Under the Proceeds of Crime Act, from next week, local councils, DWP, Trading Standards and HM Customs will have the right to seize the assets of petty criminals and minor offenders. This extension of powers is being put through parliament by Home Secretary Alan Johnson, as a Statutory Instrument, meaning MPs will have no opportunity to debate or question the wisdom of such a move. For such an important extension to the powers of these organisations to be swept through with no scrutiny is outrageous.
The original act was designed to seize the profits of crime from major criminals and organised crime syndicates. The purpose was to ensure that those involved in nefarious activities were unable to enjoy a luxury lifestyle off the back of their illegal earnings and ill-gotten gains. Last week, Prosecutors obtained a confiscation order for £750,000 against Sean Lynch a career criminal and drug dealer who was jailed for 18 years in 2008. Lynch has assets including a property in Surrey, two homes in Spain and a collection of luxury cars, including a Ferrari, Aston Martin and Rolls Royce. The Proceeds of Crime Act was created to specifically target criminals such as Lynch and to send the message that crime does not pay.
Currently, orders are granted by the courts and acted upon by Police. Under the new system, workers and Investigators will be able to seize assets worth more than £1000 without having to wait for a court order to determine their origin, thus allowing the presumption that all assets have been obtained via crime. They will also be able to carry out property searches under the authority of a search warrant and completely independently of any police involvement.
The Police Federation have indicated their concern over the move with Chairman Paul McKeever in The Times saying:
"There is a behind the scenes creep of power occurring here and I think the public will be very surprised. They would want such intrusive powers to be kept in the hands of warranted officers and other law enforcement bodies which are vetted to a very high standard rather than given to local councils."
Despite the reassurances of a strict code of conduct, there is a fear among legal experts that the powers will be abused by local authorities, who will misuse the Act to search and enter homes. Comparisons have been drawn with counter terrorist legislation being used as enforcement in non-terrorist activity and particularly with the use of surveillance.
As we are fast approaching a general election, the wisdom of pushing through legislation such as this must be questioned. Enhancing the power of the state is always unpopular, civil liberties are still high on the agenda after SOCPA and ID cards and there has been a Government climb-down in both of those cases.
The list of organisations that will be given these enhanced powers also includes Royal Mail, who could seize the assets of an employee involved in mail fraud and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority who might seize assets from someone profiting from the underpayment of wages. There is surely far too much scope here and powers such as these are better kept within the confines of law enforcement. One only has to consider the Child Support Agency and the effect of incorrect orders being made against innocent men. In some cases, mistakes took years to sort out, with deductions being made from salaries despite the CSA being advised of their error. The powers of the Proceeds of Crime Act are being handed out too widely and allows an open goal for those who already accuse this Government of operating an oppressive state and eroding civil liberties.
But, maybe there is one area where the devolution of such powers would be a good idea... If Sir Thomas Legg was included in that list, I'm sure there would be fewer objections. Outside the cosy walls of the Palace of Westminster anyway!
Today I received several emails from companies I have previously ordered from. This is a typical example:
Dear Mrs Cheetham
Postal Strikes? Yes? No? Who knows?
First thing - don't worry. We don't use Royal Mail to deliver wine so there will be no problem DELIVERING WINE to you.
Second: you can now browse all our brochures online at xxxxxxxx
Email is great, isn't it? We're not dependent on the post. And I want to ensure we stay in contact with each other despite the strikes, however long that might last.
I admit, obviously we don't want to lose your next order. But I'm also thinking that it really would be a shame for you to miss out on a wealth of fantastic wines. Better than ever!
I have replied to each of them as follows:
I was saddened to receive your email, stating that you do not use Royal Mail.
I am very much in support of the striking mail-workers and would not have minded waiting a day or two longer for my goods, had I been ordering from you today. This is because I believe that we must protect the Royal Mail and ensure the survival of a service that operates for all, not just to cream off the profits from big business. I would obviously therefore, urge you to use Royal Mail in the future and support our national mail service.
In truth, I genuinely was saddened to read emails telling me it was OK, the companies in question did not use Royal Mail and that was a good thing. I believe that we must protect the jobs of the Royal Mail workers and the basis upon which the Royal Mail operates.
The private companies are not accountable to anyone except for their share-holders. Should they wish to sack 25% of their workers, to keep the dividends up, they will do so. If they want to increase the cost of postage, they can, it is not subject to any sort of pressure from parliament or held up to public scrutiny. As long as share-holders are happy, that is all that matters, even quality of service is a lower priority. It is why we have companies making redundancies because profits are down - not because turnover is in deficit, just profits and therefore share dividends are down.
If you receive an email like those that I have received, I urge you to let the company know that you disapprove of their disregard for our Royal Mail. Feel free to use any of my words if you so wish!
I would like to propose a motion to establish a governing body that will oversee the proliferation of political information. Within the motion there will also be a requirement to close every library in the UK. This will be done in the interest of protecting the delicate nature of the minds of the general public and to ensure that they are not swayed by dangerous text and suggestions of activity that is undesirable. Access to the Internet should also be restricted under the motion and will enable the governing body to control who is permitted to offer their opinion for public consideration and debate.
