David Davis on Brown's security strategy

Nicholas

It's a no-brainer. Of course we need a debate. The government's position and arguments are unreasoned, extreme and exaggerated. They are the stuff of tabloid headlines, designed to whip up hysteria, to scare monger and to demonise. New Labour and ACPO seem to be egging each other in the race to turn this country into a police state. Previous governments have always maintained a healthy suspicion of the police and their motives. Not this one, which seems indecently hasty to turn anything ACPO bleats about into ill-conceived law.

Our scruffy, badly trained and worse led police are already shown incapable of effectively enforcing the laws that existed in 1997, never mind the thousands of new ones introduced by the national socialists.

What worries me now is what happens when the by-election is over? So far, Herr Braun has ducked the direct issue with much sniping, huffing and puffing from the sidelines. The TV media have been determined in their coverage to give no oxygen to DD. And DC, for all his stated support of DD, does not appear to be addressing it, probably because the New Labour accusation of being soft on terror seems to make him duck and dive. The obvious answer is to make it very public that he is not soft on terror but hard on the destruction of our freedoms by Herr Braun & Co.

Silent Hunter

Totally agree with Nicholas!

We have simply got to get rid of this contemptuous, venal and corrupt excuse for a Government before they remove all our freedoms under the pretence of giving us 'security'.

Welcome to the 'V for Vendetta' New Labour Nasty Party, police state.

Revolution, now please!

Max Kaye

Keep up the good work, DD!

Pete, Scotland

I am trying to envisage how historians will view this time.

A discredited Labour Government forcing through legislation, against the tested will of the people of this country, which removes the historical accountability which defines our democracy.

The irony is that if Davis loses this debate on the principle of free speech, which has already been drastically eroded through numerous pieces of legislation, it will be continually eroded.

Only time will tell who was in favour of free speech and who against.

Pete

What is one of the first actions of a dictatorship?

Answer: close down or trivialise discent!

Frank Pulley

It would be difficult to close down discent that hangs like a miasma around this venal government - more distench than discent!

The Laughing Cavalier

For years I have been railing unheard against the descent into a police state that first Blair and now Brown have imposed upon us. In its authoritarianism and contempt for and circumvention of proper parliamentary democracy the whole New Labour project has been nothing less than Neo-Fascism run by Stalinists.

Put together all the Police Acts, the interception of Communications Acts, the Contingency Powers Act and the various other Enabling Acts have already given the Government powers to turn this country into a dictatorship overnight. Yet still they press on, attacking Habeas Corpus and pressing for the abolition of Jury Trial wherever possible. Bit by bit, Act by Act we have lost the freedoms we were proud to hold until only a decade ago.

What saddens me about all this is the apathy with which the public greet such oppression. Anyone who objects is greeted with the daft mantra of "nothing to hide, nothing to fear". This government, many of its members former CND members and student Marxists, trumpets stridently that anyone who opposes them has to be soft on terror. In such a manner proponents of democracy are shouted down and we are all the poorer for it.

John Bull

Excellent article - I only hope that several millions read it and understand where they are being herded to.

Not too many years ago, the police worked for every subject of The Crown, and swore to protect both the persons and the properties of those subjects on an impartial and lawful basis.

Since the evolving of the Association of Chief Police Officers ( ACPO ) from a well-intentioned and respectable 'guidance committee', a 'Think Tank' in effect, into the present day highly political ( still illegal ) group of what can only be described as subversives.

Our present apology for a government mistakenly assumes the ACPO to be composed of experienced and 'expert' policemen and women.

This assumption could not be further from the truth. They are the outspoken self-opinionated clots who have made a real rat's backside of the job so far, and cannot survive 'on the streets', but understand how to tick 'boxes'.

If you need to 'control' the playground, it may well be the easy option to side with the class bullies, but by their very bullying nature they will seek always to control the school, and thus alienate the other pupils and staff.

