SFAIK, the new protest laws in the UK target people who have equipment that could be used for lock-ons. This looks like overreach, since lots of people go about with equipment of that kind for completely lawful reasons — cyclists and motorcyclists with chains and padlocks, members of various construction trades with superglue or gaffer tape; practically anybody with a white van with luggage straps or similar equipment to prevent cargo from shifting around in transit; etc. In fact, from reports, the republican protestors arrested before the coronation procession were arrested on the basis that the van they arrived in had luggage straps in it.
There's a regularly repeated cycle in which:
I know of someone who was a high up lawyer in the UK Gov and who protested that a 'new' law demanded by the PM of the time was already in place and so the 'new' law would do nothing but was over-ruled as the PM needed to bring in the 'new' law because s/he needed to 'do something', and be seen to 'do something' .
Politics trumps everything.
To a lot of Londoners this is just another nail in the coffin of the Met's reputation.
As a Londoner, yeah. This pretty much sums it up for me. The Met is one of the worst institutions we have at the moment. I'm going to post Led by Donkeys' superb video here:
It's an overview of an appalling institution which has repeatedly failed to reform. I'm trying to find a source but I read some time ago that there's a thousand or so officers who aren't allowed to interact with the public at all.
I found it hard to believe that the number was as high as a thousand so I looked it up - it's 150, according to the Guardian. Still a high number. Apparently those numbers have gone up since it has been made mandatory for police officers themselves to report misconduct. IIRC, in the case of Sarah Everard's killer, he was known by his colleagues to be a sexual predator.
The new Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, spoke last November of how some officers were working under “very restrictive” conditions because “frankly we don’t trust them to talk to members of the public”.
“It’s completely mad that I have to employ people like that as police officers that you can’t trust to have contact with the public,” he told BBC Radio 4.
And a campaign group asks the obvious questions:
"we have to ask how they passed vetting to be hired in the first place, how long their prejudice was allowed to fester in the Met’s ranks, and how many others like them remain in post.”
Thanks for doing that. The Met is about 30,000 regular officers as I recall but even at that, 150 is a lot of officers that need to be kept inside. When I did the queue for the Queen's lying in state, it was clear that they'd been on some sort of charm offensive, cracking jokes and what have you.
150 out of 30k can't deal with the public, its not that suprising.. Every large organisation has people it can't get rid of.
Far more likely that they were using their usual profiling tactics and their brains were set to "middle class Tory" crowd control mode given the likely demographics of royal events.
that's highly likely not the case realistically when we examine where britain is going.
there were already laws to stop protesters holding up traffic, it was already illegal to block a road and the police were arresting protesters.
the real reason the laws were brought in was highly likely due to potential protests when brexit really bites.
the government want to be able to clamp down on them and stop them, so they needed laws to ban, in name, protest.
they are popular with a certain group of people in britain absolutely, the problem for them is that they apply to them also.
No evidence whatsoever that there has been any hint of large Brexit or anti Brexit protests.
All through the Brexit process the last few years and there's been almost no violence on the streets. Certainly nothing like what we've seen in France over the pension reform.
has been does not mean won't be.
the government over there are preparing themselves for a lot of eventualities and just in cases.
It looks like Labour are going to be in government soon and may be in office for a while. So this kind of weakens your theory.
it actually doesn't.
the tories want the bill so as to crack down on any and all protesting, the labour leader is refusing to do or say anything that could be used by the tories and the hard right media to attack him hence avoiding saying he will abolish it.
Clause 4 on steroids. He doesn't care if people think he's a Conservative. Wants to go further than Blair.
Something, something, still not a Red Tory?/churlishness
No doubt they'll win the next election, and removing the Tories will be a good thing.
Politically I think he needs to be careful not to alienate (any more than he already has) those with even the slightest left of centre opinions, because naturally Conservative voting people will drift back to that party once they get a vaguely normal human being in charge, it won't matter how much they shift Labour into (One Nation) Conservative Territory, blue will eventually go back to blue... Even with fptp the Greens and Lib Dems might start to make lasting in roads into the Labour vote, and their time in office might be brief.
All he said changes bigger than Clause IV. Not that he will add to that particular clause or commit to others.
Yeah, that reads very much like he is just referencing the scale of the challenge as opposed to any indication of actual policy.
Though its perhaps not the greatest reference to use.
