Police state’s cannot work unless people cooperate with them, and the supermarket Tesco is doing eaxctly that: helping make Britain’s emerging police state a reality.
A man took some photographs to be developed taken whilst deer hunting (showing him posing with a deer he had bagged), to his local supermarket, Tesco. However when the staff saw the developed pictures, they called the police because they felt the images ‘inappropriate’, although he had broken no animal cruelty or firearms laws. So how do the police get involved when something is deemed ‘inappropriate’ rather than ‘criminal’? Nevertheless, the police duly did get involved and moreover according to the article they questioned the man for “several hours”. Unless there is a great deal more to this story that came out in the article, I cannot see what this guy did to justify being questioned at all, let alone for “several hours”.
Now this raises more questions: firstly, what could they possibly question him about for ‘several hours’? If they were trying to ascertain if he had a licence for the weapon in the picture, surely all they needed was his name, a police computer terminal and about five minutes of some police office worker’s time. So what exactly where they asking this man to justify?
Also, Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, does not think that his company was the one who was acting in an ‘inappropriate’ manner, strangely stating:
Tesco does not discriminate against any lawful section of the community.
Sir Terry has not thought that statement through clearly as it is manifestly not the case (and if he dislikes that assertion, his lawyer is free to contact me). To ‘not discriminate’ would mean Tesco treats lawful gun owners the same way way it treats lawful dog owners and lawful car owners (all of which must be licenced).
So, following that statement of non-discrimination, I wonder if every time (or even occasionally) the staff at Tesco photolabs see a person driving an automobile in a picture they develop, something that can only be done lawfully in Britain if you have insurance and a valid driver’s licence, do they call the cops so they can grill the guy in the picture and make him produce proof his vehicle was licenced? If they do indeed do that, well, then I suppose Sir Terry is correct and Tesco do not ” discriminate against any lawful section of the community” as they really do apply the same standards to everyone. If that is not the case, then Sir Terry is not being truthful as clearly they do indeed discriminate against a lawful section of the community, namely those who own licensed firearms.
Needless to say I will never shop in a Tesco again.
Bagged a dear? I’m not surprised he was interviewed.
When I hear someone was “questioned for hours”, I assume (unless there are good reasons to believe the contrary) that in fact they were in custody for hours, during which time they were questioned. Four or five hours in custody and a half hour interview would be typical for a not particularly complex case. Or perhaps I’m being optimistic.
How long can it be before it’s Lord Leahy, or even Viscount Leahy? Perhaps with a BOGOF one of his mates will cop for an honour too.
It’s not just a Tesco thing unfortunately, there are a lot of people in this country now who think it’s their duty to complain about anything that they find even remotely offensive – there was the case with Boots and that BBC journalist a while back.
Although having said that, the Tesco supervisors are generally a stuck-up bunch in my experience. It doesn’t suprise me that they’d do something like this.
Stasimitarbeiter………………what an unmitigated bunch of shits!
Whoopie…………thank god I don’t live there any more!
This is default behaviour at all big biz photolabs. Anything “suspect” gets reported. Remember the people who got in trouble for photographing their kid in the bath?
This kind of nonsense is one reason why digicams have sold so well. Who wants an acne-infested Boots 1 hour lab employee spying on your snaps?
Perhaps the questioning for hours thing was interrogation (of the non-torture variety), that is, going over and back over the events to try and trip up a liar, because the police were suspicious. If the guy had eg: been poaching deer with an unlicensed rifle, he’d have been in for some hard time, and the police’s league table numbers would have been looking rosy.
Why in custody at all? If they have his name, address and a terminal, they can find out if he has a licence for the weapon in the picture without ever bothing the man face to face. And as they did not arrest him in the end, clearly he was not breaking any laws, so why was there ANY need to ‘question’ him? And if there was a need, sure it would be:
Plod: “Do you have a licence for that weapon?”
