Periscope
Periscope
The media campaign to "free the Weatherfield One" would be laughable if it weren't so deeply offensive. The very newspapers which helped convict victims of real miscarriages of justice, and which effectively censored their stories for years, have leapt to the cause of an imaginary victim, Coronation Street's Deirdre, with the aid of a gaggle of politicians, including Tony Blair.
MP Fraser Kemp issued a strident call for Deirdre's release, and even drew up an Early Day Motion on the subject. Pity the M25 Three can't count on Fraser's support. As BBC's Rough Justice recently confirmed in irrefutable detail, these three young black men have been jailed for murders they did not commit, while the real (white) perpetrators walk free, with not a little assistance from the police.
Call us "Uncool Britannia", but here at LLB we like to draw a clear distinction between real people and TV characters.
Company lawyers are beginning to take action against the use of the internet to spread information about their clients' actions. LabourNet has been forced to remove a press release by their web server (GreenNet) following threats from Peter Carter-Ruck Solicitors. The release concerned Biwater, Britain's Aid and Trade Provision Programme, a cabal of Thatcherites and a water privatisation programme in South Africa. Want to know more? Sorry, our lawyers advise...
Home Office Minister Alun Michael's review of the Co-op Party suggests that local Co-op Parties should no longer be able to affiliate to Labour, but instead should "make donations". He makes a spurious comparison to the idea of Woolworths or Tescos affiliating to the Tories. The difference is that the Co-op is owned by its members who have a democratic say in its running.
Co-op members look set to fight this proposal and keep the third tier of the labour movement intact. Aside from the fact that you'd think Government ministers had better things to do with their time, it's an obvious first step to disenfranchising the unions.
New Labour's commitment to an ethical foreign policy was revealed very clearly recently. Mike Hancock MP asked if the Government would impose an immediate moratorium on defence equipment being sold to Indonesia. Derek Fatchett responded in unexpectedly clear terms: "No".
So it's business as usual -- crematoriums rather than moratoriums for the people of East Timor.
Democracy was never a strong point in the Referendum Party (now reduced to a mere Movement) either. Its constitution states that it shall be governed by a "Council of no more than ten members, in whom is vested supreme authority over the movement." Nowhere does it say how the Council is appointed -- the only certainty is that it isn't elected.
Premature leaks of Government documents are all too frequent in Whitehall, but you'd have expected the enquiry into the leaking of the Freedom of Information White Paper to be revealing. But no, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (an obvious target for the Modernisation Committee, that one) David Clark reported "the established procedures were followed and have been concluded, but yielded no evidence to identify the source..." Sir Humphrey Appleby is alive and well -- oh yes, Minister.
A footnote to last month's LLB article on the countryside. Those great protectors of all things green, Britain's farmers, managed to plough up 2,000 miles of hedgerows in the past nine months -- a 30% increase on last year -- in a desperate attempt to pre-empt new protective legislation.
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