This entry was posted on
Thursday, December 21st, 2006 at
2:09 pm and is filed
under The War on Stupid.

The thing to note about this year’s carol service is that the police were conspicuously absent. They got noticed hiding last year, and probably didn’t like that… so this year, there were no police anywhere near Parliament Square bar the usual guards at the gates of Parliament.

Until we finished and retired to a nearby pub, of course. Then, mysteriously, police resumed a visible presence.

This is worth noting because they have always maintained a low-key presence at the Mass Lone Demonstrations organised by Mark Thomas.

This year… no presence, at all, during either event.

I’m hoping that one day soon words will be had with the powers that be. SOCPA makes unreasonable demands of the police and more often than not they come out of it looking as stupid as this stupid law… but we all know that the blame lies with selfish bastards who cooked up Section 132 and/or voted it into law because they wanted to shut Brian Haw up (and do away with any pesky feelings of guilt the may feel over the ongoing carnage in the Middle East).

Given that it failed on this front and the police (and our democracy) have been compromised by it (the law fails to define what constitutes a demonstration; this judgment is left to the police), this really needs to pass through Parliament again. Actually, this should have happened already, but Parliament has been kept busy fig-leafing for that nice Mr Blair.

Anyway, enough from me… here’s bloggage from some lovely people who came along and sang their little hearts out in the bitter cold (and enjoyed a bit of bean-spillage about National Service in the pub afterwards):

Rachel North
D-Notice
Disillusioned Kid
Rabbit Strike
Davide Simonetti

(Psst! A quick note from the bean-counters; we raised a modest £85.93 (and 70 euro-cents) for Medical Aid for Iraqi Children.)