Click on the image to enlargeMike Denham runs the Burning Our Money Blog and also films excellent citizen journalist reports for 18DoughtyStreet. Read his account HERE of how he was stopped and searched outside Scotland Yard today while he was filming for us. It's hilarious, but deeply concerning too. You can watch the resulting video on Your Money at 8.30pm on 18DoughtyStreet on Thursday, although I might also show it tomorrow night from 10-11 when Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security Spokesman is on the programme. From 9-10pm tomorrow night Chris Mullin MP of A Very British Coup fame will be with me.
Tonight, if you're turning in, we have a Scottish hour between 9 and 10pm with LibDem Jo Swinson MP and Tory David Mundell MP.
17 comments:
Just read his report. I mean, have you ever met a bright policeman?
I have. They tend to get very frustrated and leave the force.
Iain, I guess it depends where in Westminster he was stopped. If it was in "sensitive area" then, well, grudginly, that's OK. If not, well the NWO Police State is just arounfd the corner?
The guy gets stopped for "behaving unusually with a metal pole". It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
All he was doing was using a monopod for his videocamera. Where's the law against it. It seems that unless you are shopping or on your way to a meeting, you could have your time wasted by some busybody volunteer.
Why can't I walk down the street with a metal pole and talk to it? Why can't I pole dance in the street? Do John Reid and Ian Blair drink better coffee than us?
Just read his piece. Although he may have some point, obviously what's going on is that Scotland Yard are now sensitive about anyone not pre-arranged or obviously from the Big Media filming outside their offices. Given the level of threat from our confused little friends in Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham, Luton, etc, this is understandable.
Of course, where it all comes unstuck is that they harassed someone obviously white and middle class, but my experience as falling into that category in recent years is that you are then an "easy nick" for the police - you have an address, you will turn up in court, pay fines, etc. That's why a great deal of police focus now is on fining middle class drivers for minor road traffic offences rather than the more dangerous, less likely to be honest and far less likely to turn up in court, young tearaway. In many areas the police will simply not turn up at middle class addresses if a burglary is under way for hours (all attending priority calls involving fights outside bars where huge profits are being made injecting our kids with highly charged alcohol), unless you injure or shoot the burglar, in which case you fall into the "easy nick" category as well. God help us all.
Iain, if he was filming for you, why did he lie to the police?
If someone blew up New Scotland Yard, and it turned out somebody had been casing the joint a few days earlier, and nothing had been done, you would be the first person to kick up a fuss.
I am not a big fan of Reid's 'Bad shit is gonna happen soon' but the run up to Christmas is, and has always been, a testing time for police in London.
Stopped male on Downing St. Search of pockets revealed all manner of bightly burnished medals and what appeared to be a pair of matching ermine robes. When I spoke to the male, he claimed to be the Prime Minister and was in a bit of a hurry because there was a "net closing in". He claimed to have access to a security organisation with information about the Met and told me he knew the man who paid my wages. He was tagged and released pending further orders.
Excellent! I agree the Officer should be held to account. He's either illiterate, or incompetent, or possibly both. He is obliged to provide a reason not a narrative.
But for many of the Plod these are one and the same...
I never noticed much tory protests about the stop and search powers before. Why now? If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear.
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
The same is true of mandatory body cavity searches.
Welcome to Blair's Britain!
This must be seen in the context of Islamist terror groups being known to carry out video surveillance of intended targets. Also to avoid accusations in racism etc. they need to stop and search a few people who don't fit the obvious ethnic profiles.
A slightly being economical with the truth to claim on 18DS last night that this wastrel had been arrested. Still, it does show how the police state has crept in under protecting the public. Nobody notices until it happens to them. By then it is often too late.
Stop and search may be fair enough in that locality at the moment, but why was he not allowed to continue filming as he wished thereafter?
I'm slightly concerned that the Metropolitan Police cannot spell 'recovered'. It's hardly too much to ask that they put their legal forms through a spell-checker, is it?
Yesterday on 18 DS you said that this waste management consultant was arrested. Were we not being economical with the truth?
Ha! I was stopped and had my name and address taken two weeks ago by the Diplomatic Police. Crime? Taking pictures of the congestion charge cameras for a magazine article. 'Well, Sir, what with terrorism and you standing outside Kensington palace...'
You could make it up. Although the activist Captain Gatso tells me I might have stopped for being white...apparently pulling anglos in helps balance the ethnic make-up of the Police's chat-and-chit issuing records.
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