Stony Stratford II

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In case I ever doubt the value of even small protests ever again it’s with some cheer that I pass on reports that councillor Bartlet has withdrawn his motion to ban smoking in Stony Stratford – to allow those opposed to the ban time to prepare their arguments. The Boiling Frog and Dick Puddlecote have more details. Yes it was a small battle and yes he’ll no doubt try again, but these days I’ll take whatever victories I can.

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The good the bad and the soggy

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Stop the nany state
Not going to say much about the recent protest in Stony Stratford as Dick Puddlecote has said pretty much everything that needed to be said. The turnout seemed to be predominantly local – though the record for furthest travelled must got to a chap over from Russia. The anger both at the proposed ban and the councillor in question was quite pronounced. For a very sodden Saturday morning the turnout seemed really quite respectable, and the atmosphere was very friendly and sociable. The general message did seem to encompass more than just the local ban, and reflect a growing dislike of the restriction of civil liberties, but then again it was a very self selecting group.

I’ve a few photo’s up on Flickr. Due to unfamiliarity with my little video camera I’ve caught neither all of the speeches nor all of the speeches I did capture. However for what it’s worth what I did get can be found here:
Patrick Hayes:

Roger Helmer:

David Odell:

BBC interviewing Nigel Farage:

Nigel Farage:

As ever was good to meet up with the usual rag tag crew of malcontents that seem to frequent these things.

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Squaring a circle

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Something that is rather puzzling me at the moment is the seemingly normal unevenness in the application of “law” and the acceptability of protest. I know it’s not really that surprising, and isn’t news but a few things have crossed my vision in the last week which do seem to suggest that we (in a collective national sense) have rather lost the plot. Most recently Orphans of Liberty report that a council has refused to give the EDL permission to lay a wreath at a memorial, and rightly asks the question since when did you need the councils permission to lay a wreath? Meanwhile Harry’s place reports that “hope not hate” are trying to get an EDL march banned in Tower Hamlets, that well known bastion of moderate Islam. Hope not hate, having been remarkably silent about the recent stickering of that area with Islamic anti-gay stickers. The comments on Harry’s place are well worth reading to see a decent fsking of both the petition and hope not hate’s general attitude. Including the well observed comment that EDL are filling a vacuum left by no one directly addressing the problem of militant Islam. Whilst the EDL may not be the solution so far no one has offered anything better.

Yet there seems to have been far less said about the alleged plans of “Muslims Against the Crusades” to set up Sharia zones reportedly to begin in Waltham Forest. Is this because it’s all just so much hot air coming from the Islamic quarter, has anyone seen the stickers supposedly put up in Walthamstow? It’ll be interesting to discover if a quiet attempt at the creation of areas hostile to those that Islam doesn’t approve of, if not full blown Sharia areas, is actually going on? Has their march taken place yet? if it hasn’t perhaps we’ll see the like of hope not hate calling for such marches to be banned any day now.

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