor where Indonesian troops also blew the heads off people with these state-of-the-art weapons supplied by both Tory and Labour governments.

An eyewitness to Duggan's killing told the Evening Standard, "About three or four police officers had [him] pinned on the ground at gunpoint. They were really big guns and then I heard four loud shots. The police shot him on the floor."

This is how the Metropolitan Police shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes on the floor of a London Underground train. And there was Robert Stanley and Ian Tomlinson, and many more. The police lied about Duggan's killing as they have lied about the others. Since 1998, more than 330 people have died in police custody and not one officer has been convicted. Where is the political and media outrage about this "culture of fear"?

"Funny, too," noted the journalist Melanie MacFadyean, "that the police did nothing while some serious looting went on - surely not because they wanted everyone to see that cutting the police force meant more crime?"

Still, the brooms have arrived. In an age of public relations as news, the clean-up campaign, however well-meant by many people, can also serve the government's and media goal of sweeping inequality and hopelessness under gentrified carpets, with cheery volunteers armed with their brand new brooms and pointedly described as "Londoners" as if the rest are aliens. The otherwise absent Boris Johnson waved his new broom. Another Etonian, the former PR man to an asset stripper and current prime minister up to his neck in Hackgate, would surely approve.

 

John Pilger

 

"aussie tony" to the rescue...

The "big" cause of recent riots in England was "alienated, disaffected youth," former Prime Minister Tony Blair has said.

Writing in the Observer, he warned that "muddle-headed analysis" of the riots may result in wrong policy responses.

Mr Blair also dismissed claims the UK was in the grip of a "moral decline".

In the Sunday Express, PM David Cameron pledged a fightback against the "bureaucratic nonsense and destructive culture" which led to current problems.

'No moral decline'

In rare comments on British politics since standing down as prime minister in 2007, Mr Blair said the riots were "an absolutely specific problem that requires a deeply specific solution" by politicians.

He pointed to a group of people "outside the social mainstream and who live in a culture at odds with any canons of proper behaviour".

"Focus on the specific problem and we can begin on a proper solution," he wrote.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14605459

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As a lying shit-stirrer chief sophist, they don't come with more pedigree than "Aussie Tony"...

revisionist's history...

More than 100 academics and students have signed an open letter condemning TV historian David Starkey for comments he made about the UK riots and race on a recent BBC Newsnight programme, denouncing his argument as "evidentially insupportable and factually wrong".

Starkey caused controversy earlier this month by responding to a question about the cause of recent rioting by saying: "What has happened is that a substantial section of the chavs... have become black. The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion."

Commentators lined up afterwards to call Starkey a racist and announce his career was over. Now a group of his fellow historians and academics have sent an open letter to the Times Higher Education magazine in an effort to distance themselves from Starkey. Among them are academics from Cambridge and the London School of Economics – two institutions Starkey taught at.

The signatories say Starkey's "crass generalisations about black culture and white culture as oppositional, monolithic entities demonstrate a failure to grasp the subtleties of race and class that would disgrace a first-year history undergraduate. In fact, it appears to us that the BBC was more interested in employing him for his on-screen persona and tendency to make comments that viewers find offensive than for his skills as a historian".


Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/83689,people,news,historians-join-attack-on-dave-starkey-comments-on-uk-riots-and-race#ixzz1WPny1k81

stop & search .....

Scotland Yard signalled on Thursday that it would significantly reform its use of the controversial power to stop people without suspicion, as an internal document by the Met police deputy commissioner, obtained by the Guardian, revealed fears that the courts could strike down such searches as unlawful.

The changes announced by police come days before a deadline set by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which believes the use of "section 60" stop and search is unlawful. The watchdog had threatened court action over the power.

An African-Caribbean person is up to 27 times more likely than a white person to be stopped by police using those powers.

The Met said officers would be told to focus less on stopping people for small amounts of cannabis, and instead focus on those suspected of violent offences and carrying weapons.

The force aims to reduce by half searches for drugs where none are subsequently found.

As part of the reforms, senior officers will reduce by 50% the number of times they authorise an area to be the target of section 60 stops that do not require reasonable suspicion. They said more intelligence would be needed before this power could be deployed in the future.

The Met also said that the force's commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, wanted the arrest rate from all stop and searches carried out to increase from 6% (at this rate  the lowest for an urban force) to 20%.

Police are facing a second legal challenge over their use of section 60, brought by a member of the public, Ann Roberts, who claims it is being used in a racist way against African-Caribbean people.

The 37-year-old special needs assistant, who has no convictions, was held down by officers on the floor in front of other people, handcuffed and taken to a police station where she was wrongly accused of being user of class A drugs.

She claims that a disproportionate number of black Londoners are searched, in violation of article 14 of the European convention on human rights, which bans discrimination. In July the high court agreed she could bring a full legal challenge to section 60.

Craig Mackey, then the police national lead on stop and search, wrote to senior colleagues warning them of the development. Mackey is to become the new deputy commissioner of the Met.

In his memo addressed "to chief constables and commissioners", obtained by the Guardian, Mackey compared the legal challenge to section 60 to a successful challenge against stops made under section 44 of the terrorism act - which was then struck down by the courts and scrapped by the government.

Mackey wrote: "Since the successful challenge was made in the European courts on the 'no suspicion' powers of stop and search, in section 44 [of the] Terrorism Act 2000, the potential for a similar scrutiny of section 60 powers has always been anticipated. Together with colleagues working in the field of stop and search, I have taken every opportunity to alert the police service to this potential development."

