The Last Straw Man

Guy Aitchison, 23 April 2009

Subjects:

I'm pleased to see that a new campaign has sprung up in response to Jack Straw's increasingly desperate attempts to defend the government's abysmal record on civil liberties. The cheeky Last Straw Man campaign is a reaction to Straw's article on the eve of the Convention on Modern Liberty in which the justice minister actually claimed that "we have done more to extend freedoms than any government before". As Last Straw Man says "Straw’s reasoning was less than convincing, and coming merely two days after he vetoed the release of minutes of cabinet meetings from the run-up to the war, his argument was one big straw man - hence the title of the campaign."

The camapaign aims to:

1) To expose the ‘straw man’ arguments used by Jack Straw in dismissing criticism of the government’s record on civil liberties
2) To provide information about the government’s increase of surveillance on its citizens, its restriction of our rights and its expansion of police powers

3) To suggest ways of taking action to prevent any further erosion of our freedoms.

There's been a fair few initiatives like this one launched recently. I think the policing of the G20 protests may well turn out to be a "tipping point" as former Met commander David Gilbertson predicted in the Guardian on Monday. The website also has a handy video guide to making your own "Straw man" out of card, sticky tape and straws.

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