Support the Ian Tomlinson Family Campaign

Ian Tomlinson died after being viciously attacked by a policeman on last years G20 London demonstration. His crime was just walking home from work. From the outset, the police said they had nothing to do with his death. They claimed protestors had got in the way of giving him medical help. The Guardian then published a video telling a different story. It clearly showed a policeman attacking Ian with a baton.

It's hard to see how it benefits anyone for the policeman guilty of this assault not to face charges. For Ian Tomlinson's family, it's a big blow. For the police, it's a back stain on their already tarnished reputation. It sends the message that unlike the rest of us, the police can get away with committing serious crime such as murder, even when they're caught on film.

Ian's family and their solicitors now have hard decisions to make about their next move. Whilst they get their heads round the shock and decide what to do next, let's send them a powerful message that we stand behind their fight for justice, the family campaign (Ian Tomlinson Family Campaign) has now set up a fighting fund and is calling for donations, and you can obtain further information by visiting their website which we have today put a link too on the right-hand side of our blog. In addition you can add you name to the online petition.

Click here to add your name: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/ian-tomlinson

Jim Lawrie and Brain Hopper

One Law for the Rich and Another always for the Poor!

It’s by complete coincidence of course and that of the subsequence events in the UK. That this blog has focalised on the role and recent actions of the British police. And in the days to come we may have more to say in that regard.

However in the meantime I thought it a good idea to look at the crime industry and try to put it into some prospective or rather make some common sense of it all, if that’s at all possible.

Like most non-producing industries the crime industry is strong, it grows continually, particularly in times of depression. At present the numbers involved are as follows:

England:


Police officers: 133,775


Police Community Support Officers: 8,133


Other staff: 70,818


Scotland:


Police officers: 17,278


Special constables: 1,186


Other staff: 7,207

Wales:

Police officers: 7,579


Police Community Support Officers: 384


Other staff: 3,767


Prison Service is responsible for 138 prisons and employs around 44,000 staff.


Judicial office holders in England and Wales - judges, tribunal members and magistrates 42,000. The judiciary itself includes the Court of Appeal and Law Lords, High Court, Circuit and District Judges, Recorders and Justices of the Peace (or magistrates).

Barristers:

11,500

Solicitors:60,000

And then there is of course the explosion in most recent years of private police forces, store-detectives and security guards of which I have no idea how many they number in total, but taken in complete total, that’s public and private then the crime industry probably employs over one and a half million people and growing.
Now if we were just to stop and ponder for a moment this phenomenon which is not just confined to our country, for instance we will find thousands of the heavily armed private guards are in Iraq, under contract with the U.S. government and private companies. The conduct of such security personnel has been one of the most controversial issues in the reconstruction of Iraq. Then there is the British security guard who shot two of his colleagues following an argument in Baghdad's heavily protected Green Zone.

Well not wishing to deviate away too much from the thread of this post, that’s just an indication of how the security industry is mushrooming and reaping the profits that are made aboard protecting for western capitalism and in the case of Iraq helping out raping and plundering the resources of that country.

So on the one side, we have the law-enforcers, but on the other side and living in symbolic relationship with them are the law-breakers. Any impulse to criticize their chosen way of life as many do especially at election time, as our politicians love to play the law and order theme, should be seasoned by the thought that they give gainful employment to all the above mentioned. We have only to think of the freighting consequences of a rush of conscience among the villains (persona non grata); a go-slow, or worse, perish the thought, an all out strike. The toilers of law and order thrown on the labour market, what a weird and strikingly odd thing to happen whilst living under capitalism, of course for this to happen first the moon would have to turn to cheese – it would never happen because capitalism is about the winner grabs all at the expense of the majority, and the world over!

Now all this may beggar the one question that at some time or another we all ask.

Why do people steal or commit crime?

I cannot offer a precise answer, can anyone for that matter, and if they can then lets have it for I would be very interested to hear what it is?

Our prisons are jam-packed with what this society considers being wrongdoers and transgresses. Just had a thought, the best ever film about prisons and prisoners that I’ve ever seen was ‘Cool Hand Luke’, and one of the best films of all-time, oh yes Cinematic gold,so here’s a snippet.
And so I sidetrack again, but if you leave out murders, sex offenders and the like, most prisoners are by and large decent people who have been driven off the tracks, and are but a product of the capitalist system that we are all force fed from the cradle to the grave, a system that makes and runs up many demands on the individual as they try to participate and live their lives in a completely competitive world such as this, and subscribing to capitalistic competition is not as easy for most of us and at the best of times.
So to put it into a few words, snatch, grab and compete is a system that breeds criminality!
Just think of this; nowhere in Western Europe jails more of its population than England and Wales, where about 147 people per 100,000 are in prison.

Since the start of 1993, the number of prisoners has risen from 41,600 to more than 80,000. Further increases are expected.
In Scotland the prison population has risen more than 10% since 1996-97, to about 6,900. In Northern Ireland the number fell during the 90s, but has since increased to about 1,400.