Bloke with gun: “Yes, here it is”
Plod: “Oh right… bye then”
or more correctly, whist still down at the Nick:
Plod: “Oi Mavis, use that computer thingie and tell me if some bloke called [insert name here] has a licence for a shootah”
Mavis: [tap, tap, tap]… “He sure does”
Plod: “Right then, I’ll tell those plonkers at Tescos not to have a cow everytime they see a picture of a rifle”
The English are the nastiest, tell-tale, self-righteous snitches in the entire world. The police state advances with the eager help of the citizenry.
What was this supervisor shit charging this man with? An “inappropriate” photo that was entirely within the law? Didn’t even skirt the law? Was totally lawful but the little shit didn’t approve of blood sports. Next time you’re in that store and you see him wearing a tie you think is “inappropriate” for your taste, call the cops. If he makes a grammatical error you deem “inappropriate”, call the cops.
A mere generation ago, the police would have regarded that phone call with incredulity. Today, they slavver. God, I’m glad I got out of that dump!
I’m sorry. A message came up saying I had the wrong security code and gave me another one to use, so I did. Plse excuse. And when I tried to post this message I got the same message … twilight zone … da da dada …
Hardly surprising… I watched BBC’s “Life of Grime” tonight about folks who do dirty jobs in Edinburgh. Well, there was a couple of counicl workers who tidied this obnoxious slob’s council gaff for him, removing 4 tons of shit (in some cases, literally shit). Then there were these two officious tarts who’d just got jobs as “environmental wardens” chasing people down the streets for discarding cigarette ends to hand out 50quid fixed penalties. When a victim challenged them it was pointed out to him that the law had been advertised on TV,cinema, hoarding on buses and in shop-windows… Ah the cost to the PBTP, I thought. It got worse. These two birds had a competition to see who could be the first to hand one out on their first day. The winner got a night of drinks bought for them by the loser…
… the loser, of course, was us.
“……………………in England’s green & pleasant land.”
yeah Nick, and after that I watched BBC’s “Traffic Cops” and they were stealing peoples cars and having them crushed! WTF!
I know uninsured drivers are a problem but there is tremendous room for abuse in this system.
One time a mechanic was stopped after taking a car to get an MOT, it was not insured for the owner but the mechanic was covered by his own, the police phoned up the owner of the car to have a go even though no offence was being commited.
Your digital images won’t be safe from the prying eyes of the state either, especially if they were of the erotic variety. That is if the Home Office got its way.
http://bac.lfshosting.co.uk/
…………….. a long, long time ago, permex.
It strikes me that the English have been on this route since or around WWI. Reporting on each other. Communism/socialism – same diff. They actually hunger to find each other in the wrong. They don’t just shrug, they jump on it and make a meal of it. “We just thought we’d mention it, officer. I mean, it could be dangerous for the children is what we were thinking …”.
“We just thought that having such a large tree in the front garden was obscuring the road for the owner, so he can’t see when he backs out of his driveway. We just thought we should mention it … we have a lot of elderly walking along this pavement during the day. Not the most alert of people! ho ho ho! – poor old dears!”)
(Pointing) “You can see the man at No 42 has his paint ladder up against the house rather close to the electricity line, officer. We just thought we should mention it as it could cause a serious accident, didn’t we Norman?” “Yes, I mean, if he lost his footing he might electrocute himself! We just thought we should mention it.”
Dear god!
Verity you are over excited. Things are getting worse but not yet bad enough for ‘Pavlik Morozov’ type stories. As the song wrongly goes ‘things can only get better’ under this government.
“This is default behaviour at all big biz photolabs. Anything “suspect” gets reported. Remember the people who got in trouble for photographing their kid in the bath?”
You need licences for kids?
Baths actually. You didn’t hear about the new bath license fee? £50 a year plus paying for a full servicing by a health and safety inspector.
@ Perry
“Why in custody at all? If they have his name, address and a terminal, they can find out if he has a licence for the weapon in the picture without ever bothering the man face to face”
It has taken 10 years for the Home Office and the Police Information Technology Organisation and Anite Systems to waste millions of pounds and NOT to deliver a National Firearms Database
which is “fit for purpose”.
“Dunblane parents still await gun register”
“in England’s green UNpleasant land.” I hope he sues the pants off the plod for unlawful arrest and false imprisonment.
