5 March 2009

Is Britain a free society?

Britain may well not be a totalitarian country, but the lights are certainly dimming on Britain as a free society.

With the creation of thousands of new criminal offences any form of political or protest activity which opposes or embarrasses the government can be construed as illegal. More and more people who engage in politics can do so only because the police in effect permit the protest. Nobody can do anything as of right.

If the octogenarian Labour Party heckler, Walter Wolfgang, can be arrested, and Icelandic financial assets seized, under anti-terrorism legislation, what can’t be done under that pretext?

London police stopped 1.2 million people last year. The idea that police officers reasonably suspected 1.2 million people of being murderous knife carriers (or indeed) terrorists is absurd.

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