The Biter Is Bitten

There is a vaguely satisfying feeling to be had when the State breaks its own inane rules and consequently bans something that it has, itself, produced; but the news that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has once again been throwing its weight around is not a cause for universal celebration.

I’ve blogged about these people before. Let me put this mildly. I really am not very keen on them. They are, in short, an unelected, unaccountable QUANGO with too much power for anybody’s good.

Synopsis: The Association of Chief Police Officers has commissioned a radio advert encouraging people to snoop on their next-door neighbours and report pretty much anything and everything to the Police lest it be a sign that they’re engaged in terrorism. Does the slightly withdrawn person at the end of your road keep their curtains drawn and generally pay for things in cash ? If so, you need to report it sharpish, because it might mean he’s a terrorist. No, really, it might.

Horrendous advert, you might say. A colossal waste of public money, you might say. Encourages people to spy on their fellow-citizens and potentially provokes a petty, tell-tale society, you might say. Could lead to thousands of innocent people falling under suspicion just because they forgot to say “Good morning” to someone, you might say. Will probably just get used as a lever by the Police for more funding as they have to open scores of new contact centres to deal with all the calls from assorted busy-bodies who’ve got nothing better to do than to report some poor unfortunate soul to the authorities for forgetting their Chip & PIN number, you might say. A shocking indictment on how we law-abiding citizens are seen today by those to whom we pay huge sums supposedly to keep us safe, you might say. Probably counter productive in any case, you might say. And you’d be right, on each and every count. But that is no reason for banning the ad.

So, why has it been banned ? Well, it’s because when it was broadcast on TalkSport, it generated a grand total of: (cue the dramatic drum roll that normally precedes the revelation of a really big number) 18 complaints. From people who had been offended, of course. And so the much-loved ASA stepped heroically in and saved the country from risk of further offence.

Personally, I’m of the opinion that just as individuals and companies should have the right to speak their mind, so should the State. And if the State wants to annoy (or even, heaven help us, offend) a load of right-thinking people whilst trying to disseminate a ridiculous and purile message, that’s up to them. Obviously they should get completely slammed by the Audit Commission for spending our money in that way and whichever sick, uniformed, jack-booted Nazi who dreamed the idea up in the first place should get sacked, but banning free speech is a serious measure and whatever the ASA thinks about likely offence should have nothing to do with it.

So, yes, it’s a stupid advert. Yes, it’s good in one way that we don’t have to listen to it, if nothing else because it demonstrates the utter contempt with which the Police view us as individuals; for that reason alone it never deserved to see the light of day. And yes, it’s amusing that one tentacle of the State has been stopped in its tracks courtesy of the massive extension of power granted to another tentacle by successive governments. But that is no reason to extol the banning of this advert by the ASA. Common decency and plain common sense decree that this ad should never have been made. The fact that it’ll wind a few people up does not.

Underneath it all, this story sends (actually re-enforces, because it’s happened so many times before) the message that nobody can broadcast any advert considered even vaguely controversial any more just in case some dipstick somewhere comes over all offended by it. And that is fundamentally wrong.

No Token Gesture

This story caught my eye yesterday: footballer investigated by the police because he allegedly made a gesture to the crowd. And it left me thinking: have the police (and presumably, potentially the courts, the Probations Service and God knows who else) really not got better things to do ?

Since when, in any case, was it illegal to give someone a V-sign (or equivilent) ? Have we really reached the state in this country when you can't even make a gesture without landing yourself in trouble with the authorities ? Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning what the guy's alleged to have done and if his club or the FA want to discipline him that's fine by me. Need to make sure our players (many of whom need taking down a few pegs anyway) set the right example to kids etc.. But the police ? Seriously ?

Perhaps the time has come to re-write the entire statute book. Instead of listing everything that's illegal, just write down the things we're still allowed to do without the State interfering. Shouldn't take long.

This Is Pants

Have you ever felt the urge to run round Swanage in your underpants ? Well, if you ever do, don't tell the Police. Because if you do, you're likely to get a phone call.

