Police State Britain - it now exists without any doubt

A lot of things have happened over the past few years in NuLabour's 'Brave New Britain' which have led me to believe that the country is on the way to turning into some kind of 'police state'. One has only to recall the case of Jean Charles de Menezes, gunned down in cold-blood by an out-of-control security apparatus that became caught up in hysteria after the London bombings of July 2005. Then tried to cover-up and thwart the inquiry into what happened; the person concerned, Sir Ian Blair, is still in charge of the Metropolitan Police.

Now I read (thru a post on Mr Eugenides) that an innocent commuter has been snatched off the street by armed police whilst waiting for a bus. His 'crime' is that he was listening to his MP3 player and a fellow-commuter mistook it for a gun and called '999'. OK, just supposing that this was a reasonable thing for the other commuter to have done; after all it could have been a firearm, I suppose. However, once the police bundled the man into a van and took him away for 'interrogation', it must have become obvious to them very rapidly that he was doing nothing more nefarious than possibly listening to some music of questionnable quality. However, these 'agents of the state' still went ahead and took a DNA sample and his finger-prints. A police spokesman has made the very bland statement: "An operation was put in place and a man matching the description was detained". No word of an apology for the distress caused to a completely innocent person. Moreover his DNA and finger-prints are probably destined to stay in police files in perpetuity.

People who try and tell me I'm exaggerating when I suggest that the UK is now, today, a 'police state' under Labour are not just naive, they are in my view completely deluded and not facing facts. The UK has faced a number of dangers in the past of equal or greater severity (think 'World War II' or the 'IRA') without the governments of the time feeling it necessary or desirable to dismantle permanently many of our hard-fought-for basic rights (for example the right to trial by jury, just another of the things our present government would prefer to abolish). Yes, we did have ID Cards during World War II, at a time of supreme danger to the country, but these were quickly dispensed with after the danger was over. Does anyone believe that the present threat of terrorism is equally severe when such measures weren't considered necessary at the height of the IRA threat? I believe the government has actively tried to foster a state of fear amongst ordinary citizens, far beyond what is necessary to combat terrorism, to allow this kind of abuse of power by the police to happen and not to be denounced in the strongest possible terms by anyone who hears of it. However, the government's objective is quite obviously to cow citizens into an acceptance that such actions are necessary and justifiable; its whole strategy since coming to power in 1997 has been heading in this direction. Well, this citizen is not cowed and he does not believe such actions by the police, once they realised it was a false alarm, are in any way justifiable whatsoever. His DNA sample and fingerprints should be removed from police files and destroyed and he should receive an apology.

I've been writing about the developing 'police state' that is modern Britain under our Labour Government for quite a long time now - read some of my earlier posts which touch on this topic here. I have to confess it startled, and frightened, me to read just how much material I have been accumulating over the years; the question has to be, fellow citizens, are we going to continue to acquiesce in this dangerous madness or are we going to grow a backbone and turf the tyrants who currently form our government out on their ears? I am not suggesting anything more dramatic, let it be clear, than a vote more wisely cast than for Labour at the next election; be in no doubt that the government will continue with its propaganda efforts to try and ensure it gets enough votes to win; I hope enough people will see through the lies they are peddling to save our country in time. However, it needs to be made clear to whichever Party takes over next time that they must fulfil their current promises and dismantle the ID Card scheme for a start and bring the police back under proper civilian control by elected officials and that both government and police officials will be held personally responsible for this kind of flagrant abuse of power.