Our long standing sponsor Austin Mitchell MP has started this year’s parliamentary session by tabling the following Early Day Motions which address the cause and some of the effects of our monetary system:
our own EDM 265 Green Credit for Green Growth with currently 11 signatures.
EDM 263 on Student Loans with currently 42 signatures.
and EDM 219 on Tax Avoidance with currently 25 signatures.
The last one has been initiated by Richard Murphy of the Tax Justice Network.
WriteToThem is the easiest way to get your MP to sign any or all of them.
Green Credit for Green Growth 
We are human and therefore entitled to our human rights without interference from the authorities but some police officers will say that our rights are cancelled at his discretion if he decides that someone has been alarmed by the sight of a camera in a puiblic place.
We should not lose our rights under article 10 on the sole discretion of a constable when there is no objective test for “alarm”.
I think we need a very dramatic protest to focus attention.
Yes, yes, dear Colin, we need something “pretty dramatic” ALL THE TIME, not just as one-off events. For none of the big demos made enough of a difference, and I’ve watched them since I came to London in 1981…
Ultimately, we each have to find our own way in which we can stage our “drama”, I guess…
Good luck with yours! Go for it!!!
Sabine
Parliament has never voted to ban its loyal citizens from taking photographs in a public place. For more than 150 years this has been a citizen’s right and to this day it is still supported by the law of the land. There is nothing on the statute book supporting the crime of taking photographs. When the police use other means to ban it they are acting beyond the letter and the spirit of the law.
So, how does it happen?
It started with political correctness. It took root in schools when staff banned the taking of photgraphs during school plays. Pressuure from parents forced weak and dishonest police officers to follow suit, but they had no law to hang their charges on. Photographers in the street were harried if they took photos. Their cars were ticketed, they were mischievously breathylised, their cameras were “accidenta;;y” dropped, and then the great boon came along – police officers could pretend that someone somewhere was alarmed, or likely to be alarmed.
It didn’t exactly cancel out the photographer’s human rghts but if they bullied enough they would get their own way.
It isn’t cricket but officers of this ilk have little to do with fairness. It used to be shameful to be in the hands of the police but it is now the police themselves who are shameful. They have sold their integrity down the river by trying so hard to circumvent the Human Rights Act (HRA).
It’s an old story of deceit and treachery. Not for nothing did Vergil say “quis ipsos custodes custodiet”? Who will guard the guards themselves?
By latching on to the “alarm or distress” part of the Harassment Act a maverick police officer can make that clause mean all things to all men. There is not a single situation that such an officer cannot make fit into “alarm or distress”. He simply has to declare it; there is no test other than his word that it exists.
My blog says it all, Sabine:www.the-whistle-blower.org