Footballer loses a bet. Forfeit - parade in the local town looking stupid. Good for team spirit, drums up a bit of publicity for the club, gives a few people a harmless laugh; everyone's a winner. Unless or until, that is, your local Police Community Support Officer (them again) steps in.

PC Pretend Plod advised the club not to go ahead "...in case we have any complaints. Good natured events of this type have the potential of getting out of hand".

"Getting out of hand" ? A bloke running around in his underpants ? Are they having a laugh ? God Almighty.

I could go on about how utterly useless Police Community Support Officers are at preventing crime (which is why, presumably, their efforts are now seemingly turned to preventing non-crime). I could go on about how nice it would be if police resources were devoted to catching burglars, car thieves or corrupt MPs. But I won't. Instead I'll just lamant this one thing: an entirely lawful pursuit has effectively been declared illegal because it might "get out of hand".

I'd have loved it if Swanage Town and Herston's super-striker had taken these micro-managing morons on, and done the deed anyway. What would happen to anyone who dared to run round Swanage in their underpants ? Would they get arrested, and if so, what for ?

Anyone fancy putting it to the test ?

Hat-tip: Mr Eugenides

So THIS Is Why They Want To Criminalise Filming The Police

Freedom Of Speech Is A Two-Way Street

I've been interested today to see some of the reaction to the protests at the army homecoming parade in Luton. It strikes me that there's a whiff of hypocrisy in the air.

The general feeling seems to be one of outrage. The local MP claims to be "a bit stunned" (why can't these people talk proper English ?) "that the police agreed to this kind of demonstration, with pre-prepared banners calling the Army ’baby-killers’ and the like". John Hutton (Defence Secretary) weighed in with "I can only condemn the tiny minority who used this opportunity to make, whatever their personal views, utterly ridiculous and insulting comments". Even Liam Fox (Hutton's shadow) described it as "offensive, appalling and disgraceful". Tim Montgomerie says the Police should not have allowed it to happen. Meanwhile The Sun (bless 'em) wants you to give them a call if you know any of the demonstrators. Nice.



Hang on a minute. We're told that the Army fights for freedom. We're told that they stand for British values of justice, and that we should be proud of them. They have, apparently, helped to bring democracy to Iraq, and kicked out a tyrant, an opponent of freedom.

Well look, people; freedom cuts both ways. Fine, have the army homecoming and let people who think they're heroes proclaim them as such. But if the army puts themselves in the shop window like that they can hardly complain (and nor can the politicians who seek to capitalise on the public support and sympathy they evoke) if approval is not universal. That's what freedom is about.

You might well ask about the rights of other groups, routinely suppressed, to hold counter-demonstrations when Muslims march or when the Anti-Nazi League are on parade. And in doing so you'd doubtless pose some valid questions. We all know that some groups are given far greater right of protest than others. But that's not the point at issue here. Should yesterday's counter-demonstration have been banned ? No.

"Offensive, appalling and disgraceful" ? Perhaps - to some. But no more so than the army parade was to others. Please, let's not fall into the trap of saying something should be banned just because we might find it offensive.

Thy Circle Overhead, Analysing Our Heat Consumption

Today I came across this story, which I think says a great deal about Britain today.

A bloke has his home raided by the Police because they've identified what they think are suspcious patterns of heat movement from within. How have they come to this conclusion ? By using infra-red deat detention equipment from a Police helicopter. This leads them to conclude that the occupant is harbouring a cannabis factory. As it would do, I suppose, if you've got an ultra-suspicious mind and nothing better to think about.

And you thought they were looking for murderers...

So Plod breaks into this man's garage. They find nothing more than a wood-burning stove, used to heat a workshop. In forcing entry they leave a big hole in the garage door, which they patch up with a bit of loose-fitting chipboard. They don't bother to clear up the mess they've made. They stick a search warrant through the letter box along with a bit of paper which said they hadn't taken anything as evidence. And that's it. No apology. No post-raid phone call to say why they'd broken into the home of an innocent man. Not even a compensation form so that the occupant could claim for the damage - he had to go to the Police Station to get that.

