Ian Tomlinson: 3rd post-mortem and a cover-up
Sky News is reporting a big development today:
Newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, who was shoved onto the pavement by a policeman during the G20 protests, suffered a head injury before he died. A photograph obtained by Sky News suggests strongly that the injury was the result of the alleged assault by the officer, who has been suspended and questioned on suspicion of manslaughter. The picture shows what appears to be large bruising on the right of Mr Tomlinson’s forehead.
That came after attempts yesterday to muzzle Channel 4 News:
New footage of the moments leading up to the death of Mr Tomlinson will be shown today after the IPCC failed in its attempt to block it being broadcast by Channel 4 News. It tried to secure a court order when it emerged that the programme planned to broadcast a frame-by-frame analysis of the film, but a judge refused to grant the injunction. An IPCC spokeswoman said it believed the footage “would potentially damage” its investigation.
Potentially damaging to who? The IPCC, for doing such a poor job at investigating Tomlinson’s death, perhaps? There are more developments today, with Britain’s top cop saying that officers who conceal ID would face the sack.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson unbelievably says that, “there are large sections of the media that are currently engaged in a very unbalanced orgy of cop bashing.” — you mean the ones that were reporting that the police were being attacked by ‘bricks’?? Perhaps it’s too much to expect the Mayor to stand up for Londoners instead of the police.
Is Boris worrying about his Downing Street timetable?
Did Boris Johnson today make one of the first moves, however prematurely, to prepare for the next Conservative Party leadership contest?
His Evening Standard interview takes care to position himself against the party leadership and with the party’s right-wing activist base on the hot button issue of the 50p top rate, and acknowledges that he may choose to only run one term as Mayor.
Whatever happened to the terrorist plot?
A guest post by Pagar
There has been little on the blogosphere regarding the proposed deportation of the North West “terror suspects” and, in passing, it would be interesting to hear views on why this is. So what occurred?
There are two possibilities.
continue reading… »
Public finances: the left’s problem
It’s insufficiently appreciated just how much of a problem the state of the public finances poses for the Left. The difficulty is: how can public borrowing be reduced without sacrificing leftist objectives?
Even by 2012-13, the Treasury expects net borrowing to be £118bn, 7.2% of GDP, with most of this (5.5 percentage points) being “structural” – that is, not blameable on the state of the economy. And even this forecast is predicated upon what Polly Toynbee calls “savage cuts” in vital public spending.
continue reading… »
Libel, Google and a cause worth supporting
There are many things that are very wrong with English libel law but, arguably, the one issue that should most concern bloggers is the chilling effect of the High Court’s despicable ruling in Godfrey vs Demon Internet Services, under which ISPs and other providers of online services are treated as a publisher, for the purposes of litigation, irrespective of whether or not they had any kind of involvement in publishing the allegedly libellous material.
The problem this creates for bloggers is simply that this makes UK-based ISPs and online services, in particular, a stupidly easy target for any crook, quack or and shyster with an interest in suppressing information about their dubious and, in some cases, unlawful activities. A mere threat of litigation is too often all it takes to propel a service provider into removing content from a blog or forum, regardless of whether the complaint has any kind of merit at all and, as Craig Murray, Tim Ireland, bob Piper and Boris Johnson found, it can even lead to the termination of an entire hosting account, resulting in sites being taken down which had nothing whatsoever to do with the complaint that the ISP received.
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with Google’s Webmaster Tools and came across a rather curious stream of messages from Google, which appear to have started last November:
continue reading… »
TODAY’S TOP STORIES / 23rd April
Nationwide
Opposition label Budget ‘fantasy’
MPs expenses plan rejected by Tories and Lib Dems
Ministers to announce CO2 plans
Campaigners call for regulation of Facebook racists
International
Hundreds of Sri Lankans killed in no-fire zone
Financier at centre of US mortgage crisis found hanged
ANC take lead in election count
Bush aides approved torture, says report
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Andrew Hickey
Mark Steel on institutionalised violence in the police.
Several people have posted about the Budget, including Darrel at the Social Liberal Forum who sees ‘Labour’s swansong’ as an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats, Charlotte Gore who considers it “tough on wealth, tough on the causes of wealth”, and Anton Vowl who has a budget-day drinking game.
Costigan Quist, on the ‘terror suspects’ who were uncharged but deported anyway.
On the same subject Septicisle thinks the Government, not the people, should be in terror.
