activism
Free the Bolton one
If you’re reading this you’ve probably already read about the plight of Nick Hogan, if not go and read about it over at Old Holborns and whilst you’re there make use of the donate button to chip in an help get him out of prison. I thought debtor’s prisons had been done away with but apparently not, and by all accounts this particular prison has a particularly bad reputation.
Even if you agree with the smoking bad, the issue here is as Charles Crawford says far more about “the definition of a privately owned pub as a ‘public place’ under the relevant legislation. Just because the public have ‘access’ to a pub does not mean that it should be treated as a public place.“.
The other interesting point as observed by Old Holborn is that none of the smokers were breaking the law it was perfectly legal for them to smoke in the pub, it was just illegal for the owner to let them smoke (even though he wasn’t there). Which does make me wonder who’d get prosecuted if one. were to smoke in a government or crown building, as again as OH observes most of the staff there will have no power to compel you to stop, and you’re not breaking any law.
Finally in case you’ve not already done so go and chip in a few quid to help get Mr hogan out of prison so he can get back to trying to keep his remaining pub open, and you don’t even have to leave your chair.
Correction The law does make it an offence to smoke in a smoke free place, but that still doesn’t give them much power to enforce it. However a slightly more worrying bit with concern to the point Mr Crawford makes is this:
(1) The appropriate national authority may make regulations designating as smoke-free any place or description of place that is not smoke-free under section 2.
(2) The place, or places falling within the description, need not be enclosed or substantially enclosed.
(3) The appropriate national authority may designate a place or description of place under this section only if in the authority’s opinion there is a significant risk that, without a designation, persons present there would be exposed to significant quantities of smoke.
EDL leaders arrested
Just seen over at Old Holborn go read what he’s said and it’s worth following the few links in the article as well it won’t take long. But the gist taken from EDL Media is that:
On Saturday 20th February 2010 Members of the leadership team of the English Defence League were arrested as they traveled to Scotland to support the Scottish Defence League demonstration.
While in custody the team members homes and families homes were raided by police armed with automatic machine guns which terrified the leaderships family which included small children and other older family members. Computer equipment was seized during the 3 hour raid.
It doesn’t say on what grounds they’ve been arrested and will be charged so it’s possible they’ve been up to something they shouldn’t and arresting them en-route to a demo like that was just a convenient coincidence. But on the other hand it does look a tad troublesome from the point of view of awkward demonstrators of all sorts. The various comments and sound bites in the articles linked to by OH also don’t paint a very reassuring picture with the police seeming to co-operate with counter protesters to prevent the EDL from exercising their legal right to make a static protest. This comment in particular doesn’t suggest that the anti-EDL protesters the police were helping had entirely peaceful intentions in mind:
Student protester James Nesbitt, 23, from Glasgow, said: “We had spotters out across the city looking for fascists in pubs. We got here quickly but the police are doing everything they can to keep us away from them.
Certainly a situation to watch to see how things develop.
UK Threat level RSS
Given the recent change to our required fear level, I was some what surprised to discover that there’s no easy way to be notified as to when we should increase, or even decrease, our level of fear and underlying anxiety. It seems that by some terrible over sight our glorious Government and security forces haven’t made it easy to get notified of when the “current terrorism threat level” changes. As , and I was surprised at this, no one seems to have done so already I put together a little script that monitors the Home Office web site and publishes changes to the “current terrorism threat level” to an RSS feed. Which can then be pulled into all sorts of useful things, such as a blog side bar or anything else for that matter. The feed is deliberately very simple to make it more useful for feeding into other things.
I’ve just discovered the official historical record so I’ll back fill that data, and for future changes I’ll also grab the RSS feed from the BBC news site so we can know at least what was in the headlines at the time.
Anyway for more details either click on the link in the side bar or go here:
http://www.anonymong.org/alert/
or just subscribe to the feed here:
http://www.anonymong.org/alert/alert.rss
e-petitions what are they good for?
Yesterday I received notification that the Government had responded to an e-petition I’d signed. It happened to be the one regarding their limiting cost recovery if you’re found innocent (response here). Now other than suspecting they’ll not limit the costs they can award if you’re found guilty, and wondering why they now just send a link rather than e-mailing a response as they did back in 2007 (I suspect this is due to it being easier to change a website than an e-mail you’ve sent to people – but I’m cynical like that) – the main thing I found myself wondering is has any petition submitted via the Number 10 website ever caused any change in behaviour?
Every petition I’ve signed the response has basically boiled down to:
“Thanks for getting in touch, but you’re wrong”
now that could be due to the types of petition I sign so I checked some others and found two different types of response:
“Thanks for getting in touch, we’re already doing that”
and
“Thanks for getting in touch, that’s got nothing to do with us”
Has anyone seen a response which involves them making the slightest change in action or anything, even a bit of further thought of another fake consultation? Has any of the numerous petitions submitted resulted in even the tiniest change on the governments part?
