The Ministry Of Truth

Cock it.

I agree with Marcel Berlins.

I cannot remember the last time there has been such hysteria over something so relatively minor as the Damian Green affair. Rarely can so many normally reasonable people have lost so many of their marbles.

Marcel clearly must have missed Manuelgate…

The political and media reaction has been stunningly excessive and mostly misguided. The band of columnists and so-called expert commentators fearing the demise of parliamentary democracy - as absurd a slippery slope argument as I’ve heard - or worrying about the decline in our civil liberties, have taken the concept of disproportion to a new level. If I were to look for evidence of our traditional liberties being diminished, it is there in abundance in the laws passed by parliament over the past few years.

Let us look at the reality of what has happened. We don’t know all the facts; indeed, we can be sure of very few. But even accepting a worst-case-scenario speculation, there has been a quite extraordinary over-reaction. I’m not saying everyone involved has behaved perfectly. Mistakes appear to have been made all round. But they do not justify the response that has occurred…

After a flurry of inquiries and furrowed brows, whatever wrongs were committed this time won’t happen again. The Speaker won’t be as accommodating in letting the police into parliament, the police will learn to be more subtle when investigating certain kinds of crime, and the home secretary may learn not to look quite so shifty and terrified each time she appears on television. The unnecessary panic and the suicidally gloomy prognostications will be laid to rest.

What I fear, though, is that this relatively unserious incident will be used to rearrange the relationship between police, politicians and government. This would be damaging.

I’m going to have to kill myself.

I’ve never said it before and I doubt I’ll say it again but, despite the initial hilarity of the situation, I do have some sympathy with the British National Party over the leaking of its membership list.

Few things wind the Minister up as much as unsolicited telephone sales calls that interrupt his dinner.  I have reported a few organisations to the Information Commissioner for disturbing my lobster thermador/cheese-on-toast for using my personal data without my consent.

While I am currently unaffiliated I have been, variously, a member of the Student Liberal Democrats, the Labour Party and Socialist Alliance.  I am not ashamed of any of that - unlike, I suspect, many of the 10,000 on the BNP list.  But nor was it up to a disaffected member of any of those organisations to declare my affiliation to the world without my permission.

Whether we like it or not the British National Party is a legitimate political party.  It is not proscribed;  membership is not illegal.  I won’t be so crass as to quote Evelyn Beatrice Hall but, despite the efforts of a succession of idiotic Home Secretaries, it still remains lawful in 2008 Britain to subscribe to views that are abhorrent to anybody with half-an-inch of brain.

It remained lawful to be a member of the National Front throughout the 1970s.

It remained lawful to be a member of Sinn Fein throughout the 1980s.

It remained lawful to be a member of the Conservative Party throughout the 1990s.

Some people may have found some or all of those memberships to be embarrassing and/or difficult to explain away, but they nevertheless had the right to exercise their political freedom.

The only justification for the leak is in respect of those people performing public-facing roles that are incompatible with membership of a racist organisation.  So if the police force has deemed it unacceptable for an officer to be a member of the BNP, then the disclosure of the names of serving police officers who are paid-up BNP members in contravention of their terms and conditions of employment arguably has some merit on the grounds of public interest.  The same is potentially true for teachers, doctors, those involved in the criminal justice system and so on.

It is, however, stretching credulity for the same to be said to be true of graphic designers in Poole, Dorset (or whatever) or the children of simpletons who took out ‘family’ membership.

It is interesting (and heartening) to know just how few members the BNP actually has, though it would probably be equally interesting to learn just how few individual members the Labour and Tory parties have were their books laid open to similar public scrutiny.

That in itself, however, does not justify the mass invasion of the privacy and legal rights of the majority of people in the membership database - ordinary citizens.

I am a hypocrite.  I posted yesterday morning’s entry in the giddy rush of knee-jerk excitement at seeing the nasty racists get what is coming to them and without giving the matter due consideration.  In retrospect I should not have linked to the database and I am removing that link now (though the database itself remains accessible).

The initial reaction of most of the media has been similar to mine and, I contend, similarly ill-considered.

