tired fools

Yesterday we saw an octagenarian bundled out of the Labout Party conference for calling out the word nonsense while the Foreign Secretary was mouthing the word “democracy” in the context of Iraq. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the man was then detained by police under the “Prevention of Terrorism Act”. Blair and a half-dozen other senior party members trotted out their apologies today through every available media portal. “This isn’t the way we do things” said John Reid, the Defence Secretary. What is it then? The party succeeded in masking the real issue, that of the use of police power.

This was not the only eighty year old man detained in conection with the conference. Another,committing the heinous crime of wearing an anti-Tony Blair T-shirt was also taken away and searched, again under the prevention of terorism act. All this is, of course, precisely what we were told would not happen while additional police powers were originally “debated”. Despite assurances from Sussex Police it seems pretty apparent to anyone at all acquainted with the facts, that the police are acting as a private sucurity firm for the governing party. One can only imagine what a labour leader in opposition would have made of a similar occurence under Margaret Thatcher’s reign.

The picture comes courtesy of my sonyericsson d750i and shows the screen at Kingscross station.