One can get a good idea of the size of the prison population if you consider that Wigan has a population of 81,203.

Criminals at large…?

My last figure is information we are unlikely to obtain, and that’s just how many criminals are at large, if you don’t include Bankers, Bosses, Capitan’s of Industry, the altogether Government and Nick Griffin.

We can then be sure that unsolved crimes and now crimes that the law turn’s a blind-eye too, see yesterdays 'post' which was not a triviality; are indeed trivial in nature such as vandalism, thefts from motor vehicles or burglaries, and having said that I know many who have suffered such violations may not agree, but if the great majority are trivial, the minority are very big indeed. And I am not thinking of crimes against the person like rape or wounding or murder. I am reflecting upon the crime of the rich who are better at it than those who are poorer, it they are found out they can hire the best lawyers – the law, after all is designed with them in mind and they belong to the same class as the whole judiciary, so they will get a more sympathetic hearing.

Look at it this way we have seen an explosion in white collar crime, brought about partly because sentences for bank robberies are very high while sentences for white collar crimes are ridiculously low.
So bringing this post to a close I am going to argue that the fight against crime is a war waged against the working class, a war to criminalise, control and force into submission those of us who create all wealth in the first place.

Benefit fraud is said to be rife in the UK. The government says it costs us £1.1bn annually. They spend thousands advertising that fact and put up posters on hoardings that not only say they are closing in but stereotyping working class people as more likely to be thieves.

Fraud Breaks 1bn Barrier in 6 Months

The growth of fraud in the City of London’s famous squire mile the so-called business world that David Cameron thinks will lead us out of recession continues unabated. This year’s first six monthly update on reported fraud has found that fraud losses rocketed to £1.06bn and eclipsed previous half-year figures, and were almost the same as for the whole of 2008.

Simon Bevan, Head of the Fraud Services Unit at BDO, says: "In the past we have seen a focus on procurement type frauds - that is public and private sector organizations paying too much for goods and services. However we are now seeing more 'revenue dilution fraud' - where management commits fraud by either setting up 'companies within companies' or diverting lucrative contracts away from the company to third party accomplices. Linked to this is an increase in insider dealing."

From  interim results, BDO predicts that the average frauds in the city will top7m by the end of 2010.

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Murder we write!!"

Today's decision of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to not bring any charges against the policeman who pushed Ian Tomlinson  moments before he died on April 1st  last year as he made his way home through the back end of the G20 demonstration held in London, is nothing more than an absolute disgrace.

Murder is a word that should not be used lightly, but we wouldn't hold it against anyone who had it rattling around in their head when they consider what happened to Ian Tomlinson as he innocently made his way home from work.

After what they call a thorough and careful review of the evidence, the CPS has decided that there is no realistic possibility of a conviction against the police officer in question for any offence arising from the matter investigated and that no charges should be brought against him.

Had it been the other way round, and say a police officer had been hit by a protester, they would not have left  a single stone unturned and had it in court before anyone could say PC Simon Harwood.     

Ian Tomlinson

Ian Tomlinson Decision?

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will announce its decision on whether a police officer will stand trial over the death of Ian Tomlinson on Thursday. And although other blogs have already mentioned and drawn attention to this impending announcement which will obviously if not nervously and painfully be awaited by his long enough suffering family.

This may not bring closure, depending on what the decision is, and our thoughts and warmth must in the first place be with them and their loss.

Ian Tomlinson died on April 1st 2009 when he unintentionally walked through the G20 protest in London on his way home. Footage was later made public of a policeman pushing him to the ground. The CPS originally told his family that a decision would be reached by Christmas.

We understand that the family will be informed on Thursday morning if any criminal charges will follow from its investigation. The police officer in question could be charged with manslaughter, assault and misconduct in public office, or not at all.

The Tomlinson family has been extremely critical of the amount of time taken to come to a decision.

The police originally led the family to believe that Mr Tomlinson, a newsagent and for a time homeless man who happened to walk into a demonstration against the G20 summit in London when he died, had been killed by a heart attack.

The media were fed the lie that officers had been hindered in their efforts to resuscitate Mr Tomlinson by protestors throwing missiles and projectiles.

But video footage given to the Guardian newspaper days after the protest showed that Mr Tomlinson had been struck by a baton and shoved to the ground, by a masked officer with his identification number concealed, seemingly without provocation.

There was no evidence of projectiles being thrown at police.

The public interest in the case resulted in investigations and inquiries, and a full reappraisal of the policing of protestors, including the concealment of identification numbers and the practise of 'kettling', where demonstrators are kept in a given area by police.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) only took over the investigation into what happened after the video emerged.

The dispossessed...