Dorian at postmodernbarney on the conflict between wanting to denounce homophobia in the media and wanting to see good-looking men on TV.
And I have some very strong opinions about recent posts on this site.
And finally Basic Instructions tells us how to save the Earth, or browse through previous Netcasts
(ps. Apologies for the lateness of this netcast – I’ve been away from the internets. Aaron)
Three excellent politicians
I thought for a change to the gloomy discussions that we often have here about politicians’ expenses, economic crisis, smear e-mails and so on, people here might be interested to hear about some good news about the future.
So I thought I’d write about three of the politicians who I admire, and who I think represent much of what is good about the liberal-left. Normally, these kinds of articles are about politicians of the past, often combined with complaints about how nowadays only ‘on message drones’ and ‘careerists’ from the political elite become MPs, often because of stitch ups and It’s Not Like In The Good Old Days.
But the three I’ve picked are rather different. They are all under 35 and they are all standing for parliament at the next election. continue reading… »
Not good enough, Darling
Credit where it’s due, Rahm Emmanuel masterfully pinched the jam-tomorrow glee of some nuttier revolutionaries when he said, “Never allow a crisis to go to waste, they are opportunities to do big things.” That is precisely what Alistair Darling has done with the new budget.
The crisis has gone to waste as the clock runs down on a Labour term of office. No mighty reforms to banking, more of the same tokenistic gestures (e.g. the £200 million to be raised by a 50% income tax band) and little else.
I’m probably being a bit too harsh, since there were some very helpful measures included – on pensioners, retraining for employment and on the carers of young people – but delivered with brevity and solemnity amid the jeers from the opposition benches, a 2009 “People’s Budget” it was not.
continue reading… »
Calling time on the WhyNoBlogathon
Just over three hours after Alastair Darling sat down after delivering his budget, Iain Dale’s Daily Dozen round-up noted the lack of a budget reaction post by Tom Harris, something Dale also twittered about. (Harris’ budget reaction post appeared about ten minutes after that).
continue reading… »
An open letter to the Evening Standard
Guest post by Guy Aitchison of Our Kingdom
I received an email yesterday from the Evening Standard Letters page asking me to comment on Sir Paul Stephenson’s response to the fallout from the G20 protests and the article in the Guardian by former Met commander David Gilbertson blaming a systemic crisis of leadership in the force for police violence.
I took the opportunity to point out the remarkable shift in editorial policy at the Standard in the short number of weeks since the protests. So far there has been almost no self-reflection by the media on their pernicious role in hyping up the prospect of violence in the run up to the G20 and then uncritially reporting, and, in the case of the Standard it seems, exaggerating the police’s version of events in ways that smeared protesters.
Here’s the letter anyway.
continue reading… »
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or RSS feed. You can also get them by email and through our Facebook group.
» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
» Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest?
» To win London, Ken Livingstone has to step outside his comfort zone
» This trade agreement with India will destroy thousands of lives
» UK debt hasn’t hit £1 trillion – mostly because of QE
» The benefits of being a “burden” on society
» Today’s economic figures will simply confirm UK’s “lost decade”
» Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away?
» Violence in the office
» Want a more responsible capitalism? Reform how pensions work
» The world is entering the third phase of the crisis, warns ILO
|
32 Comments 34 Comments 62 Comments 18 Comments 15 Comments 25 Comments 38 Comments 7 Comments 64 Comments 11 Comments |
|
LATEST COMMENTS » So Much For Subtlety posted on Does Priti Patel MP care for human rights? » So Much For Subtlety posted on Does Priti Patel MP care for human rights? » Staffordshire UNISON posted on Even by economic standards Hester's £1m bonus is unworthy » Silvio posted on New Compass paper opens up Red/Green ties » Leon Wolfeson posted on To win London, Ken Livingstone has to step outside his comfort zone » So Much For Subtlety posted on Diane Abbott resigns from abortion panel » Leon Wolfeson posted on Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest? » Leon Wolfeson posted on Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote » Chaise Guevara posted on Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote » Brett RB posted on PCC admits: Richard Littlejohn is a bullshitter » Chaise Guevara posted on Diane Abbott resigns from abortion panel » Chaise Guevara posted on Diane Abbott resigns from abortion panel » Cylux posted on Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote » Alice posted on Diane Abbott resigns from abortion panel » Alice posted on Diane Abbott resigns from abortion panel |
