I’m spending a lot of time sneering at the moment. I find myself sneering in front of the mirror, sneering in the bath. I sneer at puppies, lamp posts, and groceries. When I finish a mouthful at lunch or when I look up from my desk, I tend to sneer a bit before I go back to what I was doing…
There! I’m doing it now!
Sneeeeeeeeerrrrr…
Sneer.
Sneerysneersneer.
So you may ask why I am sneering, and I will tell you.
I am sneering because of this:
A constitutional crisis was sparked yesterday when Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons, all but accused the Metropolitan police of breaking the law by failing to follow proper procedures before searching the parliamentary office of Damian Green MP.
Oh, please.
Parliament, Parliament. This is sheerest hypocrisy.
You’re quite prepared to curtail the civil rights of the entire UK population – you want to keep innocent people’s DNA on the police database, you want (well, the elected Commons wants) to extend detention without charge (2), you happily surveil and spy, want the right to merge government databases in exactly the way you prohibit datasharing between private companies (2), you want to make everyone carry an ID card, and you took a swing at allowing evidence obtained by torture to be used in court in the UK.
You toerags.
And you Tories are up in arms about this… tell me, then, about Clive Ponting, and how you responded to his acquittal by junking the ‘public interest’ defense. Oh, wait… now that there is evidence to suggest that a Conservative MP my be technically guilty of an obscure offence, I keep hearing one particular phrase. What is that? Hang on… oh, yes.
So your man Damian Green has been subject to the kind of search which happens all the time if you campaign against the arms trade or the Heathrow extension, and somehow this is a grave threat to democracy.
You know what?
It is a grave threat to democracy. It stinks. But it is in no way as grave a threat as all the things you monstrously craven stinkweasels apparently do not care about at all.
So here is my open letter to Parliament:
Dear Parliament -
I absolutely understand how grumpy you are feeling right now about being abused by power and so on. It’s great to have you standing up and fighting the erosion of our fundamental identity as a free country. I think we shall therefore forget that you came late to the party and embrace the fact that you have at last showed up.
Now… get your finger out and do your damn job. Stand up for us. Stop taking away our rights. Protect them as vigourously as you protect your own.
Thank you.
Except, oh, look. You haven’t.