You can understand the thirst for vengeance. On Sunday night, France flew sorties over Syria to strike IS targets in Raqqa, the capital of their ramshackle semi-state. They reportedly hit a recruitment centre and munitions depot. Other facilities on the receiving end of French ordinance were a hospital, a museum, a stadium, and a chicken farm. […]
Posts Tagged ‘Policing’
On Jeremy Corbyn, “shoot to kill” and stopping terrorists in the act of murder
Nov 17th, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.
30 years of foot-dragging over Orgreave must end
Jun 24th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.It is bizarre that the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has now spent 18 months dancing round the maypole trying to decide whether to launch a full inquiry into police corruption surrounding Orgreave in June 1984. With a typical establishment euphemism they are engaged in a ‘scoping inquiry’ (for which read: time-wasting) as to […]
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Boris Johnson’s decision to buy water cannons is misguided and bizarre
Jun 16th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.What is Boris Johnson frightened of – apart from losing the Tory party leadership (for which he is a racing certainty loser already)? He says he needs to be ready for trouble on the streets in the summer. But there’s not the slightest evidence for this – more’s the pity considering what Tory austerity has […]
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Duggan decision is bad for everyone: new system needed to deal with police violence
Jan 10th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.This is a sad, bad day for British justice. It seems impossible to combine the view of 8 out of the 10 members of the jury in the Duggan inquest, on the one hand, that he did not have a gun in his hand when he was shot with the decision reached by 8 out […]
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If proven, G4S executives should face prison for embezzling huge sums of public money
Jul 16th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.The exposure of G4S and Serco for stealing from the public purse on an industrial scale is symptomatic of privatised Britain. The findings of an initial inquiry that G4S had ‘overcharged’ tens of millions of pounds on electronic tagging contracts for offenders who had moved abroad, died, returned to prison so they were no longer […]
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Panic on the streets of Shoreditch
Jul 11th, 2012 by Lucy Reese.Last Friday night, my husband and I had a rare night out – a proper one with a babysitter and everything. We left Kentish Town for once and went over to fashionable East London to see Luke Haines’s new film Art Will Save the World. If you are a fan of Luke Haines (which I am) or […]
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The British (Tory) Establishment opts for secrecy & repression, again
Oct 21st, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The news about the police is unremittingly oppressive. Firstly, for the first time ever in crowd control they used a taser at the Dale Farm evictions, amid sickening scenes of unnecessary violence. Secondly, we now discover that senior police officers authorised undercover officers to conceal from the courts their real identities when giving evidence under […]
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Rioting reflects long-held grievances of dispossessed black youths ignored
Aug 10th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The rioting, destruction and violence cannot be excused, but it still needs to be explained. It was initially triggered by the police killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham on Thursday night, though there are disputed accounts of the circumstances, and made worse by the delayed and inadequate response of the police to the family – […]
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Accountability breakdown: they keep getting away with it
Jan 24th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Four breakdowns in the last three days all point to the same central flaw which is now endemic in British society. Public order policing is out of control and clearly would have remained so for many years had not the undercover police spy Mark Kennedy gone native. Phone hacking of public figures we also now see has […]
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Why are police spying on greens at all, given levels of big business crime?
Jan 13th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.There are many other disturbing issues about PC Mark Kennedy’s 10-year under-cover rampage against environmental activists than whether he slept with a number of female participants to gain information. Perhaps the most obvious one, which seems to have gone unremarked on so far, is how it is justified for the police, given the pressure on resources and the public’s […]
