Time to start educating children about their rights after figures show Police stopped and searched 500 under 10s

Shocking figures show that police in Scotland have stopped and searched 750,000 people in the last year. The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research report also found that 500 children under 10 were stopped and searched in 2010 alone.  This has caused concern from human rights and children's organisations.

Scotland's Children's Commissioner, Tam Baillie, writing in the Herald said:

On any reading, it is clear that young people are being targeted and there will be times when their rights are being infringed.

In a the country that claims to be committed to children's rights and wants to be the best country in the world in which to grow up, this needs to be addressed urgently.

The Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission was also worried:

The recent increase in the use of non-statutory powers of stop and search [i.e. where there is no reasonable suspicion of the person] is particularly concerning. According to Police Scotland these amount to 70% of the almost half a million searches conducted between April and December in 2013. Such an increased and extensive use of this form of stop and search power can, dependent upon the circumstances, be unlawful, be carried out without informed and freely given consent, and have a longer term adverse impact upon police and community relations. Scotland should not be repeating the mistakes and lessons learned in England and Wales, where the use of stop and search is reducing.

One person isn't worried one little bit, though. Step forward First Minister Alex Salmond who pretty much shrugged his shoulders and said "so what" when questioned by Willie Rennie today. You can watch the whole thing here from about 18:30. Willie asked Salmond if he was comfortable with that high number of searches on children who are hardly in a position to consent. The First Minister again showed that he really doesn't get it on civil liberties. As long as crime's going down, he's happy.

With a 1 in 8 chance of Scots being searched by Police, perhaps it's time to start educating our citizens and schoolchildren about their rights. Ultimately, if the Police are going to search you, they need to have reasonable suspicion of a number of things. Otherwise,you do not need to submit. The Citizens' Advice Bureau has a handy guide to your rights. Read and learn it now.

While there are still concerns about stop and search powers in England being disproportionately used on black and Asian people, which must be addressed, the total number is falling. Just think, in a country of 50 million people, there are just 1.1 million stop and searches, while in Scotland, with a population of 6 million, there were 750,000. The downward trend, coupled with falling crime, shows what can be achieved with Liberal Democrats in government. To be blunt, even Theresa May is more liberal on this than Alex Salmond. That's not a good look.

As well as Willie's question, Alison McInnes, our Scottish justice spokesperson said that overuse of these powers on children sends out the wrong message about what sort of society we are:

Overuse of stop and search, particularly towards very young people, sends the completely wrong message about the kind of society we want to live in. Scottish Liberal Democrats are committed to building a fairer society.

I've always said that I want to live in a liberal Scotland. So much about the SNP, not to mention authoritarian Labour, tells me it would be anything but if we were independent.

Last day to have your say on Glasgow subway photo ban

Last month I told you about SPT's plan to ban photography on the Glasgow Subway.  I said that:


So, you're on the Glasgow subway with some friends and one of them does something cute or funny or otherwise worth recording for posterity. You take out your phone to capture the moment.....

What should happen next is....nothing. Life should go on as normal. However, if Strathclyde Partnership for  Transport gets its way, new bye-laws could mean that you're on a slippery slope to a £1000 fine. The operator has put their new proposals out for consultation and they include the controversial clause 12.1:

Passengers must not take photographs, or make video audio or visual recordings on any part of the subway.

There is a get out clause - but it involves you obtaining the written permission of SPT in advance. So much for spontaneity.

This brings to mind the situation under the last Labour Westminster Government when amateur photographers were apprehended by Police under the controversial Section 44 of the Terrorism Act.This report from the Independent summarises how people innocently taking photographs of public buildings, tourist attractions and even a fish and chip shop found themselves being stopped and searched. By and large, although the law applied in Scotland, it was largely ignored. I wrote in 2010 that while over 200,000 people had been stopped south of the border, only 79 searches had been recorded here.

I always tend to take the view that if an authority is given a power, it will use it.That's why we need to make sure that any powers they have are both necessary and proportionate. 

The photography ban is only the tip of the iceberg. Some of the other proposed  bye-laws, also carrying a potential £1000 fine for their breach, are equally questionable. Failing to report lost property to a member of staff, singing, using musical equipment in a way which might annoy a reasonable person, being drunk (which isn't defined, but may well apply to a fair few people taking the subway home on a weekend night) or going the wrong way up or down an escalator all carry the same penalty. So does trying to get on a train before the last person has left and trying to jump the queue. These things can be rude, but deserving of a four figure fine?

Have a read of the proposed rules here and make sure you send your response to the consultation by 15th June. It needs to go to:

FAO: Joanne Gray

Glasgow Subway Byelaws Consultation

Transport Policy Directorate

Area 2 D North

Victoria Quay

EDINBURGH

EH6 6QQ

or e-mail joanneDOTgrayATtransportscotlandDOTgsiDOTgovDOTuk

Do it today or it will be too late! Do it in your lunch hour.

Nick Clegg in secret courts victory - but the debate is not over

If you doubt the Liberal Democrat influence in this Coalition Government, look no further than today's news about how the Government has moderated its plans on secret courts in three important ways at the insistence of  Nick Clegg.

The key concessions won by the Liberal Democrats are:

• inquests have been removed from the plans 
• judges rather than ministers to make call about whether secret evidence can be used
• the definition of when they can apply is narrowed from public interest to national security

Now, I'd say most liberals and Liberals will still feel very queasy about plans to use the "Closed Material Procedures" at all. They would come into play during any civil case where evidence from the security services would be required and it was deemed that national security was at stake. This evidence would be only heard by the Judge and a Government appointed Special Advocate. The person who brought the claim against the Government would not be present, nor would they be allowed, ever, to find out what was discussed.

The whole point of our Court system is that both sides have the chance to test all of the evidence. You make your claim, for example "that big boy hit me and ran away". You would tell how that happened, showing pictures of your injuries, explaining the circumstances. The big boy (or his lawyers) then has the right to trash your story, say it was someone else and he was three miles away eating a McDonalds at the time or whatever and  his claims are then tested in turn.  You know the drill. We've all watched enough Rumpole, Crown Court or Silk. This procedure is used in a limited number of immigration and other cases and the proposal to extend it across all civil proceedings is worrying. It would make it so much harder for claimants to prove Government wrongdoing such as complicity in torture.

