I’m a Tory party member and here I am… This is anathema to me too.
But there are 15 years of legacy to wind back and it’s going to take a long time.
The Police need to realise that they are here to serve all of us, not just the establishment…

As a longtime d&d fan I’d like to suggest that the police in this country, as an establishment are lawful evil.

The Police are institutionally thick as pig shit.

But this isn’t just about the Royal Wedding is it? The police are arresting activists pre-emptively, without any evidence that a crime was going to be committed,

this is nonsnese, the activists in question over the last few days were planning disruptions, as for winding back the erosion of civil liberites

Section 60 blanket stop and search was introduced in 1995 and public order act section 5 the favourite arresting tool was introduced in december 1985 along with the inciting hatred bill.

Regarding wasting tax payers money, Police pay tax too, you know

@1

Bollocks! The authoritarianism goes way back, further than the admittedly awful New Labour. Some of us were at Stonehenge in 1984/5 trying to have a bit of fun only to find we had fallen foul of medieval laws against the desecration of a beanfield…

Now for some compulsory joy. This is going to be a strain.

@1 and @5.
Look, both under Thatcher and through New Labour, the police have been used politically. Some might say was ever thus: despite PACE and various purges of overt corruption (West Midlands etc), when it comes to political issues the Govt of the day rarely shies away from using the police, thus undermining the integrity of both Govt and the police.
This has of course been worsened by the ongoing scandal that is the existence of ACPO.
Interesting though that this coalition is so stupid, so dogmatic, that they are still contemplating taking on the police in industrial relations terms (budget cuts,pension alterations, mergers etc etc).

True – more than 15 years – mea culpa…

SH: “What gives the police the right to arrest a person who has not committed a crime and wasn’t planning to commit any crime? ”

Well, at least s/he lived to tell. Remember not to walk down the road carrying a table leg as that can be absolutely fatal:

“Officer cleared after killing a man carrying a table leg” [2005]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/may/13/ukguns.hughmuir

And there’s more . .

This is disgusting.

8 Bob.b
HArry stanley had untreateble cancer that came back 3 times and he had tried to commit suicide 3 time, teh polce had already been to teh pub he had been drinking in earlier as therew as a call that a man had a gun in a bag, Stanley was going around telling everyone that the table leg in the Bag he had was a gun including saying to one perosn “do yuo want some”, He also had taken his friend to a take away dinner and told his friend that it was his last supper,

In america they have a law suicide by cop

the p.c who shot him ,didn’t get away with it it was judged that the shooting was lawful as it was judged to be in self defence.

It does look pretty stupid. Where were they planning to do this street theatre?
I was with him still he dropped to the floor to be awkward and people started going on about him being a pensioner.
Something does need to be done about police overreactions and heavy handedness, but activists today play on this and will push things to get this reaction from the police like in Bristol with the Tesco riot. I prefer it when people show a bit of dignity and don’t try to wind up the ordinary police officers and embarrass them, then stick it on youtube.

@11 maybe people do “play it up” but dumb authoritarianism is hardly a proper response. The problem we have is a culture of illiberality and stupidity that extends more widely than the police force.

@10:

Harry Stanley and his relatives must be eternally grateful for that helpful intervention of the police. I cannot begin to understand all the fuss about that Swiss clinic offering an assisted-suicide service when a call to the friendly and helpful local police could accomplish the same objective much faster and with much less hassle..

How about this?

“Three Sussex officers avoid prosecution over fatal operation and subsequent cover-up which was damned by two separate inquiries

“In a small Sussex seaside town, at 20 past four in the morning, James Ashley was sleeping naked in his bed. Seconds later, he was on the floor, shot dead at a range of 18ins, by a police officer using a powerful Heckler & Koch carbine.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/secrets-lies-and-.htmlit-after-police-shoot-naked-man-in-bed-685719.html

And this?

“Four police officers were guilty of the ‘most serious neglect of duty’ over the death of ex-paratrooper Christopher Alder in 1998, a watchdog has ruled.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/4848238.stm

Or the shooting of Mark Saunders:

Fifty-nine heavily armed police surrounded barrister Mark Saunders before he died, an inquest heard yesterday.

Officers carrying an arsenal of more than 100 guns, including rifles, carbines, shotguns and handguns, were deployed to ‘contain’ the 32-year-old, who was holed up in his £2.2million house with a shotgun.

The 59 police, all from specialist firearms units, were called in when Saunders started blasting out of the kitchen window at neighbouring homes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1316240/Mark-Saunders-inquest-59-police-marksmen-tackled-barrister-shotgun-siege.html

This is really quite chilling: “…suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance and breach of the peace.”

What would that not cover? Anything that gained a reaction of any kind could be described as causing a “public nuisance”. And “suspicion” to cause a “nuisance”?!

