Just a week in government and Cameron reprised his favoured rhetorical inanity: “British Values.”
His plot; to protect vaguely defined British Values by eroding British Civil Liberties. It was telling that Home Secretary Theresa May failed to exactly define what British Values might be when quizzed on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, on the morning her newly elected government announced they would be toughening policies aimed at stamping out “domestic extremism.”
For “domestic” - you can probably read “terrorist-sympathising,” “conservative or orthodox Muslim,” as well as “moderate Islamist,”; for all will likely fall foul of these new policies. Not to mention, at a possible future date, trade unionists, environmental activists or anti-austerity protesters. Who knows? The legislation is being left perhaps deliberately, wide open.
Justice Potter Stuart's rational technique, in the 1964 American legal case Jacobellis v. Ohio, is useful in understanding “British Values.” He was praised at the time as “realistic and gallant” for judging simply “I know it when I see it.” He was ruling on whether a film was “obscene” or not.
Fast forward half a century - “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens, as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone,” says Prime Minsiter David Cameron on his new anti-extremism legislation.
As long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. That sounds deeply ominous, by the “I Know It When I See It” indicator.
The Twitter hive mind thought so too. On the same day Cameron announced this highly concerning tilt to Orwell-ism, thousands tweeted a sarky meme.
What David Cameron said actually seems perfectly reasonable if you're a comic book supervillain. pic.twitter.com/EHWIDq7k5F
— Brigonos Chomhgaill (@BrigonChomhgail) May 14, 2015