So, faced with rising levels of violent crime and conveying an almost total disregard for victims of muggings, or for people whose houses have been burgled or whose cars have been broken into, the Police have, it seems, got the time and the money to go up in a bloody helicopter and monitor our heat consumption. (For God's sake, is there any way in which they are not watching us ?) And having found something they think might indicate use of a drug which might as well be legalised anyway, they've then got the time and resources to break into a locked garage, just so that they can find...nothing. But having then been shown to be totally wrong, they are incapable of an apology or of any practical help to make good the damage they've caused.

I used to respect and admire the Police. I used to think they were on my side, as an innocent law-abiding person. But my support of them has been corroded in recent years by stories such as this, which betray an overuse of power, a lack of respect for the people they're supposed to be protecting and absolutely dire prioritisation. And I'm not alone.

"Hang On, Guv, While I Give Myself A Crime Number"

If you had not been found guilty of any crime but still had £2,000 seized from your possession by the Police, you'd be pretty fed up about it.

But not half as fed up as you'd be when you got the call from the Police to say "Sorry sir, but you know that two grand we took from you ? Well...it's been nicked".

The Proceeds of Crime Act (passed by ZaNu Labour, of course) allows the Police to confiscate assets if they think that they have been obtained by crime even if no one's actually been found guilty of any offence in a court of law. I'd love to know what the Act says should happen when the Police manage to lose the assets again.

I love the quote from the officer who's trying to explain how they managed to let someone walk off with 2K from underneath their own noses: "It just underlined to me and my colleagues that criminals are sneaky people". Well, you don't say.

I wonder if they'll get a patronising visit from their own Neighbourwood Watch officer, telling them to lock the door at night and close the windows ?

Hat-tip: Nation of Shopkeepers

State Police vs Parliamentary Sovereignty Part II

Just in case you thought, after the Damian Green affair, that the Police would never again enter an MP's Commons office without a warrant, it has.

The MP in question is a Conservative, of course.

Hat-tip: Old Holburn

How "I" is the IPCC ?

If you're reading this blog for the first time today you might think that I've got it in for the police. I haven't, it's just that I've seen two separate stories today which strike me as abuses of power.

This one involves a family who are trying to get some explanation into the cause of a relative's death in police custody. We need to wary here, because we've only got one side of the tale, but on the face of it the facts are horrible:
.....a mentally disturbed man collapsed and died in police custody and, when asked to investigate, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) did not even interview the police officers allegedly involved;
.....it took the police nearly six hours to tell the family of the man's death, they were denied access to his body for another 36 hours after that, and only then after persistent requests;
.....when the family did finally see the man's body, it bore wounds which the police had not told the family about;
.....police initially denied the existence of a CCTV camera which overlooked the scene of the man's collapse, and, when the family became aware of its existence, told them it was faulty;
.....the family have been denied access to the police surgeon's medical notes.

An independent pathology report concludes that the man's death was "restraint-related".
The family think that they have been lied to and that evidence proving so has been destroyed.

This really begs a question about police accountability - if you cannot trust the IPCC, whom the hell can you trust ? The family have the right to a complete explanation of what happened, but if the IPCC do not even interview the officers attending to the man then what kind of investigation can they possibly have held ?

Incidentally, in a separate development I see that Sean Mercer, the trigger-happy thug who murdered Rhys Jones, has been attacked in prison, and left with a broken nose. I don't condone violence but this is one incident over which I shall not be shedding tears. As Mercer gets used to life in prison and finds that child killers face additional retribution inside, he might muse on the fact that if he'd have wanted to get away with killing people his best bet might have been to join the police.

How Is This Legal ?

Via Old Holburn and Leg Iron comes news of how the government is allowing the police to log onto people’s computers and search them.

