Jack Straw – Mendacious Poltroon

Jack Straw writes in the Groan’s CiF, defending the government’s legacy on liberty. They have one, it seems. The strapline starts as this dire piece means to go on – with a logical fallacy and an outright lie:

Our record isn’t perfect. But talk of a police state is daft

There was no golden age of liberty. Since 1997, we have done more to extend freedoms than any government before.

That their record is not perfect is an understatement that makes the San Andreas fault look like a hairline crack in Mrs Bucket’s bone china with the blue periwinkles. A police state is being put into place whether Straw denies it or not. This administration has done more than any before it to build the necessary apparatus. All it needs is for someone to throw the switch. And for him to have the bare-faced effrontery to suggest that they have done more to extend freedoms would be laughable if it was not such a serious subject. This is, without doubt, a wonderful example of newspeak; slavery is freedom, indeed.

No one is suggesting that there was a golden age of liberty. Indeed, Straw is engaging the tu quoque fallacy here. History is rife with struggle on liberty’s behalf. What is observable is this government’s systematic attacks on our civil liberties since the twin towers attacks. From the deeply nasty civil contingencies act, through the sweeping use of anti-terror legislation using a puffed up threat to cow a population into acceptance and the identity cards act, Contact point, RIPA, I could go on, but you get the drift.

I believe there are times when it is necessary to impose restrictions on some aspects of individual liberty in the interests of wider security.

Ah, yes, the old trade-off. Such occasions will be very rare indeed. A state of war may be a justification. However, we are not in a state of war. Nor is the threat from terrorists anything like as great as ministers would like us to believe. Therefore, there is very little need to make the trade-off. Virtually none at all – beyond the balance that any society will need to make when freedoms conflict.

The climate in a post-9/11 world is much harder than anyone imagined, even in the immediate aftermath of that outrage.

Not really. This is true only in the minds of ministers. The rest of us have just got on with our lives. We do not need to be protected by government from bogeymen that, if they do exist, are small in number and consequently low in risk. I’ll take my chances with them rather than have to present my papers or have my emails snooped upon by government busybodies.

I do not pretend we’ve got everything right.

Which is probably just as well, given that what you have got right will probably fit on a postage stamp. A very small postage stamp. A very small postage stamp on a very small envelope posted from Small Town, in Tinyshire…

Take the data-sharing measures proposed in the coroner’s and justice bill. Their aim is good, but parliamentary scrutiny has thrown up justifiable concerns that the powers provided could be misused. It’s not our intention but I agree, so we are acting to get a much better balance between data protection and access to services.

Which demonstrates staggering incompetence or mendacity – it is one or the other. Either way, the “balance” is to drop it completely. Their aim is not good, their aim is draconian and unnecessary. Their aim is abhorrent to any reasonable person.

And while the ends can never justify the means, our motives for seeking better protection for citizens from terrorism and crime are hardly ignoble. Those who cast myself and my colleagues as Orwellian drones engaged in some awful conspiracy planned in Whitehall basements not only overlook all this government’s achievements, they cheapen the important debate about getting the balance right so that a very important freedom, that to live without fear in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect, is nurtured and protected.

Asinine nonsense. As I pointed out, the problem has been massively inflated. There is no need for this protection. Indeed, rather the risks of the jungle than confinement in a gilded cage. As for achievements… They were? Remind me again?

There is no right to live without fear, no right at all. It is the same piece of horse-shit spouted by Geoff Hoon a few months back. The balance is simple – so simple even someone of Straw’s limited acumen should grasp it; a society that trades freedom for security deserves neither; to paraphrase a politician of far greater intellect than the idiot Straw.

Talk of Britain sliding into a police state is daft scaremongering, but even were it true there is a mechanism to prevent it – democratic elections. People have the power to vote out administrations which they believe are heavyhanded.

Fine. Have the courage of your convictions. Hold an election. Let the people decide.

I hope that in the final reckoning even some of our harshest critics will concede that this Labour government has done more than any before it to extend liberties and to constrain government.

You’re taking the piss now.