I did just that after it happened to me – only I called the police when a scumbag wheelclamper broke into my car containing a properly licensed firearm (itself furthr secured in a locked gun case); needless to say the clamper was let go free while I had the 5 hour ordeal at the station and a police fishing trip – sorry, search – of my home which included ransacking my wife’s lingerie drawer and children’s toyboxes in true Stasi fashion.
Of course there was never any charge, but it took two years to get 500 quid plus legal costs out of them. At least it was worth double converted into $$……….
Yes, the UK is a nation of miserable jobsworths, snoopers and petty officials. Thank God we escaped four gloriously happy years ago!
PEte – I don’t know. A couple of years back, when I lived in France, I wrote here about an English couple driving through my village who encountered a car parked in a tiny lane, and it was facing the wrong way. Two infractions! They could have backed out – it was only a few yards – but THEY HAD THE RIGHT OF WAY and, to their great good fortune, the Gendarmes happened to drive into the tiny neighbourhood en passant.
So the English went and complained about this other car. So the Gendarmes, being practical, took a look and suggested they just back out and go down the next street. But the English weren’t having it, because that car was A) parked in a lane that was no wider than 6 ft so obviously no one could get by and B) was parked in the wrong direction!
They kept saying, “Yes, but he is facing the wrong way.” And, “Yes, but he is blocking the entire lane. Surely blocking an entire street is illegal?” And the Gendarmes were simply puzzled, because there was another street to drive down around 15 ft away. It was absolutely no big deal. But these English people did not want someone to get away with an infraction of the law, even in a foreign country. And all this basically in English, with a few French words thrown in, like “la rue” and “voiture”.
To the credit of the Gendarmes, they finally just shrugged and drove off, leaving these two stupid twits to back up and drive the 15 feet to the next street. And the Gendarmes wrecked their day by not sticking a ticket on the offending car’s windshield, although they should have! To my great pleasure.
I balme the man himself,if he had joined the police,he could be whacking Brazilians with impunity.
And now Gary Glitter has been accused of “grooming” the British public in paedophilia in an interview.
Paedophilia is, obviously, vile and my opinion is they should be castrated, including Paul Gadd, but Paul Gadd “grooming” 60m people? Whoaaahhh! The BBC is out of control.
The BBC is “grooming” 60m people to believe that the Palestinians have a grudge. That suicide (aka ‘militants’) bombers have a grudge. On the Beeb, Osama bin Daid is now “a Saudi dissident”. The BBC is “grooming” the British and anyone stupid enough to listen to the World Service (gracias a John Simpson, their editor) to believe an Islamic take-over of civilisation is not only inevitable, but pretty fair, actually.
The BBC’s further into grooming than a poodle parlour.
Might I suggest that digital cameras are a more covert way to avoid the petty snoopers in Tesco’s snoop and sniff department. Do your own developing thereby avoiding all the agro with Tesco jobsworths and DI Knacker of the Yard.
You mean you did used to shop there? I make a point now of only buying pork-related foods and alcohol in my local Tesco because of the incredible level of rudeness one encounters from the surly staff – all of whom seem to be called Khalid or Mohammed.
Being grilled for several hours by the police generally means that he was kept in a police cell for 2 hours while an officer filled out 2 hours of bureaucratic arrest forms and statements and was he then probably set free straight away once the duty inspector reviewed the case.
Some undergraduates once showed me the prints they’d had developed at Boots of a party they held. The pictures were almost entirely of drug-taking; pictures of their stash (hash and LSD), them dropping acid, smoking a bong &c. &c.
Nothing ever came of this despite the fact that some pictures had “advice labels” on, suggesting that the staff had looked at them. I suspect that nothing was done because the staff thought the pictures amusing, or because they saw only a filthy student flat and some drunken student pranks rather than something they thought wicked and immoral (e.g. a gun).
On similar lines, if I could be bothered and had money to waste, I’d be tempted to install a Microsoft OS on an old PC and then take it to PC World for a “health check”. In the “My Pictures” directory would be image files with names like “kid_in_bath.jpg”, which would be of a goat being dunked in sheep-dip, &c. &c.