While I don't feel comfortable with the changes at all, I am glad that the Liberal Democrats have made significant changes to the original plans which limits the Government's scope for hiding what they have been up to. 

I was interested to see Ken Clarke's comments on the BBC this morning:

"Nick Clegg made clear that he would not let security concerns erode the principle of open justice. Continue reading the main storyt Quote"He wants to encourage continued debate during the passage of this bill to ensure that the difficult balance between security and liberty is got right."

So, despite the concessions he has managed to get, Nick Clegg will still be looking for further changes during the passage of the Bill.

One thing I'm not so clear about - I've heard a few civil liberties this morning talking about how the old system of Public Interest Immunity certificates could continue to be used instead. Now that the test is national security rather than public interest in the proposed Bill, would that not mean that an amended Bill would be preferable?

There need to be more safeguards - particularly with regards to the Special Advocates who, according to Liberty, are less than happy with the way the system operates in the few cases where it applies now. However, we need to remember this hard won Liberal Democrat stamp of authority when we write up our "Horrors of a Tory Britain - what might have been" book ahead of the next election.

Julian Huppert MP talks to bloggers on web snooping plans

Last Wednesday night, I took part in a conference call Julian Huppert MP and other bloggers who were interested in any potential web snooping plans. When I say interested, I mean "would start frothing at the mouth if any of our MPs voted for anything remotely like what was being touted in the media at the beginning of April. In fact, most of us want to see a rolling back of the powers which already exist.

Despite our concern, a draft Bill was announced in the Queen's Speech. Julian Huppert wrote for Liberal Democrat Voice that 

I am delighted to see that, following Nick Clegg’s intervention, the Bill in the Queen’s Speech is in draft form only. This is absolutely crucial, as it will force the Home Office to tell people what they are actually planning to do, rather than refusing to give any specifics, which has long been the case. It will lead to a full and open discussion – in public – about the level of data surveillance we are prepared to accept in the name of national security.

A Select Committee – perhaps the Home Affairs Select Committee, which I serve on, or one set up specifically for this task – will go through all the details. It will seek and listen to expert opinion from outside Westminster, and not just listen to the requests of the police and the security services. The onus must be on the Home Office to prove to us that these measures are needed, and that they are proportionate. ‘A spook told me’ is not a valid argument.

It was really good of Julian to make himself available to talk us through what happens next. What's clear is that had Nick Clegg not put his foot down, there would be an actual Bill in the Queen's Speech, to be debated in Parliament straight away. Worse, it would more likely have been part of another Bill so on its own wouldn't even have got that much parliamentary scrutiny. This isn't happening. We're getting a draft, at some point in the next few weeks, instead. That will then be given over to a Committee - perhaps the Home Affairs Select Committee, or a special one set up as was done for libel reform.

That Committee will scrutinise it within an inch of its life. They will be able to take evidence from anyone who's interested, from civil liberties groups to technical experts. After the scrutiny process, the Government will look at what the Committee has said. Only if Liberal Democrats were satisfied with the proposed legislation would a full Bill be forthcoming. If it is unacceptable to us, it won't happen.

I would not have thought that our whips would expect most of our MPs to vote for anything disproportionate that granted sweeping powers. Julian said that we have to be careful what powers we grant to the security services because they will use all of them.

The Home Office is used to a pretty easy ride for its authoritarian proposals. It certainly had one from Labour who were quite happy at the thought of locking people up without charge for 3 months. It's having to get used to the fact that Liberal Democrats are different and are not going to let them have their own way all the time. They've already had to back off from a full bill, and they are no doubt going to have to go further.

Julian was quite candid that when the draft bill comes out, there will be stuff in it that we are not going to like, that will be unpalatable to all of us. What he wants us to do is focus in very specifically on what needs to be changed. He has a reasonable amount of technical knowledge, but there are people in the party who have much more and he wants to hear from them.

Having been involved in the development of measures on libel reform, which went through a similar process, Julian was a keen advocate of this way of doing things, as he mentioned in his LDV article:

First, we have fantastic news about libel reform. I am delighted that the Defamation Bill will finally come into being. As Liberal Democrats we have long made the case that our libel laws are out-dated and in desperate need of improvement.  Our current system unfairly favours the rich because the cost of lawsuits means ordinary people find it very difficult to defend themselves against false allegations. Citizens face great costs if they are accused of libel, regardless of the facts. This has had a chilling effect: justice for those with wealth, not truth, on their side. And we’ve seen libel tourism too – cases brought here because of our lax libel laws.

This Bill should address that problem, and give every person in the UK access to justice and the ability to defend their name and reputation. All of this while protecting free speech. I am very pleased to see that the Bill will give scientists and academics more protection from libel action. At the moment many scientists and academics face a real dilemma when it comes to revealing their research for fear of being sued.  The cases of Simon Singh and Peter Wilmshurst have shown just how bad this can be.

On a personal level, I have been pushing on this for a while – I served on the Joint Committee that studied the draft Bill, and I expect the final version to be much improved. I pressed Ken Clarke on this recently and he confirmed that peer-reviewed research should be protected from libel actions. The Defamation Bill is an achievement championed by Liberal Democrats, and one that we can be proud of.

I had been aghast at some of the things being talked about in April and there were indications that certain people in the Westminster Bubble weren't getting it. I feel a great deal more reassured now that we're all on the same page. Julian Huppert being part of the process is a large part of that - the man used to be on the Council of Liberty, for goodness' sake. He can be trusted on this issue. Not only that, but he's shown willing to listen to what people who are experts in this field in the party have to say.

I suspect strongly that there is still a long way to go in terms of winning our case within the Government on this, but the more focused and forensic our dissection of the proposals, the more chance we have of  seeing off unnecessary, illiberal and intrusive measures.

What I said to FCC on Conference Accreditation

So, there I was, in my parents' living room on Saturday afternoon and suddenly the awful realisation hit me.

I'd been urging everyone else to respond to the Federal Conference Committee's hasty consultation on the Sussex Police's request for an accreditation system for our Autumn Conference in Brighton.