I’m tempted to offer a prize for the first person to find a response where they actually say they’ll do something different.
Just in – arrest Blair
Just been pointed at a shiny new website from Cyberium/George Monbiot (hat tip : Her Ladyship at Tora Towers).
The stated aim of the site is:
“This site offers a reward to people attempting a peaceful citizen’s arrest of the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, for crimes against peace. Anyone attempting an arrest which meets the rules laid down here will be entitled to one quarter of the money collected at the time of his or her application.
Money donated to this site will be used for no other purpose than to pay bounties for attempts to arrest Tony Blair. All administration and other costs, apart from any charges added to your donations by Paypal, will be paid by the site’s founder.”
A site well worth giivng a high profile to – though if Wikileaks is anything to judge by PayPal will no doubt pull the plug fairly quickly.
MPs expenses 4 weeks to go
Just to remind people the consultation on MP’s expenses end on the 11th of February.
you can take part on line here:
http://mpexpensesconsultation.org.uk/
The Tax Payers Alliance have a fairly good run down of the questions on their Website (hat tip to Iain Dale again).
Photography in public places the battle continues
You can tell that the problem with the police harassing photographers for taking pictures in public places is getting serious when 365 establishment photographer write a letter to the Telegraph (hat tip Samizdata). If things get much worse they’ll write to the editor of the Times and use green ink. Now I’m not convinced this will do much good as the disconnect appears to be between the 646 that sit and make laws and those that implement them on the streets as they see fit.
The letter quite reasonably points out that if you were up to no good, you’d probably just use google street view, a camera phone or at most a small compact of some sort and not a hulking great SLR on a tripod. They even make the radical claim that the presensce of such a visible camera might make people thing twice about doing no good in case the very visible human operator took thier photo. Which if you think about it would explain why the police (and news agencies) appeal to the public for any photo’s after major incidents. Though as various commenatators have observed the letter does smell rather of special pleading – that the police shouldn’t pick on “proper” photographers with expensive equipment but feel free to infringe the rights and liberties of those scruffy plebs with the cheap nasty cameras.
Since the anti-terrorism laws have come into force making it allowable to stop and search people, and making it an offence to take photographs “liable to be of use to terrorists”. The police, PCSO and various security gaurds have been using it as an excuse to harrass or beat photographers that have been taking pictures in public of pretty much anything. Just taking photo’s of the outside of iconic landmarks can make you a terror suspect if the local security goons take against you. Of course this has been going on for a while now and has even been debated in parliament back in April 2009 by MP’s who’ve been stopped themselves. There have also been numerous blogs and articles written about it and public demonstrations organised. The home office issued a circular in August 2009 clarifying the situation and restating that it’s not illegal to take photogrpahs in public places, nor is taking photographs on it’s own grounds (if they really think you’re a terrorist they need to use section 43 not section 44). The Met office also updated their guidelines in September also stating that generally people shouldn’t be stopped from taking photographs. Yet despite this ongoing restating of the fact that normal people are in fact allowed to take photographs in public of retty much whatever they like, photographers are still getting routinely stopped. So really I’m expecting this letter to have about as much imapct as the facebook group.
What will probably also have no effect is another demo on 23rd Jan 2010 but still we must keep trying.
Of course on the flip side of this the police are using traffic cameras to harass and limit movement of peaceful protesters as well as building up a photographic data base of people at protests, but they really hate being filmed
Letter to Baroness Buscombe
you may or may not have heard by Baroness Buscombe the new chair of the Press Complaints Commission is pondering if it might not be a frightfully jolly idea for the PCC to also regulate blogs. Regulating blogs seeming to be an idea that governments just can’t let go of, despite the vast numbers of technical difficulties that would prevent it working for anyone with even half a technical clue. So despite this being an even sillier idea than holding ISPs liable for usenet posts made by people that aren’t their customers, it’s probably best to try and kill it as soon as possible. After all they did end up making ISPs liable for usenet posts, and the evidence is they’ve only got dafter since then.
So go and sign this rather well written letter over at Liberal Conspiracy explaining to the powers that be, that it’s a very silly idea and that we’re doing quite well on our own thanks very much and that maybe the PCC should get the hang of effectively regulating the press first before they start worrying about anything else.
Thoughts on a second walk
Another November the 5th rolls round and was time to join OH for his little walk. Sadly having just returned from a lovely weeks holiday that would cause those that worry about how others have fun to combust in self righteous horror I had total camera fail due to not thinking to either change batteries or take spares so not photo’s this time. Which is a shame as the turn out was probably twice that of last years and the variations on the Guy theme are really quite not worthy.
