Articles with the Tag New Labour

Comment of The Day

Activism, Civil liberties, Comment of the Day, Life under Capitalism, Manufacturing consent, Media, Police Murder, Policing, UK politics
Published on 2 Comments on Comment of The Day

I see that anarchist rag The Sunday Times (prop. R. Murdoch) is featuring more video of police brutality at the G20.

Rupert Murdoch’s the champion of the oppressed masses now? Who knew? Fight the power, Rupe!

As if.

Commenter GnosticMind responded to Henry Porters’ column on public order policing in today’s Observer and he hits the bullseye when he says:

19 Apr 09, 5:36am (about 2 hours ago)

What is also interesting here is the media treatment of those attacked by the police : The second victim to come forward, the woman from Brighton, has now hired Max bloody Clifford of all people, to represent her : Anyone well versed in Situationist dialectic and critique will see exactly what is happening here — the state media machinery absorbs the threat to the status quo, by repackaging the threat — and selling it back to its own people — as spectacle and entertainment.

The society as spectacle wins yet again — if , that is, most people are fooled and pacified by it yet again.

All that Situationist theory is old hat by now, and very overdone, years ago — but by God they got it right.

They certainly did.

I bet TimesOnline’s hitcount is well up. The management (R. Murdoch) and the advertisers must be loving it. Do I smell an advertising revenue spike?

Dissent and violent repression;not only poliitical theatre but the saviour of the economy.
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Not A Coronary

Police Murder, Policing
Published on

BBC Radio 5 live is reporting that the second postmortem on Ian Tomlinson has found that he died of a internal bleeding in the abdomen and not a heart attack, as police claimed.

The pathologist at the first postmortem has form for jumping the gun with the press and getting things wrong:

Dr Patel is on a Home Office register of accredited forensic pathologists, which is managed on behalf of all police forces by the National Policing Improvement Agency. Questions have twice been asked about his handling of suspicious death cases. In 1999 Dr Patel was disciplined by the GMC after he discussed the medical history of Roger Sylvester, a 30-year-old black man who died in police custody, outside an inquest hearing.

He told reporters: “I am aware from the medical records held at Whittington hospital that Mr Sylvester was a user of crack cocaine.” Sylvester’s family were devastated by the suggestion and contested that he been a user.

More here.

[edited for links as more reports become available]

Hindsight Is Overrated

Bloody Lawyers, Police Murder, Policing, UK politics
Published on

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Belatedly, a former UK Director of Public Prosecutions asks the essential questions about the police’s behaviour at the G20 protests:

…here are some questions for the IPCC to consider as it investigates the events leading to Ian Tomlinson’s death: why were British police officers attending a demonstration in the heart of London with their identifying numbers hidden? In the absence of a fire risk, who authorised them to pull balaclavas up over their heads? And why didn’t they want anyone to see their faces?

Yes why? Were they “Only following orders….”? Presumably the police at Mark Saunders shooting were following orders to cover their faces; otherwise that’s a lot of bad apples in the police.

The DPP is responsible for determining any charges and prosecuting criminal cases investigated by the police in England and Wales; he or she makes decisions about the most complex and sensitive cases and advises the police on criminal matters. He reports to the Attorney General, the Government minister who answers for the Crown Prosecution Service in Parliament.

How come it was that the politically-appointed former DPP from 2003 to 2008, MCDonald, a QC and former (and again post-retirement) member of human rights chambers Matrix (colleague Cherie Blair), couldn’t bring himself to ask those questions when he could have had some effect?

It’s much easier to write a condemnatory Guardian editorial after the fact – and presumably pocket a fee – than to act against the police when you have the power to.