I had an amusing time at Tescos in late 2001, when I was forced to explain some pictures of my (legal, public) industrial music festival in London showing the vocalist of the performance group Aesthetic Meat Front hanging from the ceiling by flesh hooks in his back above a stage covered in skinned sheep and pig heads. They were terribly serious and sanctimonious (I had to speak to The Manager in person) – I was thoroughly amused by their reaction to the point where they shame-facedly returned my pictures.
More form the West Country:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/4966314.stm
This is a pretty disturbing story, but also suggests why anyone these days who takes photos uses digital cameras and develops hard copies at home if they have any sense.
The problem, of course, is that we have been turned into state snitches. Anyone who works in financial services is in this situation and if you fail to pass on details that you think are disturbing, then, however minor or silly the case, you can be fired if it subsequently turns out that you failed to raise the alarm. It also explains why the service culture in banks is so terrible: it encourages those who actually like being bureaucratic.
This is how civil society gets eroded. You undermine trust and common sense, and put people in fear, so that photos of a baby splashing around in a bath are turned into paedo stories, photos of a guy at a shoot are turned into armed crazie stories, etc, etc.
This started long before Blair came to power, so I am afraid this cannot be laid at his door. This country has slowly, but steadily been losing its marbles for decades.
Heh.
You take deer-hunting pictures to my local supermarket to get them developed, the most likely thing you’ll hear from the staff is ‘Nice Buck! Where’d you get him?’
The supermarkets here (Wal-Mart, Meijers and K-Mart/Sears) all sell hunting rifles, so no problem there.
HM the Queen paid a private visit to Sheridan, WY, a few years back, to stay with Senator Malcolm Wallop – they are distant relations. The advance boys from Scotland Yard were just aghast at the numbers of hunting rifles on open display – in gun racks, on store shelves, and just plain walking down the street. ‘Can’t we do something about that?’ they said. To which the local coppers replied ‘Do what? It’s Elk Season!’ I think HM understood . . . . . She spent some time shopping at King Ropes, which has a museum in the back that must have a thousand rifles on open display. Funny how not one of them jumped out of the racks and shot her . . . .
I’ve often observed, and I suspect Verity would agree, that the quickest way to discern the differences in cultures is at the extremes – how they react to unusual or unlikely events. Americans will generally react with great interest and curiosity. Brits, it seem to me, will now react in a default mode of suspicion and fear – what a fellow expat of mine calls ‘the Ughknown’.
llater,
llamas
I think a couple of points should be raised for our ‘overseas’ visitors before they self destruct from bile.
1. Firearms licences are issued at Police discretion, so saying ‘piss off’ is not really an option. You can go before a magistrate if you feel you are being unfairly treated and I must confess that my experience of police firearms officers has always been very good.
2. I sincerely hope that this man sues the arse off Tesco for breach of his civil rights, and at least embarasses them into sacking the twats responsible.
This is not a reflection of either government or popular culture, but merely a few officious tossers who are probably regreting going in to work that day.
3. The only reason we are hearing about this is BECAUSE IT MADE THE PAPERS, in other words because it was considered outrageous enough to be newsworthy.
Anyone from the USA wishing to respond might first wish to recall the recent actions of your own BATF, ie. going round to peoples neighbours and asking what they thought of ‘Joe next door’ buying a new gun at a show.
llamas
Her Maj is a robust woman. She’s perfectly familiar with guns, hunting and horses and would have been more than comfortable in Sheridan, WY. No liberal she.
Even though I have a firearms certificate and am minded about even innocent behaviour drawing suspicion from authorities I’m with Perry de Havilland. In recent times we’ve had this case, Julia Somerville being questioned by the Police for the same reason, a penshioner questioned for holding a placard calling on gays to repent, a shopkeeper warned over having a golliwog on display and a Christian couple questioned for 80 minutes after asking a council if they could display Christian literature next to gay literature in a council building. These are just those that spring immediately to mind.
In each case a spineless snide made a complaint which brought on the now predictable Police response. In each case those questioned let the Police get away with their outrageous action when the conversation should have been short and sweet:
– “What law have I broken?”
– “Err … none”
– “Bye”
Sorry Robert, “this is not a reflection of either government or popular culture”. You mustn’t be living in the UK to make a statement like that.
