Too much happening to blog about...

• Disgusted that they can call this green. Treating animals (and Nature in general) in this way is as far from green philosophy as you can get. Raising pigs in factories also has no place in a green society. Disgusting.
• Latest U-Turn by Clegg, this time on control orders. What happened to the liberal part of Liberal Democrat?
• Castro's medical mission marches on to the shame of the civilised West. This time Cuban medics are in force in Haiti. 1200 of them. How many have the US or UK sent I wonder?
• Maidstone's town centre manager is quoted as saying: "Recession, what recession?" after higher than normal sales in the post Christmas period. I'm sure he meant no offence but I doubt the public are in such a boyant mood, I suspect they were having one final splurge before hunkering down.
• It seems that the FT are worried about the burgeoning oil price and its threat to the recovery. Oil hit $95 last week and I think the $148 high was part of the reason for the last economic collapse. Peak oil happened in 2006 and White's Law says the economy needs energy.

Disgraceful policing and disgraceful Lib Dems

More disgraceful policing of protests shown below as a woman is bundled to the floor by police for no reason. This is clearly assualt.



On a better note, it was good to see Adam getting his face in the Daily Mail.

The Lib Dems have even cancelled their London conference because of the protests. They really are a shower and let's hope that the ones with guts have the honour to resign soon. Of course some will just want more police intervention such as Cllr Papworth.

Demonstrator's database

Who needs ID cards or the national database scheme when the police have already made one. This report from the Grauniad says what we have know for some time, that the police are keeping records of people who are not breaking the law but simply exercising their right to demonstrate peacefully.

They are clearly breaking a number of laws by doing this and all hats off to Liberty who seem to be leading the charge against the police in the courts.

The police can take our photographs without our permission and store them on a searchable database to be used in the future. But if we take a photo of them we can be locked up for 10 years... No wonder the builders are getting into the action now.

Civil Liberties

Just when you thought it was safe to photograph a policeman or wave a placard, two important piece of news that are the latest nails in the coffin of civil liberties arrive today.

I hope everyone went out photographing the police yesterday, cause you needed to get it out of your system. If you snap a cop today you could face 10 years. Even if the cop is doing something wrong.

This is from Penny Red: "Set to become law on the 16th of February in the UK, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer. Laws are being introduced that allow for the arrest - and fining, and imprisonment for up to ten years - of anyone who takes pictures of officers 'likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'."

So when the police are harassing peaceful protesters at a demonstration, the demonstrators can't even protect themselves by gathering photographic evidence.

Secondly, The NETCU look like they are being replaced by the CIU... The CIU or Confidential Intelligence Unit (clearly intimidatorily named to be like the CIA) seems to be taking on the role of defeating domestic extremism. I'm all in favour of defeating extremists but my guess is that they won't target people who hand billions of squid to bankers, or people taking bungs to amend the law in the favour of greedy corporations, or even politicians that claim that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are wrong and that her economist friend knows more about climate change than them.

Target the terrorists and those who are out to cause people harm, not those who are trying to raise awareness of the biggest problem that has ever faced mankind.

NO2ID kicks off in Maidstone

Attended the inaugural meeting of Maidstone NO2ID last night, a great meeting with about seven people plus the regional coordinator. It is great to see a campaign group in Maidstone that is not focussing on a NIMBY issue (not that I have any problem with locally focussed campaigns, just that other campaigns seem very light on the ground here). The timing is interesting with the home office losing another data stick with 84,000 confidential records on it yesterday.

A lot of good ideas about street stalls and how to engage with the public were discussed, although I did get rather heated after the hearing about what a wonderful champion of civil liberties David Davis is (check out his stance on the death penalty, LGBT issues, 28 day detention etc.).

Of course the Tories are full of ordinary people like him, championing our rights. Ordinary people like Boris Johnson, the 8 greats grandson of George II. Personally, I find it very difficult to relate to these Old-Etonians. I grew upmostly in the Medway Towns (with about 3 years in Maidstone). The people in Medway are great, down to earth, dealing with the same issues that we all deal with. I certainly didn't grow up knowing anyone from a privilidged background. (Hmm... classist rant now over).