This means that the police have licence to read YOUR emails, your instant messages, your private documents (possibly containing passwords, account details etc). Without a warrant. Alternatively, they could install a “key-logging” device, so that they know what you’re typing. At any time. What’s more, this power is not just limited to the police in this country. It also applies to the authorities in any other EU country.

The safeguards, such that they are, appear to include an assertion that these measures can only be instigated in order to detect a “serious” crime, defined as one that carries a jail sentence of three years or more. And we all know what happens to "safeguards". They get changed, ignored, or conveniently forgotten. And that's only if they're any good in the first place, which these are not.

You know what stinks most of all about this particularly smelly destruction of our liberties ? It’s not that it represents a further dismantling of our freedoms and our rights to privacy in our own affairs, important though those are. It’s the way it’s being done.

You would think, would you not, that for the police to have this sort of power, they must have had it granted after full Parliamentary scrutiny and debate. And you would think that if Parliament had not given the police such authority, then acts such as hacking into our personal computers would be illegal. But no, not a bit of it. This has come about as a result of an EU directive agreed by the council of Ministers, which is as close to unaccountable as makes no difference. Under the Parliamentary system built up in the UK over hundreds of years, if politicians passed laws the public didn’t like, the public could get rid of them. What can we do if we don’t like this.? Correct; absolutely sweet nothing.

I Just Do Not Get It

A quick trawl of the blogs this morning suggests that hardly anyone seems to care* that it’s legal for the police to kill innocent people, but I do, so I’m going to say my piece.

I suppose I have to admit that I’m no expert in inquest procedures or the circumstances in which coroners can direct juries. Moreover the media's coverage and and explanation of this decision has been pityful, so I can't get a lot of detail on it. Even so, what happened at the de Menezes inquest yesterday seems utterly perverse to me.

The coroner said that a verdict of unlawful killing could only be available if the jury “could be sure that a specific officer had committed a very serious crime, murder or manslaughter”.

Why the need to be sure about a specific officer ? Could not both the officers who fired shots be guilty ? And if a police officer shoots an innocent man, can it never be murder or manslaughter ? If I get shot by the Plod because they thought I was someone else, why can that never be unlawful ? Can the police just pick out anyone they don’t like the look of, and shoot them, without accountability ? If I were Damian Green, I’d be on the look-out…

If I were at my most charitable I’d say that I just don’t get it. At worst though, this looks to me like a Sate stitch-up, and it stinks.

* The Wilted Rose is an honourable exception

This Is Not A Rant. But The Arrest Of Damian Green Should Keep Us Awake At Night.

OK, so I've come down from the ceiling after the arrest of Damian Green and I'm trying to analyse what it means and where it might take us. I'm not going to rant or shout, I'm just going to describe my conclusions now that I've tried to think it through. And I tell you, it leaves me cold. It scares me like nothing else Brown or Blair have ever done.

I suppose I should start by admitting that, like most other people, I don't know all the facts and yes, it's conceivable that something might come out which renders defence of Mr Green untenable. But I doubt it. The extent to which Conservatives are clearly furious tells me that his behaviour is no different from what opposition ministers (including Gordon Brown) have done for years.

To set the scene, then. It's part of a shadow minister's job to unearth facts about the government's performance it would rather have kept quiet. On that score, Green has been doing a reasonable job (although you might think, given what we know about the efficiency of the Home Office, that there must be a hell of a lot of skeletons left in cupboards he hasn't yet opened).

What he's come up with, while embarrassing for the government, isn't exactly earth shattering: the news that an illegal immigrant was working in the House of Commons as a cleaner is hardly a threat to national security.

He's been using techniques employed since the dawn of politics to get at the government; find an insider who knows the score about various cock-ups and publicise what they tell you. Result: discomfort for the government, perhaps a few votes float from one side to the other and, in some cases one would hope, changes in procedure and behaviour to make sure that improvements take place in government machinery.

Leaking of this sort within government is healthy on a number of counts:
...it keeps ministers and officials on their toes and on the look-out for poor practice, lest it "get out";
...it gives the public an insight into how things really happen and how our money is spent;
...it helps the opposition hold the government to account;
...as I've described above, it has the potential to improve how things are done.