This isn’t ’1984′, it’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

~~~

Is this a troll – or do people really think like this:

4. johnPReid

> …the activists in question over the last few days were planning disruptions…

Planning a “disruption” (or, in this case, a bad taste bit of theatre) is reason to arrest someone and lock them up?

To my mind, johnPReid is a nuisance and has disrupted my good humour. He should be locked up forthwith.

> Regarding wasting tax payers money, Police pay tax too, you know

Ah, I see. Because plod pays taxes they can spend hundreds of thousands – or millions – of £££s locking up people for having the ‘wrong’ political views.

This is the sort of heavy-handed policing that I’d expect from the police in China. And, sadly, the police in Britain.

This is a day of celebration, joy and pageantry for Great Britain.

Oh is it, well thanks for letting the proles in on it massa.

Where are the right-wing defenders of civil liberties now?

No such thing.

It does seem bad. But I thought I’d remind people about another story about Chris Knight (the man who was arrested)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/G20/article5982908.ece

He seems to have a fascination with the idea of killing public figures.

@18

What’s all this “we” business, paleface?

“What gives the police the right to arrest a person who has not committed a crime and wasn’t planning to commit any crime?”

A Labour government.

Do I win a prize?

Are 18 & 19 actually the same person as it seems a bit odd to me to make the serious point after the rude insulting point. Normally its the other way round….still I like your style.

bob b. whats the sussex case got to do with Harry stanley, in the Stanley case the polce were have found to have kille dhim lawfully, Quoting the daily mail (bit desperate)on 59 cops surrounded marks suander (who agian was lawfully killed, I’d have seen 100 cops there if it stopped him shooting one of his neighbours,

the Chris adler case what’s this got to do with Stanley either, He wasn’t put in the recovery postion when he was arrested for drunlken behaviour ,a court couldn’t decide which individual officer was responsible for His UNLAWFUL death by not putting him in the recovery position,

blue rock
Planning a “disruption” (or, in this case, a bad taste bit of theatre) is reason to arrest someone and lock them up?

depends if it’s illegal or not doesn’t it

As far as I know trotskyites ,want to ban the BNP form talking on t.v despite them not enocuraging eeople to break the law, but were Quite happy to have Sinn fein I.R.A do it, And i don’t think me blogging is illegal either.

@25: “bob b. whats the sussex case got to do with Harry stanley, . . .”

The thread is about: Police Powers Out of Control, so I thought to post some more examples, reported in independent sources, to show why some of us have growing concerns. Even the Mail, hardly a leftist, subversive paper, was apparently surprised at the amount of armed force the Police deployed against Mark Saunders.

26. Bob b you miss my point about the DAILY MAIL being anti the police it proves that the Right wing mail don’t consider the police to be right wing .infact there criticism of police arresting the bloke who sang ‘kung foo fighting’ among other things they consider the police since Inan Blair doing what ken Livingstone told him to do, to be left wing

Its hardly a defence of your wrong statment that Harry stanley’s shooting is a case of police violence ,when it was judged ot was right to shoot him

@27: “Its hardly a defence of your wrong statment that Harry stanley’s shooting is a case of police violence ,when it was judged ot was right to shoot him”

Really? What attempt did the police make at the time to challenge him from a secure position or to disarm him of that lethal table leg? Coroner’s juries are becoming increasingly more sceptical nowadays.

Besides, the behaviour of the police in the other reported cases is hardly reassuring. There were repeated attempts at cover-ups in the Sussex case. Blunkett, as Home Secretary, eventually sacked the Chief Constable.

Proof, as if any further proof was required that the police has lost any credible claim to be non poltical. Beheading effigys? Come on people! There is no crime here and we all know it. The police are not supposed to be the ‘bad taste’ police, they are here to protect the peace and ensure law and order. Why are we now arresting people for this type of thing?

This stuff is getting harder and harder to ignore. The police appear little more than a paramilitary wing of the rich and powerful.

Don’t bother with youtube. They are on the side of the trolls. They just shut down Bristol uncut and notts uncut and at least ten other pro free speech sites.
Some democracy we live in!

they told him to drop the table leg in the bag and not to turn around, he started to only just and then he was shot lawfully,

so yes really, it’s not polcei violence its lawful ,your entitled to critcise coroners and say that armed police should be scrapped, if your also prepared to be prosecuted for coprorate manslaughter when unarmed police are shot dead as they can’t defend themselves,

Almost unnecessary to say, we shouldn’t overlook the notorious case of Jean Charles de Menezes, “a Brazilian man shot in the head seven times at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground by the London Metropolitan police, after he was misidentified as one of the fugitives involved in the previous day’s failed bombing attempts. . . The shooting became particularly controversial because contemporaneous and later police and media accounts contradicted each other, specifically regarding Menezes’s manner and clothing as he entered the station, and whether there had been any police warnings before the firing.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes

He didn’t stand a chance.

I was in Soho Square this afternoon where the Zombie Wedding was planned.

It’s a good job the protagonists were arrested by the police in advance. They would have had the shit kicked out of them by the mostly gay but overtly royalist crowd.

