contribution by Sarah Morrison

“Save Whittington A&E, Save Whittington Maternity,” demanded demonstrators the Saturday just gone.

Thousands marched from Highbury Corner to Whittington Hospital in North London on Saturday to protest against the possible closure of A&E departments across North Central London and rally against what they see as a systematic downgrading of public health services in the capital city.

Whittington Hospital serves 250,000 people in the boroughs of Islington and Haringey. It faces being downsized to a “local” hospital under plans put forward by the North Central London NHS – the anger amongst the crowd became clear.

“Everyone in this community relies on this hospital, millions have been spent on doing it up and we now have a top-notch, first-rate local hospital, and we are going to keep it this way,” said MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn.
continue reading… »

In April this year the G20 protests were marked by the death of Ian Tomlinson and some notoriously bad coverage in the national media. But while even papers like the London Evening Standard have tried to make amends, the BBC steadfastly seems to believe its shambolic coverage was entirely fair.

After a misleading feature on kettling for the BBC website, Guy Aitchison from Our Kingdom and Stuart White from Next Left decided to jointly complain to the BBC in an open letter in May.

They made points covering these areas:
- Partial and incomplete reporting of events amounting to misinformation
- Grossly inaccurate statements about police tactics
- Poor follow up to the story of heavy-handed policing
- Lack of investigative impetus
continue reading… »

The Climate Camp is back, and thoroughly established on Blackheath, scene of a number of very drunken evenings of burly cheer back when I was a Kent schoolboy rugby player.

They’re slowly getting their message across in spite of all the distractions. They’re a broad, consensus-based coalition which carries no universal ideological burden. The only point of cohesion is that they are all dedicated to true debate, to collective action and to direct, rather than “representative”, political systems for self-determination.

They are able to be all of these things because they live in a society where the cost of entry into the communications market is so low that normal people can play too. And they’re winning the spin war, so far. Being factual, organised and in the right really helps with that. Mr. Cameron, take note.
continue reading… »

contribution by Helen

Last August, thousands of people camped out at Kingsnorth power station to protest against the continued use of coal power in the UK. There were eye-witness reports and video evidence that police abused stop and search powers, removed their badge numbers, employed sleep deprivation tactics, harassed journalists, arrested any protesters who tried to demand their legal rights, and engaged in unprovoked violence against peaceful protesters and their private property.

But the police were not meaningfully challenged by anyone with the authority to do so. In fact, it wasn’t until after events were repeated at the G20 protests in April 2009 that official questions were asked about the policing of dissent in the UK.

Early this year, cyber-liberties activist Cory Doctorow covered all this in the Guardian about Kingsnorth camp.

Ironically, the article was delayed due to an administrative error, resulting in its publication shortly after the G20 protests. It was already true, even before the same mistakes were made all over again: and in April, it could just as easily have been talking about the events earlier that month.
continue reading… »

Lousy news from the trade union front, people:

The New Labour-loving horrors who run the public sector union Unison have stepped up their campaign to purge their Labour affiliated union of all grassroots socialists and leftwing activists.

We on the left are not pleased.

The union has just banned four of its best grassroots activists – Glenn Kelly (Bromley Unison branch secretary), Suzanne Muna (Unison’s Tenant Services Authority branch secretary), Onay Kasab (Greenwich Unison branch secretary) and Brian Debus (Hackney Unison chair) – from union office for three (Kelly and Kasab), four (Muna) and five (Debus) years.

Their crime? – well, that depends on who you ask, and how highly that person thinks of Labour.

I’m one of the many who believe that Kelly, Kasab, Muna and Debus are being strongarmed out of Unison because they are Socialist party members. They are passionate critics of New Labour, passionately opposed to this government’s privatising of public services, and – and this is doubtless the kicker, as far as Unison’s New Labour lubbers are concerned – galvanising grassroots enthusiasm for Unison to break its formal funding ties with Labour. continue reading… »

Demonstrations by ethnic Tamils outside of the Houses of Parliament have this morning grown considerably in size and energy, with protesters bringing traffic to a stand-still in the Parliament Square area.

Whilst it is hard to estimate numbers, from the upper offices in Parliament Street it would appear that 1,500-2,000 protestors have convened this morning. The protesters are demonstrating against continued non-action by the UK regarding alleged human rights abuses of ethnic Tamils by the Sri Lankan authorities. The size of this morning’s protest contrasts sharply with the numbers of protesters present last week, which consistently numbered somewhere in the low hundreds.
continue reading… »

Justice Minister Michael Wills MP gives his first public speech on Tuesday 21 April, 1-2pm, for the British Institute of Human Rights, since the publication of the Government’s Green Paper on Rights and Responsibilities.
continue reading… »

Join together with people from all backgrounds for a mass demonstration of dialogue as a tool for spreading better understanding between Londoners.
continue reading… »

I’ve never been part of anything that got so many congratulatory messages than the Convention on Modern Liberty, and enquiries about what next and “how do we turn the energy into action?” So, how do we?

Jack Straw in his sniffy Guardian article said, “My very good constituency office files show no recent correspondence relating to fears about the creation in Britain of a ‘police state’ or a ’surveillance society’”. Can we answer Straw by taking the energy of the Convention to the country?
continue reading… »

According to the Guardian today, “Anti-capitalism campaigners have published a spoof edition of the Financial Times today as the prime minister, Gordon Brown, prepares to host next week’s G20 summit in London.”