The reason the events of yesterday sent a shiver down my spine was that they appear to represent an attempt by the government to legitimise increased secrecy, to defend incompetence and to strengthen their already not inconsiderable power base.

Not only that, but they've done it in a way which is, it seems, specifically designed to inspire shock and fear throughout public sector employees and, more importantly, journalists and opposition MPs. To send nine counter-terrorism officers round to arrest one man is an appalling abuse of power in itself.

Let's not prat about here. The government is behind the arrest of Damian Green. Anyone who believes that none of them knew this was coming needs their head examining. It quite simply defies belief that no one in Jacqui Smith's ministerial team had prior knowledge. As acts of political brutality go in this country, this was deeply sickening.

The message it quite deliberately sends out is this: unearth stuff we don't want you to find and we'll have you; tell the people what we don't want them being told and you're ours for the taking; ask the questions we don't want asking and we'll turn you, your world, your family and, for that matter, your home and office upside down.

This is not the behaviour of an administration that believes in freedom or is prepared to stand up for it. Instead it is the behaviour of a government which is rotten to its very core, is chock-a-block full of its own self-importance, lacks the intellectual integrity to accept that it can be challenged, and which believes its own propaganda to such an extent that everything else must be suppressed.

Many blogs have today made comparisons with Zimbabwe, this one included. Whilst Zimbabwe may be further down the line in its erosion of democracy and free debate, the parallel has an element of truth about it. Elsewhere it has been claimed that today marks the death of freedom in this country. I hope with all my heart that the prognosis is wrong, but try as I might I cannot escape the view that our whole standing as a liberal democracy is, at the very best, under serious threat. This marks a dark, dark day in our history. Whether we come out the other side of this with our freedoms in tact now depends in part on the strength and courage of Her Majesty's Opposition and, God help us, on the Press. They can either give in to the bullying and the threats or they can stand up and be counted. In no small part, our future lies in their hands.

It is, perhaps, the ultimate irony about this government that after so many people have got away with telling us so many lies about Iraq, immigration, the economy et al that someone should get arrested for telling the truth. Let that be the epitaph of ZaNu Labour.

Spot The Difference

Opposition spokesman arrested....Opposition spokesman arrested

Spot the difference ? That's easy. One arrest took place under a ruthlessley totalitarian regime which silences opposition at every opportunity, where freedom to demonstrate is routinely suppressed and where a once proud and prosperous economy has been left in ruins.

The other was in Zimbabwe.

Democracy When It Suits

I see that certain people in the Labour Party are getting nervous about direct elections for members of local police authorities. They're worrried that the BNP might win some seats, and have been lobbying the government to abandon the idea.

The theory behind the elections is that they would help increase police acccountability and bring about the kind of policing people actually want, and it strikes me as being worth a try.

But Sir Jeremy Beecham, Labour chair of the Local Government Association, says that direct elections could open the door to extremists and that "the process is open to populism". Oh, Heaven deliver us from populism !

It's fascinating how these guys proclaim to support democracy until they're faced with the prospect of a result they don't like, at which point they immediately try and rein it in. I reckon Beecham should have more faith in the people he serves to make sensible decisions. It will be interesting to see if Jacqui Smith has the courage of her convictions or caves in.

By the way, it seems to be the norm for bloggers who mention the BNP to feel they must distance themselves from them. Well, I'm not going to bother. Regular visitors to this blog will know how I feel about a powerful State and the coercion that comes with it. They'll know my faith in the free market and they'll know how I long for the break-up of the United Kingdom. Now have a look at the BNP's polices and draw your own conclusions.

This is a fantastic set of photos from Old Holborn's Walk. (Hat-tip: Stray Toaster and the man himself).

If you're like me, you might wonder how many police officers / PCSOs got involved in this, and how much time they spent - utterly pointlessly - stopping, searching and generally trying to get up the noses of ten completely innocent people. You really would think they had better things to do, like preventing serious crime.

