Randomly Selected Article or Link

The 1909 Group site reprints the Tony Vickers/Andrew Duffield Liberator article that has caused a bit of a kerfuffle over at Iain Dale's place.

...but, because I think they are probably completely loopy, I'm not a Scientologist. But I'm damned sure that in a pluralist society where we accept as a Human Right the freedom to follow religions we don't agree with, that we ought not to let this happen without a fight:

Germany moves to ban Scientology:

Germany's federal and state interior ministers have declared the Church of Scientology unconstitutional, clearing the way for a possible ban.

There is probably much that can be said against the Church of Scientology and its strange beliefs and sometimes even stranger followers. But I'm not sure there's any specific charge that can be leveled against them in terms of exploitation and behaving like a cult that can't also be leveled at, say, Opus Dei or the Jesus Army. And I'm not sure how they get to this:

German intelligence agencies... claim the movement's structures and methods could pose a threat to the rule of law and "democratic order".

...any moreso than, say, Jehovah's Witnesses subvert democracy by refusing to participate in elections (indeed the greater charge might be leveled against them for holding up the processes of democracy by keeping canvassers talking for an hour and a half!). Indeed some of the activities of the Catholic church in Europe in response to the "moral relativism" of liberal democracy - demanding magistrates refuse to implement laws relating to gay partnerships and so on - could be said to pose a far bigger threat given the numbers of their adherents.

If it can be proven that they practice extortion, then sue them, but to ban them, presumably in order to protect people from their own folly, is a slippery slope that Europe would do well to remember the potential consequences of.

I simply do not understand the government's position on the forty-two day proposal for the time a suspect can be held without charge. I saw a blog post recently, but for the life of me can't remember where, that listed the equivalent period in other western democracies. I seem to remember seeing that the next highest limit in any country is fourteen days, and that most don't have any extension beyond their normal two day period for all suspects.

Correct me if all that is crap, but assuming it's not, what is it about the UK that means that we need to allow three times the number of days anywhere else on the planet - at least anywhere that could be called a "liberal democracy"? Why should it take our police and/or intelligence services three times as long as anywhere else's to stitch enough evidence together to charge someone?

I hear all sorts of excuses - the favourite seems to be that accessing electronic information forensically takes a long time. And sometimes these sound plausible. But one has to return to the question about why should it take our people three times as long? Or is there something the raw statistics, the legal position as opposed to the way it operates in practice, do not reveal. Do other countries have fewer rights enshrined elsewhere that somehow lets them cheat and hold people for longer than their laws appear to permit?

Obviously the US has Guantanamo Bay and other "black holes" elsewhere into which people could be "disappeared". And maybe I watch too much "Spooks" but I rather assume, conspiratious that I am, that we also have extra-judicial ways of "hiding" someone if the state wants it so. Or is that just not so, and this forty-two day detention idea is really an attempt to be "above board" where other countries aren't?

The Home Office's own figures show that 1165 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 (admittedly that probably includes Walter Wolfgang and similar instances of overenthusiastic enforcement), more than half of them released without charge and only forty one convictions so far on Terrorism Act charges. The majority of the rest have been charged with something, presumably without breaching the existing, already too long, twenty eight days.

Just someone explain the rationale of forty two days, please!

...so says Shirley Williams on Question Time. Nice phrase. Were I a truly principled Prime Minister I would thank the likes of Iris Robinson for her regards and tell her to go screw herself and take her vote with her. And if her husband stands by everything his wife says, he should go diddle himself with his voting lobby too. A real "progressive alliance" Gordo - well done!