Whist still comparatively fresh in my mind: I thought it would be a good idea to report on the recent developments in regard to the police operation that’s been ongoing here in Canning Town and for the last few months. Now I can’t say what exactly the police operation is or what it’s really about as I’m not privy to the finer details of that information, but as I reported in my last post on this subject the police have been targeting young people and street drinkers, the latter is not a very good description of people who partake in a social drink with their friends basically outside on the street, and that’s not to say that they are alcoholics or anything like that! I suppose I’m using the same words (stereotype) that the police and others use when attaching a label and creating a stigma or more to the point symbol of disgrace or infamy.
When I look at it this way; I begin to see how easy it is for the powers that be, to divide and rule, that’s locally and nationally!
Sometimes I think that sections of our society are treated as if they were low hanging fruit to be cut away and disgracefully brushed aside. It happens all the time, and it’s not a question of people not fitting in or a rebellion to conformity, but rather a culture stocked and increasingly practiced whereby many are relegated to the lower echelons and marginalised. I see this all the time, it intrigues me like a clandestine love affair, and I need to discover and lean more.
During the last year; I’ve made friends with some very remarkable people, they are my neighbours in as much as they domiciliate and live in Canning Town; mostly middle aged male’s although Raymoss is a 74 year old pensioner from St. Lucia. Now I’ve mentioned Raymoss because I can’t really proceed without putting some names to my friends and describe their recent experiences. Raymoss is but one of a group of seven close friends, who regally meet up for a drink and a chat on the streets around Canning Town and have done so for about five years, they are all local and live in their own council accommodation; all are unemployed or in the case of Raymoss retired. Now I’m not going to hide the fact that two of them have a drink dependency problem, and I know that one in particular Dave, would tell you that freely, but that apart, they never give rise to; or cause anyone a problem, in fact Dave and Raymoss are both well liked and loved by many who live in Canning Town and of the times that I’ve spent in their company I’ve heard people greet and acknowledge them with such complementary esteem and respect.

They have their little fallouts, as friends often do, but it never last long and it’s soon swept under the carpet and forgotten as they truly treasure friendship and togetherness, they really are such personalities, and I’ve had many a memorable laugh at their banter and antics, sometimes the manifestation of laughter has been almost painful and yet still joyful. It always amazes me how working class people in the face of poverty, deprivation and want still manage to find comedy and humour raising sprits.

The thing is that this band of friends (and as I’ve posted previously)has fallen foul of the long arm of the Metropolitan Police and Newham Council, and a concerted effort to get them off the streets, using the pretext of ante-social behaviour and street drinking. It started a few months ago when a team of Police Support Officers were billeted in an office in Canning Town tube station and began to patrol the area calling by and targeting the group, at first just an introductory or getting to know you visit, and then they stated to take names and addresses and issuing tickets, Dave holds the record 15 to his name. I think that I should say that the PSOs have always been polite and courteous whenever in engagement with the lads, and that respect has worked both way and always!

However last week that rapport of mutual understanding or trust and agreement between the two sides broke-down when on a hot-late afternoon the PSOs accompanied by four police officers swooped on them, and I mean swooped as in a military manoeuvre or naval tactic in order to secure an advantage in attack. I had myself just returned to Canning Town, and spotted my friends sitting on the wall of a raised green on the Barking Road and as is my usual custom, went over to see how they were, so I became part of the swoop, as the raptorial bird swooped down on its prey.

They approached us from three different directions, hats off so as not to give their game the chance of escape they pounced on us, although we did spot them coming, nevertheless they must have been disappointed to discover that none possessed a drink or even had a drink that day, still this didn’t stop them from taking names and details, checking criminal records and yes, issuing us with tickets.

Now I initially started this post at the start of this week, but unfortunately, tragedy hit this group of friends when on Tuesday an acquaintance collapsed and died of a hart attack following a drug related incident, the news of which has left everyone gutted and I haven’t really felt very much inspired to write anything, and whilst trying to be supportive towards my friends, shock set-in, any life taken through the use of drugs legal (alcohol) or otherwise is a waste, and that the realty is always others are left with the pain and grieving to deal with; such as the grief-stricken Mother or his young Teenage-Daughter just for starters!

I will wright more about this after a respectable period of time.

When I chew over the week that just was, more than ever do I conclude that the stuffing that holds people together, that holds community together, is falling apart, forget that imbecile of a Prime Minister and his broken Britain strumpet of trollop!

If Britain is broken, then the incriminating evidence points to the 1979 general election, it points to the 1997 election and New Labour. Between the two parties of capitalism and now we see not surprisingly; the Lib/Dems join in the kicking; that workers are getting. They between them all’, have taken, broken or sold off that which sustained the majority. Shipbuilding, Mining, Car-Manufacturing and Steelmaking all broken or gone!

I think that just over 30 years ago, you would find people like my friends working in shipbuilding, mining, car-manufacturing and steelmaking – all broken and gone, that’s why I see my friends now standing on the street!