police

Going down, the UK’s reputation

Transparency International report that the UK drops five places, in their Corruption Perceptions Index. Daniel Bruce, their CEO, blames public procurement corruption, the questionable and partisan decisions on the levelling up fund grants, the multiple breaches of the ministerial code, and the growing visibility of cash for peerages and the crony funding of the Tory Party.

Daniel Bruce’s comments do not mention the reputation of the Police which will have fallen given the proven criminality in the Police, its growing reputation of a return to institutional racism to which they can now add misogyny as illustrated by the harsh policing of the Sarah Everard vigil, herself a victim of illegal police violence, and the dismissal of the Met Police commissioner for losing the confidence of the Mayor. We can also add their persistent failure to satisfactorily pursue Johnson over the Arcuri affair, other issues of corruption at City Hall and even the slow progress on Partygate.

The last time I looked at this, I said, “ Prof. Daniel Hough also finds it strange that we score so well but observes that TI are mostly interested in public sector corruption and so the cesspit that is the City of London’s money laundromat and the secrecy of the London property markets do not count against the UK’s score.” …

My other question to Labour’s Leaders

The question I wanted to ask,

How do you defend the right to privacy in the internet age, where governments and corporations are so keen to deny it? Will you support reform of the internet and telecommunication search warrants to ensure they are only issued with probable cause justified in front of independent judges?

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Central Govt funds PIPCU

On 2nd Sept, Torrent Freak reports that Sajid Javid notes that central government is funding the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Javid’s speech is posted on gov.uk, and he says, …

Who do PIPCU serve?

Torrentfreak are following the activities of the City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit; they reported one intervention in a story called “UK Police Accuse Domain Name Registrar of Facilitating Criminal Activity”. An extraordinary story in which a police force threaten domain registrars with action if they don’t take action on alleged infringing sites using their services. If you read the story, you’ll see the accusations and language used by the police seem to have forgotten the British legal principle of innocent until proved guilty. Many of the comments were the normal pro-piracy comments although there’s one or two more thoughtful. It provokes me to write the following, although I should shorten it if I choose to publish these views as a comment there. …

Boris needs a bigger tool

At the meeting, I raised the issue of Boris’ requisition of Water Cannons for the Metropolitan Police. There’s not enough noise about this, but there’s now a twitter hashtag, #watercannon. Nina Power comments in the Guardian, an article called “Boris Johnson’s call for water cannon shows a contempt for the people”. As is pointed out on twitter, …