Especially seeing as Clause IV has just added another failure to the list with Trans Pennine being nationalised.
Well, it looks like Jacob isn't even bothered with the mask:
Speaking at the National Conservatism conference in Westminster on Monday, Rees-Mogg said: “Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections.
“We found the people who didn’t have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative.
The former Tory cabinet minister added: “So we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well.”
Openly admitting to gerrymandering and there's more chance of me being next in line for the throne than there is for him and his party facing legal consequences for what they've done here.
And is happy to say that the problem is only that it went wrong and not the act itself.
You would want to be a serious scumbag to vote for that man.
Talk about saying the quiet part out loud. Pretty shocking stuff.
However, it wasn't gerrymandering they were at. Gerrymandering is the re-drawing of electoral boundaries. What they were attempting, and more or less admitted to here by Rees-Mogg, was voter suppression. It's a trick they've picked up from the Republicans in the US. The playbook is here, with identification requirements being one of the techniques listed. I also read (can't find it now) about where another of the techniques, voting procedure disinformation, was tried in at least one area in England with the Tories handing around leaflets in a Labour-voting area telling people that they didn't need to bring Id to vote.
Ian Dunt has a good piece on it here. [The Tories] spent precious time and energy on a bill ... [that] blocks voting from those least likely to support them. It is voter suppression. They couldn’t have made it any more obvious if they’d used that as the name for the bill.
[The Tories] spent precious time and energy on a bill ... [that] blocks voting from those least likely to support them. It is voter suppression. They couldn’t have made it any more obvious if they’d used that as the name for the bill.
But but but: haven't some insisted that the whole Voter ID wasn't suppression, or repression, or anything but the addled conspiracy of those who just don't like the Tories???
That it was Reese-Mogg saying this doesn't surprise: I've seldom witnessed an English politician possessing more casual contempt for both the institutions and people he claims to love and admire. But as always with this man, if you simply reframe the narrative as coming from a walking cliché of Victorian Classist Misanthropy, then everything Reese-Mogg suddenly tracks.
Seems Starmer has changed his tune on a deal with the Lib Dems
Or rather, he's muted the tune he was previously singing, and I guess voters can draw their own conclusions from that given he is “absolutely clear there are no terms in which we will do a deal with the SNP”.
Neat little symmetry with the position of the Lib Dems themselves, who are categorically ruling out any deal with the Tories but get all coy when asked about coalition with Labour.
It all tracks but it's either the cockiness or the complacency that has caused him to openly admit this that has shocked me. We all knew what this was about of course.
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/38405/html/
3 convictions for voter fraud since 2016. That's more cynical even than the Republican party in the US.
Starmer most likely has an interest in strategic voting. Won't say that but that's the play. He might even reconsider his position on PR😏
Since 2005, when Scotland elected 59 MPs the results have been as follows:
2005 Lab 41 SNP 6
2010 Lab 41 SNP 6
2015 Lab 1 SNP 56
2017 Lab 7 SNP 35
2019 Lab 1 SNP 48
Although they are delighting in the SNP's current misfortunes, I reckon Labour know that Scotland won't be coming back to them in the numbers that existed in the Blair/Brown era. And although Scotland will only elect 57 MPs the next time out, I reckon that without Scotland, it will be hard for Labour to form an overall majority. Despite Starmer's rapid race to the right, English voters who are fed up with the Tories will, in certain constituencies, vote Lib Dem rather than Labour.
The question then is whether, in the event of a coalition, the Lib Dems will get it right this time and ensure that they don't get out-manoeuvred on delivering PR as occurred under Nick Clegg.
Lb hope to get 15 elected in Scotland, on a good day.
I reckon that without Scotland, it will be hard for Labour to form an overall majority.
Mm, this projection is calling a majority of round ten for Lab-Lib Dem,
Obviously a slight dip could eliminate that...
Could Starmer find himself knocking on the doors of SDLP/Plaid Cymru/whoever?
The stupid thing to do would be to forma minority Govrn't. They have an opportunity to lead the UK through three GE elections. Is PR and coalition too high a price for them?
SDLP take the Labour whip anyway. 3 at absolute best, 2 more likely; 0 is still possible.
Knowing their past form probably yes. If it wasn't for FPTP favouring them at the expense of other opposition parties, I don't know how Labour could have survived either Michael Foot or Jeremy Corbyn.
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