Remember, Remember

Two things have happened over the past 24 hours which I wish I'd taken part in. The first was a live webchat on Iain Dale's blog on the US election. He wanted volunteers to cover the major TV and radio channels. The second was far more significant in its own way; Old Holburn's "walk" in London.

Prevented by work commitments (and, in the second case, truth to tell, a fear of ending up in a police cell) I was forced instead to ponder from afar. I'm sure Iain Dale's webchat was a lot of fun. Old Holburn on the other hand, now according to Old Leg Iron, in the hands of the authorities, will have had an altogether different experience.

Old Holburn wanted to explore what would happen to anyone who walked into Parliament Square in eccentric dress and wearing a mask - and he appears to have found out the hard way. The harder facts will come out over the next few days (assuming he comes out first, of course) but on the face of it this is a damming indictment of life under ZaNu Labour. Ten blokes wearing masks sauntering up Whitehall were apparently enough to throw Brown's Bullies into a frenzy.

It is truly terrifying how powerful and omnipresent the government now is in this country. The level of behavioural compliance expected of individuals is frightening. It's only getting worse.

And it has to stop.

(Picture half-inched from Leg Iron / Old Holburn, who in turn half-inched it from Guido)

Anywhere, Everywhere, We Are Being Watched

Womble on Tour had a very nice day in Newport on Saturday. In the pouring rain. Didn’t think that was possible ? Well, it is when you’re a football-mad lunatic and your team wins 4-1 away from home playing in a higher league for the first time. One thing though put a little shiver down my spine, and it wasn’t the weather.

Midway through the second half we were standing on the terraces, minding our own business and singing our hearts out. Normal fan behaviour. Quite out of the blue, the police starting filming us. It was a pretty low budget production; one officer with a camera on his shoulder, walking along the touchline in front of the supporters, filming the faces. Owing to the fact that Wimbledon were winning and all seemed right with the world, no one seemed much bothered. But I didn’t care for it much.

For one thing, I just couldn’t work out why there were doing it. There was no trouble, no poor behaviour, and no hint of any either. Just 1,000 people standing, watching their team and cheering them on. And this was deep into the second half. If the police were looking for local troublemakers planting themselves in amoungst our our fans, there should have been doing it at the start, not with twenty minutes to go. I almost got the impression that the police were doing this simply because they could, not for any reason of protecting us.

I should probably just point out something out for the benefit of anyone who still thinks that all football fans are thugs who should be locked up on sight. The days of widespread hooliganism are long, long gone. Football grounds are different places these days from the confrontational bear pits of the 70s and 80s, and the atmosphere is much changed. Moreover, for reasons that are too complex to go into here, Wimbledon is no longer a Premiership club, but a semi-professional one, playing against teams who are usually watched by no more than a few hundred. Sure, there have been “moments” over the past few years, but nothing that justifies such close observation from the authorities.

We’re used to the “surveillance society”, of course. We get filmed on CCTV hundreds of times per day. So do our families, our cars and for that matter our pets. But that usually happens through static, “permanent” cameras which are (so we’re told) erected to deter and detect criminal behaviour in places where it is thought likely to occur. This seemed different somehow. It was a specific, deliberate act of filming on what appeared to me to be a wholly innocent group of people. Why would the police want to film a group of individuals where there is quite obviously no law being broken and no threat ? How long do they keep the pictures for, and whom do they give them to ? Given the government’s appalling record on data security, how do we know where video images end up ?

I used to belong to the school of thought that said “If you keep on the right side of the law you have nothing to fear from surveillance”. Now I’m not so sure. It’s gone too far. The State should have no interest in recording the innocent behaviour of law-abiding people, and they should not be allowed to do it.

What Does This Say About Britain Today ?

You might think that a night-time curfew is a sign that a country is either suffering from some kind of emergency, or that it's an authoritarian dictatorship. And you'd be right. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusion about which of those Britain is, but for the first time that I can remember we're getting a curfew here.