Hogan-Howe had indicated that he was willing to reform stop and search as evidence grew showing its use had been a factor in stoking the discontent behind the summer riots in England, and that the force had been unable to convince critics that the power's disproportionate use against ethnic minorities was not linked to racism.

The Met announcement did not include any direct measure to tackle disproportionality, however.

Commander Tony Eastaugh said the Met was listening to communities. "We know that young black and minority ethnic males aged 16-24 are over-represented as victims and suspects. If we get this right, using the right intelligence, we should see a positive outcome around disproportionality."

He added that section 60 stops without suspicion generated more resentment than stops requiring an officer to have reasonable suspicion: "Section 60 is the one people don't understand," he said.

Eastaugh said stop and search would focus more on violent crime.

As Britain's ethnic minorities are more likely to live in London than elsewhere the high use of stop and search in the capital skews the figure nationally.

John Wadham, of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: "We are pleased the force intends to change its practices so that fewer people are stopped without good reason, breaching their human rights."

Stop and search was also going to be an issue in London's mayoral election, with the former Met chief and Liberal Democrat candidate, Brian Paddick, planning to campaign on it.

Paddick said: "This is the first time a Met commissioner has said he is prepared to do something about stop and search. I have never heard anyone satisfactorally explain why the police are disproportionately stopping Asian and black people."

Metropolitan Police To Scale Back Stop And Search Operation

getting-away with murder ....

The Metropolitan policeman who struck and pushed Ian Tomlinson as he walked away from riot officers on the fringe of the G20 protests in London has been sacked with immediate effect after a disciplinary hearing found he had committed gross misconduct.

It was "inconceivable" that Simon Harwood, who was cleared of Tomlinson's manslaughter in July following one of the most high-profile cases of police misconduct in recent years, could ever work as a police officer again, the three-strong panel ruled.

Commander Julian Bennett, who chaired the panel, said: "PC Harwood's use of force in this case cannot be justified. His actions have discredited the police service and undermined public confidence in it.

"PC Harwood has accepted that it would be impossible for him to ever again serve as a police officer, whether within the MPS [Metropolitan police service] or any other police force – we agree, as we consider it inconceivable that he could ever perform a role in the police service again."

Harwood, whose long and at times murky prior disciplinary record was not disclosed at his trial, would be sacked with immediate effect, Bennett said. However, he will keep his pension entitlement as he has not been convicted of a crime.

Tomlinson, 47, died shortly after being shoved to the ground by a riot policeman later identified as Harwood. An inquest last year ruled that Harwood unlawfully killed him, but a trial jury acquitted the officer of manslaughter in July.

The disciplinary panel, sitting in public for the first time in the Met's history, was initially going to try to reconcile these contradictory verdicts by ruling on whether Harwood's actions contributed to Tomlinson's death, even inadvertently, but this element was removed after representations from the officer's lawyers, dismaying Tomlinson's widow and children.

Tomlinson's stepson, Paul King, described the process as "a whitewash" after walking out of the Met police administrative centre in Earls Court, west London, before the final ruling had been given.

He said: "It's like they have just let PC Harwood resign. The conflicting verdicts of the inquest and criminal court still need to be resolved. We haven't given up; we will now be looking to the civil courts for the final judgment on who killed our dad.

"Who killed Ian? We know," King added. "It's just a question of getting them to own up."

Addressing the panel earlier in the one-day hearing, Patrick Gibbs QC, representing Harwood, 45, said the officer had twice offered to resign from the force, firstly after the inquest and then after the trial.

"He thought that that was the right thing to do," Gibbs said. "He wanted to minimise further embarrassment to the Metropolitan police service." Both offers were refused, the lawyer added.

Gibbs added: "As far as the use of force, he completely accepts that the force he used was completely unnecessary."

However, Gibbs said, any decision on whether Harwood's actions killed Tomlinson would be "gratuitous and provocative, designed to provoke a retrial of Mr Harwood on charges on which he has already been acquitted".

Tomlinson died shortly after Harwood struck him on the leg with a baton and pushed him to the ground as he tried to make his way home past police lines following a day of protests connected to the G20 summit.

An initial postmortem examination said Tomlinson, who was a long-term alcoholic, died of natural causes.

But video footage, handed to the Guardian by a witness to the incident, revealed Harwood's actions, and two further postmortem examinations said the cause of death was internal bleeding caused by Tomlinson falling to the pavement after the push.

The jury at the manslaughter trial was not told details of Harwood's past record, notably that he quit the Met on health grounds in 2001 shortly before an earlier planned disciplinary hearing into claims that he illegally tried to arrest a driver after a road rage incident while off duty, altering his notes retrospectively to justify the actions.

Harwood was nonetheless able to join another force, Surrey, before returning to serve with the Met in 2005. He also allegedly punched, throttled, kneed or threatened other suspects while in uniform in other incidents. Most of the complaints were unproven.

It is only the second time the Independent Police Complaints Commission has instructed police to hold a disciplinary hearing in public following a law passed in 2008.

The only other public hearing concerned officers accused of failing in their duty when they did not respond to repeated calls from Colette Lynch, a young woman in Rugby, Warwickshire, about threats from her ex-partner. He stabbed her to death days later.

Ian Tomlinson Case: PC Simon Harwood Sacked For Gross Misconduct