Nick Cohen comments in the Observer today on two hot issues du jour. On the Colin Stagg prosecution a decade or so ago he warns of the relationship betwixt police and media, a relationship that is in danger of repeating itself with recent rhetoric from the maximum Tone and his hapless side kick, Dr Reid.
The worst of it was that the police and media persuaded the family of Rachel Nickell that the crucial difference between Stagg and Hindley was that Stagg had got away with murder. The News of the World ran lipsmacking pieces on how the ‘weirdo’ demanded ‘bizarre sex’ with his ‘terrified’ girlfriend yards from where Rachel Nickell was murdered. The Daily Mail quoted Andre Hanscombe, father of her son, saying he was ’99 per cent certain’ that Stagg was guilty and the government should remove the double jeopardy law so he could be tried again. It also ran a serialisation of a self-justificatory book by the officer in charge of the case, Detective Inspector Keith Pedder, headlined ‘How British Justice Betrayed Rachel’s Son’.
All the harassment and the tub-thumping, the misleading of Rachel Nickell’s family and the denigration by the judge was in vain; a vast exercise in distraction left the real killer free to commit other crimes.
Note that the evil News of the World was right there leading the lynch mob, noose in hand – nothing changes. These maleficent scumbags want to do much the same with the “nonces” they name and shame with their stupid, dangerous campaign to sell more copies of their sewage; even if the people who suffer are paediatricians rather than paedophiles – what’s a little thing like a misspelling among stupid, ignorant and violent people? I notice too, that in the wake of Blair’s regression to the middle ages, his bumbling flatmate is clambering onto the bandwagon as it rolls in an ungainly gait through town.
Of course, the point Cohen makes is that Colin Stagg’s experience (an innocent man accused, tried and rightfully acquitted) remained, in the eyes of the police and media, “guilty” despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. So, with Blair’s summary justice, more innocent people will be “suspects” and therefore, by default “guilty” and all that is needed is to build a case. Evidence, be damned. Rule of law, be damned. Those busy screaming behind the News of the World and its ilk, crying out for “justice” forget all too easily that one day, they may be the “suspect” and it is their rights they so willingly shred with their self-righteous indignation.
ID Cards
Cohen notes that NO2ID seems to be gathering apace:
Close to where I live in London, a NO2ID group has sprung up to persuade Conservative, Lib Dem and Green councillors to order the local authority to refuse to co-operate with ID cards.
He draws predictable comparisons with the poll tax at the same stage of its development.
When the poll tax came to parliament, there was a noisy debate. Then it disappeared beneath the media’s radar. It seemed as if the issue was dead, but at the grassroots, thousands of people were preparing for an explosion of protest.
If ID cards are as expensive, intrusive and useless as I believe they will be, we may see the same again.
Oh, I do hope so.
I don’t think the NO2ID campaign is anywhere near the anti-poll tax campaign levels of support. NO2ID is at about the same level of support as there is for PR (it’s just amongst the literati at the moment) and we all know how little people care about PR.
£93 over 10 years is hardly the £600 a year poll tax. The opinion polls still show more people want ID cards than oppose them. That was never the case for the poll tax.
Still, saying all that, I am worried about the cost and practical difficulties of ID cards. I doubt very much we’ll see riots on the streets about it though.
This is, in part, because people have not grasped just how intrusive the database will be. A taxi driver taking me to Lincoln Station last year told me he wanted ID cards to cure illegal immigration – so, we are dealing with a great many ignorant people (you’d have to be to fall for that one). This is likely to be like the Australia card, a logarithmic movement. When people have to start turning up for interviews, then we will see dissent rising exponentially. Riots in the streets? Maybe not. Massive civil disobedience (which really did for the poll tax) I believe so. Give it time – and given government incompetence, we have that.