Well, “Flaming June” has arrived, rather less “flaming” and more cloudy around here, despite the weathermen promising us more sunshine. I even heard rain on the attic skylights in the small hours this morning. Maybe it will do the same as yesterday and give us late afternoon / early evening sunshine. We shall see!
And with all the warnings of how global warming and climate change are racing along, maybe I should be quite glad to get a bit of rain.
Here’s a bit of serious stuff. We keep coming across articles that the UK is in danger of turning into a police state. Here’s a link to an article about a journalist arriving home to the UK and being stopped at the airport to be interrogated about his views and expressed opinions.
And here’s a link to Craig Murray’s blog about three British journalists – Johanna Ross, Vanessa Beeley and Kit Klarenberg – who have each in the last two years been detained at immigration for hours on re-entering their own country, and questioned by police under anti-terrorist legislation.
So maybe we had better be careful next time we travel abroad in case they know what kind of things we look at on social media.
Our daughter tells us of people she has heard of being asked at interviews for teaching posts to allow access to their various social media accounts, so that they can be checked for possibly unsuitable content. Hmm!
Of course, there’s all the hoo hah about Boris Johnson’s Whatsapp messages. And government people using the same email for work and for private matters. Why doesn’t someone in an important government position not automatically have two (or more) email addresses and mobile phones. Have they not seen the crime series on TV where the criminals all have more than one mobile phone?
And here’s journalist Kenan Malik expressing the unusual hope that he is not too widely read:
“Normally, I’m keen for this column to be widely read. This time, though, I hope not too widely. I’d be happy if it doesn’t catch the attention of Jacob Rees-Mogg or of government officials.
I’m due to give a talk to civil servants later this year. If anyone were to trawl through my social media they might discover the occasional criticism of government policy. And I might suffer the same fate as Dan Kaszeta.”
(Dan Kaszeta is the weapons expert who was uninvited from speaking to a government conference because of his opposition to other areas of government policy, unrelated to the subject area of the weapons conference.)
Then there’s the Public Order Bill 2023 - A Bill to make provision for new offences relating to public order; to make provision about stop and search powers; to make provision about the exercise of police functions relating to public order; to make provision about proceedings by the Secretary of State relating to protest-related activities; to make provision about serious disruption prevention orders; and for connected purposes.
The House of Lords voted on February 7th against this bill with its plan to to change the interpretation of ‘serious disruption’ of other people’s day-to-day activities to mean ‘anything more than minor’. Now the government wants to use a ‘Ministerial Decree’ to overturn that vote. And
Green Party Baroness Jenny Jones has tabled a ‘Fatal Motion’ to stop the government from using a ‘Ministerial decree’ to overturn the vote. Goodness! All this attacking freedom to protest and to express opinions gets complicated.
Such is the modern world!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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