All you have to do is look at a few of the government published posters and adverts detailed on this site over the past few weeks to see that this is very much indeed a reflection of government culture.
I suspect many examples of popular culture fitting this mode of behaviour can also be found.
Good memory, Pete_London. I also recall that the elderly couple who asked politely if they could display Christian literature at the same time their council was displaying gay literature not only got a police visit, but they were told they were “sailing very close to the wind”. What the hell kind of bullying remark is that to make to an old, completely inoffensive old couple who would have been law abiding for their entire lives.
There really is no bully like a British jobsworth.
Agree, llamas. Americans like new things and new ideas and in general react positively. Large swathes of the British react by wondering if it should be banned.
Robert wrote:
‘Anyone from the USA wishing to respond might first wish to recall the recent actions of your own BATF, ie. going round to peoples neighbours and asking what they thought of ‘Joe next door’ buying a new gun at a show.’
Agreed. But there’s a second half to the story.
As a result of their outrageous actions, the ATF found themselves squirming in the hot seat in Congressional committee hearings, where the various Congressmen took turns ripping them a new one. Since this was the oversight committee that has a say in their funding, I suspect that ATF may have learned their lesson.
That being said – there is another difference. The actions you describe were carried out by the ATF, who may have been guilty of wildly-excessive zeal, but at least they were doing something like their jobs. The actions described in the original post were nothing more than officious snooping by private individuals – the clerks at Tesco.
llater,
llamas
Storm, meet teacup…
The telegraph story makes it fairly clear the police came to his house, asked him questions, and left again. No arrest, no trip to the local station, no anything else. The police appear to have acted very reasonably.
Without being able to see the photographs, it’s impossible to make any very useful comment, but I suspect that some pathetic person at Tescos went ‘ick’ when they saw the photos and notified the police because they could.
I fail to see how any of this indicates the rise of the police state in any way, although it does indicate the rise of the power of companies.
Generally speaking, I prefer people in my community to report things to the police, than for the police to do random searching, or maintain a heavy handed permanent presence.
The only real issue here, is when police are _prevented_ from using their judgement on what action to take after being informed. I like to think in this case the police could have looked at the photo, and not even bothered going round to the blokes house. It maybe they are required to take all complaints related to firearms more seriously.
I don’t think it indicates the rise of companies in the slightest. Some busybody individual made a complaint about a piece of minutiae they noticed in the course of their work. Of course, you find people like this in all walks of life, although especially in low level retail (I’ve worked with several in the past). They’re characterised by an overinflated sense of importance regarding their position. Noticing some potential infraction and charged up by a misguided sense of authority and guardianship, they have utilised the procedures devised by Tesco for genuine cases to frivolously notify the police, and I’m sure the police are obliged to investigate to some degree all complaints made by the general public. Upper management in that particular Tesco store may have had no idea that the complaint had been made at that stage. Up until now, I don’t see a problem.
However, the manner in which the Police followed up this particular complaint is certainly indicative of a wider pattern forming in Tony Blair’s Great Britain. How Tescos dealt with the subsequent publicity – somewhat clumsily, so it seems – also allows someone like Perry to make a not particularly rosy assessment of the company. They would have been far better off not moralising about how their staff did the right thing and simply said “We apologise – the photos were reported by junior member of staff who is now undergoing training.” Problem solved, and Tescos doesn’t look like a bunch of prying snitches.
Not Dave: I not only live here, I was born here some 53 years since, tell me when you’re next in London and I’ll buy you a pint. I stand by my comment because this story was posted precisely to show up the (relatively few) over officious cretins we have here. That is why we have a name for them after all, ‘jobsworth’ is an expression of contempt and neither the posting of the story nor the use of the term would be possible if this sort of behaviour caused anything but outrage. My two cents.
Llamas: I’m glad to here the BATF were reamed over that incident, I hadn’t heard that bit.
Tesco’s used to be generally quite good with customer relations, and I must say my local one is great, but that’s possibly a smaller shop. I find that makes quite a difference.