I'd blogged on it, twice, for sure, but not actually sent the e-mail off.

So, as soon as I got home, I sent the following e-mail to them.

Dear FCC

Before I get into the substance of my argument, I’d like to say that I do have some sympathy for the dilemma you must be in. You feel acutely the burden of responsibility for the safety of everyone attending Conference and a natural fear of going against professional advice is understandable. However, I hope to persuade you that there is no case for an accreditation system as there is no evidence that it will make anyone safer.

I do believe that it was possible to anticipate the Police request and it would have been better if you had consulted at Gateshead to avoid a hasty one week consultation in the middle of local elections across the Country. 

I find the case for accreditation very weak. I have been unimpressed with the arguments of some in favour of accreditation who have tried to scare us by telling us terrorists wanted to kill us all. That would be why we put our belongings through airport style security at the door, then. I find that line of argument lazy and insulting and I don't want to hear any more of it. Let's face it, I have enough of an instinct of self preservation to want to get home to my family in one piece, as well as all my dear friends who will be there. Any assertion that we would be putting staff at the venue at risk by refusing to implement an accreditation process is utterly ridiculous, especially when Conference goers are filling a variety of venues outside the security cordon for almost a week.

When professional advice is as easy to pick holes in as the Sussex Police’s, I don’t think FCC should have any qualms about rejecting it. Let me explain:

Two senior officers of Sussex police attended an FCC meeting in late March and outlined the reasons they are asking the party to use accreditation. It is their clear view that party conferences, including ours while we are in government, attract people who wish to cause serious harm and violence to conference-goers (and also to those working in the venue and other residents of Brighton, whom they also have a duty to protect).

For sure. Although this is not new. I grew up in the 70s and 80s when the IRA committed a number of violent atrocities. One such was the murder of Conservative MP Airey Neave by car bomb in the underground car park to Westminster. I've been to Parliament a few times now and all I've had to do is have a photo taken for my pass and go through security scanners.

My contention is that an accreditation system does not of itself make anyone safer. Every single major atrocity has been committed by people who were who they say they are and who had the correct paperwork.

This includes large international terrorist organisations, but also individuals who are able to make bombs or other equipment. They gave some examples of lone individuals who have caused serious violence, or attempted to, ranging from the 1984 Brighton bombing to the Norwegian gunman at a youth political event.

I will never forget waking up to the horrific scenes of the Grand Hotel in ruins when the Tory Party conference was bombed by the IRA in 1984. It was horrible, even from 700 miles away. That bomb was planted weeks before the event. Are hotels in Brighton having all their guests accredited by the Police months in advance? I suspect there would be an outcry if they were. The answer, of course, is no, they aren't.

As far as the awful events in Norway are concerned, physical security at the camp would have prevented Breivik from getting onto the island and carrying out his murderous plan.

Because of the particular attraction that major public events which are heavily covered by the media have to people who want to cause serious violence, they believe that in order to protect the security of everyone at conference, attendees should go through accreditation.

Attendees at football cup finals, the Grand National, the Olympics, pop concerts, festivals, Wimbledon or Pride don't have to go through Police accreditation. I went with my sister and niece to see Paul McCartney in Liverpool last December and the Police did not have to approve my trip. Why should our Conference be any different? The security services want the power to snoop on all our private communications. The Police wanted to bang people up for 3 months without charge. Those requests were unreasonable because they infringed civil liberties, as this one is.

The police are extremely clear, as are FCC, that preventing any other difficulties or embarrassment for the party are not part of their remit. They are focused only on specific information which might indicate that someone may pose a serious security threat to other conference-goers.

Anyone can join the party for as little as £12 and can then attend conference as a party member.

It weighs heavily on my mind that people were barred from attending conference last year because they didn't pass accreditation. These people could easily have been completely innocent. I don't think it's the business of anyone in the party, no matter how much I trust them, and I do trust Tim Farron, Andrew Wiseman and Tim Gordon, should have the right to ban a member from attending conference without proper evidence that’s gone through the testing of the criminal justice system. It's a really serious step to take. Especially when it doesn't stop any member of the general public with malevolent intentions from standing in the security queue. You don't need to be accredited to do that. The Sunday morning at Gateshead, I joined the queue half way up the hill to the Sage.

Just as an aside, we had five Cabinet Ministers at our Scottish Conference in Inverness and the Northern Constabulary didn't see fit to ask for any of this. Why should it be different at UK level?

I do not think accreditation is a sensible way of managing risk to people attending their conference. I don't see how one single person will be made safer by this demand. It is an unreasonable and illiberal request. There is not a shred of evidence that it would prevent an atrocity and it is so fundamental to our values as Liberal Democrats that the Police should not be able to determine who attends Conference or engages in the political process that I urge you to reject it out of hand. You will be able to find alternative insurance.

I appeal to you to have the courage of their liberal convictions and find a way through that does not involve an accreditation system that is absolutely wrong in principle.

I will be publishing this separately and I have no objection to you doing so if you wish to publish consultation responses in the interests of transparency.

Thank you for hard work you do as a Committee. I appreciate the difficulty of the situation you find yourselves in.

Regards

Caron Lindsay



PS: This is an extract from the speech I would have made in the debate in Birmingham last year if I’d have been able to get there in time.

 Now, I have a very strong personal interest in this conference being safe and secure. Some of the people I care most about in the world are here. My beloved family are 400 miles away - I want to return to them in one piece. I am also one of the most over anxious people on the planet.

Despite that, I do not see how this expensive accreditation system is going to make one person safer. It seems to me to be a wasteful exercise in bureaucracy. We have airport style security on the way in and lots of vigilant security people around the place. That's enough to protect us. Nobody is going to be able to get in here with anything that could cause harm.

Those of us who were around the last time an atrocity was carried out at a party conference will remember the feeling of numbness and shock and nausea  as we watched events unfold. That bomb, though, had been planted a month before.

In recent acts of terrorism, everyone involved has had the correct paperwork.
There is simply no need for accreditation. And since when did we fall for the line that the Police say they need it? They said that about 90 days detention as well and as a party we didn't flinch in our opposition to that.

