Guy Aitchison and Andy May: The Metropolitan Police Authority met yesterday for the first time since the policing of the g20 protests. Defend Peaceful Protest put its questions directly to MPA chief executive Catherine Crawford. The Met were represented by acting deputy commissioner Tim Godwin (standing in for Sir Paul Stephenson) and temporary assistant commissioner Chris Allison.

The good news is that the MPA, which is made up of 11 independent members and 12 London Assembly members, were largely supportive of the protestors' rights and had critical things to say about the G20 policing (see Anna Bragga's post for a full report).

The bad news is that we were not satisfied with the Met's response which, when not actively misleading, amounted to "we're conducting an enquiry, so we're not going to answer any of your questions yet." 

Probably the most disturbing thing is that the senior police officers are still attempting to spin their way out of trouble.  Chris Allison defended the tactics of "containment and controlled dispersal" (the police's preferred term for "kettling") which he said was the least violent option.

We believe there were at least 3 police defences for the containment tactics used which are extremely misleading if not totally untrue.

Media coverage of the G20 protests has focused almost entirely on the violence outside the Bank of England and, following the release of Guardian footage, the tragic death of Ian Tomlinson. Events at the Bishopsgate Climate Camp, which was cordoned off in an aggressive operation by riot police, went largely unreported by the BBC and other major media outlets. Most of the reporting has come from online sources (see Stuart White and Beth McGrath for example). Here we publish another eye-witness account of the aggressive police action.

Chris Abbott: I went down to the climate camp after work on Wednesday as I had heard that it was completely peaceful and I wanted to see what it was like. Unfortunately, I got trapped there when the police first charged and then penned everyone in early in the evening and none of us could get out (this was about 7.00-7.30pm). Footage of this is now on YouTube. During this first, entirely unprovoked, attack I lost my girlfriend in the crowd - but I later found out she was punched by a policeman while trying to stop another girl being trampled on after being knocked to the floor.

Once that had calmed down, my girlfriend and I found each other and were sat with others in front of the line of riot police on the south side of Bishopsgate. It was completely peaceful once again and we were even joking and talking with the police. We were there for a couple of hours when they suddenly charged again without any warning (this was about 9.30-10.00pm). We were still sat down and offered no resistance at all. My girlfriend was pressure pointed on the neck (extremely painful), dragged backwards off me and had both her wrists bent behind her back by two policemen who threatened to break them. They dragged her outside the police cordon and then said "what should we do with her now?" before the other said "let's throw her back in", which they did - head first, with her hands behind her back. She landed on the floor and has now got severe bruising on her legs (which we have photos of) and very painful wrists (which we actually thought might be broken).

Matthew Brian (London, CML): The right to protest is undeniably one of the most essential pillars of a free society. The suppression of dissent often draws the international media spotlight when it comes to the actions of regimes and governments around the world whom we in the West describe as repressive. Britain styles itself as a champion of freedom and democracy, able to lecture those nations it regards as less democratic than itself , but these lectures are now sounding more and more hypocritical as we witness a steady decline in the rights and opportunities for British people to protest, and a steady rise in heavy handed police tactics when they do.   

It would be going too far to label Britain a police state, of course. But, as David Davis pointed out in his keynote speech to the Convention on Modern Liberty, by the time we are a police state it'll be much too late. At best these increasing restrictions on the right to protest embarrass the notion of British democracy: at worst they are the beginning of a parting of Britons with a  fundamental human right.

Alice Dyke (London, CML): In his blog Henry Porter writes of a petition launched by retired senior police officer David Gilbertson, who has spoken of his concern regarding the police powers to ‘arrest any person for any offence'.  Mr Gilbertson became concerned with the introduction of section 110 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which has since allowed members of the public to be arrested for "not wearing a seatbelt, dropping litter, shouting in the presence of a police officer, climbing a tree, and building a snowman."

Below is a copy of the email petition Mr Gilbertson has posted, and Henry Porter encourages those who are interested in the cause to "copy, paste and circulate it to as many people as you can, and of course sign the petition yourself." The Convention's co-director Anthony Barnett has also signed, and it seems the petition expresses many of the concerns that were there on the 28th.

Let's not pretend that the Irish government were acting to protect our privacy however - they already force Irish ISPs to retain communications traffic data for three years. Their stance was political, standing against the use of market harmonisation procedures, with their use of qualified majorities, for matters which ought to be dealt with unanimously as police matters.

The judgement implies that retention of our data is a commercial matter, and not a policing matter; but far more fundamental - as we and forty one other human rights and privacy organisations argued to the court is the incompatibility of this directive with human rights law.

Geoffrey Bindman (London, BIHR): My old school in Newcastle, founded in 1545, was proud of famous former pupils. Several of them were mentioned in the school song. Eldon was the procrastinating judge caricatured by Dickens in Bleak House, Armstrong an armament manufacturer, Collingwood was Nelson’s second-in–command at Trafalgar. Absent was John Lilburne, leader of the Levellers at the time of the English Civil War, who I discovered years later had been at the school in the early 17th century.