What about the bit in the article which said:
SEVERAL HOURS? If they did not take him down the nick but rather came to his house, what did they find to question him about for SEVERAL HOURS?
Really? Your logic is questionable as TESCOS did not question him for several hours. He can tell Tescos to sod off, so Tesco have no power, only the police do… In a sane society, if a member of the public tried to set the police on you when there is no probable cause to think a crime has been committed, the police says “Sorry but your complaint does not give us probable cause to question this person”.
Robert: “This is not a reflection of either government or popular culture, but merely a few officious tossers who are probably regreting going in to work that day.”
I think that’s just nonsense. There was once a time when this simply would not have happened. We’re out of that time, now.
“Anyone from the USA wishing to respond might first wish to recall the recent actions of your own BATF…”
Of course. The population in America isn’t quite so far gone as the UK on this particular issue, but they’re well on their way, after the lead of the various apparat. They’re learning well.
“J”: “I fail to see how any of this indicates the rise of the police state in any way, although it does indicate the rise of the power of companies.”
1936: Cops get a phone call from the store, hear the complaint, and hang up.
2006: Cops get a phone call from the store, hear the complaint, and immediately saddle-up.
Note well: the “companies” had exactly the same capacity for making that call seventy years ago. What they did not have then was the least expectation that they would be taken serious by the state. You’re missing the essential here, and that’s why you’re wrong.
Perry is spot on to point out the probable cause aspect to this. A criminal offence may’ve been represented by those photos (eg poaching) but neither the Tescoids or the dibble had the slightest reason to think it actually had been committed.
A picture of four Arab men standing together with rucksacks might be the last momento of a team of suicide bombers but unless there is any specific reason to believe this it should be assumed that they’re just a group of lads going camping.
These sort of actions do not just infringe our liberties, they waste resources, diminish respect for the police and frequently demoralise coppers themselves – many of whom would rather be investigating cases where there was evidence that a crime had probably actually taken place.
The problem lies in the fact that mostly those doing the complaining are ignoramuses,this can and has got people killed by the police,the word gun can end up with someone facing and armed response group.
Those who complained in this case know not of that which they speak,which is why they work at Tesco’s
Don’t forget the Scotsman shot for carrying a chairleg because some fool in a pub thought he was Irish, put 2 and 2 together and got an almighty 2000, leading to the poor guy ending up on the morgue table – while the police in the case were found to be innicent of anything.
…innocent…
Obviously while I can spell I can’t type.
C4 News tonight carried the ultimate police-state story. Woman in Luton fined 75 quid for throwing a single Cheesy Wotsit (like a Cheese Doodle) out of her car window. She claimed she’d done it because her child in the backseat had thrown it onto her lap. The cops said:
We have Zero Tolerance for Environmental Crime
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/03/uwotsit.xml
Note: serving the penalty cost 200 quid…
Nick M
From the link, we have:
Jon Maddox, Luton Borough Council. No doubt he’s still basking in that special glow only the deeply sad, deeply inadequate local council monkey knows. What a sad tosser. Pull your shirt from out of your underwear.
My fav to-hell-in-a-handcart report from today (who said this isn’t indicative?) comes via the Englishman:
It is modern Britian Perry. If someone (or an organization) does not “fit in” then find they have problems.
And Tesco is open to attack (there are a lot of supermarket haters out there) – so they must do more than just pay the Labour party money (which they do sometimes), they must also be P.C.
Otherwise they will end up like S. Porter – in exile for the “crime” of selling council properties to people the lady thought MIGHT vote Conservative.
To build the council houses to “build the Tories out of London” (the Labour party quote) was not a crime, but to sell them (in the hopes of the reverse) was.
Remember the real “ruling class” interprets what “the law” means.
Tomorrow some people will go to vote for local councils.
Quite pointless as speaking against many government policies is unlawful under the Deputy Prime Minister’s “code of conduct” for local council members.
Mr Booker has been going on about this for ages – but no one is interested.
All most media outlets are interested in is the Deputy Prime Minister’s sexual habits.
To be fair to media outlets, Paul Marks, many of them are interested in what Prescott’s behaviour says about the character of the man and his level of understanding what position he is in.