The FCC will say that it all comes down to insurance. I am far from convinced that this is the case. My understanding is that they've gone to the usual provider who has said that if we don't take police advice, it'll invalidate our insurance. They tell us that if we don't accept accreditation, there will be no Conference.

I think we need more imagination here.  If festivals can get public liability insurance when they have, frankly, even more A-listers than we have wandering around, then I'm sure we can find someone who is prepared to see that the physical security arrangements suffice.

 Today, FCC makes its decision. Let's hope that they reject this illiberal and ineffective idea.

Conference accreditation rears its unacceptable, illiberal and not very pretty head

You kind of expect motions passed at Federal Conference about Federal Conference to be taken seriously by Federal Conference Committee. Especially in a year when they're up for election. Unfortunately the message from the motion on Accreditation for attendees at Conference does not seem to have got through.

This motion condemned the system and called on Parliamentarians to work with the Police to question the need for such a system. After all, we should not tolerate a situation where the Police dictate who can engage in the political process and how they can do it. That's completely unacceptable in a liberal society.

The FCC was told to negotiate security arrangements which respect members' privacy and the party's constitution.

So, what do they do when the Sussex Police demand accreditation for this Autumn's Brighton Conference? They decide to launch a consultation. Of one week's duration. In the middle of the local election campaign. It is important that people have the chance to put their views to FCC, especially as last year's measures prevented some people from attending Conference on principle, but the timing is well and truly off. They could easily have anticipated the demand and decided to consult at Spring Conference in Gateshead, for example.

FCC want our views by this coming Saturday and they should be e-mailed to conferenceinformation@libdems.org.uk and a decision will be made a week today.

Don't miss your chance to have your say on this.

I find the case for accreditation very weak. FCC members tried to scare us all by telling us terrorists wanted to kill us all. That would be why we put our belongings through airport style security at the door, then. I find that line of argument lazy and insulting and I don't want to hear any more of it. Let's face it, I have enough of an instinct of self preservation to want to get home to my family in one piece, as well as all my dear friends who will be there. Any assertion that we would be putting staff at the venue at risk by refusing to implement an accreditation process is utterly ridiculous.

This is the Police case as outlined in the Liberal Democrat Voice piece:

Two senior officers of Sussex police attended an FCC meeting in late March and outlined the reasons they are asking the party to use accreditation. It is their clear view that party conferences, including ours while we are in government, attract people who wish to cause serious harm and violence to conference-goers (and also to those working in the venue and other residents of Brighton, whom they also have a duty to protect). 

 For sure. Although this is not new. I grew up in the 70s and 80s when the IRA committed a number of violent atrocities. One such was the murder of Conservative MP Airey Neave by car bomb in the underground car park to Westminster. I've been to Parliament a few times now and all I've had to do is have a photo taken for my pass and go through security scanners.

My contention is that an accreditation system does not of itself make anyone safer. Every single major atrocity has been committed by people who were who they say they are and who had the correct paperwork.

This includes large international terrorist organisations, but also individuals who are able to make bombs or other equipment. They gave some examples of lone individuals who have caused serious violence, or attempted to, ranging from the 1984 Brighton bombing to the Norwegian gunman at a youth political event.

I will never forget waking up to the horrific scenes of the Grand Hotel in ruins when the Tory Party conference was bombed by the IRA in 1984. It was horrible, even from 700 miles away. That bomb was planted weeks before the event. Are hotels in Brighton having all their guests accredited by the Police months in advance? I suspect there would be an outcry if they were. The answer, of course, is no, they aren't.

As far as the awful events in Norway are concerned, physical security at the camp would have prevented Breivik from getting onto the island and carrying out his murderous plan.

Because of the particular attraction that major public events which are heavily covered by the media have to people who want to cause serious violence, they believe that in order to protect the security of everyone at conference, attendees should go through accreditation.

Attendees at football cup finals, the Grand National, the Olympics, pop concerts, festivals, Wimbledon or Pride don't have to go through Police accreditation. I went with my sister and niece to see Paul McCartney in Liverpool last December and the Police did not have to approve my trip. Why should our Conference be any different? The security services want the power to snoop on all our private communications. The Police wanted to bang people up for 3 months without charge. Those requests were unreasonable because they infringed civil liberties, as this one is.

The police are extremely clear, as are FCC, that preventing any other difficulties or embarrassment for the party are not part of their remit. They are focused only on specific information which might indicate that someone may pose a serious security threat to other conference-goers.

Anyone can join the party for as little as £12 and can then attend conference as a party member.

It weighs heavily on my mind that two people were barred from attending conference last year because they didn't pass accreditation. These people could easily have been completely innocent. I don't think it's the business of anyone in the party, no matter how much I trust them, and I do trust Tim Farron, Andrew Wiseman and Tim Gordon, should have the right to ban a member from attending conference without proper evidence. It's a really serious step to take. Especially when it doesn't stop any member of the general public with malevolent intentions from standing in the security queue. You don't need to be accredited to do that. The Sunday morning at Gateshead, I joined the queue half way up the hill to the Sage.

Just as an aside, we had five Cabinet Ministers at our Scottish Conference in Inverness and the Northern Constabulary didn't see fit to ask for any of this. Why should it be different at UK level?

I do not think accreditation is a sensible way of managing risk to people attending their conference. The Police case for it is far from compelling. I don't see how one single person will be made safer by this demand. I hope that party members give FCC a strong steer that they should not put up with these unreasonable and illiberal requests.

Whatever happens, I will be in Brighton, because I don't want our policy to be made by people who are ok with this sort of thing. If we fall at the first hurdle when civil liberties are challenged, who on earth else is going to fight for them?

I appeal to FCC to have the courage of their liberal convictions and find a way through that does not involve an accreditation system that is absolutely wrong in principle.

Background Information:


This is the crux of the motion passed at Conference in Birmingham last year. You can read the whole thing here on page 20.

