You can’t beat them, so why don’t you join in… OK, so every blogger and their cat knows about “Guido Fawkes”‘s personal history these days. Hull University in the mid-80s, Federation of Conservative Students, working for David Hart and friends – this is the bit he softpedals – and then the bit he turns up…
Read More 24 hour Tory party peopleThe plan to break up the Home Office and let John Reid keep the macho bits is permitting us a rare glimpse of the core executive in action. Consider this story in teh Grauniad. First of all, note the close symbiosis of the Cabinet Office and the intelligence services – historically, the Cabinet Secretariat evolved…
Read More Deep rumblings in the deep stateWhilst I’m on the topic of last night’s TV: what the fucking fuck is fucking Jeremy Paxman doing pretending not to know the basic facts on the Anti-Terrorism, Crime, and Security Act 2001? Recap: this legislation made it possible to deport or lock up foreign nationals on the basis of secret evidence, which did not…
Read More Paxman, and many others: Sick.Evolution appears to accelerate over time, and new scientific evidence suggests this is due to bacteria exchanging genes – but not within their own species, but horizontally, between groups. Thus, the total rate at which genetic information is exchanged can be faster than that provided by sexual reproduction and random mutations alone. Horizontal information exchange…
Read More What links these links?John Reid, we hardly knew you.. It’s not looking good for him, is it? His strategy, on taking over the Home Office, appears to have been one of pre-emptive disclosure, trying to get the toxic waste out in the open as quickly as possible and get it over with. You poor fool! Wait until you…
Read More The politics of permanent crisisWell, who else saw Sean Langan’s film from the mission down to Garmser last year? Still can’t stop thinking about it. A small advisory/training team and a company or so of Afghan police were sent down from Camp Bastion to Garmser in the far south to establish a government presence on roads leading in from…
Read More to all of those men..All right, I said I’d held Sir Ian’s comments on the Today programme on Christmas Eve for treatment. What he did this time was to complain at length about the extra paperwork a cop has to complete after making an arrest. He reckons it’s increased by a factor of three since his wild youth. But…
Read More Ian Blair: Still IgnorantWhatever Sir Ian Blair says, the opposite is probably true. It’s a basic working assumption that has at least one major advantage – that even when it’s wrong, it won’t lead you into anything too terrible. Rather like the Malatesta estimator. To estimate a value people disagree about accurately, take the most and least exaggerated…
Read More Sir Ian Blair: IgnorantRight. I’m sure I said somewhere that the man shot by police in the now-infamous Forest Gate raid, who was then charged with possessing child porn, would never be prosecuted for it. Well, whaddya know. CPS concludes there is insufficient evidence to proceed. Something tells me this won’t be on the front page of the…
Read More Sir Ian Blair: Must ResignMore mass biometric surveillance evil. Home Office wants to fingerprint guests at pubs as part of war on anti-social behaviour, torture dolphins parenting binge estates, etc. We’ve long been documenting the biometric and RFID vendors’ war on dancing, but this is a sinister new step. The government wants a monster database of everyone who’s gone…
Read More The politics of beer