@32 Well of course not, you can’t just wander round London being a Brazilian electrician and expect NOT to get shot up for no reason. Anyone would think you’ve mistaken this nation for a liberal democracy…

@33: “It’s a good job the protagonists were arrested by the police in advance.”

Sorry to be a bit pedantic about this but what exactly were they arrested for?

Surely not the Treason Felony Act of 1848, which is still on the statute book?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_Felony_Act_1848

The compass of that act includes to: imagine, invent, devise, or intend to deprive the Queen of her crown.

Were the Police in Soho accompanied by any forensic psychologists and psychiatrists able to dect any subversive republican cerebral activity?

@35 Bob B

“…. what exactly were they arrested for?”

I’m sorry that you don’t know how to operate the public Internet since the answer to your question is readily available.

In the meantime, and while you are learning how to use Google yourself, here is the answer:

According to police they are being held, ”on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance and breach of the peace.”

When the actions of the police are held to be immune from public criticism that is the time to get very worried.

Perhaps we could be reminded of exactly why the Conservatives are committed to having elected police commissioners in place of present arrangements. Could it be that the Conservatives think the police are insufficiently accountable to the public?

I’m inclined to recall what Sir Robert Mark, a previous (appointed) commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, used to say: “A good police force is one that catches more crooks than it employs”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/8037604/Sir-Robert-Mark.html

@37: “I’m sorry that you don’t know how to operate the public Internet since the answer to your question is readily available”

In fact, I’ve long been familiar with how to use google to dig out information but I thought you might like to inform readers here about the reaons for the arrests in Soho Square that you reported to us @33. You omitted to mention the charges in your post as though the specific charges were of little consequence and what really mattered were the arrests – a notion I regard as frightening because of the implications for civil liberties.

Isn’t lawfully killed a bit of an oxymoron?

lawfully killed means self defence, be that Michael MAnsfiled geting Kenneth noye cleared fro Stabbing Plain clothes P.C John Fordham 40 times to death, or the police who shot barrister Mark saunders

without sounding hypacritical about people going on about ian Blair saying JCM falsely jumped the barrier ,padded jacket
Ian Blair resigned, bernie Grant also said 4 times it was a nother white policeman who decapitated P.C Blakelock, when clearly it wasn’t ,did bernie Grant resign

Pre Crimes on law abiding citizens is on the Order of the New World Order Globalists and Fake Royal family in Britian. I just want to say that these German Royal family in the UK, has no more authority, then I do, as a member of the Royal Stuart Family in the UK and Clan and who are more legit as heir’s to the throng then they are. My family heritage does not recognise their power or rights to act as tyrants and terrorists on law abiding citizens who have commit no crime.

@34 douglas clark: “Isn’t lawfully killed a bit of an oxymoron?”

Only by a literal interpretation of the 10 Commandments or similar moral code.

Oxymoron describes a figure of speech that contains an internal contradiction (eg open secret). It is popularly misused to describe jocular expressions such as police intelligence.

The first word of the expression legally killed is open to interpretation, so the expression itself can be evaluated in more than one way. And just as no object is fairly unique, no expression is a bit of an oxymoron.

@13 Bob B: “Officers carrying an arsenal of more than 100 guns, including rifles, carbines, shotguns and handguns, were deployed to ‘contain’ the 32-year-old, who was holed up in his £2.2million house with a shotgun.

The 59 police, all from specialist firearms units, were called in when Saunders started blasting out of the kitchen window at neighbouring homes.”

Isn’t there a utilitarian argument here, Bob?

An overstrung man went crazy with a shotgun. The detail is in the Daily Mail inquest story, and it didn’t appear that he was a general threat to the public after neighbours had been evacuated. Did the response require 59 specialist officers? What was the opportunity cost of locating those officers to “contain” a man who was pissed out of his skull?

How many armed police officers are required to contain a drunken armed man? Beyond containment, were guns necessary?

why did they have to try and crash a nice day with “an execution”? bit morbid really if they weren’t going to cause the scene the police wouldn’t have come. Quite simple really

Do they enjoy prison? i hope so, they should be spending some time there
But then again, a socialist society is just like prison Free food, free health-care, free sky tv, no wait, bbc tv :/

Remember, socialists can’t dream, I don’t like socialists

the police can dream though I like police, they have nice dreams Dreams of not having to deal with time wasters. Just showing off to the cameras really, how depressing

Bearing in mind, the royal couple had the decency to EXCLUDE war criminal Tony Bliar and his stooge fatty one-eye Gordon Braunschweiger to their wedding event, I reckon they go WELL up in my personal esteem and don’t need anyone ‘mocking’ them. If anybody had tried to bugger up my wedding day with a similar stunt I would have personally kicked the shite out of them. BTW I am no follower of the royal family.

Royal Wedding Purge 2011: Charlie Veitch Arrest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UscFYYCKOxg&feature=youtu.be

ronknee
Bearing in mind, the royal couple had the decency to EXCLUDE war criminal Tony Bliar
but they invited Thathcer ” the belgrano was sailing towards the Flaklands, and she was friendly with pinochet in that war

they also invited some laobur people to the wedding and some labour people were firendly with war criminals in Sinn fein I.R.A