Save for those in public-facing roles, it does not matter whether you are or ever have been a member of the British National Party.  What matters is what you say, what you do and how you live your life: for that, the BNP 10,000 may warrant vilification - simply for carrying a membership card, they do not.

Whatever “we” are, we are not Salem and the Ministry is not the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

The British National Party’s membership list has been published.

The Minister would never condone breaking the law - not even the Data Protection Act - but the list has been helpfully reproduced by the admirable folk at Wikileaks.

If you want to see how many of your neighbours and colleagues are nasty little racists, you can download an Excel file here [link removed].

22 serving and former policemen.  Whodathunkit, eh?

Four solicitors/retired solicitors and one trainee solicitor.  Nice.

No obvious Tory frontbenchers.

And 48 people from the Minister’s hometown, The Whitest Town In The United Kingdom™.

I was particularly struck by the inclusion of [name removed], described as a “lecturer in human rights/data protection”.

You couldn’t make it up.

(On that point: no, Richard Littlejohn’s name does not appear on the list.)

On Saturday I was dispirited to read on the front page of Times Online a small article by David Leppard headlined ‘Sneak’ plan for mandatory ID cards.

Being the saddo I am I wanted to look at the bill to which the article referred, so I just did a search for the article using the Times Online website’s own search facility.

No sign of it under searches for ‘ID cards’, ‘identity cards’ or ‘David Leppard’.

Yet it’s still there (via Google News) or if you know the direct URL, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5162669.ece

How curious.

Surely The Thunderer isn’t censoring itself, having inadvertently drawn attention to a matter on which the Tories remain curiously silent when not openly schizophrenic…?

Anyway, one more time in full for those with a tendency towards depression:

‘Sneak’ plan for mandatory ID cards
David Leppard

Ministers have been accused of trying to introduce compulsory identity cards through the back door, despite promises that people will not have to carry them.

Lawyers at Liberty, the civil liberties group, say that little noticed clauses in the draft immigration and citizenship bill introduce new powers to make people produce identity documents or face arrest. The bill is expected to be in the Queen’s speech next month.

At issue is a clause in the bill which says that anyone who is to be examined by an immigration officer “must produce a valid identity document if required to do so”. Failure to produce an identity card or otherwise prove identity will become a criminal offence. At present, producing a passport counts as proof of identity.

It had been thought the clauses applied only to people entering the UK at ports.

But Liberty says a separate clause in the bill extends powers of examination to new categories of people. They include anyone in the UK — whether a British citizen or not — who has ever left the country.

Isabella Sankey, Liberty’s policy officer, said: “Immigration law is being used as a cloak to introduce measures that would effectively compel us all to carry ID cards. Under these paranoid proposals if you have ever set foot outside the UK you could be required, at any time, to prove your identity and nationality.”

The Home Office disputed Liberty’s reading of the bill. A spokesman said: “The bill does not contain legislation that will require UK citizens to be issued with compulsory ID cards. It clearly states that valid identity documents must be produced on request to maintain effective immigration control.”

Launch of the ID cards scheme begins next week when marriage visa holders and non-European Union students will be the first recipients.

Airside workers at some airports will then be issued with cards — a move opposed by pilots’ unions and related groups.

The cards were proposed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America. Opponents say they are expensive, unnecessary and infringe on human rights.

Cards will carry a picture and security chip containing biometric data.

[Disclaimer: this bad-tempered and almost certainly illiterate despatch comes to you from the Minister's sick bed after he has necked 10mg of morphine sulphate in an attempt to prevent him from self-performing a hip replacement operation, and with the aid of only his left eye as the right is gunged up with cream treating bacterial conjunctivitis.]

The Minister has not been in the best of form over the past three or four days, but if his drug-addled brain is correct the situation is this.

The Cabinet includes Peter Mandelson, Nick Brown, Harriet Harman and Margaret Beckett.

Disgraced Former Europe Minister Keith Vaz is under investigation by the Parliamentary authorities over allegations that he may not have behaved with impeccable propriety.

The Government is spending billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to shore up institutions falling on their arses.

An upstart new London Mayor is antagonising the Government.

And the Government is caving in on ridiculous, draconian detention laws before getting its arse kicked around the chamber of the House of Lords.