For "School" read NuLabour.

For "Class Bullies" read ACPO.

Put the two together, and the recipe for disaster is completed.

To the ACPO and certain Home Office mandarins, the continued existence of Osama bin Laden and a whole host of his brethren, is an absolute Godsend.

In the name of 'preserving our security' a concept abandoned by the police despite their oaths, this unscrupulous band of conartists have almost got this government frightened of their own shadows.

I defy anyone to show any improvement in our personal safety since 1997 - in spite of all the big "Tough-On" promises about 'getting guns off our streets once and for all'.

The ACPO is as culpable , if not even more so, as our ridiculous government for destroying our 'rights' and placing us in further danger.

Enough is enough - we need to reverse this trend and take back control - before the Eurocops come bashing our doors down as well !

Nicholas

Today, the Daily Politics did the most blatant hatchet job on DD. Bearing in mind what is at stake the flippant, dismissive and plainly biased reporting was quite disgusting. Only those expressing antipathy to DD were interviewed. And the two journalists in the studio, who might be expected to care about freedom of speech, ought to be ashamed of themselves, especially the supposedly pro-Tory one.

Recently the Daily Politics has been wall to wall Labour. All about Gordon Brown's misfortunes with lots of Labour punters voicing their blah-blah views on the party's prospects and strategies for regaining public support. I cannot imagine the Daily Politics interviewing Conservative spokespeople and asking them how they envisage winning the next GE or their strategies for increasing the Tory vote.

The BBC are a real issue for Cameron. He needs to address it.

I'm 100% with The Laughing Cavalier on this.

Nicholas

And 100% with John Bull too. The political lobbying activities of ACPO and the way they (and other senior police officers) have wrecked the police/public relationship and abandoned fundamental policing deserves much more exposure, scrutiny and comment. The police service in this country is badly in need of reform and the activities of ACPO need to be reined in.

John Bull

Well, that's three of us at least in 100% agreement :-)

Nil carborundum illegitemi.

Meet you on the barricades !

England and Saint George !!

Frank Pulley

John Bull and Nicholas.

You are right about everything you have delineated about the decline of the police service and the ACPO's role in the dilution of a once-great and independent Queen's Constabulary. As shadow home secretary, Davis was in a position to initiate a sea change in policing in this country - to reclaim lost ground. Had he become Home Secretary in 2010 (or before) he would have had the power to implement his agenda. He will influence nothing from the sidelines. He has decided on personal political gimmickery, which will change nothing. We now have the possibility of another bloody lawyer calling the shots, to augment the host of two-bit shysters of the CPS. Great stuff David! Why didn't you get your new script writers to produce this stuff before you resigned? Political hari-kiri is not the way to get things done. You can't make the Home Office fit for purpose from H & H; moreover making your constituents vote for you twice in the same electoral period is taking the piss. Lone rangers have done nowt for politics in this country, particularly from the back benches - always supposing you make it back to them.

Btw Pete, this is the third time I've attempted to express this pov on the Speccy blogs. They didn't make the cut. I wonder if this accounts for the overwhelmingly predominately pro 'principled Davis' shtick hereupon? Principled he might be, practical he ain't! Unless of course there is a sub-agenda here. If there is, then I still think he would have been in a better posititon to have challenged DC after a successful spell at the Home Office. I agree with Davis's sentiments about the erosion of freedoms in the cause of muscle flexing - but the 42 day scam was just that and he either fell for it, or used it as an excuse start a new challenge to Cameron. That indicates both disloyalty and a lack of judgement imho.

Silent Hunter

Frank:

I think you're missing the point!

'Principled' trumps 'political expediency' every time.

That's what we have been missing in political life for so long now, that when a politician actually takes a stand on 'principle'......is it any wonder that he becomes a magnet for all those disaffected by our frankly corrupt political process.

Also: to be pedantic, I know! - it's 'dissent' not discent. :O)