Libraries are particularly dangerous places. To allow unrestricted access to some of the texts contained within these seemingly inoffensive and quiet mines of information is blatantly ridiculous. Should a copy of Mein Kampf be digested by an enquiring mind, who knows what it may lead to! The same can be said for The Communist Manifesto, surely a dangerous book if ever there was one - do we want to create a class war? Would we want unrestricted access to This Is Scientology by L. Ron Hubbard? Can you imagine what would happen if the general public read this and absorbed his theories and ideas completely? Particularly subversive is George Orwell's Animal Farm, ideas of class war, shrouded like a wolf in sheep's clothing, in the guise of a farmyard tale; similarly Gulliver's Travels which undermines a variety of political systems with its subtle satire! They must be removed from public access immediately.
Clearly I am being ironic but the basis of a no-platform policy flies directly in the face of freedom of speech. Why is it then, that so many people, who fight for the right of having freedoms that were previously denied to them by organisations, society in general, legislation and government are pro-no-platform? I do not understand this apparent contradiction.
I was saddened by the response of many Labour supporters and indeed the party itself in being reticent to debate openly with the British National Party when the BBC announced that Nick Griffin would be appearing on Question Time. Under British election law, the BNP had fielded enough candidates to entitle it to have a Party Election Broadcast transmitted in the run up to the last General Election. It is obvious to assume they will do so again during the next one, so to deny the electorate the opportunity to hear a counter argument is foolish at the very least, but it is more than that.
To refuse to openly confront them publicly and expose the bigotry and prejudice contained within the policies of a party such as the BNP says that you do not trust the electorate to make the right choice when faced with both sides of the argument. It also implies is that you do not trust the voracity of your own argument. That you think there is a risk of the BNP winning the argument because they have a stronger case than yours. Clearly they do not and what we must do is to ensure that whoever sits alongside them on the BBCQT panel has the kahunas to completely destroy Griffin and his politics of hate and division.
Do we really think anyone who doesn't really understand the BNP's fascist roots will watch BBC Question Time and listen to the racist rhetoric and be taken in by it when it is challenged and disproved by everyone else on the panel? There will be viewers who agree with Griffin, but they would agree with him on principle anyway, because they already share his vile, bigoted views on Britain and Britishness. They are the minority. The people who really need to hear the truth are those who think that the BNP is a valid protest vote or who agree with the occasional thing they hear. The party is adept at lies and the spread of fear, the only way to show this up for what it is, is to publicly expose it. They have so far not gained a foothold in Westminster, although they have increased their vote tally in every General Election since 1987. To keep them out of Parliament, the mainstream parties must work together. Whatever our other differences, this is one area of common ground that must be celebrated and publicly acknowledged. The political points scored will benefit us all. Cross-party representation must fight this out like a tag team, get up on that platform and knock the BNP down with truth and debate.
No-Platform is wrong, it allows the creeping, furtive dissemination of the BNP's ethos and ideas, allows their supporters to stand unchallenged on our streets, selling their newspapers and spouting their offensive views to everyone: man, woman and child. It has been proven in Barnsley just this week, we do better when we share a doorstep, a letterbox and a ballot paper with them. Reduce their overall vote, reduce their percentage of the vote and watch as they scurry off into the night.
This is a long-term battle that we have to win. To do so, we must confront, we must expose and on a strong platform of unity we must defeat them.
How can someone speak for so long without actually saying anything? Amazing isn't it, but today, David Cameron spoke just under six-thousand-four-hundred words, orated for about an hour and said precisely nothing! Marcel Marceau would have been proud!
He told us nothing we didn't already know, made no new promises, reiterated the same old rhetoric about 'broken Britain' and I would guess, failed to convince a single undecided voter that they should support his now aimless party. A party that relies on copying almost every Labour policy that they have previously voted against!
Cameron now likes the minimum wage, despite originally being against it. He supports civil partnerships, despite voting against their introduction and against the repeal of Section 28 in 2003. Sure Start - Cameron thinks it's great....now, obviously he didn't previously but because the people like it, he does too! He is even a big fan of the NHS, despite his European Front-Bencher Daniel Hannan calling it a "sixty-year mistake".
It seems that Cameron has really taken his party's conference slogan "A Time for Change" to heart. He has changed his mind about almost everything over the past few years. Yet he expects the electorate to trust him and believe that he really is resolute and steadfast in his beliefs!
Cameron, a man who changes his tune so often, that eventually everyone hears a song they like. With all the Labour policies he's plagiarising, he'll be singing the Red Flag next.
Today was a strange day for me. It was a day when I discovered that I knew less about physics than I thought I did, a day when it seemed there was a conspiracy against me getting to work on time and most bizarrely of all, it was a day when I agreed with George Osborne.
I did not listen to Osborne's speech live, I heard snippets and news reports before being so stunned that I had to read a transcript of it to make sure what I had heard was true.
In summary, and forgive me if you have heard all this before, but apparently the Conservatives will increase health funding every year, they will keep the 50% tax rise on the highest earners, target off-shore tax havens, they will preserve child benefit, winter fuel payments and free TV licences for the elderly, child trust funds for the poorest families and they will restore the link between the basic state pension and earnings. Wow, what bold, impressive rhetoric!
Now that is a party I can really get behind. That is a party that has the best interest of the British people at heart. That is a party that...hold on just a minute... Something sounds familiar.
Of course! I am already behind the party that is responsible for those policies. In fact, I heard some of them being unveiled just last week. Every one of those exciting announcements is a policy that this Labour Government has either already put into place or has already declared as a future plan.
No need to wonder who Osborne sat next to in the 'Policy Exam' is there?
Look George, it's so nice of you to say so and yes, I completely agree, this Labour Government has achieved some wonderful things and has bold, progressive policies. You admire them so much that you want them for yourself. It does beg the question of why you voted against so many of them though, doesn't it?
