Through the Looking Glass

[Briar]

In this weird new Britain, Michael Portillo is more liberal than New Labour and its supporters!

Only a public inquiry can cure the mess at the Met
MICHAEL PORTILLO


There must be a public inquiry into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes by the Metropolitan police. The documents that have leaked from the the Independent Police Complaints Commission (including a pitiable photograph of the dead man lying in a pool of blood in the Tube carriage) indicate that the police operation was bungled from the moment that the Brazilian left a block of flats in Tulse Hill on the morning of July 22.

...the Home Office leaked the story that there were irregularities in de Menezes’s immigration status. That is disgraceful. Even if it were true it would be irrelevant to his death, but this poison was released, I suppose, in order to help explain why the man was running away (which, as it turns out, he was not). The Home Office’s conduct has to be investigated too, which is another reason for needing a public inquiry.

...

Britain is changing in ways we hoped it would not. Today police with automatic weapons are a common sight. At airports and Tube stations there are now hordes of people wearing uniforms and the swagger that goes with them, all in the name of security.

Another change is that we now expect to be lied to. Stephen Byers, when transport secretary, deceived parliament, but cannot now remember why. The other Blair, our prime minister, lost public trust over the abuse of intelligence in justifying the war with Iraq. He might have been swept from office, but the Hutton report into the death of the weapons expert David Kelly whitewashed the government, and the Butler report pulled its punches.

...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1743460,00.html

Portillo gets it. "Britain is changing in ways we hoped it would not."

Today, as further evidence of this change, American gun-nuts are strutting their stone-killer stuff, preaching gun-lore to us backwards Brits who don't have the "blessing" of a gun culture and so don't know how to kill people using the damnable things efficiently and without awkward questions. This is one of the infernal places where both Blairs have taken us with their hysterical "war on terror".

[Mr Creosote]

1. Actually the only thing worse than De Menezes being totally innocent

would have been if he he really HAD been a suicide bomber. We recently had heavily armed police strutting about at Exeter railway station for no good reason. Yet the officers watching what they believe to be one of the 4 most dangerous men in Britain can't stop him boarding a bus Because they weren't armed. How many people could a suicide bomber have taken out on the bus. For the same reason they couldn't stop him boarding the tube. If we're having armed police let's arm the right ones, instead of doling out guns for cheap publicity on the evening news.
ANd what about preparedness for this attack - which we've been warned was coming for nearly 4 years. We're told that the Met Police dont have radios that wont work underground - even though British transport police do. Hurrah! But at least the Met Police have been working hard on plans to market their own perfume.

[Briar]

2. These were the "right ones"

volunteer firearms squad police officers reinforced by soldiers (to whom they weren't talking) trained and unleashed to protect us from... Who? Their orders are, we can deduce, to shoot in the head without warning anyone acting suspiciously. And that could indeed be anyone.

[Mr Creosote]

5. But did the firearms officers do anything wrong?

by which I mean that one of the scenarios that seems to be suggested is that the firearms officers were told there was a suicide bomber on the train, they got on the train, he was identified to them, and they shot him. The problem seems to have occured earlier on. In fact the whole thing was a fuck up from start to finish, because the officers watching him couldn't do much about him because they weren't armed.

[evermind]

6. Yep, they followed orders - but the orders were crazy..

We've read that it was a case of mistaken identity - so if the person radioing orders thought it really was one of the failed bombers from Jul 21, why the heck didn't they order an immediate arrest??

The only possible reason not to do so, would be if they had concluded that he was not, in fact, on a bombing run - a reasonable conclusion given that there were no bags, bulky clothing, or other places to conceal explosives.

But shortly afterwards, shoot-to-kill orders were given (or the policy was let stand) at the tube station.

Completely crazy.

[lockdown]

3. Mad isn't it

He's making important points too on how responsibility doesn't stop with the police.

The commissioner has repeatedly referred to the Met’s shoot-to-kill policy. That has puzzled me. When I was defence secretary, ministers used to spend hours agreeing the rules of engagement for our troops deployed in, say, Bosnia. Quite rightly, elected politicians signed off the detailed conditions in which British soldiers could use lethal force. It should not be a matter for a policeman to decide in what circumstances a person can be killed in Britain. Elected people should have that responsibility.

The secret shoot-to-kill policy would have had ministerial approval. It is totally unacceptable and would need investigation even if de Menezes hadn't been killed. As far as I can gather the guidelines were drawn up by a combination of ACPO, government lawyers, and I think some parliamentary subcommittee or other. Those junket wallahs should be held to account too.

[Briar]

4. Anne Cryer gets it

One of a pitiably small group of politicians to have the guts to say so. (The BBC, which is busy supporting the establishment as usual, suggested on Newsnight last week that this cowardly and unprincipled silence is because our politicians don't want to be connected with George Galloway in any way. Of course, they also don't want to upset the baying avengers in the gutter press and their self-selected audience of shoot-to-kill supporters.)

Anne Cryer: The shoot-to-kill policy has to be reconsidered

If we're not careful we'll get dragged down into the same gutter as the suicide killers

...

The knowledge of a shoot-to-kill policy really disturbs me. Why was it there and why didn't we know anything about it. Time and again, from Sidney Silverman onwards, the democratically elected MPs of this country have voted against capital punishment. Yet it was completely unknown to us in Parliament that we had a policy, under certain circumstances, deliberately to kill. I couldn't believe it when I found out that there was such a policy. Rumours regarding shoot-to-kill during the Northern Ireland troubles had always been denied. Yet here we are in mainland Britain with what appears to be an acceptance of the short-circuiting of our criminal justice system.

...
This is ultimately about our democracy - and the criminal justice system that lies behind it...

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article307421.ece

[lockdown]

7. Glad to hear it

I trust many more MPs will speak up once parliament reconvenes.

Yeah, I've heard a few smears about links people helping the de Menezes family and calling for justice have, they're all evil activists who do more harm than good, stopping good decent MPs from helping because they couldn't possibly be associated with such loonies as the Stop the War coalition. Yeah, I believe it...