The War on Tourism

[Banquo's Ghost]

The British can sleep soundly in their beds now that the machinations of terrorists pretending to be tourists have been foiled.

Isn't it wonderful that Her Majesty's Government has provided the police with such important powers? Frankly, I think all foreigners should be gunned down on the spot (or after a jolly good chase, if you're a traditionalist). This would free up the subjects of the Crown so that their personal data can be sifted through at the whim of any old civil servant or even the local council rat-catcher.

Democracy - ur doin' it wrong.

[Tribesman]

The police should be arrested and charged with destruction of evidence .


Though I think a worse example is that footage of the City Police (you know the ones with scientology funding) who threatened to arrest reporters if they carried on reporting at the G20 protests .

[Andres]

The British can sleep soundly in their beds now that the machinations of terrorists pretending to be tourists have been foiled.

Isn't it wonderful that Her Majesty's Government has provided the police with such important powers? Frankly, I think all foreigners should be gunned down on the spot (or after a jolly good chase, if you're a traditionalist). This would free up the subjects of the Crown so that their personal data can be sifted through at the whim of any old civil servant or even the local council rat-catcher.

Democracy - ur doin' it wrong.

That's hilarious stuff...

This must be a golden age for comedians

[Banquo's Ghost]

The police should be arrested and charged with destruction of evidence .


Though I think a worse example is that footage of the City Police (you know the ones with scientology funding) who threatened to arrest reporters if they carried on reporting at the G20 protests .

I'm surprised they haven't tried to charge the fellow who took that video of the policeman shoving a man to the floor so he could have his heart attack in the prone position. Maybe they don't fancy the extradition proceedings, but I guess next time there is a protest march, the Met will arrest everyone with a mobile phone.

What's even more uplifting for the British subject, is that an MP can be arrested and threatened with life imprisonment (under that lovely and ever-so flexible terrorism legislation again) for receiving information that might hold the government to account, but the same can't be touched for embezzling taxpayers' money for personal gain on a truly epic scale.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Terrorists photographing British military secrets!!

[Hosakawa Tito]

Where's Monty Python when you need them? The only way to combat this Homeland Security run amok is public ridicule.

[tibilicus]

Could the labour government be any more of a joke, especially after this weeks latest scandal?

I don't think so..

[rory_20_uk]

Taking any picture of the police is a crime.

Must be useful considering how the police can concoct stories:

"We were helping a protester when he collapsed, the other protesters not only pelted the police with objects, but blocked the ambulance from responding."

"Oh, did the video show the police assaulted the man who was doing nothing with hands in pockets, stopped protestors from helping the man on the ground and it was the police that blocked the ambulance?... Oh... Ok, we're off to arrest that Terrorist who took a picture of police - suspicious behaviour, that is..."

[Hooahguy]

i guess the term "total war" takes a new meaning...

[Vuk]

I hate tourists, we should just shoot them all and have done with them.

[seireikhaan]

What on earth... words fail me...

[Vuk]

What on earth... words fail me...

Be careful what you say there Shinseik, we will shoot any tourist sympathizers as well. Aiding and Abetting and all that jazz.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Terrorists are also trying to get their children into their choice of school, and in a final, glorious fulfilment of Arlo Guthrie's vision, you're not moral enough to be a terrorist because of litterin'.

[Husar]

I like how the guardian links to a picture of the station that the two were not allowed to take a picture of.

I guess next up they will replace Britain with a black box on google earth and have it removed from road maps everywhere.
The british government is trying really hard to make Britain look really stupid to the outside world, I kind of liked Britain until a few years ago, what I read here recently is at the same time scary and laughable.

[InsaneApache]

The bloke the copper battered didn't have a heart attack. Bleeding in his abdominal cavity is the flavour of the day.

I've never known anything like this lot of complete hoons. They make Sunny Jim and Wilson look good, and believe me that's some achievement. Only another 12 months to go before they are chucked in the bin. Can't come soon enough.

Election now.

[tibilicus]

The bloke the copper battered didn't have a heart attack. Bleeding in his abdominal cavity is the flavour of the day.

I've never known anything like this lot of complete hoons. They make Sunny Jim and Wilson look good, and believe me that's some achievement. Only another 12 months to go before they are chucked in the bin. Can't come soon enough.

Election now.

I feel the police incident deserves it's own topic, think im going to start a thread up on it.

[Pannonian]

The bloke the copper battered didn't have a heart attack. Bleeding in his abdominal cavity is the flavour of the day.

I've never known anything like this lot of complete hoons. They make Sunny Jim and Wilson look good, and believe me that's some achievement. Only another 12 months to go before they are chucked in the bin. Can't come soon enough.

Election now.