Despite our increased numbers the local police and PCSOs didn’t feel there was any need to stop us, or check what we were up to. Though we were kept a close eye on, and the “subtle” radio conversations as we went past various buildings were barely noticeable. Due to a remembrance service recently finished in the Abbey there were an awful lot of military types around, many of whom had had the same idea as us and repaired to the Westminster Arms for some liquid refreshment. They were very tolerant of the bunch of oddly dressed nutters that wondered in off the street to join them. From the bits of other peoples conversations I over heard and the brief chats I had they were generally sympathetic to our motivations. Quite surprising how wide spread was the idea that blowing up the current incumbents of the palace of Westminster would be a good thing and should have been done years ago.
Suitably refreshed we made our way to the palace of Westminster and asked very nicely if we could visit the public gallery. The initial members of the police there didn’t seem terribly keen on this, and didn’t seem to get any keener as their numbers increased. We eventually gathered that a “task team” was being summoned to deal with us, so while they worked that out we toddled off to take a few more pictures assuring those at the gate that we’d be back shortly. Upon our return a person who I assume was the task team spoke to OH about whether we’d remove our masks or not and generally tried to not let us in and ascertain if we were dangerous or harmless nutters. They did eventually concede that we were harmless nutters so allowed us down to the security check. There there was more queuing whilst they made us each divest in turn have our photo’s taken and our belongings scanned and shut away in a cupboard.
I actually have no problems with them asking us to remove our masks and taking our photo’s all rather sensible really. But wigs were also forbidden, I do there have to wonder how good a wig has to be before you’re allowed to wear it (and how did they deal with Mo Mowlam). I’m not quite sure why they care about wigs and masks given just how bad the photo’s on your visitors pass actually are.
Where it started to get a bit more surreal was being told that cloaks aren’t allowed and neither it seems are t-shirts with slogans. As the shirt I was wearing had the hugely seditious slogan of “Remember, remember 5/11″ I was informed I’d have to take it off or turn it inside out. I did ask why and was told “because“. So that’s obviously a well thought out and communicated policy. There’s no mention of this t-shirt policy on the Parliamentary website which does make me suspect somewhat that it was a special rule just for us. They did kindly let me step into a side room occupied by other officers to change my t-shirt (Though they weren’t so thoughtful when I was leaving). As Old Holborn has said the inside of the palace does look a lot like Hogwarts complete with costumed flunkies. More waiting whilst they gave us green forms to hold (we got to fill them in later rather than whilst sitting waiting) and let us upstairs 10 at a time. Half way(ish) up the various flights of stairs there was a room where we got to fill in the forms giving our name, address and nationality which we have to sign to promise to behave. It is worth noting that this information isn’t checked so do feel free to exercise your right to use an alias (For the record and for history buffs I enetered as John Johnson of White Webbs*). These forms were then collected from us at the top of the stairs but an elderly uniformed chap who wrote a number on the back and told us to hand in any bags, cameras, phones books etc. to be kept behind the desk whilst we went to the gallery. Then it was through another metal detector type arch.
The visitors gallery was more than half empty and there hadn’t been that many people past me as I went up stairs so I assume they just wanted to split the nutters up a bit. From a rough count I think there were more nutters in the public gallery than elected nutters debating the ever so important issue of climate change. After a while (and a short while at that) we decided to leave – I would recommend visiting and seeing what clothing/makeup etc. is allowable enjoy the building but if you don’t want to be utterly disillusioned about the business of the main chamber don’t bother going up to the visitors gallery.
Leaving was somewhat easier, apart from for OH and one of our number who got told of for wearing a hat. Though whilst I say somewhat easier there was a slight problem in that whilst they have procedures for taking stuff off you, they don’t really have any for you to get it back. So after a quick query we headed past the sign saying no entry and back to the first check point where a very confused looking security person let us through the door one at a time to get our stuff back (which in my case took some finding despite being in a numbered tray). Once you have your stuff back there is then no provision for you to sort your self out, turn t-shirts back the right way, put wigs back on etc.
We gradually regrouped between the entrance and the exit where those of our number who hadn’t been forced to leave stuff in the first check point game out. More photo’s especially by tourists and during the wait whilst OH was allowed to leave some people took the sensible option of heading to the pub and the two young ladies who’d come down by bus from Newcastle also wandered off unfortunately just before we regrouped. Again whilst loitering in such a fashion the idea that we might be there to blow the place up and that it should have been done years ago seemed popular amongst both a group of workman and passing military types. I begin to suspect that it really isn’t possible to over estimate how disliked those who currently sit in the palace are.