Conference therefore condemns the system of police accreditation adopted for this conference  which requires party members to disclose personal data to the police and which is designed to enable the police to advise that certain party members should not be allowed to attend.
1.The Parliamentary Party and Liberal Democrat Ministers to question the current policeguidance on accreditation and to seek to persuade the Home Office to change guidance on  current practice to reflect the rights of association and assembly and the internal democracy  of all political parties.
2. The Federal Conference Committee to negotiate security arrangements for futureconferences which protect the privacy of members’ personal data and which respect theparty’s constitution and internal democracy.
3. The Party President to ensure that conference arrangements respect Article 6 of the federal constitution which provides that Local Parties elect representatives and that no other body within or without the party has the power to exclude in advance their attendance at conference.

This is part of what I would have said in that debate if I'd been able to be there on time. My whole draft speech is here.

 Now, I have a very strong personal interest in this conference being safe and secure. Some of the people I care most about in the world are here. My beloved family are 400 miles away - I want to return to them in one piece. I am also one of the most over anxious people on the planet.

Despite that, I do not see how this expensive accreditation system is going to make one person safer. It seems to me to be a wasteful exercise in bureaucracy. We have airport style security on the way in and lots of vigilant security people around the place. That's enough to protect us. Nobody is going to be able to get in here with anything that could cause harm. 

Those of us who were around the last time an atrocity was carried out at a party conference will remember the feeling of numbness and shock and nausea  as we watched events unfold. That bomb, though, had been planted a month before.

In recent acts of terrorism, everyone involved has had the correct paperwork.
There is simply no need for accreditation. And since when did we fall for the line that the Police say they need it? They said that about 90 days detention as well and as a party we didn't flinch in our opposition to that.

The FCC will say that it all comes down to insurance. I am far from convinced that this is the case. My understanding is that they've gone to the usual provider who has said that if we don't take police advice, it'll invalidate our insurance. They tell us that if we don't accept accreditation, there will be no Conference. 

I think we need more imagination here.  If festivals can get public liability insurance when they have, frankly, even more A-listers than we have wandering around, then I'm sure we can find someone who is prepared to see that the physical security arrangements suffice.

Lib Dem Conference Protester charges are dropped - but after he'd spent 10 days in jail

Remember way back in September I was not chuffed to hear that student Edd Bauer had been packed off to jail for unfurling a protest banner on a bridge near the ICC in Birmingham where our Conference was going on?

Well, today his case came up before the judge in Birmingham and, in what sound like farcical scenes, were dropped because the prosecution could not offer any evidence.

To put someone through five months of stress, not to mention the time in prison when he was subjected to violent attack, for, essentially, nothing is really not acceptable. Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming had actually gone to Court to give evidence on Mr Bauer's behalf.

West Midlands Police and CPS got this case badly wrong - and the Federal Conference Committee should not go to Birmingham again until they can be assured that a more liberal approach will be taken. We've all had our agendas for Federal Conference this week - this might be something we might want to bring up in the Reports session.

We're a party of Government. We're going to attract protesters. As long as they conduct themselves in a manner that doesn't harm anybody, they have a perfect right to do that. We've all done it ourselves - and some of us still do.

Time to let the Naked Rambler on his way.

I read with despair the report yesterday of the Naked Rambler's minute of freedom before being locked up for another 657 days.

Is keeping this guy locked up in jail for longer than most people would get for much more serious crimes really the right way to handle him? He's been kept in prison for most of the last 5 years. To me, that's disproportionate.

There is no evidence that he's ever caused anyone any harm. Locking him up in solitary confinement really is not the answer to this. Rather than jail him, then have the police waiting outside to re-arrest him as soon as he's free, why can't he just be left to get on with it?  

A disproportionate amount of public money is being spent on this man and, frankly, it's not working. I'm not convinced that someone should be in prison for something that's relatively innocuous.

It's time to stop locking him up and just let him get on his way. Public nudity isn't my bag, which is something I'm sure you'll all be very relieved to hear, but in the end of the day it's not going to harm me or anyone else to see a naked man walking up the street minding his own business.  If he was harassing people, well, that's clearly a different matter, but I think we'd still have to ask if prison was the right place for him.

I feel saddened that we are behaving in such an uptight way. It just doesn't seem necessary. Are we actually going to keep him in prison  for the rest of his life? Simply because he doesn't want to wear clothes? Really?

And if he's kept in solitary because of other prisoners' sensibilities, or for his own protection, I really can't see how that's doing him any good - and there's a fairly major chance it's harming him.

Can somebody please just make this stop?

A DNA WTF?

I am not impressed by several reports today that the Coalition has gone back on its intention to delete DNA from innocent people in line with the system we have here in Scotland. This was set in stone in the Coalition Agreement and something that Nick Clegg was very keen to promote.

There will be some improvement in that the samples will ne held in anonymised form. However individual police forces will retain sufficient information to marry up samples with their owners' details. And we've had quite enough examples of unscrupulous people accessing information they have no right to have recently.

I'm fairly sure I heard something on tv recently about the number of police forces in England being reduced so this information could end up being Held in fewer places, making access even easier in the long term.

I want to hear what our Lib Dem ministers' take on this is. On face value, this is very bad news indeed. I don't understand why on earth these samples are not going to be deleted. Retaining them in this form seems pointless unless there's some agenda to reunite all the information once the pesky Lib Dems are out of the way.

Maybe it's time for an intrepid person to submit a topical motion to Conference on the subject. It is, after all, a core issue for we Liberal Democrats & one on which we need to take a stand.

Liberal Democrats win some arguments on Counter Terrorism, but fight must go on

There are times when I really wish we were in Government on our own. Then we could simply reduce the pre charge detention time to the matter of hours, or certainly less than a week, that it is across Europe. Then we could completely get rid of measures which restrict people's liberty when they haven't been found guilty of anything.

Today's announcement by Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May on the review of counter terrorism legislation has some welcome steps in the right direction. For example:

• The end of Section 44 searches where Police could stop anyone they felt like or stop people innocently taking photographs
• The halving of pre charge detention 
• Legislation will be drafted, but not introduced on extension of powers in an emergency - good because it means that it will be scrutinised when everyone has a clear head, and not in the heat of the moment. As someone said on Twitter, that requires an opposition which behaves like mature adults - but in its absence, our Awkward Squad should do fine

There's some bad stuff, too, though.