FUCK ME, PEOPLE: HAVEN’T WE ALREADY DONE THIS BIT?

I must be Sam Tyler.

Two things.

First, I’m getting an iPhone 3G.  And I’m not even paying for it!  Said thing of beauty is to be provided by my employers.  (Of course I’ll probably have to forfeit this year’s remaining annual leave entitlement, but…)

Second, The Moral Bankruptcy Of 21st Century English Football (Part Infinity + 1) and There Are Times It’s Embarrassing To Be A Lawyer (Part Infinity + 2), courtesy of The Guardian’s George Monbiot.

In the past few days, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club has dropped its [libel] cases against some of its fans. I am now allowed to write about the worst example of legal bullying I have ever seen.

The club has had serious problems, on and off the pitch, and many of its fans use an internet forum - owlstalk.co.uk - to discuss them. They make the kind of comments you would expect to find on any talk board, and which would normally be forgotten within 15 minutes. Two and half years ago the club launched its first suit. Only now have the people who posted these comments emerged blinking from the labyrinthine nightmare of English law…

Sheffield Wednesday went to court to demand the names and email addresses of 14 people who had posted comments on owlstalk. Here are some of the comments over which the club complained. “What an embarrassing, pathetic, laughing stock of a football club we’ve become.” “Another day, another blunder. I doubt even Leeds were in such a mess this time last summer, and look what happened to them.” “I am waiting with bated breath to hear who the Chuckle Brothers have signed after their trip to watch players abroad. With the amount of money they have to spend and the wages they can offer the best we can hope for is that little known Transvestitavian International I Sukblodov, who last scored in a brothel.”

Such comments were deemed by Sheffield Wednesday’s lawyers to be “false and seriously defamatory messages” which had caused grievous injury to the delicate flowers who ran the club. (They should try posting an article on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site.) The lawyers threatened “proceedings to include claims for injunctions, damages, interest and legal costs (which could be substantial)”. The judge threw most of the application out, but instructed the forum’s host to reveal the email addresses of four of the posters, whose remarks seem to me to be almost as trivial as those he dismissed. This took place a year ago, and the long shadow of the law hung over the posters until the club’s lawyers dropped the case last week.

Another case dates back to February 2006, when the club sent a warning letter to a fan called Nigel Short. When he received the letter he offered to apologise and to change his comments, but the club rejected this. He was able to fight it only because he found a lawyer - Mark Lewis of George Davies Solicitors in Manchester - who was incensed by this case and was prepared to represent him. “I’ve had two and a half years of worrying I was going to lose my house,” Short tells me. “It’s been hell. If Mark hadn’t done this no win, no fee, I would have been bankrupt by now.”

In November 2007, Short was diagnosed with throat cancer. The case continued. But on Wednesday September 3 he announced that his treatment had been successful. On Friday September 5, the club dropped the case and agreed to pay his costs. It issued a press release which suggested it had done so because of “Mr Short’s medical condition”. I asked the club whether it had abandoned the case because it knew that Short would now live to fight the action. It has refused to answer my questions.

Full case report of the fiasco here.

I dare say if I thought about it long and hard enough I could come up with some pithy pun or other on which to end this post - given my origins it would probably centre around an (entirely justifiable) insult towards natives of South Yorkshire.

As it is, I’ll suffice myself to say that the firm of solicitors instructed by Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, its directors and shareholders in the above matter was Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis, known colloquially as K&L Gates.

Decide for yourself whether you would ever entertain the notion of instructing such a firm.  The Minister will be taking his (admittedly limited) purchasing power elsewhere.

Not for the first - or, I suspect, the last - time I am ashamed of my profession.

I have received ten cvs in the past three days for the advertised role as the Minister’s factotum.  Only one of those cvs has been from someone carrying a dyed-in-the-wool Anglo-Saxon name.

The other eight came from candidates with names that suggest they don’t form part of the British National Party’s plans for world domination.

The quality of two of those candidates certainly leaves something to be desired and, like the Anglo-Saxon-monikered Boris Johnson acolyte, they have received “close but no cigar” responses.