Bidding farewell to the policeman on the gate we headed back to the Westminster Arms to re-acquire people that had gone there, then back to Chandos for some well earned drinks and quite wide ranging conversations. Apart from the obvious I had some great conversations about peak oil, saunas and lawful rebellion. I also managed to get rid of most of my first batch of badges but fear not there will be more (and t-shirts). I’d heartily recommend anyone to join us next year.
Snowolf explains very well what the point of this little walk is, which is something Tom Harris still doesn’t get (I know no shock there). We go for the walk because we can and to show people that we can. I don’t go to get into trouble, and stick one to the man I go because it’s fun and because someone should. If we don’t exercise even our silliest most pointless rights then we’ll lose them. So once a year what does it harm to exercise your right to go for a gentle stroll with good company wearing a silly costume. It’s fun and you meet all sorts of people you wouldn’t otherwise. Despite what some of those that sneer at the endeavour would have you belief those attending aren’t all middle class, middle aged fat white men, and beyond some obvious points of agreement the politics are quite diverse as well.
As a final point I would observe that despite being very obviously very twitchy about a group of costumed people wandering around whitehall and wanting to visit Parliament everyone I dealt with was unfailing polite, some of them even smiled and had a sense of humour. But we definitely didn’t fit in nicely with their procedures and they were to varying degrees not terribly happy at us being there. A special mention must also go to the eastern European lady who was handing out the green forms to us, who politely informed some other visitors that the speaches would be in English as the was in fact England.
update I forgot to mention that when I joined Old Holborn for his little walk last year my aged mother (no really she is) thought I was a fool and just stirring trouble for the sake of it. Today a year a later she wished be the best of luck and was glad I was going just to exercise my right to be an idiot and hopefully remind some people that we were and still can be a free country.
Also read the comments on OH’s other post about the day. Other walkers who’ve written there experience up so far are: Billy Blofeld, Dick Puddlecote, Hairy Chesnuts (though not exactly a write up, but great person to chat to).
(I’ll update that list as I come across more reports).
update
Kevin Boatang thinks we’re all very silly people who’ve no understanding of the history of either Guy Fawkes or V and despite not ever having met most of us has determined we’re a “bunch of egotistical anarchists”
Leg Iron points out that the problem is many people think we’re going to get into trouble for doing nothing wrong which is a problem in itself.
Which nicely ties into the excellent article by Dun Geekin who points out that the important thing is for us to refuse to be afraid.
Almost forgot to link to Mrs Raft at the Daily politics which would have been terribly remiss of me.
Just stumlbed across Guthrums account.
update again
Anna Raccoon recounts how the house has changed over the years she’s been visiting.
Final update
The Register are now reporting it as well. Though they didn’t publish my comment (meanies) but they did correct one of the mistakes I pointed out (The original version claimed it was the 204th Anniversary). Mind interesting that the powers that be are claiming that:
“They were admitted into the public gallery, as they were the year before when they attended.”
As we didn’t try to enter the previous year as it was PMQs and we were being stopped and searched.
Final final update honest
Not born yesterday visited the gallery twice and has a good write up of how their two visits compared.
More demo’s on the 31st
As I mentioned a little while ago a rather dubious organization is planning a “procession” to call for the over throw of the government, monarchy and democracy in this country. The views of this group are rather unsurprisingly not widely supported being as they are just a few noisy extreme Muslims, however the march is significant so again unsurprisingly there is now a counter demonstration being organized by Muslims4UK, and British Muslims for Secular Democracy. Hopefully this will be a much larger demonstration, especially if those of us who are also rather against the ideas behind the initial “procession” turn up to be counted as well, as we have been invited to do.
Date: Saturday Oct 31 2009
Time: 13,00 to 16.00
Venue: Piccadilly Circus
(I sadly won’t be there due to being a few hundred miles away but I will be back for the 5th).
One thing though that may make this counter demonstration somewhat fraught or at least interesting is that the EDL seem to have changed their minds and despite initially saying that they were not counter demonstrating against Islam4UK they now are. Which may lead to some tension as the Muslims4UK group are against the EDL as much as they’re against the Islam4UK group saying:
“to the EDL: You do not represent English people. You are clearly looking to incite trouble.”
So with them both in the same place protesting against the same other group of protesters it may as I say become interesting. With luck it may become interesting in a positive way, with reconciliation of differences and increased understanding brought about by a shared opponent.
just to round things off the EDL have a promo video for their demo which as some very stirring music but really isn’t nearly as nice as the promo video made by
British Muslims for Secular Democracy under the moniker of SecularDemocracy.org
So if I could make it I’d be with the group with the amusing signs.
Update Facebook event here
UK terror threat status
- Severe 2010/01/25