Lilburne is only now coming to be recognised as a fundamentally important figure in our political and constitutional history. He was also a man of extraordinary personal courage and determination. Cromwell thought highly of him and made him a colonel in his army but he became disillusioned with Cromwell when he abandoned the democratic programme which Lilburne passionately advocated.

Tomorrow's Wales (Cardiff): And so, Obama has been elected President of the United States. But does the success of his campaign hold any lessons for us here in Wales? In particular, can we learn from the success of his movement for change as we seek our own change to a law-making Parliament for Wales?

The idea that the young have become disinterested in politics is one that has become increasingly accepted as truth over recent years. However, Obama’s success in persuading young people to go out and vote shows that the young are interested in politics if they are inspired, and that their mobilisation can be key in securing change.

One of the findings of the recent research conducted by the Institute of Welsh Politics on behalf of the National Assembly for Wales was that young people are much more pre-devolution that the older generation. The results for the constitutional preference question, when broken down into age groups were as follows:

Keith Sutherland (Exeter, Imprint Academic): Imprint Academic’s new book series on political lotteries and citizen juries is launched this week. The series is our response to the growing sense that the institutions of liberal party democracy are damaged beyond repair.

The 1997 election was a watershed as it was quite obvious that Labour was prepared to say anything in order to win power. From then on political parties would no longer ‘represent’ anything other than the whims of a few thousand swing voters in key marginals, leaving everybody else, in effect, disenfranchised.

Stephen Glenn (Linlithgow, Lib Dems): What next for the Liberal Democrats in Scotland? They're no longer in a coalition administration but just part of the opposition to an SNP minority government. It's a dangerous position with the Tories strengthening and Labour weakening.

Three candidates have stepped forward to fill the void left by Nicol Stephen's resignation as leader, by the end of next week one of them will be leader. Tavish Scott, a close ally of Stephen, is seen by many as the continuity candidate. Ross Finnie, served eight years in the cabinet when the party was in coalition with Labour after the Scottish Parliament was created. He says the party needs to find its 'narrative' again. Mike Rumbles, who chaired the Holyrood's Standard's Committee for four years, sees a radical path ahead.

“10 Downing Street website, the official website of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair”

Oh dear. That link, by the way, from Dizzy Thinks, whose comprehensive coverage is better than anything I'll manage. As he hasn't deigned to use a convenient tag, here's the litany of fail:

Geoffrey Bindman (London, BIHR): The interesting OurKingdom debate on Labour After Brown risks becoming too remote from actual policy needs as it discusses general strategy. Of course, government needs to be fairer and extend justice in a way that supports individuals while building shared values. If this is what David Miliband and Sunder Katwala mean by combining social democracy with liberalism, who could disagree? Except that it runs the danger of phrase-making. What I am looking for is a much more principled approach to endorsing the need for public values that explicitly face down the marketisation of government that has been the tragic hallmark of New Labour. After a lifetime of support, I have witnessed this process at first hand, as the legacy of 1945 is systematically undone. What is happening is wrong. We need the new generation to identify that it is wrong and pledge to reverse it.

Robin Wilson (Belfast, Policy Analyst): The suggestion that the various secretaries of state for the nations and regions should be wrapped up into one department has made sense ever since devolution was established in the initial years of ‘New’ Labour. But devolution to Scotland, Wales and (always shakily) Northern Ireland was, paradoxically, characterised by the patrician English trope of amateurish muddling through. And so the repeated case made by the Constitution Unit for a formal system of intergovernmental relations, as in Canada or Australia—and of which the unified department would have been one element, along with Lords reform to make the second chamber a voice for the nations and regions—fell on deaf Whitehall ears. Other departments in effect became ‘English’ departments, even when their actions had implications for devolved counterparts.

A decision to move belatedly towards having a single minister for the devolved jurisdictions at the cabinet table—a further step from the rather awkward job-sharing of recent years—would certainly be welcome, if media speculation is borne out. But a fly in the ointment remains Northern Ireland—and if such a move were premised on a belief that imminent devolution of policing and justice powers would slot in the last piece of the jigsaw of a settlement for the troubled region, this could turn out to be a mistaken assumption.

This is an article written by Roger Gale, Conservative MP for North Thanet, in support of Davis Davis and his campaign.

Roger Gale (Parliament): On Monday evening the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, unveiled the light sculpture, "Breathing", at the BBC`s New Broadcasting House in Langham Place, London and the BBC`s Foreign Editor, John Simpson, read a specially commissioned poem written by James Fenton.* It was a moving experience.

The monument, designed by the Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa, stands in the memory of those journalists and their teams of assistants of all nations who have given their lives in the cause of telling to the world truths that others would prefer to have left untold.

Since January of 2007 there have been two hundred and three such fatalities, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but around the world. The most recent, who died on the 7th and 8th of this month respectively, were working for the BBC.

Freedom of speech runs in tandem with those other liberties defined in statute and by custom in the United Kingdom since Magna Carta and more recently since the enacting of Habeas Corpus.

The rights to say what we think, to go freely about our lawful business without interference from the State and not to be imprisoned without charge and fair trial are absolutely fundamental to our democratic way of life.