• Control orders as we know them will go, but there will be a replacement which, although not quite as bad, is still subjecting people to sanction without having ever being found guilty of anything. That's just wrong.  There was some hilarity in the house (inappropriate really, given the circumstances) over the difference between a curfew and the newspeak sounding "overnight residence requirement". It still means that individuals could be put under effective house arrest, but for less time than the current 16 hours under the Labour system.  

However, some of the worst aspects of control orders will be abolished - people won't be shifted away to other parts of the country away from their family; they will have some access to mobile phones and the internet. They will still be forbidden from going to places where it would be difficult to keep them under surveillance. There's a lot of scope there - does that mean they can't go to the cinema, the swimming pool, the shops?

The fundamental issue for me, though, is that  the replacement, although better and requiring stronger evidence (belief rather than suspicion) and the approval of the High Court, still punishes someone who has not been convicted of a crime through the proper procedures of the law. We have situations now where an injunction, for example, is placed on someone without them having prior knowledge of the proceedings in an emergency, but they always have the chance to have their say in court. That's not the case with these sanctions when the person  may not be told what the evidence against them is. That flies in the face of the principles of justice as far as I am concerned.

I would like to see Nick Clegg say that we Liberal Democrats do still believe that these measures should be abolished, but in coalition we have to make compromises - as I assume that's still the case and on our own we'd get rid of them.

I think that if the Tories had been left alone, they would have pretty much kept the Labour framework in place. They might have toned down some of the stop and search powers, but they would have left control orders untouched.

The Liberal Democrats in Government have done some good work in moderating them, but it's still not good enough as far as I am concerned. I recognise our efforts, but my heart is very heavy.

Given Labour's draconian record, there's no way we could have got a better result than this. If we had done nothing and determined to vote against any renewal of powers, for example, Labour would have voted for them. We were in a no-win situation, but even then, we have managed to secure some major concessions.

However, it is incumbent on senior Liberal Democrats to say that they don't think the review has gone far enough and that if we were governing alone, we would go further.

Liberty has given the measures a mixed reception, with Shami Chakrabarti saying:

“We welcome movement on stop and search, 28-day detention and council snooping, but when it comes to ending punishment without trial; the Government appears to have bottled it. Spin and semantics aside, control orders are retained and rebranded, if in a slightly lower fat form. As before, the innocent may be punished without a fair hearing and the guilty will escape the full force of criminal law. This leaves a familiar bitter taste. Parliament must now decide whether the final flavour will be of progress, disappointment or downright betrayal.”

 

Much more positively, the report includes the replacement of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 - the broad police power for stop and search without suspicion. This follows Liberty’s European Court of Human Rights victory last year in the case of protesters Kevin Gillan and Pennie Quinton.  

Safeguards will also be introduced to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) which allowed councils extensive snooping powers. This follows the high-profile case of Liberty’s client, Jenny Paton, who was subjected to council surveillance for three weeks in 2008.  Poole Council claimed that it was acting under the RIPA in order to discover whether the family lived within the catchment area where the children went to school.  In August 2010, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruled the council’s surveillance of mum-of-three and her family unlawful.  As announced on Monday, pre-charge detention will be reduced from 28 to 14 days.

I can't find anything in there that I disagree with. My head, though, knows that no other outcome from today was possible and that our input is clear if not sufficient. If we had an opposition who gave two hoots about civil liberties, then we might have had a fighting chance of repealing these measures completely, but we don't and we simply can't do it on our own.

Not for the first time, I wonder how things might have been if we'd got the Parliament we asked for last May. There would have been about 140 of us, more than double our current 57. We'd have had a great deal more bargaining power. 

Coalition halves pre-charge detention time for terror suspects

One bit of good news this morning - the BBC reports that the power to hold terrorism suspects for 28 days without charge is to lapse, reverting to 14 days.

It's still at least 10 days too long but it's a long way from the 90 days Labour tried to introduce. Imagine being held for 3 months without even being charged!

This is just part of the much needed rebalancing between liberty and security that Nick Clegg talked about the other week and a very welcome development.

The full review of terrorism powers, including the future of control orders, will be revealed next Wednesday. We'll see how that goes, but today's welcome news is definitely a step in the right direction.

Labour MPs' DNA test views shows their authoritarian instincts

It's often thought that the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats are much easier partners than the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, that we have a lot more in common. That's not the case. Certainly there are some aspects of social policy where we agree, but philosophically, we are a million miles apart. Both Conservatives and Labour have aspects to their basic rationale which turn my Liberal Democrat blood cold.

With the Conservatives, it's their instinct to protect the rich and powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. Without the Liberal Democrats to take the sting out of them in Government, there would be absolutely no measures to help the poorest at all.

With Labour, it's the fact that they don't see people as individuals with their own minds and opinions. They just see as as an amorphous blob to be controlled, rather than trusted.

I want to see the person who murdered Bristol architect Jo Yeates behind bars. Make no mistake about that. Whoever did this needs to be locked up before they strike again. However,  I am dismayed if not surprised that Kerry McCarthy, a Bristol Labour MP, has come out and said that she would support the DNA testing of every man in Bristol if the Police thought it was appropriate. Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow South, agrees with her. 

That horrifies me for two reasons. To my mind, the state should only have access to such information about you if there is actual reason to suspect that you have done wrong. Being male is not sufficient grounds as far as I'm concerned. If this was done on a voluntary basis, is the guilty person actually going to put themselves forward? Who says they live in Bristol anyway? Do you then assume that people who object to such an infringement of their rights have something to hide? Would conscientious objectors be persecuted? The implications of that approach are chilling.   Do we stop men from going out or restrict their movements just because most violent crime is committed by men? Taking DNA from the whole population is the start of a very slippery guilty until proven innocent slope and the very mention of the idea should have us up in arms at such an affront to our liberty. 

Apart from the obvious civil liberties implications, what a waste of time and resources it would be. Surely such a mass effort would be much better spent on actually trying to find the culprit. There are, according to population records, not far off half a million people in Bristol.  Around half of them will be men. So, how many people are going to collect the samples from these quarter of a million men, and get them processed. Say only a quarter of them volunteered - that's still over 60,000. The capacity of Celtic Park in Glasgow is something like 60832 (thank you, Wikipedia). Imagine that whole stadium chock a block full of people to be tested. And then you have to process the results. It would cost an absolute fortune and you may still , and in fact, I'd go as far as to say you probably will not find the killer. 