Many have reported on his sexual bullying of female subordinates, including a couple of Labour MPs, and that the office of the Deputy Prime Minister seemed to be employed for non-stop drinking; and the arrogance of routinely using his cabinet office, his official car and his official residence for getting sex. His sexual behaviour, as much of the media has pointed out, is a sign of his bullying nature as well as of shallowness, crassness and sheer stupidity.
I am interested in why these two incompetent, hazardous people, plus the incompetent Patricia Hewitt and Ruth Kelly, who should have been gone a couple of months ago, are hanging onto their positions.
Personally – perhaps because I want to believe it’s true – I think Blair cannot sack them because know something explosive about him.
Verity he can’t sack them as they are the only senior allies he has left.
Simple as that.
Not Dave – People queue up to be new best friends with powerful people. Blair can get new allies. The only thing is, as Simon Heffer said in The Telegraph, he is fishing in a increasingly shallow gene pool.
I really don’t think of people like Ruth Kelly and Patricia Hewitt and Tessa Jowell as “senior”, do you? I see them as incompetent middle managers in a small-to-medium size company. And I see John Prescott as the company bully who keeps his job for reasons no one can figure out.
If Precott was charismatic, effective and had actually delivered popular and succesful policies I very much doubt too many people would’ve formed a baying mob around him when it emerged he’d knocked off his secretary…
Nick M – I don’t agree. He bullied people into having “sex” with him via his position, his bullying, crude nature and his power to take them to one of his taxpayer residences or have them sacked.
This is bullying. Sorry.
If any of these women, or women elsewhere, had met him in a bar as a lardy, loud-mouthed, ignorant, retired steward of a cruise line, could he have pulled anyone except with money?
Think not.
Loud-mouthed, egotistical, angry bullying. I think the lurking gals – where are you? – will agree.
Sorry, Nick M – I didn’t read your post properly the first time. Agreed.
Verity
“Blair can get new allies. The only thing is, as Simon Heffer said in The Telegraph, he is fishing in a increasingly shallow gene pool.”
You mean this pond life came out of a deep gene pool?
Ron Brick – V good!
I agree with you Verity, they are all very low qualiy and are no more than mid level functionaries at best. All I was saying however, is that they are all that Blair has left… all his other “big hitters” are gone – mostly in disgrace – the realtively “senior” incompetant buffoons he has left are all there is (perhaps I should have put the word Senior in quotes the first time)..
Yes there are other underlings that will be seeking to climb up the ladder, sadly though (for Blair at least), all that remains in his court come from from the bottom of that shallow gene pool, more along the lines of pond scum than the single celled organisms like Hewitt, Jowell et all.
As for Prescott, as has been declared on this thread, he truly is a bully and a disgrace. How long before one of his underlings places formal charges of sexual harrassment at his door? It can’t be long surely – roll on that day.
I apologise to Verity, I should not have written in a way that indicated I did not care about the Deputy Prime Minister’s sexual habits (if he does use his position to pressure women into having sexual intercourse with him that is vile).
However, I remain irritated (to put it mildly) that there is so little interest in the fact that the government has abolished free speech for local councilors.
If someone (as a candidate) campaigns against many government policies, the local “compliance officer” will prevent you from speaking under the “code of conduct” which has the force of law (you can be disqualified and other things can be done to you), as you plainly do not have a “open mind”.
This also covers sitting councilors. Supporting government policies is (of course) not a matter that compliance officers will punish you for.
As Mr Booker is fond of saying, this is part of our “guided democracy” (to use the Soviet term). In which debates and votes still happen – but are controlled.
Of course the Conservative party is in a difficult position in trying to attack all this.
Even before the election of Mr Cameron it was shown that candidates (indeed existing members of Parliament) could be removed by the Conservative H.Q. did not like.
Not “racist” things – just quite mild things about taxes or public services.
There is the long standing “candidates list” (which prevents people the centre does not like from even being considered as candidates by local associations).
And there is the new “A list” – which will eliminate any choice at all (in the name of increasing the number of women and ethnic minority candidates – although many people on the “A list” will be neither).
There are also various rules that can be used against Conservative councilors.
