Shilly-shallying about what to do about Chinese designer ‘plant food’ drug Methadrone/Mephedrone/MCat is another unwelcome example of how New Labour’s passive/aggressive approach towards protecting citizens’ rights does the reverse. It’s enough to drive a man to spliff.
Last October, former NL drug czar, the (perhaps) aptly named Professor David Nutt resigned/was sacked from the Advisory Council on [...]
Category Archives: Uk Home Office
Methadrone IS dangerous. Knock it on the head right now
March 29, 2010 – 12:12 pm
Update: Two Treasury Select Committee Members fiddled their expenses
May 21, 2009 – 3:01 pm
This morning The Telegraph reported that Conservative MP Sir Peter Viggers would stand down at the next election, at the request of David Cameron, having claimed over £30,000 in gardening-related expenses, including £1600.00 for a floating duck house. Some wags wondered whether it fell under the MPs’ second home category. Another Tory grandee, Michael Fallon, MP, overclaimed £8300.00 in mortgage [...]
It's official! Phil Woolas is a Ghurka jerka
May 7, 2009 – 5:31 pm
We have steered clear of the Ghurka Veterans campaign thus far, on the grounds that there is little to add to the clear injustice of refusing to grant permanent resident status, and indeed, full army pensions, to serving and ex-members of the Nepalese Brigade of Ghurkas. Last week, the UK government, probably the only people in [...]
Manchester's crime industry boosted by ID card decision
May 6, 2009 – 1:44 pm
I won’t rub it in (again) but we predicted (Thus passim) the release of all 12 ‘terror suspects’ arrested and detained without charge for up to two weeks for the alleged ‘Good Friday Plot‘ to blow up Manchester’s Arndale Centre. Liberal politician and human rights lawyer Alex Carlile is conducting an investigation and review into [...]
What part of surveillance society don't you understand, Jacqui?
April 27, 2009 – 2:03 pm
It almost beggars belief that the UK government, rebuffed in its anti-democratic plans to use the EU Data Retention Directive as a cover to create a database of all communication between citizens, is ploughing the same sordid furrow, using public data from social networking sites to to create ‘profiles’ of potential subversives. We wrote about this [...]
Liberty in Britain is suffering death by a hundred cuts
February 19, 2009 – 11:24 am
I still cannot quite believe this is happening to my country. It feels like a bad dream. But it is happening, and we must stop it. Now. By Timothy Garton Ash
For thirty years I have been travelling to unfree places, from East Germany to Burma, and writing about them in the belief that I was coming [...]
Bob be Nimble, Bob be Quick. Resign from the enquiry now.
December 22, 2008 – 1:27 pm
Although THUS promised to stop wittering about the Damian Green arrest and various attempts to paint the Tories in the unlikely role of supporters of terrorism, yesterday’s ‘revelation’ that Bob Quick, Head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Unit, who is coincidentally leading the investigation into the Home Office leaks which resulted in the arrest of [...]
Loss of Phorm at adware company – and we can't wait for those ID cards, allegedly
December 19, 2008 – 7:27 pm
ZD Net reported that Delaware-registered adware company Phorm (THUS passim) has lost its UK CEO, Hugo Drayton, who leaves the company ‘by mutual agreement’ at the end of December. Lyn Millar, Finance Director has also resigned. They have been replaced by London-based deputy chief executive officer Nan Richards, and UK managing director Nick Barnett. Richards [...]
It's Sunday, so it must be Islamabad
December 14, 2008 – 4:37 pm
UPDATE: They seek him here, they seek him there. Gordon Brown has moved on to Pakistan, wearing the same suit and tie, where he has applied pressure to allow the Metropolitan Police to ‘interview’ one or more of the Mumbai bombing suspects. The strategy is simple. Render them to London, buy them an Oyster Card and invite [...]