Civil Liberties Targeted?

In earlier days - Cameron supporting the 'hoodie'

So it's war. War on the hoodies, war on the hooligans and war on the tardy response by Cameron to events. Or perhaps not quite...

As Cameron responds with the longest Commons speech in recent history from any Prime Minister is his oversimplistic and authoritarian response simply playing to the gallery or should we be concerned that the party, once seen as the champion of the hoodie and civil liberties, will once again return to its authoritarian and illiberal roots?

Coming back from holiday a full 48 hours late, Cameron made a compelling speech to Parliament yesterday on the crisis which was well received. It was a good speech, a one-nation speech, appealing to the good judgement of the British people. Notable though that the speech was one of the longest ever made by a Prime Minister; in political terms, the metaphor the longer the speech the more concerned the politician for his position is certainly most apt.

What of the other actor Boris Johnson, himself late to events, he has since rightly questioned the Tory policy of cutting Police numbers, but aside from that was utterly absent until the worst of the rioting was finished. Boris has responded badly to events up until yesterday morning when he opposed the government on Police cuts. Boris, despite appearances, is advised by some bright and shrewd operatives (which is why Boris Airport should not be treated as pie-in-the-sky), and clearly has been clever to juxtapose himself with the government, who he suspects will get most of the flack. He is also championing a cause of his opponent Ken Livingstone so stealing his oxygen from the bully pulpit.

It is worth being aware of the statistics here. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary published a report in July estimating that 16,200 police officers would be lost across the country during the Spending Review period. Home Office Statistics show that there are 4625 fewer police officers in England and Wales than in March 2010. These are real Police cutting crime at a time where there damands are increasing due to the recession.

It is also worth mentioning that the Tory cuts do not just impact Police numbers despite the press reports. The Tory Justice proposals (supported by Lib Dems) also include cuts to magistrate services, reduction in court sentences for criminals and huge cuts in the back-office support seen in Police stations. These are not just paper-pushers; they are CCTV operators, crime scene investigators and all other other functions which ensure cases are managed swiftly. Despite the glut of right wing commentary there is no mass of bureaucrats sitting in the background. My fear is that the debate has only focused on Police numbers and not about the cuts to the entire judicial process.

In the UK one third of all magistrate courts are due to be cut; yet the right wing press pay no mention to this key component of the justice system. They have utterly ignored the fact that it is these courts that are presently open for 24 hours.

The drive to shorter sentences, which was ironically used against Gordon Brown in the General Election, will also not be a deterrent to career criminals. How is cutting the number of these thugs going to jail going to deter further riots? The cuts to Prison services and prison place numbers will send the utterly wrong message to criminals.

What is madness is that despite the cuts are to spend millions of pounds on elected sheriffs who have no real power, and which are utterly opposed by sheer ambivalence by the population - it goes directly against the founding principle of the Police through consent of all the people, irrespective of partisan interference and the obvious nutcases who could get elected on authoritarian bandwagons and distort priorities. There is a real fear that the election of commissioners could actually stoke community tension and I support the points of Cllr Paul Carter in Kent. We do not want them.

Despite the press Cameron is walking on very thin ice; his open politicisation of the Police force yesterday by suggesting the operational commanders were 'too timid' and had to approach him was most odd; he wasnt even in the Country until the day after these events.

Meanwhile the political impacts on Tory party is also interesting. There membership should be up in arms about the Police cuts but yet we see nothing of that in Medway with Councillors falling over themselves in motions to Council to support cuts to police and the elected commissioner propsoal.

My fear though is that whilst Cameron accepts a robust law and order position, he may move too far to the right in what could lead to Tory state authoritarianism. We saw it in the 1980s in the North and in Ireland.

Some examples which have banded about today:

Social Media access blocked - Government will have authority to block twitter, blackberry and internet access and shut down phone networks during times of riots. The monitoring of social networks by Police may be popular now after the riots but this could lead to a very dangerous place. Would you feel comfy with the state monitoring your Facebook account, your text messages?

Greater powers for police - The stop and search form has already been 'scrapped' in what could lead to even greater racial stereotyping; remember why they were introduced after the Lawrence stabbing in the 1990s. This 'stop and search' is actually a very contentious issue in communities with large ethnic minorities. We need to be careful not to give Police a right of sanction over citizens who are innocent until proven guilty.

I support the Police but Cameron is not responding with sense on this. Police brutality is one of the major causes of riots in many countries; we do need to be careful that by giving more powers to Police that this blunt instrument wont just lead to more of the same.

Curfew Powers - Perhaps an extention of the Dispersal orders. Once again, such state controlled action needs to be very closely monitored but this is a very interesting move which will alienate Tory libertarians. State imposing order over a large geographical areas is actually unworkable in my mind. What if a law abiding citizen was not aware of the curfew and broke it. Is it right the courts should get involved on curfew disputes? Is it feasible?

CCTV Powers - Cameron has indicated, despite the warm words before the General Election, an extension of CCTV into the lives of citizens. I recently asked a question in Medway about ANPR which shows Medway Conservatives have sanctioned a clear programme of number plate recognition across all areas of our towns. It is clear that despite the warm-words this government is actively persuing CCTV programmes. I hate the hypocrisy of the libertarian Tory right on this, their government is continuing with CCTV and is now suggesting more invasive surveillance.

Council Tax & evictions - The irony is that this is being reported in the same right wing press which then goes onto say in the 'comment' pieces that all these rioters are middle class and educated. The simple fact is the great majority of rioters are not middle class and the causes, though mixed, are related to the social, economic, yes (and Labour has to accept some blame) cultural environment that has led to people being frustrated and a false sense of entitlement about rights and responsibilities.

To where are these people going to move? If benefits are cut how are they going to feed themselves; what if they resort to crime. An eye-for-an-eye is base politics and once analysed logically makes no sense at all.

Vigilante / Community defence - A huge number of Conservatives on twitter have supported the idea of communities arming and standing up for themselves.

Not only does does this lend itself to mob rule but could lead to very dangerous sectarianism where 'self-appointed' community champion set summary justice without due process. Citizens have the power to defend homes and make arrests for those who have committed crimes; they do not have the power to wield weapons on the street to deter potential crime. The scenes in Eltham yesterday when vigilante's targeted an innocent bus user was outrageous but could be echoed elsehwere

I have noticed the calls from these Conservatives has silenced somewhat since the EDL and other groups were seen to be latching onto this type of vigilante type behaviour. The Police are the only designated authority (through warrant) to use violence legally on those they suspect of criminal behaviour; if we usurp this right to other non-state actors this leads us to very dark places indeed.

The coming days will see more posturing from politicians but in haste we need to be careful that whilst we do accept that rights and responsibilities must be equal partners in respect of civil liberties we do not react and reach in haste to some pretty illiberal measures.