Are the Tories going to stop the police abuse then? Past record shows they tend towards giving the police more power, not less. I've been reading about Hillsborough recently, and the police back then don't look any better than the current lot, with the same inclination to cover their backsides.

[InsaneApache]

Aye but you could photgraph them back then.

It makes you wonder at the hype coming from Jackboot Smith about terrorist activity when she's still going on about Damian Green. Which is the only time an opposition MP has been arrested at the behest of the government. If the best that the left can do is shout Thatcher did it and point, then they're surely dead and buried. This time let's seal the coffin.

[seireikhaan]

Hold on- You Brits got a parliamentary system, dontcha? Surely there's got to be some other party besides labour and Tories to vote for, right? Right? I mean, this is completely asinine. And the thing is, this sorta stuff's been escalating for a while now.

[InsaneApache]

Hold on- You Brits got a parliamentary system, dontcha? Surely there's got to be some other party besides labour and Tories to vote for, right? Right? I mean, this is completely asinine. And the thing is, this sorta stuff's been escalating for a while now.

We've had the Nu-Labour stasi in power for the past 12 years. Boy, does it show.

As for another party, yes there's the Lib-Dems. No one takes them seriously though.

[Pannonian]

Aye but you could photgraph them back then.

It makes you wonder at the hype coming from Jackboot Smith about terrorist activity when she's still going on about Damian Green. Which is the only time an opposition MP has been arrested at the behest of the government. If the best that the left can do is shout Thatcher did it and point, then they're surely dead and buried. This time let's seal the coffin.

The point, which you're probably deliberately missing, is that the police will continue doing this kind of thing unless a government that prioritises civil liberties comes in. Which historically hasn't been the Tories. The argument goes that the schism between the general populace and the police began with the miners' strike, when Thatcher used the police to crush the miners. That either initiated, or encouraged, the divide between "us" (the police) and "them" (the civilian population), with a perpetual struggle between the "us" and the "them". That this stance is politically popular can be seen in the efforts by both Tories and New Labour to outdo each other in offering new powers to the police. Do you want this to stop? Then I presume you'll be voting Lib Dem in the next election? Since, as far as their track record goes, that's the only one of the three main parties that will actually try to address the problem that you're blaming on Labour.

[Pannonian]

Hold on- You Brits got a parliamentary system, dontcha? Surely there's got to be some other party besides labour and Tories to vote for, right? Right? I mean, this is completely asinine. And the thing is, this sorta stuff's been escalating for a while now.

As InsaneApache says in post 20, which I missed, he prefers it when his party are doing the oppressing. There's actually a third party, the Liberal Democrats, who actually stand up for civil liberties, unlike the Tories and Labour, but as he says, no-one takes them seriously, as no-one actually wants civil liberties - what they want is their lot to be in power, crushing the others under their jackboots.

[InsaneApache]

The point, which you're probably deliberately missing, is that the police will continue doing this kind of thing unless a government that prioritises civil liberties comes in. Which historically hasn't been the Tories. The argument goes that the schism between the general populace and the police began with the miners' strike, when Thatcher used the police to crush the miners. That either initiated, or encouraged, the divide between "us" (the police) and "them" (the civilian population), with a perpetual struggle between the "us" and the "them". That this stance is politically popular can be seen in the efforts by both Tories and New Labour to outdo each other in offering new powers to the police. Do you want this to stop? Then I presume you'll be voting Lib Dem in the next election? Since, as far as their track record goes, that's the only one of the three main parties that will actually try to address the problem that you're blaming on Labour.

You mean the miners that were using violence against other miners who wanted to work. Despite the fact that no ballot was ever cast for a strike. That Scargills thugs were stopped was the best thing that could have happened.

[Pannonian]

You mean the miners that were using violence against other miners who wanted to work. Despite the fact that no ballot was ever cast for a strike. That Scargills thugs were stopped was the best thing that could have happened.

The argument is that it set the tone for later police attitudes towards the public - "us" vs "them". I also mentioned something that the article seemed to miss, that this use of the police was actually politically popular, hence the two main parties vying to give them extra powers. One can see that, in many of these cases, the police's abuse of power wasn't actually instigated by the government as such, but they were granted that power to use at their discretion, then they abuse it as if it were their right. It's not going to change under the Tories, as they're equally apt to play the authoritarian card, as they did so from the 1980s, when they showed that police power was a political plus.

If you don't like the police abusing their power, the best way to stop it is to actually elect a government that checks these authoritarian urges, ie. the Lib Dems. Not Labour, nor the Tories, as both pander to the authoritarian right.

[Fragony]

This must be a golden age for comedians

Thinks of V for Vendetta........ or a black bag. It's almost comical I agree but there really nothing to laugh about, ewwwwww for surveillance-society's.