Why I'm jealous of Nick Clegg

I feel quite envious of Nick Clegg today. Not, of course, of the appalling abuse he's taken recently from the sort of political neanderthal who thinks hanging effigies of someone passes for legitimate political debate, or of the hours he has to work, nor of the undeniable tensions in his current role, nor of the fact that for the next 6 months, his age will be one year older than mine.

No, the source of my jealousy, and, to be fair, a good old dollop of pride, is that he gets to spend his birthday telling us how he and his Government colleagues are going to actually make happen things that he's believed in for his whole life. He is the prime mover behind a series of reforms which will free citizens from state interference where it has no business to interfere, which will restore the civil liberties that Labour had no problem in stripping away.

He made a keynote speech today fleshing out exactly how the Government will spend 2011 restoring our freedoms. The speech in full is here, but I wanted to highlight the bits which struck a chord with me.

First of all, we see just how deeply Nick's passion for civil liberties is rooted:

My family, like so many others, was marked by the extremes and conflicts of the last century. My mother spent part of her childhood in a prisoner of war camp. My father’s mother fled the Russian Revolution and found refuge here.

That family history made sure that my brothers and sister and I grew up certain of one thing: you must never take your freedom for granted. And you must treasure and love this country for precisely that reason.

Then there's an interesting analysis of the different instincts on freedom and the relationship between the state and the individual which sums up in a nutshell why I feel so uncomfortable about the Labour Party's ideas:

It would be easier to forgive Labour if it had simply been a lack of diligence on their part.

But the problem ran much deeper. There is a divide in politics between those of us who trust people and those who trust only government.

It is a line that divides progressive politics into two camps: old progressives, who value a powerful state, and new progressives, who value powerful citizens. Labour is on the wrong side of that divide.

Because, if you believe that the state has all the answers, you will always be pessimistic about citizens.

If you believe everything must be controlled from the centre you will protect central power at all costs. Even when that cost is basic British freedoms.

Liberals, and this Government, take a wholly different approach.

Liberals believe in the dispersal of power: in the raucous and unpredictable capacity of people and communities to make the right decisions for themselves.

We believe that social progress is driven not only by government, but also by confident, free individuals and communities, able to seize opportunities and take risks.

People cannot do that when the state is forever on their back; when their freedoms are denied and their autonomy is undermined.

So this Government is going to restore British liberties.

 Raucous and unpredictable capacity of people - that's a distinct change in tone from the last 13 years. In fact, what we are seeing from this Government is the most positive give away of meaningful power to people I can remember in my lifetime.

But of course, the irony is that to restore freedom, you have to use more central regulation.

By next month we will be putting forward a freedom bill: legislation that will bring together a number of measures, for example to better regulate CCTV; to properly control the way councils use surveillance powers; to limit the powers of state inspectors to enter into your house; and to end the indefinite storage of innocent people’s DNA

If you want to know why that's necessary, in Scotland, too, have a look at my account of a Labour Council abusing its powers by turning its CCTV cameras to film parents peacefully demonstrating about school closures. It's Robert Brown, Glasgow's Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP, who did something about it - in much the same way as he spoke out when the SNP, Labour and the Tories all nonchalantly agreed to quadruple pre charge detention in an afternoon. As an aside, if you live in Glasgow and you care about freedom, you need this man back in Holyrood in May, so even if you don't normally vote Lib Dem, do so on the list ballot paper. There is nobody I'd trust more with justice and liberty and we need him in there.

Back to Nick's speech, there's really good news in that England's appalling defamation libel laws are going to be reformed:

It is simply not right when academics and journalists are effectively bullied into silence by the prospect of costly legal battles with wealthy individuals and big businesses.

Nor should foreign claimants be able to exploit these laws, bringing cases against foreign defendants here to our courts – even if the connection with England is tenuous.

It is a farce – and an international embarrassment - that the American Congress has felt it necessary to legislate to protect their citizens from our libel laws.  

This Government wants to restore our international reputation for free speech.

We will be publishing a draft defamation bill in the Spring. We intend to provide a new statutory defence for those speaking out in the public interest, whether they be big broadcasters or the humble blogger. And we intend to clarify the law around the existing defences of fair comment, and justification.

I'm just wondering what the Government is going to do about bloggers who aren't humble. Not one of Guido's qualities, as far as I can see.

Nick also spoke about reforming Freedom of Information to ensure that Westminster bodies are covered by the sort of Liberal FOI laws you get when you have Liberal Democrats in Government. The Scottish FOI law was much more robust than that in England because of the Scottish Liberal Democrats in the first Holyrood coalition.

On counter terrorism measures, I'll bet you that the Guardian will be suggesting that his comments about balancing security with liberty signified a backing down on control orders. Those are the same people who would be calling the Coalition soft on terrorism if it diluted the measures put in by their Labour pals. Nick didn't give any details today but he was clear that "Control Orders cannot continue in their current form. They must be replaced."  I have to be honest and say I'd prefer he'd said scrapped, but we'll see what happens when the Government's review reports. Whatever happens will be an improvement, though, and I won't be taking any lectures from Labour on the subject.


The other small section which caught my eye was on extradition:


 In September, the independent review of the UK’s extradition arrangements we commissioned will report.


I hope that means that the unfair extradition treaty with the US which threatens Gary McKinnon will be scrapped. It certainly would be unjust to allow such a vulnerable person to be extradited before then so I hope it means he's safely here for at least the next 9 months. Having said that, I do think that he and his family have suffered for long enough and the Government should be clear that he's not going anywhere and if he is to face a trial, then it should be in a British court.

The measures Nick announced in his speech, from scrapping ID cards, to doing away with the DNA database to ending child detention to regulating surveillance, to reducing the number of criminal offences, to really taking individual liberty seriously are all measures that will make Liberal Democrats and anyone else interested in personal freedom very happy. They will make our society and our democracy much healthier in the long term.  I'm not sure if he deliberately planned to give this speech on his birthday, but the way it's worked out, he's giving an invaluable gift of freedom. Being able to make that sort of difference, will, I'm sure, make him feel that it's all worthwhile. 