Devon and Cornwall Constabulary are introducing a scheme in Redruth whereby any child aged under ten has to be indoors by 8pm. Anyone under 15 has to be home by 9pm.

I'm assuming - though no story I've seen actually confirms it - that children who are out with their parents will be exempt; otherwise you couldn't even take your kids for a meal out. The Constabulary's Policy & Procedure Guideline states darkly that "Under a Local Child Curfew Notice, all children under 16 years of age must be in their homes by a certain time in the evening" and "Children who are aged 10 years and under and found outside their homes after the curfew can be the subject of a Child Safety Order....which places an individual child under the supervision of a responsible officer (a social worker or a member of the Youth Offending Team)". God Almighty.

Quite apart from the practicalities of this (children who look younger than they are, children who won't say how old they are, children whose parents won't give a monkey's anyway) there are some truly horrible implications of this.

As a child, I was regularly out after 9pm, perhaps coming home from a football match. My kids - currently 11 - are too young in my view to be out at that time, but in four years' time they won't be. Moreover I'll want them to exercise their independence and freedom in this way because it's important training for adult life. And if I want to send them up to the local shop at ten past nine for a bottle of milk, who the hell are the Police to stop them ?

The sad fact is that this measure (which will spread to towns and cities well beyond Redruth, mark my words) is a damning indictment of the Criminal Justice System's complete failure to deal with persistent offenders. Because of that, we all have to suffer. It absolutely reeks of failure and authoritarianism.

And how long do you give it before it's extended to adults ?

Plod Prohibit The Plonk

Welcome to another in my series of pointless interventions by the State that really leaves you with nothing to say other than "Oh, for God's sake !".

East Fife Football Club haven't exactly had a lot to celebrate in their 105-year history. Based in a town which (to my shame) I'd never heard of - Methil - and invariably in Scotland's bottom division, they have a pretty short honours list to their name; the Scottish FA Cup in 1938, the Division Two title a decade later, and three League Cup wins, all more than 50 years ago. So you might think that winning the Third Division title on Saturday might have kick-started something of a celebration. Enter the esteemed officers of Central Scotland Police to spoil the fun.

Apparently the Police saw an opportunity for some new-fangled Stalinism when they spotted a club official taking bottles of champagne off the team bus, and they made known their deep concerns. It is illegal, you see, to take glass containers into a football ground. So when total anarchy started breaking out and someone opened a bottle, spraying delighted fans, he was threatened with arrest. Stalin-in-Chief Inspector Audrey McLeod is quoted as saying "Officers again spoke to club officials, explaining the legislation again and highlighting the potential for glass bottles to present a health and safety issue, particularly with a number of families with children in the vicinity. I promise you, I am not making this up. Then again you couldn't, could you ?

To their credit, the club have turned this ridiculous chapter in State dictatorship into a commerical opportunity, and are now offering the champagne for sale on their web site (perhaps taking the advert on the same page for the Adam Smith College as their inspiration !) Sadly, mail order doesn't appear to be an option, but I'm going to drop them an email and see if I can take a bottle off their hands.

We are all victims of this kind of common-senseless lunacy, and victims have to stick together.

Sobriety Tests In Brum - A Follow-Up

Well, big hat-tip to Liberal Democrat councillor Martin Mullaney, who has come straight back to me after I e-mailed him yesterday to see if he could shed light on the police-inspired sobriety tests at the Prince of Wales in Moseley, Birmingham.

Cllr Mullaney says that "the sobriety test mentioned by the Sunday Mercury was actually conducted by Keith Marsden, the licensee, in the beer garden. He did this to prove to the police that the three members of the public were in fact sober". I guess that changes things slightly; it wasn't a case of the police forcing people to walk down a line. What isn't clear, though, is why the the licensee felt compelled to prove to the police that his customers weren't drunk.

Cllr Mullaney sent a letter of complaint to the Police, a copy of which he has kindly forwarded to me. In it he emphatically refutes the Police's claim that people in the pub were drunk and out of control. He sent his letter on 7th October, and is still awaiting a reply.