See their website too. The Put People First march takes place tomorrow. On Wednesday there will be the anti-G20 marches. I’ll be at both, reporting and slagging off bankers.

Finally, I offer you the video discussion and presentations from the successful (I thought) bloggers summit at the Convention on Modern Liberty. The team had to upload tons of videos so unfortunately this took longer than expected. I also briefly wrote about the presentations on CIF after the event.

Below is the presentations: by Sam Smith of MySociety, Heather Brooke of Your Right To Know, Ben Goldacre of Bad Science and Phil Booth of No2ID. Then a discussion follows after.
continue reading… »

Labour’s liberal credentials have been under threat for some time, with ID cards, 42 days detention and, above all, the Iraq war, attracting fierce criticism from liberal campaigners.

This is also key time politically: despite fluctuating polls, a hung parliament is still a potential outcome at the next general election. Is a new progressive consensus either possible or desirable, and could Labour and the Liberal Democrats work together in government?
continue reading… »

Hello all, I’m at the Convention on Modern Liberty today, as expected. The Liberal Conspiracy/Comment is Free joint event will be held at lunchtime, 1-2pm. Joining me in a panel discussion will be:
Phil Booth – from No2ID
Heather Brooke – Your Right To Know
Ben Goldacre – Bad Science
Sam Smith – My Society
Do readers who can’t make the event have any questions they’d like to put to them? I’m happy to put some forward during the discussion.

The Convention for Modern Liberty in London, this Saturday, is sold out! That’s 1000 tickets gone people – a massive achievement in itself. Clearly there is a huge hunger across the country to reclaim our civil liberties back.

If you haven’t got your London ticket or couldn’t make it down anyway, then there are other ways you can join in:
continue reading… »

Jack Straw has decided not to appeal a decision and instead the Cabinet has voted, using the power allowed it by law the law, to prevent the release of documents, for the first time since the FOI Act was passed.

Y’know what? I disagree with Justin, Jennie and most Lib Dems on this. He’s right to do so. We can, and should, be attacking this, but not because Cabinet minutes aren’t going to be released. Cabinet minutes should not be released, it’s one of the basic principles of our Parliamentary democracy.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work:
continue reading… »

Convention on Modern Liberty, Birmingham Event (with video-links to London speakers)
28th February 2009, 9.30am to 12.45pm
continue reading… »

Try as I might, I can’t help feeling that this week’s Convention on Modern Liberty addresses far more of the symptoms that our liberal democracy exhibits than the actual diseases that it suffers from. I say this because I’d argue that the biggest threat to individual liberties is not the particular instances of illiberality in themselves by governments, as much as what the late Bernard Crick described as the populist mode of democracy that we are drifting into.

Here’s an example. I would argue that the Conservatives have – this week – promoted perhaps the most reactionary and dangerous set of proposals that any party with a realistic prospect of victory has ever announced in this country.

In their local government proposals, they have adopted the very worst excesses of populism. And by populist, I don’t mean any half-arsed Phillip Gould-type attempt-to-push-the-party-where-focus-groups-tell-them sort of populism.
continue reading… »

Despite many viewing biometrics as an issue exclusively relating to ID cards and passports, the reality is that such data is already in use on a daily basis across Britain in a wide variety of settings from providing security in schools, nurseries and hospitals, to gaining access to computer systems, and monitoring turnstile entry to building sites.
continue reading… »

I’m pleased to announce that the LC/CIF lunchtime event at the Convention on Modern Liberty has an excellent line-up of panellists. Joining me will be:

Phil Booth – National coordinator for the No2ID campaign, Phil has been instrumental in building up the technology infrastructure for the campaign and building its profile online.

Heather Brooke – A journalist and writer living in London, Heather is author of ‘Your Right to Know’ a citizens’ guide to using the Freedom of Information Act and accessing official information. She runs a blog of the same name. Most recently, Heather won a High Court case against the House of Commons for the full disclosure of MPs’ second homes allowances.

Dr Ben Goldacre – The ‘Bad Science’ columnist for the Guardian, who runs a blog of the same name, needs little introduction.

I’m just trying to confirm one last panelist, hopefully from My Society. The event isn’t aimed merely at bloggers but campaigners and activists of all stripes who want to know more about how we can use technology to prise open Westminster and protect our civil liberties (or for other means, if you so wish).
Now, what questions would you ask these panelists? I’ll pick the best ones for the convention if you can’t attend.
Update: I’ve just heard they’ve sold over 1,200 tickets! Jesus.

I hope to write a few articles discussing different aspects of the Convention on Modern Liberty, beginning with the bedfellows we seem to have chosen – some of which rather dislike one another.

It says something when both animal liberationists – many of whom are also involved with organisations such as the League Against Cruel Sports – and pro-hunting lobbyists can get on the same bandwagon. Why would we jump into bed with this group?

Similarly, why would we allow Conservatives to take stands at a Convention on Modern Liberties? David Cameron has already admitted, on numerous occasions, that he will not be seeking to overturn a lot of the government’s legislation – and indeed, it was the Thatcher government where the trend of legislating for every tabloid headline truly started. Equally, the drive for tougher sentencing and reduced judicial discretion has often come from the Conservative benches.
continue reading… »