Government loses its appeal on Section 44 searches

I'm glad to see from Liberty that the Government's final appeal over the use of Section 44 searches has been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights. This should mean that they are stopped once and for all.

This is a nasty law which allows whole areas to be designated so that the Police can stop and search you without even suspecting you of anything. You are between 5 and 7 times more likely to be stopped under Section 44 if you are black or Asian.

Figures show that in 2009 alone, 200,444 people were stopped and searched in England, Wales and Scotland. That's just shy of half the population of Edinburgh, just to get it in perspective. You might think that because the PM until recently spent a fair amount of time at his home in Fife, Scotland's figures would be pretty high. Actually, no. I don't think we've been in any greater danger up here, but the Herald reported earlier this month that only 79 searches were carried out in Scotland. Worryingly, that article states that the power was abused by Police Forces across the UK, with areas being designated for longer than they should have been, meaning that some people may have been stopped and searched illegally. I'm glad to see that the Government has made these errors public and I hope that when it makes its own mistakes, as it is bound to do, it will be as open about them as it is about Labour's.

That's the danger of a state which treats civil liberties in such a cavalier fashion. I think the state is there to serve people, not put them down and it's interesting that the way the Section 44 power has been operated has been so lax.

Liberty suggests that this power would be a good one to get rid off via the Freedom Bill and I agree with that.

Nick Clegg's plan to restore civil liberties - choose an authoritarian law to junk

Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who's in charge of political reform in the new coalition government, today outlined the wide ranging reforms he intends to introduce. As a speech it's pretty good and the sort of thing I'll bookmark to make me smile when I'm feeling sad.

True to a programme that involves giving more power over the state to the people, he will be consulting on what laws people want to see gone. I was tempted for a moment to make the headline to this "Join Nick Clegg's big bang approach" but I thought that might be misconstrued by search engines as well as Jennie, who has linked to some interesting sites today..

Here's just a wee bit of what Nick said:

“I have spent my whole political life fighting to open up politics. So let me make one thing very clear: this government is going to be unlike any other.

“This government is going to transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state.

“This government is going to break up concentrations of power and hand power back to people, because that is how we build a society that is fair.

“This government is going to persuade you to put your faith in politics once again.”

“I’m not talking about a few new rules for MPs; not the odd gesture or gimmick to make you feel a bit more involved.

“I’m talking about the most significant programme of empowerment by a British government since the great enfranchisement of the 19th Century.

“The biggest shake up of our democracy since 1832, when the Great Reform Act redrew the boundaries of British democracy, for the first time extending the franchise beyond the landed classes.

“Landmark legislation, from politicians who refused to sit back and do nothing while huge swathes of the population remained helpless against vested interests.

“Who stood up for the freedom of the many, not the privilege of the few.

“A spirit this government will draw on as we deliver our programme for political reform: a power revolution.

“A fundamental resettlement of the relationship between state and citizen that puts you in charge.”

“So, no, incremental change will not do.

“It is time for a wholesale, big bang approach to political reform.

Oh, and just for these hysterical Labour rabble rousers who have a problem with the plans dissolution of Parliament:

As we legislate to fix parliamentary terms the details will of course need to be worked out...

But we believe that the support of 55% of MPs or more should be required for parliament to opt for an early dissolution.

That is a much lower threshold than the two thirds required in the Scottish Parliament.

But it strikes the right balance for our parliament: maintaining stability, stopping parties from forcing a dissolution to serve their own interests.

Former Labour ministers who were once perfectly happy to ride roughshod over our democracy are now declaring this innovation some sort of outrage are completely missing the point:

This is a new right for Parliament, additional to the existing powers of no confidence.

We're not taking away parliament's right to throw out government; we're taking away government's right to throw out parliament."

Nick emphasised that this wasn't about the government dictating to people but asking their opinion about what laws should go.

The Government has already outlined things like:

ID cards

The ContactPoint database

Properly restricting the DNA database

Giving back the right to peaceful protest

Libel Reform to stop ridiculous abuses designed to stifle free speech.

One thing Nick didn't mention was getting rid of Section 44 searches which gives the Police the right to stop and search anyone in a specific area regardless of whether there are reasonable grounds for suspicion. The European Court of Human Rights ruled against them earlier this year but according to Liberty the law has not been changed yet. That would be top of my list for getting rid of. Also, if there are still any laws out there that try to regulate what consenting adults do in private, shall we say, they should go for no other reason than it's none of the state's business. End of. The Daily Mail will have a field day with that one but so what.

There are my ideas. What would be on your list?

So, freedom may be in the air again after 13 years of authortarian Labour, but we need to help Nick by responding to his consultation when it is set up and do what we can to ensure that the Tories keep their mitts off the Human Rights Act.

Labour council enlists Big Brother's help in Glasgow.

Glasgow's Labour Council has been closing schools in the city, much to the concern of local parents.

One group of parents decided to occupy a school earmarked for demolition over the weekend.

The reaction of the City council? It turned the CCTV cameras away from the estate they were supposed to protect to film the demonstrators, which they had no right to do during a peaceful protest. If you were cynical, you might think that the Council was trying to stir up trouble which they would then film.

Shows you where Labour's gut instinct is, though, and it's not a pretty sight. Glasgow Liberal Democrat MSP Robert Brown has complained about this completely unnecessary move. It's ridiculous that people engaged in legitimate and peaceful protest find their civil liberties breached like this.

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Vegetarians as Terror Suspects - has the world gone completely mad?

My husband is one of the most peace loving, reasonable, moderate, kind and generally good people you could ever wish to meet.

Yet the Government might well have him under suspicion for terrorist activities.

Why?

For some reason they have decided that ordering vegetarian food on an aeroplane indicates malevolence of purpose.

Other suspcious indicators include travelling with a foreign born husband or wife - the Queen better watch out then, given that her husband was born in Greece - or making a last minute booking for a flight. Better watch out on the impulsive romantic gestures front, then.

You have to seriously wonder at the mindset of the people who make these things up.

Let's hope they don't send people round to search my food cupboards -they are full of lentils and chick peas. No doubt we'll be under a Control Order in no time....



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