The rotten state of Britain

Thursday March 5, 2009

Politicians and officials don’t want to control our every move, says Eamonn Butler, but them unlimited powers and they will use them or abuse them

There were some good arguments on both sides at the Cambridge debate that formed part of last weekend’s nationwide Convention on Modern Liberty. But I was appalled by the argument that ‘the law is fine, it’s just that some officials are overzealous, or use it for the wrong purpose’.

Quite. That’s exactly why we have – or had – ancient rights and liberties. To stop our leaders passing laws that allow them to do absolutely anything, and to stop their officials using or abusing those powers to harass innocent people.

It was no surprise to me that the 2000 Terrorism Act was used to arrest an octogenarian who had fled the Nazis just because he dared to heckle Jack Straw. Or to spy on people who overfilled their wheelie bins. Nor that people have been arrested, DNA-swabbed and given a criminal record for nothing worse than staging a dignified one-person demonstration within sight of the House of Commons. Nor that armed officers bore down on an innocent young man at a bus stop because someone thought his iPod might have been a gun. Nor that several people have been arrested and criminalized for wearing T-shirts poking fun at politicians.

Shocked

I’ve been cataloguing such outrages for a new book, The Rotten State of Britain. I have very little faith in politicians, but even I was shocked by it all. If you can’t heckle Jack Straw or wear a ‘Bollocks to Blair’ t-shirt, and get done under anti-terror or ‘serious and organised crime’ laws for your pains, it seems to me that free speech exists in this country only in name.

Sure, Britain’s not like a number of dictatorships where people are routinely arrested and beaten up because the government doesn’t like them.

But it’s getting close. Our police, for example, can stop and search you without any reason being given at all. Officials can enter your home for any of 1,400 reasons. Over 3,000 new criminal offences have been created since 1997. The police can now arrest you for any supposed offence. Drop an apple core, and you can be spot fined by police and officials, without any due process of law. Refuse to pay and you will be handcuffed and led to the cells.

I don’t think the problem is that our leaders want to control our every move. I think they believe they need wide powers to combat terrorism, and that they are good people who will use those powers responsibly. But give politicians and officials unlimited powers, and they will use them – or abuse them. That is precisely why the power of our leaders must be limited.

Dr Eamonn Butler is Director of the Adam Smith Institute. His book The Rotten State of Britain is published this month. Find it HERE.