The Conservative party is, therefore, not really against our “guided democracy” (as any front bench person who, for example, spoke in favour of leaving the E.U. [the source of 80% of the regulations in Britian] would quickly find out).
And (in any case) the vast majority of local government money comes from central government (which can direct the money to councils it likes and away from councils it does not like) and most local government spending is under the direction of central government (although there is some E.U. imput – for example the environmental directives)
And yet some people are actually voting today.
I do not understand why they are doing so.
But it wasn’t just his secretary. It’s apparently been just about any woman he’s come into direct contact with apart from his wife and we’re now hearing of other cases of Prescott sexual harrassment.
I just wonder how many more cases are in the offing or have been heavily quashed by Number 10.
By the way, today’s scandal is Hain offering a peerage to the late Peter Law, matter that was brought up a number of times in the 2005 election.
I do not normally support theories of dark secrets, but I think Verity may have a point.
Only today a House of Commons an all party committee reported that the Deputy Prime Minister’s office was guity of large scale bullying and discrimination.
Normally “discrimiantion” (against women, non whites or whoever) is the ulitimate sin in modern Britian. Yet the Deputy Prime Minister did not even bother to turn up when the Select Committee wished to question him.
Why has he still not be forced to resign?
Perhaps he will go after the local elections, but it is hard to see how this disgusting person has hung on as long as he has – unless he really does have something on Mr Blair.
Verity –
Americans like new things and new ideas and in general react positively. Large swathes of the British react by wondering if it should be banned.
As much as it saddens me to say it, I’m afraid you’re too right. I’ve found the same thing. Propose any new idea to a Briton and the response is nearly always something along the lines of “It’ll all end in tears before bedtime, mark my words”, whereas the American response will, in my experience, be “Hmm. Interesting idea. Let’s see what happens when we try it.”
It’s nothing new. Charles Babbage found the same thing a century and a quarter ago:
Absolutely. He’s a repulsive cretin who can’t even string together a proper sentence. He has no charm, no charisma, and of course he’s physically repellent. There’s nothing which could possibly attract a woman to him – except his power as Deputy PM.
Wow. Verity. We agree on something.
lardy, loud-mouthed, ignorant, retired steward of a cruise line/em>
It was actually a North Sea ferry. From Hull. “Hey up love, I’ve seen Rotterdam in November, I have – fancy a chip supper and a shag”.
Robt E,
The Babbage story is rather more complicated than that, He was handsomely funded but was an incredibly difficult person to work with. He had odd habits. He made detailed statistical studies for fun. At one point he wandered around North London working out the percentage of broken windows per area. He didn’t do anything with this data. Later people used it as the foundation of acturarial science.
You want an example of British cussedness in the face of the new though, there are many others: Blue Streak, TSR2, Severn Tidal Barrage, the late arrival of colour TV…
Anyway, Babbage was finally caught-out when he took his broken machine into Difference Engine World and they found a load of pictures of match girls and sweeps in its cogs.
That’s from Viz, but I so wished I’d said it first…
Nick M –
The Babbage story is rather more complicated than that
Yes, I know. Babbage is one of my heroes, along with the 1st Lord Armstong. A few years ago I had a serious man-crush on Babbage. The lack of funding he was decrying was a situation that was thoroughly anti-libertarian. The point of the quote, though, was that someone a century and a quarter ago was echoing something I’d discovered for myself. As a result, the quote had some resonance…
Babbage was very heavily funded. He couldn’t get it to work, mainly because he couldn’t work with others…
I don’t know what a “man-crush” is. I’m not sure I like the idea.
Certainly not with deceased Victorian Gentlemen.
Nick M
I don’t know what a “man-crush” is. I’m not sure I like the idea.
Man-crush: Try here.
I can’t deny though that it is a bit weird when the crushee is, erm, dead…
Getting back to the “questioned for several hours” bit.
The idea is to make legal but non PC behavior (in this case firearm ownership and hunting) as unpleasant as possible with the ultimate goal of making continuing to engage in said behavior not worth the hassle. Eventually the behavior can be outlawed with little fuss because it has already been abandoned by the public.
Similiar disagreeable tactics are employed state side.