Freedom juxtaposition

One the day when The Queen announced the following bill during the opening of parliament:

Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill

Will limit the amount of time that DNA profiles of innocent people can be held on national database. Will tighten regulation on the use of CCTV cameras, remove limits on right to peaceful protest. The storage of DNA is a power devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Bill would adopt the Scottish model.

The following happened:

Parliament Square anti-war protester Brian Haw arrested

Parliament Square protester Brian Haw has been arrested for obstructing police during searches of tents on the green.

Anti-war campaigner Mr Haw, who has been camping there since 2001, was held as police searched the "peace camp".

Another protester Barbara Tucker, who has also been camping outside the Houses of Parliament, was arrested.

Now is it just me, or does there seem to be a slightly odd juxtaposition going on here? The police going in and arresting people who are peacefully protesting on a piece of ground opposite the Houses of Parliament whilst almost at the same time the government is proclaiming it will improve civil liberties and remove limits on rights to peaceful protest seems a bit jarring.

I hope Brian, Barbara and anyone else arrested are released soon and allowed to go back to protesting their cause peacefully.

PS: I interviewed Barbara Tucker last year.

My chat with Barbara Tucker - Parliament Square protestor

I had an interesting experience yesterday that probably wouldn't have happened except for my blogging.

I happened to be at the Houses of Parliament around 10:00am. I was actually heading back to the tube but I noticed the anti-war protest encampment on Parliament Square (founded by Brian Haw) and was curious to know what they thought about David Cameron's announcement that he would try and get it cleared if he got into power. I am pretty sure if it wasn't for my blogging and activism I would have left it at that and just wondered but I keep finding myself these days just going for things that I previously would not have done so I strode over the road and started up a conversation with a woman I had seen emerge from one of the tents a minute or so earlier who was now smoking a cigarette.

After an initial bout of suspicion as I explained I was a political blogger and a derisory chuckle when I mentioned I was a Lib Dem ("Not a fan?" I enquired - "No, Lembit Opik tried to have me arrested." was the response) she opened up and was willing to talk to me. Her name is Barbara Tucker and she has been a part of the protest for 3 years. In that time she has been arrested on 33 occasions (so about once a month), each time she insisted that it had been a case of arrest first, find a reason later.

She explained that as far as she is concerned, the entire political system has failed. She thinks that we are led by war criminals and all who support this system are also complicit. She said that parliament does not have legitimacy and that the whipping system is anti-democratic. Eventually she hopes that enough people will decide to opt out of the system and then things will have to change.

For me, some of her arguments and positions are too extreme but I have to admit that some of her points resonated with me. In fact we found common ground on the subject of proportional representation and devolution of more power locally. We also agreed on the subject of how bad things have got with cabinet ministers and other senior politicians often talking in an impenetrable language that most people cannot understand.

I enquired as to whether they shout things at politicians as they walk past and she smiled and said "Of course, with a loudspeaker!". This must be very embarrassing for them and I am sure goes a long way to explaining why Cameron wants rid of the encampment on his watch if he becomes PM. On that subject, Barbara said that she thinks the camp is a reminder that Cameron and his party were complicit in the decisions about the wars we are fighting and he wants rid of it for that reason.

I was very impressed with the resilience and fortitude that I saw. It is a huge undertaking to

live in a tent in a square in the centre of London for years on end and I take my hat off to Barbara and the other protestors. I don't agree with everything that they say but I absolutely agree with their right to say it. David Cameron will be making a big mistake if he tries to clear the encampment because if he does he is sending out a clear signal that he will not tolerate protest.

Protests like this are the pressure valve of democracy and we need them along with the commitment of people like Barbara to remind

our politicians of things they may not want to think too hard about.

David Cameron will not keep the promises of David Davis

As I blogged about back in March, David Davis made an impassioned speech during The Convention on Modern Liberty where he pleaded with his own party to "keep my promises". There is an mp3 of his speech available here and a transcript of it here. A key section is:

Please look at every law you pass, every law you pass, and study it so that it gives freedom, privacy, and dignity back to the people even if it is at the price of taking power away from the government from time to time.

I wonder how that can be reconciled with David Cameron's pronouncement that he will attempt to remove Brian Haw's war protest in Parliament Square:

I am all in favour of free speech and the right to demonstrate and the right to protest. But I think there are moments when our Parliament Square does look like a pretty poor place, with shanty town tents and the rest of it. I am all for demonstrations, but my argument is `Enough is enough'.

So in principle Mr Cameron is in favour of free speech and protesting but as soon as a protest starts making somewhere look a little bit messy that principle goes out of the window. It seems his commitment to free speech is extremely flaky and arbitrary.

If Mr Davis was still in the shadow cabinet, at least he would be in a position to exert some influence on this sort of authoritarian posturing but of course he isn't. It looks like his plea has fallen on deaf ears and we can look forward to much more of the same in this area as we have had from the current government should the Tories form the next one.