Friday, March 07, 2008
Remember Walter Wolfman? (Sic)
I'm at Sky about to do the paper review (10.30pm and 11.30pm). Just flicking through tomorrow's Independent and on page two there's a big picture of Walter Wolfgang outside Aldermaston. It was Mr Wolfgang who was ejected from the Labour Party Conference a few years ago, you may remember. Sadly, the Indy labours under the impression that he is called Walter Wolfman. Oh dear.
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7 comments:
It's down to those bloody plasma screens installed at Independent Towers, to make sure that their website is visible at all times...
Walter Wolfgang was not the only recipient of Soviet style treatment at that conference. Austin Mitchell, the veteran Grimsby MP had his camera removed. Images of queues entering the hall were deleted by a third party, before its return.
NuLab tried to make the Wolfgang debacle look as if this was an isolated incident and the next day ministers were falling over themselves to say they were sorry.
Of course, there was nothing else they could have done. The damage was done and the inference was that Labour were authoritarian control freaks, obsessed with managing every detail of what had become a staged party political broadcast on behalf of, not the Labour Party, but New Labour.
This was an incident where an old, old, Labour man was now truly an anachronism and an embarrassment. Bright brand new New Labour was in charge, with their fake dossier and their fake "conference"
The standard definition of a "conference" is
# A meeting for consultation or discussion.
# An exchange of views.
The Labour conference of 2005 was neither of the above.
That might have been it, except for section 44 of the Terrorism Act, 2000.
This was invoked by the police, (denied at first, and then admitted to by the Sussex Constabulary)
According to Metropolitan Police guidelines, section 44 searches must not be random and,
"This power is not to be used to stop and search for reasons unconnected with terrorism"
This is stated clearly at the beginning of the document and is unambiguous, and if this was not enough, it continues, "You must tell the person stopped that they are being detained for the purpose of a search". (Marcel Berlins backs this up in a contemporary Guardian article) The police later claimed that Wolfgang had not been searched.
This was not an isolated example of section 44 being misapplied for political purposes; around about the same time a protester was detained for wearing a T-shirt with "anti-Blair info" (according to the stop and search form).
Marcel Berlins makes the point that Charles Clarke (the then hHome Secretary) were complicit in this arrangment by detailing the police to deal with detractors. It does not matter whether you can make that stick or not, the atmosphere at the Labour Conference was foetid with the stench of Death, the same stench that Wolfgang fled as his family sought to attain freedom from the Nazi terror.
Well, the Left do have a tendency to 'howl' with rage, but that's taking literalism a step too far!
And I wonder if "Mr Wolfman" might care for a new career - as a werewolf?!
Good newspaper review. There's lots I disagree with you on, but I'm totally with you on the nuclear protest and Dwain Chambers. It's preposterous that our government keeps on encroaching upon our right to protest, and it's equally preposterous that we sit back and allow drugs cheats to come back as if nothing has happened. Anything that Dwain Chambers wins from here on will have the question mark of drugs over it, and it simply tells other people that it's ok to cheat. If you get caught, you just have to sit out for two years and it's not a problem.
We may allow common criminals back out on to the streets after they've served their sentences, but usually with conditions - like banning hooligans from football grounds, banning thieves from shops, banning paedophiles from working with children. Why should it be any different from sportsmen?
You made your points well tonight.
Is it true that the bouncers at the next Labour Conference will be isued with silver bullets?
Wolfman: Any relation to the Bride of Finkelstein?
Whatever one's position on Trident there are several important reasons why raising this issue and attending on Easter Monday are important:
1) Civil Liberties. This is a tradition of peaceful protest that goes back 50 years to Easter 1958. For this to be threatened now is a disgrace and all those who support the ability to peaceably raise an issue should show their support on that basis.
2) Accountability for spending. The Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston is being upgraded to the tune of £5bn - this is before any decision has been taken on whether new warheads are needed. Parliament approved planning for new submarines last year, but the Government claimed that no decision on new warheads was necessary to the next Parliament. Spending to enable such a decision to be implemented is freely flowing now - clearly pre-empting Parliament having its debate, and pushing it in one direction - "we've already spent so much, we might as well build new ones" shutting off all other options (which could include further life-extension programmes).
(BTW, they've corrected the name in later editions)
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