Lord Taylor of Warwick has called a debate on

 ”the concept of Britishness in the context of the cultural, historical and ethical tradition of the peoples of these islands”

The debate is expected to start around 11am and you can watch it live here. 

This is a response by David Marquand to John Palmer's article on Ireland's "No" vote on the Lisbon Treaty.

David Marquand (Oxford): The real issue goes far deeper than our blinkered political class and media commentariat seem to realise. The post-cold war world, with a hegemonic US as the only super-power, is dying if not dead. An infintely more complex and more dangerous multi-polar world is coming into existence, with China, India and perhaps a revitalised Russia as super powers alongside the US. The US will for the foreseeable future remain the strongest of these super-powers, but it will not be the only one. Economically it has already ceased to be a hegemon: as the dollar falls, the Euro climbs. The crucial question for Europeans is whether we want the world to be run by the Americans, Chinese, Indians and perhaps Russians, or whether Europe should get its act together and become a quasi-super power as well. Europe’s political elites have either funked or fudged that question, and in Britain virtually no one has so far faced it. But the answer Europeans give to it will determine the shape of global and European politics as the 21^st century proceeds. If Europe wants to hold its own in the multipolar world now taking shape it has to make a qualitative leap towards federalism.

This letter from John Major appeared in yesterday's Sunday Times:

Mathew d'Ancona quotes me as believing "a siege society once in place, will be difficult to dismantle". The quote is correct, but not the context. I did not refer solely to the 42 days pre-charge detention, but also to the establishment of a compulsory ID card system, a national DNA Database, and powers given to the police to permit them to bug homes and cars without the sanction of a High Court judge.

The 42 day extension (if it becomes law) may be easily reversible, but does Mr d'Ancona really believe that is true of ID cards and the DNA database. I do not. I doubt, too, that the new powers given to the police will readily be surrendered. No single part of the package exceeds the internment of the 1970s, but the collective impact - since much of it is intended to be permanent - most certainly does.

Fortunately, a more balanced judgement was to be found in your leading article "A stronger case is needed for the denial of liberty".

Right on John! Hat-tip Glyn Davies.

This was posted yesterday on the excellent spyblog:

Remember when Gordon Brown pretended that his Government would not be spinning important policy ideas to the favoured mainstream media before announcing them officially in Parliament first?

There has been no Statement or detailed Government consultation paper explaining the alleged "concessions" and supposed extra safeguards regarding the planned 42 days internment without charge (or even evidence) which is being planned in the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is due to say something about this in the House of Commons later today, but only to potential rebel backbench Labour MPs, and is not making an official Ministerial Statement to Parliament.. Her boss and his expensive meedja spin doctor apparatchiki are doing exactly what Tony Blair used to do, and have published this article in The Times, ahead of any official statement to Parliament.

The Times
June 2, 2008

42-day detention; a fair solution
The complexity of today's terrorist plots means the Government needs more powers
Gordon Brown
Will this controversial 42 days internment issue soak up all the available Opposition time and campaign resources, dominate the mainstream media attention span, and thereby allow the other evil provisions of the Counter-Terrorism Bill, to sneak through without proper scrutiny ?

See Counter-Terrorism Bill - DNA and Data Sharing by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ - no more Duty of Confidentiality or the Wilson Doctrine ?

Where is the compelling, detailed evidence which justifies such an evil law ? It is not to be found in the following media spin article:

Next week, when Parliament votes on the proposal to detain terrorist suspects without charge for up to 42 days, hard choices have to be made.

Britain has lived with terrorist threats for decades. But I am under no illusion that today's threats are different in their scale and nature from anything we have faced before. Today in Britain there are at least 2,000 terrorist suspects, 200 networks or cells and 30 active plots.

This implies that there has been no progress at all in the last 6 months, since these figures were first spun to the media in a speech to the Society of Editors by Jonathan Evans, the Director General of the Security Service MI5, last November. If not, then why not ?

The aim of terrorists is to kill and maim the maximum number of victims, indiscriminately and without warning, including through suicide attacks.

That is not their political or cultish religious aim, is it ? Their misguided aim is to destroy our liberties and freedoms, and impose their own perverted tyrannical ideology, by force.

Look at the scale and complexity of today's terrorist plots and you will understand why the amount of time required before charges can be brought has increased. In 2001 police investigating the last big IRA case had to analyse just one computer and a few floppy disks. The suspects used their own names and never went beyond Ireland and the UK.

Gordon Brown is misleadingly re-writing history again.

Apologies OK readers, we have some minor technical glitches. The OK banner at the top of the page is missing as well as some of the buttons. Techies are on to it and it should be sorted soon!

Dejan Djokic has an article on the main opendemocracy site reflecting on the recent arrest under the Terrorism Act of an employee and a postgradaduate at the University of Nottingham for possession of an Al-Quaida handbook. They were released after six days when it was realized they had downloaded the material off a US government website and had been using it for research. Yet one of the men, Hicham Yezza, still faces deportation after living in the UK for thirteen years. The episode reflects a growing climate of suspicion and fear according to Djokic - dangerous not only for academic freedom, but for democracy itself. Read the article here.