England's Descent

The picture is, of course, Rembrandt's St Peter in Prison.

The collapse of the common law, now more or less a walking corpse, continues. Via statutory instrument, the government seems poised to give powers which parliament was 'assured' would be directed at crime barons and those considered above the law to local councils and public authorities. These powers, which arise from the Proceeds of Crime Act, would allow local authorities to enter homes, seize property, freeze assets, or lift bank accounts.

About sixty five percent of the electorate did not vote for these authorities. However, since about seventy eight per cent of the electorate did not vote for the government, (multiply vote percentage by turnout) the use of powers locally will make them less negatively legitimate. Tractor production will not be endangered.

We will no doubt be assured that such powers will not be abused. When surveillance powers were extended to local councils and public authorities, they abused them to secretly film people who were not recycling in an approved manner, to check smoking habits, and to harass fishermen, and parents who had tried to get their child into a good school.
When transport authorities can seize assets for any misunderstanding that arises over a fare, and add interest, where will you be? Writing letters to the Daily Mail?

I've also noticed three other extensions to what seems an unstoppable agenda. One is the effective creation of a national ID card scheme under cover of 'protecting the children', which is now going, it is suggested, to apply to people who have nothing to do with children. The other is the fire-sale of the state, including even forensic services vital to justice, for a sum which will not pay half of one month's interest on the national debt. It is accompanied by the usual dimunition of delivery to critical levels.

All this whilst an individual who thinks that having a human rights act precludes 'national shame' suggests the further abolition of juries and the granting of an extended discretion over prosecutions, and while the Lord Chief Justice reveals that he thinks-and I couldn't argue, really--that no one can think anymore. The police will, well, police your speech; but ask the state to actually protect you, or throw some tearaways down the stairs, or arrest and permanently remove people who make communities a misery, and the state will fail you.

And, for God's sake don't cross the social services. They are a parody of an institutionally corrupt and evil gang acting from what they purport to uphold as the highest values. They steal children for personal promotion.

Don't get old. They have arrogated to themselves as a class the power to murder you when you are old, as they encourage the deaths of your unborn children. They have, of course, not apologised for starving or murdering immigrants and never will. No one cares about them, and frankly, when a vulnerable patient can starve over 26 days with no one checking, who is surprised?

The political-media class will demand what it wants regardless of what the people want. I take some misplaced pleasure in watching the process of bankrupting some of them go on, and in watching the collapse of the Copenhagen global warming talks.

But, really, watching England collapse into a sort of 'jobsworths' plastic police state isn't half as much fun as someone of Irish heritage might have thought it would be. It is, in fact, very depressing. There has never been a stronger argument for an armed citizenry.

In 1533, England became 'an empire entire unto itself'. This was celebrated by some a statement of freedom. But seizures of property, enclosures, the colonial treatment of English people, and habits of mind suited to an overlord class but devolved to rentiers followed on it like hell on the four horsemen. England's true empire, since, has been itself, and its own people. There is now very little in the wardrobe or the cupboard to veil that reality. This country, which drank very deeply from the Imperial draught, is now being governed by its own as though it were a colony.

Good luck. Here's a Public Service Message.