Monday, December 01, 2008

Are we really living in a Police State?

As regular readers of this Blog will know, I am not a fan of the Police Service as it is increasingly being run these days.

I have said before that current police are ever closer to a paramilitary hit squad that the approachable law enforcement service we used to know and love, and also pointed out that they have growing powers to act as judge and jury - to assume your guilty and act accordingly, without the need to prove to a judge or jury their case.

The latest news last week from Westminster that a trusted colleague Damian Green was arrested and held for nine hours on suspicion that he leaked (non-security) information to the media is another sign that the police are out of control.

Some of my political colleagues are pointing fingers in the direction of Labour high command and certainly there are questions concerning who knew what about this raid, and when. But in the end the Police alone decided to go for Mr Green - and not just to arrest him but to go in metaphorically 'guns blazing' with a total of nine anti-terror squad officers involved in raids at Mr Greens home, constituency office, and most controversially of all, his Parliamentary office taking his computers and mobile phone, suspending his email account and cutting him off from contact with the constituents he was elected to represent.

The role of an MP is very closely connected to the basis of our democracy, the rights we enjoy as free citizens were won by early parliamentarians - the sanctity of Westminster is based on it's status as a Royal Palace and a Court where the people are represented.

If our police force have come to believe that they act on a higher command than Parliament as it seems they felt in this case, than we have a major problem brewing with our democracy.

There are many potential causes of this malaise, but the most serious of which is the total politicising of senior officers (now chosen not on their effectiveness at cutting crime, but on their willingness to adopt NuLabour political correctness).

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