Of the remaining seven, every one has relevant experience and good academic qualifications.  On paper, at least, three of them have a rather better academic pedigree than me to the point that they have been awarded academic scholarships from “traditional” (ie pre-1992) universities.

Most have already funded themselves through either the Legal Practice Course (not that that’s worth a bucket of warm spit) or the Bar Vocational Course.

While some people obviously do not interview well there is, on paper, no obvious reason why any of these people should not already be pursuing careers as Trainee Solicitors or Bar pupils in London (assuming that’s what they want to do) instead of casting around for paralegal/legal executive scraps in the Northern Home Counties.

I wonder why they haven’t already been snapped up already…?

There’s always a chance one of them might turn up at interview next week with ‘CLASS WAR’ tattooed on his or her forehead but, having spoken with most of them by phone in the past 48 hours, I suspect not.

Three have been asked to form an orderly holding pattern and four will be interviewed next Monday and Tuesday.

Is it good form to ask candidates to brew up at the start of the interview?

This is so cool on so many levels. Not least because the media, the security forces and our leaders now not only get to flout the Contempt Of Court Act, but they get to make snide innuendos about people with mental health problems AND Muslims at the same time.

BRILLIANT!

A spokesman said: “Our investigation so far indicates Reilly, who has a history of mental illness, had adopted the Islamic faith. We believe he was preyed upon, radicalised and taken advantage of.”

Last night a neighbour claimed Reilly was known as the “Big Friendly Giant”.

Daniel Turner, 20, said: “He’s schizophrenic. He changed his name to Mohammed Rasheed about a year ago. He was brainwashed into becoming a Muslim by local men. We call him the BFG but he obviously met up with the wrong people.”

Thanks to the Super Soaraway Current Bun, edited by husband-beater Rebekkah Wade, for that considered reportage.

Oh, and in two years time, these people are going to be running the country:

I will not allow anybody to say that I didn’t warn them.

Still, that Mrs. Timpson’s a damn fine looking filly, isn’t she?

Edward and Mrs. Timpson. I feel a mini-series coming on…

I’m about half an inch away from removing The Guardian website from my bookmarks.

Its Comment Is Free section is becoming a sandpit for chimps who’ve been given a box of Crayolas to play with by Alan Rusbridger. The pisspoor Martin Jacques column of last week was today almost surpassed by a pisspoor Zoe Williams column that, unlike Jacques’ effort, is so pisspoor it can’t even be considered funny and to which I refuse to link.

Meanwhile, its Breaking News section currently has one “headline”:

COMING UP TONIGHT: Follow The Apprentice with Heidi Stephens’s live blog from 9pm

To paraphrase Keith Burkinshaw, there used to be a newspaper in there.

I’ve just updated WordPress.  It transpires that we’re only up to 392 posts (including this one), so we’ll get to celebrate the 400th anniversary again soon-ish.

I won the court case yesterday. This may have had less to do with the brilliance of my oratorical skills than with the fact that the claimant didn’t turn up.

The District Judge and I sat and looked at each other for 20 minutes; she then asked me a few cursory questions about what my case was; she then looked at her watch, sighed and said, “It’s his case and he can’t expect it to get very far if he doesn’t turn up. The claim is dismissed. I suggest you leave as quickly as possible in case he arrives any second.”

“Thank you, Madam.”

This full version of events may not have been disclosed to my colleagues, though I have made them aware that the outcome was favourable…

The court usher had more facial piercings than I’ve ever seen on one individual.  I’d love to see him try to eat soup.

Over the course of eleven years my advocacy record is played four, won four.

Undefeated.  Me and Joe Calzaghe.

On two occasions the other side didn’t turn up and on another the chairman of the tribunal opened with the words, “Sorry to keep you waiting but we’ve just read your submission and your appeal is successful.  Do you wish to add anything?”

At some point some fucker’s going to make me open my mouth and then my client is really going to be shafted…

Nobody likes a smart arse show-off…

…except the Minister.

One take, one camera, one sickeningly talented musician.

At 2pm tomorrow in Lambeth County Court, the Minister steps up to the advocacy oche for the first time in a decade.  How pisspoor is that defence going to be..?

If I escape without being found in contempt of court it’ll count as A Result.